So I'm over here watching multiple trains, factories, and food plants explode in toxic wrecks from sea to shining sea.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg is spending today celebrating less men in America's workforce:
How obtuse can they be?
When I think of the working-age men I know who choose not to work, they all have something in common: a woman who earns enough to support them both. One of the big economic mysteries of our time has become why men in the prime age group of 25 to 54 are leaving the labor force. What are they doing instead? Why don't they want to work? How do they support themselves? Those are still largely unanswered questions, but I wondered if some of my personal acquaintances offered a clue.
BREAKING: Rich, white liberal woman confused why men are giving up on civilization
Regular people all know the answer.
Men have been told they aren't wanted for decades. They are the violent oafs: The rabble that is good for nothing except alimony and one-night stands.
Most aren't considered "diverse" enough to get jobs at major companies these days, but honestly most of them wouldn't want to.
The good men – the ones who want to build and order the world in line with truth and justice – are still out there. It's just harder to find them under multiples layers of clown world.
Most men have withdrawn because interacting with this sham of a society in decline isn't worth it. If they don't have a family to feed, why bother? They can withdraw to the backwoods, withdraw to the beach, or withdraw into the latest computer game – all are good distractions from a culture that no longer values them or the masculine drive to do what is adventurous and noble.
But the fact that this has been happening in every recession over the last 50 years suggests there is something structural going on. The US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey asked non-working men last year why they were not looking for work, and more than a third claimed the mysterious "other" reason. For women, "family responsibilities" or "can't arrange child care" was selected by 42%.
Allison Schrager really can't puzzle it out.
There's a sweeping trend of girl bosses who care little for commitment or children, and you're telling me that they aren't inspiring these men to work hard and provide? Gasp! Who could have known?
It isn't women working that's causing men to tune out – it's the "future is female" feminist poison that drives wedges between the sexes.
When you tell men that they are inherently bad and that their masculinity makes them a liability, they either feminize themselves or they escape the system that demands such unnatural conformity.
There's no shortage of theories why men aren't working and all have some truth as well as limitations. For instance, there has been a shift away from manufacturing jobs (an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry) to more skill-service jobs like nursing. But that can't explain a labor shortage that exists in many traditional male jobs like construction.
The answer is right in front of her.
Men don't care about building civilization anymore because civilization has become a circus show. Most of the men engaging with it are clowns themselves.
Inevitably, men jaded by the system often get hooked on whatever makes them feel alive: Sex, drugs, travel, and entertainment become the purpose of life.
There are no great cathedrals to build, no great dragons to slay: Just another online adventure and the bottom of another bottle.
Like their ancestor Adam, they stand idly by while the snake destroys everything, too lazy or cowardly to get involved.
Modern education seems generally better fitted to girls than boys, and more women are pursuing higher education with fewer dropping out and more graduating than men. There also is the opioid epidemic, with a historically higher prevalence among men. And we have better leisure options — before video games came along, staying home all day with nothing to do was boring.
She's so close to getting it, ladies and gentlemen.
But in the end, she's generally happy with it.
A strong labor market will induce some men to work, but not all. An economy that offers more opportunities to everyone may just mean fewer men working than we've seen in the past.
The easiest way to destroy a complex machine is to disrupt the regular maintenance that is given to that machine.
Our modern society is the most complex machine ever devised.
It takes millions of riggers, truckers, farmhands, miners, builders, loggers, officers, sailors, plumbers, controllers, linemen, foremen, engineers, and machinists to keep the wheels of civilization turning.
These jobs are overwhelmingly staffed by men (as in, 99% in many fields).
You can have all the service and office jobs in the world, but they mean nothing without these men.
Because as the men go, so does your civilization.
