Men in the city are rattling the cages. As the old guard lashes out and Beta-Tyrants scramble to stay in power a new cadre has emerged to red pill the world. We are entering a perilous time in which an avalanche of unspoken truths is poised to roll down the mountain and topple everything in its path. Taboo topics enforced by the Gerontocracy – Pentagon leaks, vaccine side-effects, transgender suicides etc. – are increasingly ignored by a truth-seeking public. Those paying attention sense that the slightest nugget could shatter the glass house – and cracks are visible.
The metaphors we use shape the world we see. The Chinese bamboo tree is nature’s way of expressing growth over time. Bamboos require five years of meticulous watering and fertilizer to break ground. When it does finally emerge from below, it can grow up to 90 feet in a week. The real growth happens out of sight, in the shadows. On a modern timescale five years is a lifetime so the bamboo’s lighting verticality is shocking to those whose field of vision is fixed on the short-term, to those who neglect the unseen. Hidden forces are soon to manifest with frightening shock and awe.
The specter of social disruption has been lurking in the shadows for decades. Growing ranks of sexless men, Boomer vs Millennial wealth inequality, creeping tent cities and inner-city crime (see below), unsustainable debts (private and public) and Wall Street Ponzi schemes are festering wounds years in the making. Trust in the Gerontocracy and its crippled institutions (the Fed, Hollywood, Mainstream Media, Wall Street) has been declining for decades. These mounting pressures have led many men in the city down a dark path terminating in fentanyl addiction, depression, and suicide. Where is this leading and how can we reverse the death spiral?
Mark-to-Market
The three words ripping apart the banking system are mark-to-market. Mark-to-market is a fancy accounting term that means if you had to sell your house or business today, or stock portfolio it’s worth what the buyer (assuming there is one) is willing to pay. In other words, it is ground-level truth for price discovery. After 12 months of Fed rate hikes “a big rightsizing” is hitting real estate, especially commercial property. Something like $450B in commercial mortgages are coming due this year at a time when refinancing loans at massively higher rates is sure to wipe out tenants, landlords and lenders alike (learn more in the video below). When cheap money is abundant everyone is rich on paper until a “credit crunch” crashes sky high valuations back down to earth.
Refinancing means revaluation. The structural foundation of America’s economy is real estate. Real estate anchors the net worth for most households and is the largest asset (or liability) held by banks at any given time. Unwinding decades of mortgage debt (and debts of all kinds) will shatter the livelihoods of average (and some wealthy) Americans. Mark-to-market is an ethos that many – if not most – families, businesses and communities will soon be forced to adopt.
Mark-to-market is an ethos that most families, businesses and communities will soon be forced to adopt.
The materialist pyramid is crumbling. Materialism is what spins the Western wheel in a race to be the richest, the highest-value, and most envied in your social circle, and beyond. Living your best life on Instagram and posting social media updates of daily routines is how you broadcast status and self-worth. Groupthink is key to winning in this domain – do what everyone else does, virtue signal to avoid controversy, “play the game” to climb to the top. What else is there? Binge Robert Green’s 48 Laws of Power to explore the vile canon of this ethos.
As material assets deflate around us our lives will turn upside down (or right side up?) and nihilistic materialism – like Fool’s Gold – will lose its luster. The snaky salesmanship, hyperbolic fluff, and phony marketing schemes that once charmed even the shrewdest executives (See Kevin O'Leary apology for pitching FTX above) will fall on deaf ears, and the real value of our assets: our homes, cars, condos, jobs, and 60:40 Portfolio will pop to the surface like a balloon held underwater. Revaluation will test mainstream values, institutions, and governments that control us. While many inside the corridors of power dread the coming Age of Scarcity it will be liberating for the masses struggling to “keep up with the Joneses.”
Neo-Alphas
Economic stress and backlash from Beta-Tyrants has sparked a mass awakening in search of new leaders who speak harsh truths, espouse fundamentally different values, and offer new direction. Neo-Alphas have emerged to unplug the masses from the Matrix. The leader and led are umbilically tide together, one cannot exist without the other, and contrary to what many fear, this is a perfectly natural phenomenon. We all need guidance to better our lives and escape from hardship so leaders who speak to our innermost thoughts and feelings go viral. Neo-Alphas whisper to the inner masculine, the fire inside most men.
Neo-Alphas whisper to the inner masculine, the fire inside most men.
Dr. Jordan Peterson is a spiritual Neo-Alpha. While Peterson is an egg head, his message and temperament is more shaman than philosopher. Like his intellectual guru Carl Jung, Peterson is what the Buddhists call a Bodhisattva, a mystic guiding destitute men towards healthier relationships with wives and girlfriends and self-improvement towards self-mastery. His books and lectures are templates to help men restore order to their lives and take back control in an age of disempowerment. Peterson’s stalwart opposition to cultural-Marxism aka wokism serves as a rallying cry for men tired of emasculation and desperate for salvation.
Donald Trump is a fiery Neo-Alpha. Peterson speaks to the inner-spirit, Donald Trump channels the Id, the primal brashness of masculine virility. One of his mentors was Norman Vincent Peale who stressed The Power of Positive Thinking and Trump's salesmanship echoes Peale's exuberance. While his politics are polarizing and his message grandiose, it is Trump’s courage and defiance that galvanizes his audience. Like others on this list, Donald Trump has put his life, his family fortune, and personal freedom on the line to fight for what he believes in. Such courage is a rare commodity and captures the essence of the masculine spirit – courage.
Andrew Tate is a rebellious Neo-Alpha. He is brash, offensive, and flashy but also intelligent, capable, and unafraid. Tate’s father and mentor was a chess master who inspired his cunning kick-boxing style. More important, like Trump, his unabashed scorn for the Gerontocracy has put his personal freedom in jeopardy. As we speak, he is under house arrest in Romania and faces potential jail time from authorities acting on behalf of powerful forces arrayed against him. Yet he has stood firm and embraced Islam to get him through hard times. Speaking truth-to-power is always dangerous and more important than ever.
Speaking truth-to-power is always dangerous and more important than ever.
Joe Rogan is a voice of reason and comic relief for young men. Like Tate, his discipline was martial arts, but he also survived the blood sport of stand-up on his way to stardom. Rogan has emerged as a star for his unpretentious openness to the truth. He has stood up to the woke mob who tried to censor him, and championed others (Graham Hancock, Jordan Peterson) facing similar backlash. Rogan has one of the most popular podcasts in the world and his plain spoken, vulgar comedy strongly resonates with a generation raised by helicopter parents.
These men come from varied backgrounds and yet share much in common. Taking stances against compulsory gender pronouns or rebuking transgenderism has come at a heavy personal cost. Jordan Peterson almost died in the hospital a couple years ago. Andrew Tate has been censored, arrested, and viciously attacked for mocking wokism, Covid and Climate change. Donald Trump has been investigated, harangued and his life has been constantly threatened since he announced his presidential bid in 2015. Joe Rogan left YouTube for Spotify and was falsely marred as racist by woke fanatics. These men are still standing, unbroken by the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
The rise of Neo-Alphas is the opening act, more are joining our ranks everyday. (possibly Elon Musk?) There is a saying in investing, “The longer the base, the higher the space.” Before a stock or commodity or cryptocurrency launches into a bull run there are lengthy periods of consolidation when nothing happens, sometimes years or decades. After a long season of hardship, of mounting socio-economic and political pressure, of broken families, toxic relationships and terrible addictions, of nihilistic materialism, men in the city are transformed. We are prepared for the Age of Scarcity and eager for a Neo-Masculinity to steady society on course to a liberated, reformed, and enlightened world.
Like the bamboo tree, men in the city are beginning to sprout. Are you?
