I'm a young man and I am currently in this ginnungagap. The challenge of my generation is perhaps a spiritual one. A lot of us are somewhat directionless and chase our own solitary goals. I don't see any external encouragement or reason to start a family or actualize as a man. Community is not readily available. Cultural and civic identity are in flux. The media and millieu hates me. There are no savings, and no government programs. I succeed in spite of these things, because of my family's support, and by my own hard work.

Reality is that every generation of young men needs support. You can't remove that and wonder why your society is floundering. And the answer certainly isn't "well women can fill the gap". No, they can't. Some tasks require a measure of masculine bravado to bridge uncertainty. Let's say China moves their ships into Taiwan tomorrow; who are you going to send? Your daughters? Please. It's not fair for us to ask women to be this. If our society was an organism then right now it would have an auto-immune disease. At this point we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I'm not saying we return to male hegemony, but I believe a healthier medium is possible. I say this as a guy that buys Pantene conditioner and lifts weights, loves flowers and heavy metal. An integration of the masculine and feminine is possible; it's called being well-adjusted. Until feminists present a new synthesis of masculinity that is actually compelling to men their schtik is DOA. It's also almost axiomatically impossible that they will come up with something appealing to us, because they aren't men and they don't care to listen to men. These kinds of people are the Chamberlains of our age, farting around while real threats are mounting. We'll find a way without them.

> It is harder to be a man today, and in many ways, that is a good thing: Finally, the freer sex is being held to a higher standard.

Kindly [*] off with this [*]. Everyone struggles. To live is to endure pain. No exceptions are made.

It all seems fairly straightforward to me: rulers are greedy, the public suffers, men weaken, no fathers to teach the boys, etc etc on your positive feedback loop, until war breaks out and we reset. The rest is grift.

Edit: for excess profanity. My apologies.