“Why are boys falling down the ‘alt-right’ pipeline?”

“Why are young men abandoning progressive values?”

“Why do they trust Joe Rogan over the news?”

“Why are they listening to Andrew Tate?”

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a moral panic across the West regarding boys and young men. You hear these questions everywhere now — in headlines, on panels, in the anxious voices of people who can’t understand what this demographic is doing, and what it means for polite society.

Up to now, the diagnosis offered up by the mainstream commentariat has been the buzzword bingo of incels, misogyny, the far-right, and, of course, toxic masculinity.

Worse still, they insist this young male dissent is the outcome of bad ‘influence’, a corruption of the youth orchestrated by shadowy figures from a dark corner of the internet called the ‘manosphere’. The implication being the formation of a future cohort of rabid men who will regress the West and plunge us into a warlord’s wet dream, or as Reddit likes to imagine, a world straight out of Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale.

Naturally, with this picture in mind, a landscape of moral panic has formed; papers on how to ‘de-radicalise’ boys, endless exposés on the pervasiveness of misogyny and incels, and calls to erase the complete online presence of figures such as Tate. Even fitness and wellbeing are being questioned as potential far-right pipelines. The panic reached farcical levels in the UK when the fictional Netflix drama, Adolescence, was treated as though it were a documentary by the mainstream, with the government going so far as to make it available across all British schools.

But the panic doesn’t just miss the point. It proves the point.

If you stop listening to the chattering classes and start watching what young men are actually doing, a different picture emerges. They’re flocking to the gym, attending church again, choosing stoicism over therapy, ditching conventional paths for entrepreneurship, and abandoning establishment media for alternative voices. They’re even rallying around the mantra that “you can just do things”, a strangely simple ethos.

Young men are up to something. Some sort of divergence is occurring. But it’s not toxicity or radicalisation.

It’s best understood as a vibe shift.

As historian Niall Ferguson put it, to understand politics you have to understand culture, and to understand culture you have to understand vibes.

Especially, vibe shifts. They mark the point when a culture’s intuition – its ‘mood music’ – alters because people start sensing, often without knowing why, that certain values and behaviours no longer ‘fit’ the moment, and new ones start to feel right.

I know this because I feel it, as part of this young male cohort. We were raised on a vibe of safety, softness, and ‘correctness’. A vibe that obsessed over what could go wrong, but rarely pointed to what might be worth striving for.

As boys, we were told to talk through our problems instead of taking action to solve them. To defer to the group instead of trusting our instincts. To suppress the joke, the impulse, the competitive edge — basically anything that might ‘unsettle’ the atmosphere.

We were told to be allies, to check our privilege, to use the right language. Even humour had rules. If we joked the wrong way, we’d get a warning.

We watched as female peers were empowered, uplifted and championed. And rightly so. But when it came to us, we were treated as if we were knuckle-dragging, nose-picking, ‘too loud’, liabilities. As though we were this odd fixture in an already harmonised room.

Our reluctance to sit still in class or our disinterest in a subject was treated as a behavioural issue or disorder. It couldn’t be the education system that was misaligned, it had to be us.

By the time we left school, the message was clear: a ‘good boy’ is sensitive, careful and soft-spoken. One who is defanged. One who distances himself from anything too masculine.

It wasn’t forced on us. It was just the default settings of our environment.

But something about it never sat right. It felt like we were slowly shutting down parts of our true nature — our energy, our edge, our agency. We didn’t know what was missing, only that something was. So, we learned to live with the vague itch we couldn’t scratch.

Until something cut through the fog.

We weren’t looking for a counterculture, but it found us anyway. Nothing grand. For me, it started with a Jordan Peterson clip on YouTube saying something no-one else would – “make your bed”, “take responsibility”. That clip led to a podcast. Then to others. Then to a whole constellation of podcasts, books, and other forbidden material that exposed me to ideas we’d never been taught, and principles we should’ve been equipped with earlier. And somehow, these strange voices from the internet made more sense than the adults in the room ever did.

And we responded. Not with protest signs or manifestos, but with choices. With action.

We started lifting to suffer on purpose, to feel friction and earn strength.

We picked up the ancient Stoicism handbook because it flipped what we were taught; not to prioritise how we felt, but to do what needed to be done, especially when we didn’t feel like it. It taught us that virtue lives in action, not in affirmations and performative virtue.

We began side hustles, learnt skills, made things — just to see what we could do when there’s no script. Just to test if the world would move when we pushed with our own hands.

It wasn’t all of us, and we weren’t all doing the same thing. But we were all moving in the same direction: away from helplessness, away from coping, away from apathy. Toward responsibility, toward capability, toward living life by design, rather than default.

But this vibe shift wasn’t just about us. When we zoomed out, we saw that the same stifling vibe was everywhere.

A society afraid of offence, allergic to conviction and obsessed with managing risks. Where we all put on the mask of niceties and politeness to the point where authentic conversations happen only behind closed doors, if we dare to have them at all.

A society run by a bureaucracy that expands endlessly to meet the needs of its own expansion. Delivering managed decline, then gaslighting us into thinking this is as good as it gets. Convincing us that instead of addressing housing shortages or inflation, we should spend time debating pronouns. Instead of securing our borders, we shoulder the world’s burdens, and call anyone who disagrees with this slow suicide a racist. That we should even sacrifice truth itself, if it means no-one is offended.

We’d grown up in this vibe, but now we could see it.

That’s when the quiet, personal discontent that young men felt, tipped over to something more outward.

We voted with our feet wherever we could, away from everything the old guard insists is true. Because whatever it is they’re selling, it just doesn’t ring true anymore.

Young men feel the failure of the dominant sensibility acutely. Not just because masculinity is pathologised and smeared, but because the masculine condition is wired to seek challenge, direction and truth. Wired, in at least some of us, to seek greatness, to take up the hero’s journey. When these things go missing, we’re the first to feel restless and adrift. Society kept telling us everything was fine, but our instincts said otherwise.

The manosphere, or bro-podcasts, or whatever you wish to call it, offers refuge for those not yet hollowed out or defanged by the dominant sensibility. These domains aren’t perfect — god no. But they’re among the few places left that still speak the lost language of glory, honour, excellence and beauty. In these corners, such words needn’t be whispered.

Yes, some corners of the manosphere are crude. Some are even dangerous. Yes, this vibe risks animating actual incels, mysogynists, far-rightists and textbook toxic masculinity. Some will twist the mantra that you can just do things to permit terrible behaviour. We may even overcorrect and regress the West.

But the mainstream can moralise, pathologise, and panic all it likes. Young men have already left the building. It’s only a matter of time before everyone else does too.

It’s true that much of this vibe shift is unfolding online, which is why so few outside it can see this emerging worldview. That’s why it’s easily misunderstood – when you see only the outliers, the loudest voices, the easiest caricatures, and the media smears.

But it is coming, whether we’re ready for it or not. The West today has made the return of masculine-coded virtues not just desirable, but necessary.

You can’t convince us that the best we can aspire to is to become our weakest selves. You can’t convince us to play the conventional game when it no longer delivers on its promises. You can't convince us that fragility is a virtue, or that weakness yields a better society.

The West’s future won’t be male in the tribal sense. But it will be male-coded.

As Mary Harrington remarks:

“You can’t re-enchant the world without re-enchanting men, and you can’t re-enchant men without re-activating masculine archetypes”.

The vibe shift, then, is about reviving the spiritedness and vitality that made the West great. Not just what it built, but what it believed in. The will to strive. To dare against the odds. To build with meaning. To love fully. To live with consequence.

To pass on something great, as our forebears once strove to.

So. Which way, Western man?

Do you get the sense that modern life is hollow?

We spend our youth in classrooms to absorb information we will seldom use, and graduate with paper credentials rather than impactful skills and knowledge. Then, with our hollow childhood and preserved naivety about the world, we are thrust into modern adulthood, defined by uninspiring work to buy crap we don't need while struggling to afford what we do need. In our spare moments, our leisure time is often dedicated to ‘life admin’ rather than relaxation, along with a looming sense of dread that Monday is always around the corner. Left yearning for something, anything, that can soothe or distract us from the monotony of modern life, we turn to escapism – endless scrolling, binge-watching TV, levelling up in video games, retail therapy or substances. And the grand finale? A pension that will barely cover the cost of cat food along with care home bingo nights and the occasional family visit. 

Is this the pinnacle of humanity? I hope not. I am not saying everything is terrible, but to borrow a phrase from sociologist Max Weber, the modern world feels disenchanted. I can’t speak for the world as a whole of course, I am referring here to the so-called ‘West’ (because I live in it).

We have advanced materially but seem to have lost the ‘soulful’ dimension of life in the process. I liken it to the Game of Thrones TV show – a promising start that veered off course, leaving us unsatisfied and questioning what went wrong. Just as the show strayed from its source material, we've strayed from living in a way that aligns with our true nature. 

And there are signs to support this intuition. We are observing a widespread decline in mental and physical wellbeing, life satisfaction has stagnated despite material progression, and our trust in institutions, and even each other is diminishing, leading to polarisation. 

If you’ve searched for answers to our predicament like I have, you’ve likely encountered the carousel of finger-pointing. Depending on who you ask, the fault lies with ‘government’, ‘politics’, ‘capitalism’, ‘socialism’, ‘immigration’, ‘social media’, ‘young generations’, ‘old generations’, it goes on. The complexity of the problem and its felt impact on our day-to-day lives makes us desperate to find some justice. 

But swinging for the fences won’t work. It hasn’t worked. Don’t get me wrong, there is merit in some of these accusations. But my view is that they’re symptoms of a wider system issue. If we want to be rid of our problem, we need precision, we need to address the root cause of the problem. The most appropriate starting point to uncover it is by asking a neglected question; why have we built the modern world to be this way? 

Yes, there are a million possible answers but only one stands out to me; the worldview of modernity. 

How we've built our world mirrors our beliefs, attitudes, and values. We've created a disenchanted world because, as modern people, we've lost our sense of wonder and magic. We use the lens of efficiency and utility, not meaning and beauty. 

A quick historical context tells us why this has happened.

The Modernity worldview dominates today because it replaced the one of religion. This shift happened during key historical periods such as the Renaissance (14th to 17th century), Reformation (16th century) and Scientific Revolution (15th to 18th century). Each period introduced a crucial element that moved us further from divine authority.

• The Renaissance sparked a newfound interest in human potential and curiosity.

• The Reformation challenged the Catholic Church's influence by promoting diverse interpretations of the scriptures.

• The Scientific Revolution shifted our focus to empirical observation and rational thinking to explain the natural world.

These ideas fertilised and created a major shift in thinking - the belief that we could understand and navigate life without needing divine intervention. 

Humanism ideals from Classical Antiquity were revived, such as human potential, reason, and ethics. Additionally, secularism grew stronger as religion played a smaller role in matters of state and everyday life. With these new frameworks of modernity, the goals of life changed with it. 

Our beliefs, decisions and actions were no longer focused on the objective of earning your spot in heaven or another eternal paradise. Without this ‘next place’ or the need to adhere to religious protocols, we immersed ourselves more in the present. Particularly since life appears much shorter when eternity is off the table. Life’s objective became the maximisation of the human experience. 

It's not that people with the past religious worldview didn't strive to live fulfilling lives, but under the modern humanism worldview, there's a greater emphasis on the present because life doesn't posit meaning beyond death. There’s a greater incentive to ‘live like there’s no tomorrow’. And there is no better way to do this than the idea of ‘progress’ (I’m sure you’ve heard of it). If followed, the path of progress promises the ULTIMATE experience; a Utopia. Paradise now rather than paradise later.

And it didn’t take much convincing to embrace it, each feat of progress modernised us and reaffirmed our belief in it. Why wouldn’t we? What was slow, became fast. What was heavy, became light. What was hard, became easy. And then, even faster, lighter and easier! Better became even better. Progress is now as unconscious an expectation as breathing. 

But progress is a process, a means to an end, not the end itself. But we’re so caught up in all our progress that we can’t tell the difference anymore. This is because the flaw of modernity is its absence of a real objective.

Let me explain.

The shift to humanism and scientific rationality diminished the transcendent objectives of life, those that resonate profoundly and inspire high levels of commitment. As mentioned, one such objective was that of divine and spiritual belief. Another was biological survival – securing food, water, shelter, and ultimately, reproduction. While we haven’t freed ourselves from these biological restraints, we can meet them trivially thanks to our progress in science and technology (the reproduction part is still on you). These needs no longer consume most of our time, energy and thought. In modern Western life, they feel like side quests.

So again, the weight of meaning in modernity shifts even more to the immersions in the present. As we don’t simply cease to exist without a grand objective to guide us, we have instead reverted to our factory settings; pursuing immediate comforts and pleasures. 

This is where utopia enters the fold. It appears to save us from this hedonic aimlessness. After all, who doesn’t want a future society that has reached perfection with characteristics such as improved healthcare, pristine environments, high-level education, reduced crime, bountiful resources and equality? 

But if you rub your eyes and look again, you’ll notice that utopia is just a hyper-version of our present desires. It’s just a way to immerse ourselves even more in the now. Another problem is that utopia isn't clear, it can’t be unless we suddenly agree on the definition of a perfect society. But the illusion remains because an objective, even an unclear one, is better than admitting that you don’t have one at all. It gives society a reason to roll out of bed in the morning. 

So why is immersion in the present problematic?

It’s not. The issue is that our progress, which we’re infatuated by, serves no real goal. Because of this, we unintentionally enact progress for the sake of progress. This is just blind optimisation, everything must be ‘better, faster, cheaper’ for no reason beyond the profit of the endeavour. We’ve transformed every aspect of life, including ourselves, into mechanistic components in the instrument of progress. Our education, entertainment, architecture, food systems, economic systems, work, relationships… they’ve all deteriorated because of our aimless progress. This is the root cause of our disenchantment.

And we willingly comply, not only because we don’t see the illusions of utopia, but optimisation also serves our self-interests extremely well. Dating apps can replace the complicated courtship dance with swipes and texts, processed foods offer quick, tasty meals, and the food itself can even be substituted with supplements. We don’t even suffer boredom as we can endlessly stimulate ourselves in the digital world. 

But this cold hard optimisation of our lives is disenchanting because it neglects the holistic aspect of existence; walks in nature, conversation, beautiful architecture, creativity, community, I could go on. It also misses the mark on the biological front. Courtship rituals aren't just for romance; they are about sexual selection. Our craving for food isn't about indulging in taste; it’s about nutrition. Our need for social connection isn't about accumulating likes and followers; it’s about fostering cohesion to optimise survival.

We are living unfaithfully to our biological heritage and what is truly meaningful and purposeful to us because the modern system doesn’t serve us. It serves progress (for the sake of progress).

Society in modernity operates like a fragmented game board where every player is free to pursue their separate interests. Each person or group optimises for their own gains, and the broader system reflects.

Now, for many people, modern life is a cycle of monotony and a deprivation of meaning. But for the system of progress, it's nothing but green cells in its spreadsheet of better, faster, cheaper. A complete misalignment.

We play along with our self-destruction because modern life is ‘just the way things are’. As children, what reason did we have to question this way of life if everyone around us behaved this way? But herein lies the secret; modernity is held together by belief. Nothing else. It’s a silly trait of ours, to think that social constructs are objective truths. We don’t question why the modern world is the way it is because we struggle to imagine that another way of life is even possible.

We must remind ourselves of our ancestor’s profound discovery; the world doesn’t have to be as it is, we possess the ability to sculpt it. 

Modernity has bestowed upon us comforts and conveniences that are hard to dismiss. Yet, beneath this veneer lies a glaring issue—our lives lack a deeper purpose, a guiding star if you will. In our relentless quest to optimise the human experience, we’ve squeezed out the very elements that make it meaningful, leaving us in a world that feels more like a machine than a home. The irony is as tragic as it is absurd.

This is why I view the chaos in politics, immigration, social media, and economics as symptoms of a deeper void, not the disease itself. We like to point fingers at the system and the powerful, but the truth is, we’re too distracted by our own trivial pursuits to truly care. We lack a shared mission, a higher calling, and in that vacuum, we’ve lost our ability to unite and demand better. When people share a common purpose, any threat to it is intolerable—but without it, apathy reigns.

The disenchantment we feel is a wake-up call. What we need now isn’t merely more progress, but a new objective for it to serve. A purpose that gives direction to our advancements, compelling enough to drive us to build a world that aligns both our physical and existential needs. I’m not sure if this calls for a revival of divine belief or if it’s something new altogether. But I am certain that we need to start the conversation, to strip away the illusions we’ve accepted as truth.

That’s the first step to our enchantment.

But that was at the heart of the twentieth century. In 2024, this unyielding optimism for the future feels… faint.

Instead, we are inundated with prophecies of humanity's downfall; economic despair, Orwellian state control, global warming, population collapse, forever wars... you get the jist. It seems implausible that tomorrow will not be terrible, let alone better. 

This perceived erosion makes the future a tough sell. Discussions of new frontiers in science, technology and social progress now bring fear and resentment. There may even be an eye roll of derision at the audacity to ponder ‘progress’ amidst the present doom. 

I suppose this reasoning has some merit. If our ancestors were blindly optimistic, we would not be here today. Without the right dose of fear and caution, they would have fallen victim to predators or environmental hazards (or stupidity). But we now have social media. We now process every problem, every crisis, every opinion. 

With enough doom hanging over us, pessimism becomes our constant companion. So much so, that we have converged - we think, speak and see like pessimism. This is why we have lowered our expectations for the future, it’s what pessimism would do. 

But I think this perspective is short-sighted.

Firstly, there is the issue of perspective - the reality you observe on your social media feed is only a snapshot, it lacks context and detail. It may even be fabricated content. 

This doom perspective also neglects to consider humanity’s ingenuity up to this point. After all, you are reading this from your phone, tablet or laptop; this means you have access to abundant energy. You have the time to read a random blog on substack; this likely means you have sorted food, water and shelter. The threat of a barbarian horde at your gate is probably also unlikely. 

If you are fortunate to have answered yes to these assumptions then enough people in the past did something right. Whether they intended to or not, whether you knew them or not, they built a better world. No means perfect, but better. 

So why are we so 'doom and gloom' about the future?

I think a quick history lesson can shed some light. 

A study conducted by Almelhem et al. (2023) explored the connection between enlightenment ideals and societal advancement. The researchers analysed over 173,000 books printed in England between the 16th and 19th centuries, to track how often certain terms were used in this period. They used this as a proxy for the cultural themes of the time. Their findings indicate that leading up to the 18th-century Industrial Revolution, there was an uptick in terms related to progress, science and innovation. British society was evermore engrained with enlightenment ideals. 

Furthermore, an article (X.com link also) by John Burn-Murdoch tracked the frequency of terms in Spain across this same period. He suggests that Britain and Spain were in a similar state of prosperity at the beginning of the 17th century. But Britain, with its greater orientation toward science and innovation, developed the conditions to experience far greater levels of prosperity later on.

The lesson here is that if we think and speak of enlightenment and optimism enough, we steer ourselves toward optimistic futures. The counter must also be true. If we think and speak of doom for long enough, doom becomes prophecy. 

After all, countries like Britain, the former bastion of the Industrial Revolution, are experiencing economic stagnation today. I think, in part, this is a reflection of the established and ever-growing pessimism in the cultural psyche.

Our chosen mindset shapes the behaviours that will determine our fate. 

What has shaped our current theme of doom and gloom and where can we intervene?

Hint: Perverse Incentives. 

Perverse incentives are systems that encourage us to engage in behaviour that is counterproductive to the intended goals or interests of that system. 

Here are some examples:

1. Safetyism

This is the tendency to prioritise the minimisation of risks and potential harm. On the surface, this seems sensible. But extreme or simply prolonged safetyism leads to hyper-vigilance. It aims to guard against any conceivable harm. This ethos of 'safety at all costs' may result in the erosion of civil liberties, free expression, and intellectual diversity. Unconventional ideas are now a threat.

Challenging or disrupting the status quo is necessary for progress and innovation. Novelty can present risk but overwhelming caution means the leap is not taken.

2. Formal Education System 

The intended goal: To facilitate the distribution of knowledge, skills, and values to individuals within a society. This prepares them for personal and professional development.

What has happened: We are taught what to think, not how to think. 

Standardised testing is the typical measure of student and school performance. This leads to teaching strategies that prioritise test preparation. Therefore, memorisation of facts and regurgitation of them is highly valued in the education system. Unfortunately, this is valued higher than fostering creativity, critical thinking, and reasoning ability. 

This narrows the curriculum to topics that are most compatible with standardisation. Areas such as philosophy, arts and practical ‘life skills’ are neglected. This inhibits the ability to think creatively and holistically about the world. Instead, it creates a system of thinking in conformity, the antithesis of innovation. Conformity also raises the perceived social price of being wrong. Playing it safe means sticking to the playbook of memorisation and regurgitation. This becomes the favoured way to learn. 

This system fools many of us into associating ‘learning’ solely with ‘school’. Without the formal requirement, how many of us choose to read a book or bother to learn a new skill? Thinking back to school, for many of us, it was the bell ring that brought satisfaction. It signalled a lunch break, the end of the school day or the end of the school year. That is not a system that creates dreamers, inventors and collaborators.

3. Cultural Norms - Tall Poppy Syndrome

We can easily blame politicians and bankers for our woes of cultural and economic stagnation. But the people are not without some responsibility. 

Tall Poppy Syndrome is characterised by the criticising or subtle ‘cutting down’ of those who are seen as too successful or simply ambitious. As the name implies, non-conformists must be taken down a peg. In the UK for example, where I am writing from, ‘tall poppy syndrome’ is common. Perhaps, originating from historical British values of modesty, humility, and egalitarianism. Values that are still present today. These are admirable values, but, like anything in life, we need to strike a balance. 

This syndrome can discourage an aspiration for greatness. Simply dreaming big feels ‘silly’. 

We can observe the polar opposite of this in American culture, hence 'Silicon Valley' and widespread entrepreneurship. But, on this opposing side of the spectrum, there can be too much dream-enabling. This can lead to fragility when reality inevitability throws a curveball or two. But that’s a blog post for another time.

Worse still, other forces exacerbate tall poppy syndrome. Take economic inequality for example. Those who perceive themselves to be watching from the bottom may develop a distaste for wealth and those who possess it. Therefore, attributes of the wealthy become unfavourable in the public eye. Some of this is well deserved with instances of greed and corruption. But painting everyone with the same brush ignores the value provided by those who truly innovate and change the world in positive ways. Hence, the compensation they may receive for their contributions.

The point is, that our lack of ambition and innovation can also be self-inflicted.

4. Hedonic adaptation

This is the human tendency to acclimate to new circumstances, leading to a diminished sense of appreciation over time. As innovations become commonplace in society, their novelty fades, and we take them for granted. 

This phenomenon is particularly prevalent in affluent societies, such as the so-called 'West'. Pre-industrial hardships have been largely eradicated here and a cultural amnesia has developed. We are no longer involved in many of the processes that keep society functional due to our ‘laptop economy’. This has shielded us from seeing how far we have come. Because of this, we also undervalue the effort and ingenuity needed for even the smallest steps of technological and industrial progress. This can create a false sense of expectation that innovations will always occur. But if everyone expects, who is imagining, designing and creating? 

5. Overstimulation

Our mind needs free space to accommodate the bandwidth required for imagination and creation. TV, video games, social media and YouTube provide a steady and constant drip of stimuli that hijack this bandwidth. This depletes our compulsion to go through the creative thought process because we are never bored enough to trigger it. Essentially, the itch is always scratched. 

A healthy dose of boredom can serve as a form of productive discomfort. It drives us to push beyond our comfort zones to explore uncharted territory in pursuit of creative expression. And solve a problem or two along the way.

An optimistic future must be built. But to do so, we must want to build it. This is only possible if we value the future enough, beyond even our lifetime. Notice a common thread between the perverse incentives discussed - they are characteristic of short-term priority.

This short-termism is shaped by the pressures of immediate results. Evolutionarily, there was immediate pressure to survive day to day. Economically, if an organisation does not focus on the near-term profit, it may not exist long enough to carry out long-term visions. Politically, public servants and policymakers are measured against a couple of years, not a couple of decades. In education, we measure teachers and institutions by test scores and graduation rates. Not by how many winners they develop for Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. 

Valuing the longer term does not come easy to us. We are mortal beings with lifespans that are short, relative to the cosmic scale. We want to experience the fruits of our labour, not merely plant the seeds for future generations to enjoy. Especially as they are strangers to us. Especially as the short-term requires our full attention.

I agree with the doomers that we face challenges that could put us on an undesirable trajectory. But I write this due to my frustratration with the usual prescriptions of 'do nothing', 'complain' or 'wait until the government fix it'. The challenges we face are the consequences of people in the past choosing the short-term fixes. They kicked the can down the road.

Not prioritising meaningful creation and the outcome of living in a stagnating society are not exclusive. It is because of this complacency that we are experiencing these shortcomings. As Charlie Munger stated - "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome".

A dose of long-termism enables us to break this vicious cycle. It’s the realisation that it’s not about sacrificing for the future; it’s about investing in it. This is a value system update. One which prioritises long-term benefits over short-term gratifications. With this value system, we are more likely to set better incentives - financial systems that do not devalue currency; governance structures that encourage healthy corporate competition; and educational systems that create the pioneers of tomorrow. I could go on.

It is about recognising our interconnectedness with the people of the past and future. What if someone in the past had initiated a global nuclear war? The world today would undoubtedly be different.

If you find the ‘interconnectedness’ argument to be trite, then consider the power of momentum. It took 200 years of persistent promotion of Enlightenment ideals before it finally integrated into 18th-century Britain. Only then could the Industrial Revolution be forged. This means that any disruption to cultural momentum is significant. It determines if the window of opportunity to improve our fate exists, and for how long it is open. 

Shaking free from this trance of self-loathing and prophetic doom is critical. For some, it has become a comfort, a relief even. Freedom from having to take action. Freedom from responsibility. This is because they can reassure themselves - “what’s the point if doom is coming anyway?” But the research by Almelhem et al. (2023) serves as a rationale — a reminder that progress is not an inevitability, but a choice.

Reflect on civilisation so far. Pick any point on this timeline and you are reminded of the resilience and ingenuity that have driven us forward. Even in the darkest times, darker than ours. The conveniences of modern life are a testament to the efforts of those who came before us. Whether by design or accident, they passed the baton forward.

Yes, there seems to be a new war every year. Environmental degradation could lead us to an apocalypse. Inflation is making us all poorer by the day. But the window has not yet closed.

The cultural revolution that we need does not have to be ‘French’, we need not burn everything down (yet). What the visions of flying cars and gleaming cities of the 1950s and 60s failed to highlight is the philosophy required to achieve it. A 'Tomorrowland' is not just a destination or technological fix - It is a state of mind. It is the audacity to dream. 

Let’s stop kicking the can down the road.

Humanity’s progress since industrialisation is unparalleled. We have triumphed over adversities that once plagued our ancestors for millennia. Yet, we are grappling with substance abuse, obesity, diabetes, and other chronic ailments.

Perhaps we are victims of our success. As Thomas Sowell states: ‘There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs’. Meeting our core human needs has resulted in a ‘paradox of affluence’ - the modern world can meet all our needs, and yet, we are afflicted by problems of excess, as though something is still missing. 

But what more could we possibly want?

It is not a case of wanting more. It is a case of misinterpreting what we ‘want to want’. This question was examined by Kyle Eschenroeder in his blog article ‘What Do You Want to Want’. It inspires a deeper dive into the evolutionary underpinnings of desire to reveal;

• Why do we want (desire); and

• Why do we misinterpret what we want in modern society? 

Firstly, we must consider the ancestral environment. It determined what we needed, so it influenced what we desired. Desires then steered our actions towards those that maximised success. Or as Charles Darwin put it - ‘survival of the fittest’.

But what worked for us in the past may be maladapted for today (akin to racing a Formula 1 car on a dirt rally track).

Today, this internal compass remains fixated on obtaining something, such as an experience or an object. It is a silent but persistent drive urging you to satisfy this fixation.

I admit it is an oversimplification to state that human actions derive from desire alone, but it is a fundamental drive nonetheless. Hormones, neurotransmitters, and brain structures work together to create this potent chemical formula to ‘nudge’. You may not be aware of the precise levels of water within your body, but the need to quench a thirst is obvious. 

But what about the needs beyond survival? Those that warrant a mission even as our bellies are full? Maslow's ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ provides insight as it arranges human needs into a hierarchical structure. Basic needs, such as food and shelter, are at the foundation, whilst higher-level needs, like self-actualisation and transcendence, are at the top.

It suggests that once we meet foundation needs, we progress toward higher ones. Fulfilment at each level contributes to our overall well-being and meaning.

With basic needs, going from ‘A to B’ is very simple - Hungry? Eat. Thirsty? Drink. Chased by a Sabre-Tooth Tiger? RUN. For most of us today, foundation needs are addressed with little hardship, so we fixate on the higher levels. It gives us the privilege of a luxury pursuit: finding meaning. I define it as a luxury pursuit because we are no longer bound by nature’s will (mostly). That is not to say that it is easy. This way of life is unfamiliar to us, so we often fall short.

We are ill-prepared for this because our psychology remains unchanged relative to our surroundings. We are still the knuckle-dragging hunter-gatherer. As you forage for meaning today, there is no denying it is the age of abundance. But as scarcity drives us, we mistake instant gratifications for fulfilment. They are cheaper and temporary alternatives for satisfying fixations. And they are everywhere today.

But as they are a fleeting high, we must keep coming back. It leads us astray from what we really want to want. Instead, we end up following false paths, or as I call them, ‘surrogate fulfilments’.

We are lured to surrogate fulfilments as they are often the path of least resistance to gratification. Or we may not even realise its disguise; hence, we can think of it as hijacking our desires.

Let me show you some of these disguises.

1. Conspicuous Consumption

This is our desire to signal wealth and status. In the ancient world, securing resources meant being resource-rich. It increased your chances of survival and attracting mates - the epitome of success. Modernity has reduced the requirement to earn our stripes, but the need to peacock your 'fitness' remains.

Today, this desire spills over to the consumption and display of goods and services. Fitness now is affording resources rather than foraging or fighting for them. It makes purchasing power the best signal apparatus. It also becomes an avenue of competition where ‘keeping up with the Joneses' consumes us. This can lead to obvious financial and stress burdens.

2. Compensatory Consumption

This also seeks to fill a void via consumption but with greater internal focus. Here, the act of shopping and the subsequent purchase is the satisfaction. It compensates for unmet emotional needs or alleviation of negative feelings - the coveted ‘retail therapy’. But the thrill of the shop wears off once we buy the thing. We are doomed to repeat this cycle if we ignore the underlying causes of the voids we are experiencing. It may also become a financial burden.

3. Emotional Eating

Comfort foods aptly name the relief they provide us in sustenance. It often involves sugar-laden foods due to our preference for sweet tastes. An appetite for energy-dense foods was a crucial survival mechanism. Today, this sweet tooth and the greater availability of food means we can also eat our way to satisfying voids. This coping mechanism can lead to health issues such as obesity, diabetes and other related conditions.

4. Substance Dependence

This is the dependency on drugs or alcohol to offer a temporary sense of pleasure, numbness, or relief from discomfort. It serves as a substitute for addressing deeper psychological or emotional needs. However, this relief is often short-lived. It also has negative consequences like physical health problems, impaired judgment, strained relationships, and financial difficulties.

5. Escapism

Video games, Netflix binges, and social media allow us to escape reality by immersing ourselves in the digital and entertainment world. Escapism transports us to a different environment - more pleasant and less stressful. In these environments, we are the curators of our experience. 

Escapism lures us with frictionless pathways. We can achieve the resources, achievements, and accolades we lack by progressing in video games. We can also numb the pain of a stressful day by bingeing on Netflix. And we can address our ‘FOMO’ by scrolling through social media. We can only address insufficiencies in the real world. If we choose to address them in the digital world, nothing changes.

 Lesson: Know what you want to want or be a slave to your impulses.

I am not saying that we are merely mindless creatures reacting to every impulse, or we would likely exist in a world reminiscent of ‘Mad Max’. But we face a new threat in hijacked desires. It forces us to make a choice; 

Merely be passengers or become active participants in our desires. 

But this is not straightforward. We are rid of hunting and gathering, but we have bills to pay, a 9-5 to afford them and endless distractions to occupy our remaining time. But it is worth prioritising because pursuing hijacked desires wastes our precious time and resources. They are even impacting our health.

While synchronisation with the new world is pending, we must cope in the meantime, as our desires have no off-switch. There is little precedence, so there is no blueprint. It incentivises us to rely on our default settings.

As it turns out, sometimes we cannot trust ourselves. To borrow from Dr Steve Peters’s book ‘The Chimp Paradox’, we must not succumb to the impulses of our chimp mind.

Recognising the hijacking is a crucial first step to reclaiming control. As instant gratifications disguise themselves well, the call to vigilance becomes paramount. The message is clear – make intentional choices and reclaim control over your time and efforts. 

In doing so, you can navigate the age of abundance and pursue authentic desires.

Do not fall for the trap.