No Mercy / No Malice: Notes on Being a Man

0:00:03 Defenders in cybersecurity are always there when we need them.
0:00:07 They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat
0:00:10 and have streets, sandwiches, and babies named in their honor.
0:00:14 But most of all, they deserve AI cybersecurity that can stop novel threats
0:00:19 before they become breaches across email, clouds, networks, and more.
0:00:25 Darktrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond.
0:00:29 Visit darktrace.com/defenders for more information.
0:00:38 Support for this show comes from the Audible Original: The Downloaded 2: Ghosts and the Machine.
0:00:43 The Earth only has a few days left. Roscoe Cadoulian and the rest of the Phoenix Colony
0:00:46 have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer.
0:00:52 But a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.
0:00:56 Listen to Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Roscoe Cadoulian
0:01:01 in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded.
0:01:07 It’s a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide.
0:01:12 Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,
0:01:15 “What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?”
0:01:30 The Downloaded 2: Ghosts and the Machine.
0:01:35 Audible Original: The Downloaded 2: Ghosts and the Machine.
0:01:38 The Earth only has a few days left.
0:01:44 Roscoe Cadoulian and the rest of the Phoenix Colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer.
0:01:49 But a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.
0:01:55 Listen to Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Roscoe Cadoulian in this follow-up to
0:01:59 the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded.
0:02:04 It’s a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide.
0:02:10 Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,
0:02:13 “What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?”
0:02:19 The Downloaded 2: Ghosts and the Machine. Available now, only from Audible.
0:02:31 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:02:38 Donald Trump pulled off a stunning political comeback because of young men.
0:02:41 While the Democrats ignored this demographic,
0:02:46 the far right rushed in to fill the void, flooding the manosphere with rockets,
0:02:52 Hulk Hogan, coarseness, and crypto. The last presidential election was supposed
0:02:58 to be a referendum on women’s rights. It wasn’t. It was a referendum on struggling young men.
0:03:03 Five years ago, our advocacy for young men sparked a hostile response. Today,
0:03:09 society is ready to have a productive dialogue, rejecting the far right’s attempts to send non-white
0:03:16 people and all women back to the 1950s and the left’s belief that young men don’t have problems,
0:03:23 but are the problem. This isn’t a zero-sum game. We can build on the gains women have registered over
0:03:31 the past three decades and ensure there’s room for boys and young men in the conversation. Democrats are
0:03:36 So we’re starting to tackle the crisis, but we can’t rely on prominent party leaders to drive the change.
0:03:44 We can count on the tech industry, however, to keep supporting their massive valuations by connecting
0:03:51 profits with the sequestration and enragement of young men. Men ages 20 to 30 now spend less time
0:04:00 outside than prison inmates. Men of my generation have a debt to these young men and society at large.
0:04:08 Our unfair advantage must be paid forward or backward. We need to get involved in their lives,
0:04:14 advocate for policies to right the ship, and model a healthier vision of masculinity. All of us have a
0:04:19 all of us have a role to play in giving young men a code, a positive set of principles to live by.
0:04:28 Below is an excerpt from my book, Notes on Being a Man. This one is personal. I hope it resonates with you.
0:04:40 One of the semi-exciting perks of being an academic and thought leader, quotes there, is uncovering data,
0:04:46 especially when it’s both obvious and hidden. The alarming state of American boys and men overtook my
0:04:52 attention. I track closely the emails I get. Most are from parents, particularly mothers, concerned about
0:04:58 their sons along these lines. I have a daughter who lives in Chicago and works in PR and another
0:05:06 daughter who’s at Penn. My son lives in our basement, vapes and plays video games. Moms, not dads, were
0:05:13 leading the charge. Others were ignoring the problem or didn’t want to talk about it. Absent, too, was any
0:05:19 sober data-driven analysis. The gag reflex cultural response seemed to be, “Wow, men are worse than we
0:05:26 think,” and that the issues they face are a function of their “awfulness.” And haven’t we spent the past 40
0:05:33 years correctly focused on the struggles of other, more deserving groups? I connected to the topic on
0:05:38 a personal level. I thought back on where I came from, my mom’s irrational passion for my well-being,
0:05:43 the generosity of California taxpayers who made it possible for an unremarkable kid with mediocre
0:05:50 grades to attend college and business school, and all the obstacles, temptations, and traps that could
0:05:59 have easily hampered my socialization. Smartphones, online dating, porn, gambling, video games, remote work.
0:06:05 I wondered why what was happening to boys and young men was in fact happening, and how I could raise my
0:06:12 sons in a world where they, and males of any age, thrive. The data around boys and young men is overwhelming.
0:06:20 Seldom in recent memory has there been a cohort that’s fallen farther faster. Why? First, boys face an
0:06:26 educational system biased against them. With brains that mature later than girls, they almost immediately
0:06:33 fall behind their female classmates. Many grow up without male role models, including teachers. Fewer men
0:06:39 men teach K-12 than there are women working in STEM fields, with Black and Hispanic school instructors
0:06:46 especially underrepresented. Post-high school, the social contract that binds America—work hard,
0:06:49 play by the rules, and you’ll be better off than your parents were—has been severed.
0:06:56 Seven-year-old Americans today are, on average, 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. People
0:07:03 under the age of 40 are 24% less wealthy. The deliberate transfer of wealth from the young
0:07:08 to the old in the United States over the past century has led to unaffordable and indefensible
0:07:14 costs for education and housing, and skyrocketing student debt, all of which directly affect young
0:07:21 men. It’s why 25-year-olds today make less than their parents and grandparents did at the same age,
0:07:28 while carrying debt loads unimaginable to earlier generations. Neither the minimum nor the median
0:07:34 wage has kept pace with inflation or productivity gains, while housing costs have outpaced both.
0:07:40 As the costs of college have soared beyond the reach of most families, many of the manufacturing jobs
0:07:45 that didn’t require a college degree and were often a ticket to the middle class for “mostly men” have
0:07:51 been offshored. A prohibitive real estate market is a contributing factor to why 60%
0:07:59 of young men between the ages of 18 and 24 live with their parents, and one in five still live with
0:08:06 their parents at age 30. Stuck and unable to afford greater economic opportunities in nearby cities,
0:08:12 they find the same crush and collision of density, stimulation, humanity, creativity, eroticism,
0:08:20 and conversation that urban areas offer on their phones instead. In Manhattan, a 400-square-foot
0:08:28 apartment costs $3,000 a month. In its stead is a 17-square-inch mobile studio apartment costing roughly
0:08:37 $42 a month, served up by AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon. Meanwhile, algorithmically generated content on social
0:08:44 media contributes to and profits from young men’s growing social isolation, boredom, and ignorance.
0:08:50 With the deepest pocketed firms on the planet trying to convince young men they can have a reasonable
0:08:57 facsimile of life on a screen, many grew up without acquiring the skills to build social capital or create
0:09:06 wealth. The percentage of young men aged 20 to 24 who are neither in school nor working has tripled since
0:09:14 1880. Workforce participation among men has fallen below 90% caused by a lack of well-paying jobs, wage
0:09:21 stagnation, disabilities, a mismatch of skills and/or training, and a falling demand for jobs traditionally
0:09:32 held by prime-age men. This is deadly. From 2005 to 2019, roughly 70,000 Americans died every year from deaths of
0:09:39 deaths of despair: suicide, drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, with a disproportionate number of those
0:09:47 fatalities being unemployed white males without a college degree. Excluding deaths caused by the opioid
0:09:54 epidemic, America’s suicide and alcohol-related mortality rate for all races is higher than it’s been in a
0:10:02 century. It’s also a mating crisis, as women traditionally made horizontally and up socioeconomically, whereas
0:10:09 men made horizontally and down. Up until the mid-20th century, homogamy, marriages between men and women
0:10:17 from similar educational backgrounds, was more common than not. Today, hypogamy, where women marry men who have
0:10:25 less education than themselves is on the rise. When the pool of horizontal and up young men shrinks, there are
0:10:30 fewer mating opportunities, less family and household formation, and not as many babies.
0:10:41 Here’s a terrifying stat: 45% of men ages 18 to 25 have never approached a woman in person. And without the guardrails of a
0:10:48 relationship, young men behave as if they have no guardrails. Why are we so averse to identifying and
0:10:54 celebrating what’s good about men and masculinity? And why does it matter? Because we won’t prosper if we
0:11:01 convince boys and young men that they’re victims, or that they don’t have to be persistent and resilient, or that
0:11:09 their perspective isn’t valuable. If we do, we’ll end up with a society of old people and zero economic growth. If we can’t
0:11:15 convince young men of the honor involved and the unique contributions inherent in expressing what makes
0:11:22 them male, we’ll lose them to niche, rabid online communities. As my Pivot podcast co-host Cara Swisher
0:11:29 commented once, it should matter to everyone if men aren’t thriving. Women and children can’t flourish if
0:11:36 men aren’t doing well. Neither will our country. Life is so rich.
0:11:47 women and children can’t flourish if they’re not thriving. We’ll be able to find out more. We’ll be able to find out more.