Andrew Huberman· PhD
So the problem with all this social media stuff is not that it's wrong. I work with a lot of incelss. I work with a lot of beta males. It's not that they're wrong. It's that they're woefully incomplete. They haven't done a study of the whole literature. Sure, if you're more attractive, it is easier to get dates. Here's the scariest statistic. Drive for muscularity is inversely correlated with length of relationship. Right? So, the more that if you're watching social media and you're like, I need to be pumped. I want to be pumped. I want to be pumped. I want to be pumped. That's what drives people away. It's hard to have a relationship with with that kind of person. So, by all means, get muscular, but want it less, which is really interesting because what I see is people wanting it more like looks maxing. I want this. I want this. I want this. >> So, depp prioritize it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's so interesting. I mean the the drive and vision thing is um and purpose thing is is so interesting because uh you know this is one thing where I'm not saying everyone should go into science but in science you you you apprentice yourself to somebody else and then to somebody else as a postoc and then eventually whether or not you get to succeed or not as an independent scientist is entirely based not on what you did that's just proof of an ability right it's based on your vision like is there something exciting and that's what that's what we joke in in science like every year there's a prom prom king and a prom queen on the shop on the job market and it's the person who has the most interesting and compelling vision. That's who you're hiring and yes, they tend to have been successful in the past. You need that, but that's necessary but not sufficient. It's so important that that you're raising this. Do you think that young men are indeed falling behind in terms of We hear this all the time that they're falling behind their age match peers that are women in terms of just sort of life progression? >> Oh, absolutely. I mean there's no I I think there's no question of that. So I I forget if it was 41% of college graduates are are men now. Um so so I I think like the it it's really lopsided. I think in 1975 the average age of marriage for a man was 23.8 and now it's 30.8. It's not average median. So half of the people are actually older than that. for women it was 21.1 to 28.4. >> People will make um financial arguments around that. I I see that a lot. People will say, "Well, it's very expensive to, you know, to be able to raise a family, etc." That's that's often what you hear, at least in California. People say that they're waiting because they need to establish a certain level of income. Is that is that true? >> Sure. I I mean, I think that's what people are subjectively feeling. 50% of people under the age of adults under the age of 30 live with their parents now. I forget what the the statistic used to be like 20 years ago. So we are absolutely seeing like economic difficulties. So every everything is slowing down right that and but I I think that there is the biggest difference is as a society men are the one group of people that we expect to help themselves. So if you look at like and and there's like like I'm not I'm not saying women don't deserve help. So, you know, there's some examples of this that I think are not great. So, there are homeless shelters for every gender and then there are homeless shelters for women. There only there are no male only homeless shelters. I think that's a good example of you don't need a male only homeless shelter because that's an example of like women who are in every all gender homeless shelters are really way more unsafe than if they're on their own. So, like that's an example of like I don't think everything should be equal between all genders. But I think the challenge is that you know if you just talk to men or if you talk about men there are many things that will say okay like the patriarchy is harmful to both men and women fair enough but like what are we going to do society systemically to support the men who are struggling. So there aren't even though only 41% of people who graduate from college are men there the number of male only scholarships is like really small. So as a society it's really interesting. I think we're we're not really supporting men in the way that we need to. Now, a lot