The Real Reason Families Are Dying Out – Rudyard Lynch

0:01 If you look at uh the examples I've you brought up before, French Revolution, 30 years war or the English civil war and then the black death. If you want to look at these kinds of economic crises, you see skyrocketing real estate costs, you see cost of living also skyrocketing. You see um cost of food and other essentials also skyrocketing. You see stock market bull runs and crashes. You see mass government printing of money, the government going bankrupt from their inability to uh to have a fiscal budget, government bloat. You see I'm glad that you have a background in economics because I haven't been able to get this detailed in other podcasts. You also see incredible inequality. Uh you see competition for elite jobs. That's very stark. Average wages crashing. And you see geopolitical tension and political polarization. And an example people forget is that the average age of marriage has stayed relatively constant over the last thousand years of western history where before the black death before the 30 years war and before the French Revolution the average age of marriage was 2728. And whenever you hit that range you're going to have a revolution or a civil war. And I have this whole theory I think you might find interesting that feminism is all backhand is in some ways largely backhanded cope for people not being able to afford to have families. A woman will be like, "Oh, uh, I'm a boss babe. I'm just working hard to follow my dreams." And the reason part of the reason she's saying that is because she legitimately can't afford to start a family. And so it's this backwards rationalization for a a decrease in the cost of living or she can't afford to have a single income family. So she says, "I'm a boss, babe." To rationalize uh no longer being in a society where a single man can support a whole family. I um the nature of sort of the cost of living crisis that's going on and especially for, you know, we're separated by enough that I could almost be your dad, which is funny. Um it's dad saves America after all. One of the reasons why I actually wanted to have you on is you're closer in age to my son than to me. So, you've got all this stuff that is hitting your generation that didn't hit me as a Gen Xer. One of the things you especially would find interesting about my backstory is I've been part of I've been part of a bunch of weird ecosystems. I formed a social group for influencers in Los Angeles. I've been part of other groups for talented young people. I've been part of conservative groups. So, I've been part of several Zoomer groups in the past. And so I've had the real privilege of interviewing dozens of zoomers across social classes across region or hundreds of zoomers. I've interviewed depends on what you mean interview. I've spoken down for like half an hour with basically hundreds of people in my age category and weird ecosystem. I know a lot of people at Harvard. I know people workingass people. I know people in Los Angeles, my hometown in Pennsylvania, Texas. And a very large amount of my analysis comes from speaking to all these different types of zoomers because it's this weird cross reference of the population. And actually the reason I got on the civil war discourse is that I had enough critical mass talking to zoomers across every group that I was able to pick up underlying trends and I basically realized zoomers of every even the highest achieving zoomers had a series of really bad issues. mental health was one of them. Yes. Almost all had financial issues. Almost all of them just did not have the basic things you would need to live a decent life. And so I thought if this many young people are screwed, you're going to have a revolution. And one of the things where I only got on the revolution civil war discourse uh I I started in 2020 and it really got kicked into overdrive. this is going to happen soon in 2022 because that was when I had got I'd had spoken to enough people where I had pieced together this is the only way that this equation will solve itself and one of the things I think you would find interesting is that my assessment with what happened to zoomers is you have all these bureaucratic systems that kept operating longer than anyone involved in spect expected to and so these things that people think the way I like to phrase it is that things that people think should be 5% of the equation are the total equation. So DEI hiring is an example.

4:35 When older people talk about DEI, they're assuming, oh, you have a 100 applicants. We're going to increase DEI positions. So let's say five out of the hundred will go to diversity people. The current equation is that in the top I believe 500 companies in the job openings since co 95% went I remember I I don't know if it was Forbes or Inc. It was one of those business magazines that basically touted that exact stat. That's what you're drawing from, right? It was like, look, you know, post George Floyd 2020, the corporate world said we're all in on diversity and they did it. They did it. It actually happened. They did it. Um, what's wrong with that? Why is that bad? Is I mean, jobs aren't a zero sum game, right?

5:23 If something's big enough, it's a cancer. Everything if it's big enough is a cancer. um where as Aristotle said everything pushed to an extreme is evil and so if it's 95% that means young white men aren't going to get hired and right so you have this I've heard this also from people in my age bracket who have gotten to a place where they're just too expensive now they're actually experienced they're high value which means that they should earn more money and it's like Yeah. And they be they've like earned their way into unemployability. I am probably in that category. Were I not entrepreneurial be like I don't know where I'd work. I I'd work in construction would be my choice person.

6:09 I'd be working a minimum wage job if this channel didn't exist. And so my attitude is if someone gives me an offer, I take it for all it is because you don't get that many offers. And um is this just is this just right-wing white male wokeism? what you're saying this like woe is me the DEI I mean isn't it the case I I want to push on you for a little bit for for a couple reasons first of all because it's fun and also because I should and because I'm I've been an employer for a long time and and maybe this maybe it's because I've been a small businessman since since I left Viacom so maybe that's different I think most people are still working for small businesses is finding someone that will show up on time. Yeah. Will not ask you about when they're going to get their first day off in their job interview.

7:04 Yeah. And and like the basic decorum of you will probably be a good partner on the team. Yeah. When you find one of those people, you're like, "Yes, yes, can you start today?" I've literally had this kind of thing. People here have had me say, "Great. Can you start tomorrow?" because they meet what in other times would have been relatively basic criteria like don't ask us about PTO in your job interview. Yeah. Yeah. Don't ask me when I'm going to pay you to not work because the answer is you're never going to get paid and you can not work.

7:38 So that mitigates for me a little bit against what you're saying like, oh, wo is me, white young male. Can't you just go get a job? Can't just go get a job? My question to you is because you asked a question that's big enough I could go off for two hours about this where what evidence would you want me to show you? Would you want to look at uh demographic information? Would you want me to look at anecdotes? Would you want me to look at uh statistical data as it relates to quality of life, the school system? It's a whole you're looking at ecosystem failure. So it's difficult to pinpoint a single point in the ecosystem where it's as I said over like 10 bureaucracies failed at once. I so let me lay out a couple things. Yeah. As part of this because I I think to move into some of the underlying stuff behind your concern about civil war I think is what this is about. Yes. Right. Because and it's so I think where we agree we probably mo having watched about 15 hours of your content we overwhelmingly agree on things. And I actually think that even when I'm pushing you on, I am I am skeptical that my worldview has been constructed by statistical work that might not really be good or correct. But the first piece of the puzzle for me is all of that's true. The education system sucks. It's been taken over by commie whack jobs. I talk about that all the time. I don't mince words about it because it's horrible. If you're a parent, pull your kids out of government school and be very careful about the private school because it might be even worse. Yes. Yes. Um, so probably homeschool. Next up, Catholic school. And if you can find the rare school that's not a woke zombie nightmare, do that. Please, for the love of God. That's number one. So, I agree completely. I've seen this firsthand.

9:29 The coddling of the American mind played a big role in my thinking about this. seeing it at the systemic level like your generation has come up more anxious, more prone towards suicidality, all those things. Yeah. Suffering from mental illness in profound ways that I think are very scary and worrisome. All of that's true. But the middle class as as defined, it's always like these things like we'll always have the poor if we define the poor as the bottom 10%, right? Like the bottom 10% can be living like kings, but if we define our understanding of the world on the basis of percentages instead of absolute terms, we'll always have the poor. As I understand it, the middle class has shrunk dramatically in this country over the past several decades because it has increasingly become upper middle class and that the in inequality story as it has been told to us is actually statistically false. It is a product of media programming. That is not to say there isn't a lot of problems in the society and a lot of people that are living in in dire circumstances. I I have I'd like to think earned my way to a place where I'm reasonably comfortable, but I'm not trying to deny anybody's circumstances, but that's the stuff I have consumed. And it might be bull maybe it's I maybe I'm maybe that's like some phantom. I know. And I I don't like to go off on too long of a tangents as an interviewer, but I'll just say this.

11:04 The past five years seems to have changed the game in a couple ways that are pretty profound from my perspective. One of which being the median cost of housing, which is a bare necessity, has gone into weirdo land where you have to be a six, you have to earn six figures to be able to buy a house. Yes. So that that I can see plainly the rise in homelessness on the streets in major cities. You can't not see it. Yes. So there's a bunch of It's not like I'm bl I'm not like a complete blind normie pussian Stephen Pinker is in my backpack everywhere I go. Yes.

11:41 But I may be closer to that than you. So So make your case for why I should throw Steven Pinker in the garbage can. So I find I find Steven Pinker funny because we he and I basically agree on everything. I still don't like reading his books. I've started like four or five of his books and finished none of them because he and I are such different animals in the ecosystem where I read the stuff he says and I'm like, I factually agree with what you're saying. I agree. I think you're a smart guy. I think you're honest, but I still dislike this where his whole thing of there are more toilets in Africa, thus progress has happened and that thus the struggles of uh normal Americans today are fine. I just want to throw that book in the trash. And so I'll start with here. I'll tell you, and we're friends outside of this, and you you've seen I'm a pretty industrious person, pretty hardworking, and uh that sort of thing. And I can tell you why if I didn't have this channel, I would try not to have a job at all.

12:40 So let's look at it through this lens. So let's say I work a normal job for someone my age. Let's say I make 10 bucks an hour. An appetizer is can be $14. So you work seven hours. Um then the appetizer then seven $70 a dinner is often $50. So that's just covering food. And if you look at the statistics, you find basically 75% of Americans live hand live paycheck to paycheck. So they're paying off the money they have now just to work more out, just to work again, and to keep doing it. And the numbers I find most telling are first of all that the uh first of all 40% of Americans don't have $400 in the bank. 70% of Americans don't have $1,000 in the bank. People are lying about these numbers. You these are not numbers you can expect to tell the truth about. And so that's one thing. And if that's and when I was a teenager, I made the calculation if I'm don't become an entrepreneur, I'm screwed because uh I my mom ran a brewery and I worked at the brewery and I would talk to other people at the brewery and they would grumble at how the job market was terrible and money wasn't worth anything and that stuff. And also I'd go to school and we were working like uh people in my class did stuff for they did various forms of class for like over 12 hours a day and I hated that. I really I was really disaffected in school and I saw that everyone's working. They said you're going to go to college. After college you're going to get a job and I was looking around and I thought where are the jobs? Because I didn't really what like what industry sucks up these people out of college. So my you can make like a hundred grand driving a truck. Yeah. like today like you can get there are there are a there is something like I don't know what the number is right now and again even you look at the current revisions of the FBI statistics and trusting any government stats needs a gigantic asterisk on it yes but there are jobs it's there are jobs that may pay pretty well a lot of them are physical some of them are not physical but there are a lot of people working you you know You said earlier in the conversation, right, even in the Great Depression, 75% of people were working. Yes. Yes.

15:11 So, it's an ecosystem failure. That's what I keep saying because we But that's a little bit like socializing the analysis. So, connect the dots for me. Okay. So, let's go through the ecosystem failure. The purpose of a person's life is or the things people the things people need to have in life to not feel like failures are gainful employment. Mhm. housing, a mate, ability to support children, um, some kind of value system, and friends. These, this is the bare minimum that even someone in Egypt or the Congo would think that's what a person needs to have a decent life.

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