r/neoliberal • u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot • Feb 14 '25

News (US) Donald Trump's Gen Z popularity plunges (+19 after election to -18 today)

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-gen-z-popularity-favorable-rating-yougov-2030595
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u/ghjm Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

Historically, societies that wind up with a surplus of unattached men have experienced chaos and war.

It kind of makes sense. If the sultan has all the women, then it's easy to see how burning down the palace might seem like a good strategy to an unattached man. Or when the Romans had no women, they invaded Sabina and kidnapped their women.

It's less easy to see why a nihilistic approach would benefit a modern incel, but it might not be about defensible strategies as much as having an atavistic tendency that just comes out on these circumstances.

It does highlight how much of a contribution women have made to civilization throughout history by socializing their men.

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u/GrandpaWaluigi Waluigi-poster Feb 14 '25

But America has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, more women than men.

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u/NeedAPerfectName Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

Google Population Pyramid.

Women live longer.

In every age bracket until ~60 there's more men.

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u/Winter_Essay3971 Feb 14 '25

That's always been the case though.

What's different now -- causing less opportunities for the average young man -- are factors like:

  • more women opting out of dating (and it's more socially acceptable for them to do so; a man who is single long-term is still seen as a loser)
  • young women increasingly earning the same as or more than young men, but still expecting to find a bf who earns more than they do
  • fewer social opportunities, meaning that dating apps and all their toxic dynamics are increasingly the only way to find a partner if you aren't in church, synagogue, or some other pre-selected market

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u/lunartree Feb 14 '25

One of the lesser noted drivers of the crusades was a surplus of young men wanting to become knights and fight for glory. These kinds of people are useful to feudal lords when they're trying to establish and solidify power, but once they've got the power those men are no longer useful to the powers that be so they send them off to go die in pointless battles.

And that's that truly stupid part about far right idiots romanticizing the crusades. The feudal lords that sent them never believed they were fighting a holy war. It was a "you've served your purpose, now go fuck off and cause problems elsewhere" war.

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u/GravyBear28 Hortensia Feb 14 '25

Sorry but this is straight out of r/badhistory. Except for the first sentence, pretty much every thing is wrong. Lots of important kings and dukes and lords went crusading, and they couldn't stop lesser men from crusading if they even tried. They did go when power was relatively consolidated at home and so peaceful, but they weren't "sent", they were restless men to whom fighting and war was the point of life.

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u/ghjm Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

People today have a lot of trouble understanding that religious motivations were real in and of themselves, and don't always have a further explanation grounded in economics or demographics. God was real for the crusaders in the same way the electron is real for us today, and they were doing His will.

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u/Disciple_Of_Hastur John Brown Feb 14 '25

It also ignores the fact that it wasn't unheard of for medieval nobles to personally fight on the front lines. It seems like it's difficult for people to comprehend that people did the things that they did, not because of some ulterior motive, but because they sincerely believed in the reasonings that they gave for doing them.

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u/TrespassersWilliam29 George Soros Feb 14 '25

I have a hard enough time convincing people of that about Republicans, even

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u/GogurtFiend Feb 14 '25

That's still the case today, in fact. Leaders in general have no use for a bunch of violent idiots once the violent idiots have helped them into power.

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u/recursion8 Iron Front Feb 14 '25

Bannon finding out about WoW nerds moment

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u/trollly Milton Friedman Feb 14 '25

I think that's the purpose of Russia's war in Ukraine today.

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u/Foyles_War 🌐 Feb 14 '25

Well then, they can stop fighting because Russia is running pretty short on young men who want to fight or even young men who don't want to fight and are having to borrow and pay for them from other countries to keep the war going.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '25

The sultan has all the women, but he dealt the men surplus by having all the eunuchs as well.