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In GP's context, no. The basics of the theory is a lack of incentives for young men to play the game, which leads to either proactive destruction or passive des

In GP's context, no. The basics of the theory is a lack of incentives for young men to play the game, which leads to either proactive destruction or passive destruction. War usually leads to a surplus of women and a lack of male competition in any other area (jobs, land, wealth, opportunity), incentivizing men to play according to the social contract rather than being violent or giving up. In fact, some would say starting a war is seen as a society killing off its surplus men in hopes of getting something out of it (every war is a rich man's war). It's difficult to get decisive evidence as the phenomenon tends to happen at the same time as other things, and it basically devolves to game theory. At the very least, it seems like a very, very bad idea to incentivize the population with the largest capability to destroy, to destroy. Especially when they are necessary to create, educate and set an example for the next generation of men.

imtringued 4y ago
Young men are excess capital and excess capital must be destroyed in capitalism. The interest rate on money is guaranteed to be zero, the capital yield of an employed human is negative if the yield of the capital they produce is negative, i.e. unsold products that spoil over time. Thus we fire them, to avoid the negative yield of labor and instead hold onto zero yielding money. The unemployed still need to eat, so they bypass the division of labor and just take what they need. To avoid this cost, you must starve them to death or outright kill them. A rebellion is an act to pass the negative yield of labor back to the owners of financial capital and land but all at once instead of slowly each year. To prevent rebellions, the government subsidizes the owners of financial capital and land by paying welfare, a bribe to make the abandoned behave by making them navigate bureaucracy and blame them instead of the original cause of their dependency on the bureaucracy. This is a subsidy, because the cost is not actually paid by the owners of financial capital but by the portion of the working class that is employed so that they hate the recipients of their taxes instead of the owners of financial capital and land that that created and benefited from the class of artificially helpless people.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
I don't disagree with your points, but I think lordnacho's question is a reasonable one. So, in a sibling to your post, I've included one link. But I think the same type of question could be asked about your post. For example, the idea of "surplus men": I've heard this before, but is there some statistical "systems theory" view of history that can give us plots/data from which this will jump out? Some parts of this are obviously true: > War usually leads to a surplus of women There are certainly many stories after the American Civil War about this -- about women who were unable to find husbands after the war. > and a lack of male competition in any other area (jobs, land, wealth, opportunity) This makes some sense (jobs, mates in particular), but I'm not sure about land, wealth; that could easily remain in the hands of elites. > starting a war is seen as a society killing off its surplus men in hopes of getting something out of it (every war is a rich man's war) I absolutely see this -- elites gain some geostrategic prize, at the expense of other mens' lives -- but, to clarify, I don't think the mechanism by which this helps elites is reduced domestic competition among men, since they're already elites; they've already won the domestic competition. > incentivizing men to play according to the social contract rather than being violent or giving up. It feels like the examples of ISIS, Hikikomori, and monasticism (Western and Eastern) are all relevant here. But it would help if a clear line of evidence could be assembled for one of those examples. I sense that your argument comes from a conservative direction, but I'm aware of queer/feminist writing to the same effect, e.g.: https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp/0252079698 https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp... I haven't read this beyond the summary, and don't know if its evidence is actually any good. But it's sometimes worth noticing when opposing political orientations agree on some underlying assumption. Actually the same idea appears in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, in which part of her fantasy is that men's value has been reduced to peeing in a circle around the village to mark the territory. She does recognize that this "utopia" cannot last though (which she deals with by having a man invent the utopia in the first place -- "of course it's flawed"). So, plenty of people on the other side of the aisle do seem to agree with you about the "facts".

imtringued 4y ago

Young men are excess capital and excess capital must be destroyed in capitalism. The interest rate on money is guaranteed to be zero, the capital yield of an employed human is negative if the yield of the capital they produce is negative, i.e. unsold products that spoil over time. Thus we fire them, to avoid the negative yield of labor and instead hold onto zero yielding money. The unemployed still need to eat, so they bypass the division of labor and just take what they need. To avoid this cost, you must starve them to death or outright kill them. A rebellion is an act to pass the negative yield of labor back to the owners of financial capital and land but all at once instead of slowly each year. To prevent rebellions, the government subsidizes the owners of financial capital and land by paying welfare, a bribe to make the abandoned behave by making them navigate bureaucracy and blame them instead of the original cause of their dependency on the bureaucracy. This is a subsidy, because the cost is not actually paid by the owners of financial capital but by the portion of the working class that is employed so that they hate the recipients of their taxes instead of the owners of financial capital and land that that created and benefited from the class of artificially helpless people.

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago

I don't disagree with your points, but I think lordnacho's question is a reasonable one. So, in a sibling to your post, I've included one link. But I think the same type of question could be asked about your post. For example, the idea of "surplus men": I've heard this before, but is there some statistical "systems theory" view of history that can give us plots/data from which this will jump out? Some parts of this are obviously true: > War usually leads to a surplus of women There are certainly many stories after the American Civil War about this -- about women who were unable to find husbands after the war. > and a lack of male competition in any other area (jobs, land, wealth, opportunity) This makes some sense (jobs, mates in particular), but I'm not sure about land, wealth; that could easily remain in the hands of elites. > starting a war is seen as a society killing off its surplus men in hopes of getting something out of it (every war is a rich man's war) I absolutely see this -- elites gain some geostrategic prize, at the expense of other mens' lives -- but, to clarify, I don't think the mechanism by which this helps elites is reduced domestic competition among men, since they're already elites; they've already won the domestic competition. > incentivizing men to play according to the social contract rather than being violent or giving up. It feels like the examples of ISIS, Hikikomori, and monasticism (Western and Eastern) are all relevant here. But it would help if a clear line of evidence could be assembled for one of those examples. I sense that your argument comes from a conservative direction, but I'm aware of queer/feminist writing to the same effect, e.g.: https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp/0252079698 https://www.amazon.com/Loser-Sons-Authority-Avital-Ronell/dp... I haven't read this beyond the summary, and don't know if its evidence is actually any good. But it's sometimes worth noticing when opposing political orientations agree on some underlying assumption. Actually the same idea appears in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, in which part of her fantasy is that men's value has been reduced to peeing in a circle around the village to mark the territory. She does recognize that this "utopia" cannot last though (which she deals with by having a man invent the utopia in the first place -- "of course it's flawed"). So, plenty of people on the other side of the aisle do seem to agree with you about the "facts".