Monthly Archives: January 2023

The sedation, subordination and emasculation of young men

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Testosterone is an interesting hormone. The more a man uses it, the higher his levels become. And the higher his levels become, the more he wants to use it. Exercise, especially resistance training like weight lifting, increases T levels. And then the increased T levels make a man want to go lift some weights. It’s a virtuous circle.

If gasoline in a car were like T in a man’s body, the more you drove, and the harder you drove, the more gas there would be in your tank.

But there’s not much gas in the tank of young men these days. The Cleveland Clinic and other researchers report that men today, especially young ones, have less T than ten, twenty or fifty years ago. Odds are, you’re not the man your father was.

Testosterone does more than make a man want to hit the weights. It also makes him happier, healthier, sexier, more muscular, more productive, and more reproductive.

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Lauren Boebert is “present” but that’s about all

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A couple of centuries ago, an extraordinary group of 56 men on the eastern seaboard of our continent declared the independence of their lands. At the close of their Declaration of Independence, they further declared, “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

I think Lauren Boebert would have voted “present.”

The Founders weren’t just being melodramatic. Had they lost the Revolutionary War, they’d have met their end at the end of a rope. They took that risk to found this amazing democratic republic, one that Abraham Lincoln later noted was “conceived in liberty.” He might have added “with undaunted courage and against all odds.” 

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How many people before we have enough?

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The number of people on planet Earth is about 8 billion. The number has grown exponentially, as numbers that are the result of exponential functions do. It’s something like the miracle of compound interest. The graph tells the story.

I don’t think we’re on the verge of starving ourselves. That Malthusian apocalypse gets proven wrong over and over. That’s because Malthusians fail to foresee the agricultural productivity ensuing from technology. For that matter, they fail to foresee the general increase in well-being and comfort that technology brings about.

I’m guessing Earth could easily support double, triple or maybe even ten times the current human population. Anyone who thinks we are running out of room to grow has never looked out an airplane window on a dark night over the Rocky Mountains.

Fine, Earth can support many more people. But how many people do we want Earth to support?

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America has not bottomed out yet — ask Stanford

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In stock market investing, you’re supposed to be pessimistic when everyone else is optimistic, and optimistic when everyone else is pessimistic. Warren Buffett famously put it this way: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

The reason the aforecited principle applies well in stock market investing is that the herd instinct makes people buy or sell stocks because other people are buying or selling. The result is that the stocks get over-sold or over-bought, thereby driving their price too low or too high in relation to their real indicators of value – mainly their current and future profits.

Eventually, the herd drives the stock so high or so low that even dedicated herders cannot fail to miss the fact that the stock is mispriced in relation to objective value indicators. At that point, they finally change direction – they start buying while the herd is still selling, or vice versa – and the price trend reverses. The herd reverses direction, and stampedes off the other way. You can make money by being contrary to the herd. Be a bull when they’re a bear, and vice versa.

So, does the same principle apply in evaluating the state of a culture? Has the assessment of American culture become so bearish that it is surely too much so?

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