the demise of the modern man

blog January 9, 2014

The Demise of the Modern Man

Okay so I am nally typing this up. Going to be a summary of one of my days browsing of trp1 except today were going to be diving down into the core issues.

1.1

Disappearance of the modern Einstein?

From this2 great reddit post on The downfall of the modern man. I really like this comment. Permalink3 This part in particular caught my attention and is actually a phrase that you hear a lot now from the elder-folk criticising the younger generations: How many fewer Leonardo Da Vincis and Sir Isaac Newtons do we have just because the dude is sitting on his couch watching Netix instead today. Really interesting. Theres a few arguments I could take to this (for short, genius refers to people such as the above two quoted men):
r/theredpill subreddit http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/?limit=500 3 http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/cehdac5
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1. Genuises are caused by motivation, so someone whos sucked into his TV was never the stu of genuis in the rst place. I have to admit this is a weak argument as motivation isnt just the only ingredient needed, otherwise wed have a lot more genuises. One could also make the claim that modern distractionsare stripping away our motivation and redirecting it towards only those actiivties which reward us the most. To his credit, the poster did account for this: If you are not a highly ambitious person or have simple goals, then by all means watch Anime, play three hours of an MMO a night, watch every NFL game, or whatever else. 2. Let us assume people are either born genuises or not. So then we wonder do those genuises naturally step away from societal distractions and are naturally hard working or, the more likely, they act as the rest of society does. If the former is true, then it would appear they would be resistant and thus continue on their path. However if the latter is true, it does give credence that we are wasting our genuises talents and potential.4 So where do I stand the latter. It doesnt make sense that they are naturally immune to the same forces that are prevalent against most of society. 3. An alternate angle: maybe we just arent set up to have widely recognised genuises of our time? More and more work today is done in teams and with mass collaboration, so any breakthroughs in thinking scientic or otherwise will be attributed to a whole group of people and not just a single person (as it was back in the day). This leads to a reduction in numbers of percieved/celebrity-like genuises5 and hence the feeling that we are lacking in individual genuises who (seemingly) singlehandedly change the word.6 It could very well be that we have similar numbers of individuals that posses and actively use their genuis level abilities just their eect gets diluted by the large group.
This arguement still holds true for us non-genusies here. Im a supporter than we are all are somewhat wasting or at least misusing our talents/abilities. 5 Such as everyones favourite, Albert Einstein 6 Depending on your personal denitons, Id classify the juggernauts of the tech world, namely Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as our modern day genuises or equivalents. Case in point: basically the whole world hailed Jobs as one of the greatest thinkers of our time after his passing away.
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Apart from that, I agree with the rest of his post and encourage you to read it over its worth it.

1.2

Cause and eect scramble

This user lays out his points well and comes to the conclusion that it may be a symptom and a cause. Permalink7 That said, I believe there are societal reasons why men have succumbed to lives of mediocrity. Whether or not the 80/20 rule is correct, Ive never seen anything disprove that many women sleep with a small group of men. When many guys eventually nd someone willing to settle down with them, its often with a woman who had a promiscuous past and doesnt want to admit shes just pursuing a backup plan. Despite the shrinking wage gap (particularly amongst young adults), many women still prefer to date someone who out-earns them. Society is getting more and more egalitarian and androgynous while keeping rules and traditions that benet women to the detriment of men. Divorce is common, no longer frowned upon, and usually it is done by women in a way that nancially hurts men. Its not uncommon for women to refuse to get a prenup on the grounds that its seen as unromantic8 . With the deck stacked against them, its not unreasonable for the common man to want to opt out. TL;DR: I believe that porn, sports, and video games are both the symptom and the cause of a greater problem. I decided to quote the majority of his posts as its well written. It takes an almost victim mentality to it that we are just a result of how society functions, but it also maintains our causality in the current state of aairs. Its also a commentary on modern socities and the inherent irony: were all connected but alone
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/cehd9mj 8 Worst reasoning ever!
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 we complain about everything but all our base needs are met, in a much easier fashion than previous times everythings amazing and no ones happy. See video9 somewhat controversial and I dont agree with it to the full, but the inherent imbalance in womens/mens power. See link10

1.3

Time spent wisely?

Some are becoming self aware of this. Here11 I guess Im kind of stuck in a prison of mediocrity that I cant seem to pull away from, even though I know that Im talented/smart and can be great. It sucks but that is my reality for now. Especially the bit that were becoming lazy. I can attest to this feeling as someone whos got holidays. . . so boring without anything to do. Out of all the posts so far this is the one i can currently identify with the most. I nd his talk about spirituality to be a non sequitar though it can be safely chopped o and it makes sense. Some wise motivational advice here12 . You need to nd thatit doesnt necessarily have to be an SO, but it may need to be something you care about more than yourself, especially if yourself doesnt seem worth caring about. It simply comes down to if you dont value yourself enough to answer to yourself then having someone else, preferably that you respect more, can give you something to strive for. However I postulate that this behavior can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk/ http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1ufgp1/ immigrants_are_not_the_problem_men_are_deport_all/cehkynm 11 http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/cehez8e 12 http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/cehpa5w
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manifest as clinging or over-reliance on someone else which isnt healthy in the long run. Haha oh boy, after just watching Hunger games: catching re this13 post seems to take on a whole new dimension. Moreover, sports in America has become over-commercialized to the point where I truly believe that in certain cases its a device to transfer wealth from the lower/middle classes to the upper class.

1.4

Video games

This14 post raises a valid point about where our time is spent do we think thats why it seems like people these days arent made like they used to be or just simply, arent as resourceful (surely its a learnable skill).15 Heres a link16 focusing on video games. Hes hit the money here. Video games, of which Im a big fan of, exploit the rewarding feelings in ourselves including those based of luck and social interaction (which might explain why massively multiplayer games are so big now). The feeling I get is one of video games are here to stay and we have to accept their place in our society, but the way it fundamentally operates is no dierent to alcohol or drugs. As odd as it feels to view even myself as a dependent player, I have to admit its been used as a substitute/replacement for many activities because frankly, its better than most alternatives. As far anecdotal evidence goes when Ive been busier or had a lot more work to do, video game hours drop down and the work goes done so I agree with the poster in: Ive been everything from a hardcore raider in WoW to the most absolute casual and I can say that at least in my experience why I played WoW as much as I did, and still can has very little to do with the game itself, and very much to do with my current situation.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/cehe1iv 14 http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/cehcqsx 15 Note however the 10 000 rule is a made up number from the book Blink that has caught in all too well without a solid basis. The point still stands: time in equals skills out, for all humans. 16 http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1uesnw/ video_games_pornmasturbation_and_watching_sports/cehjkzr
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This brings myself to the end of the analysis for this topic. It was getting long and Ive said all I wanted to say. If youve read this far thank you, its my rst time writing anything like this so I hope it was up to your reading standard. If not feel free to contact me.