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marmar

(79,032 posts)
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 09:02 AM 16 hrs ago

Don't blame women for men's loneliness. Blame capitalism


Don’t blame women for men’s loneliness. Blame capitalism
There’s a lot of money to be made off angry, isolated men

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published November 17, 2025 6:45AM (EST)


(Salon) Is Sam Altman trying to get men addicted to erotic chatbots in order to make money off them? That’s the strong implication of a recent New York Times op-ed by artificial intelligence researcher Steven Adler. In it, Adler accused the OpenAI CEO of ignoring “clear warning signs of users’ intense emotional attachment” to chatbots that claim to offer romantic intimacy. Instead, Altman’s main product, ChatGPT, is forging ahead with a plan to let the software pretend to be a user’s romantic interest, despite strong evidence that doing so will send “users down mental health spirals.”

....(snip)....

That may sound paranoid, but the grim truth is that this scenario reflects an alarming trend online: An increasing number of influencers, crypto grifters, “pick-up artists” and gambling websites have come to realize that male isolation creates incredible profit opportunities. It’s not just that they are making money off male loneliness. In many cases, capitalist predators are incentivizing young men to abandon the flesh-and-blood world in favor of staying online.

....(snip)....

As Jessica Winter pointed out in a recent New Yorker article about the masculinity crisis, even centrist and liberal men seem to believe the only solution is to accede to the belief “that men should still rank above women in the social hierarchy, just not as much as before.” She’s right that these arguments dehumanize women, who are full human beings and not emotional support animals for men. But it’s also doing men no favors to pin the blame for their problems on women. The fantasy that men can be restored to “provider” status over women isn’t just immoral. It could actually make things worse, as modern women want men to be partners, not a boss with whom they live and have sex.

Instead, it’s time to look at how male loneliness has been monetized by all manner of seedy actors who have every incentive to discourage men from making changes to improve their lives. Men’s ability to adapt to modernity is being stymied by propagandists and grifters, who persuade men to adopt anti-social behavior, because doing so is incredibly profitable. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/11/17/dont-blame-women-for-mens-loneliness-blame-capitalism/




16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Don't blame women for men's loneliness. Blame capitalism (Original Post) marmar 16 hrs ago OP
Blame the way we bring up our men. marble falls 15 hrs ago #1
I grew up in the 1970s/80s and the worst of men were nowhere near as obnoxious as some are today AStern 14 hrs ago #13
I am a man who worked with the public in the 60s and beyond and I can tell it was bad then. Part of the reason is ... marble falls 11 hrs ago #16
Geez, guys. If you want to live out the rest of your life in blissful ecstacy... Girard442 15 hrs ago #2
What is this blasphemy?? OldBaldy1701E 15 hrs ago #6
Or they could maybe...I dunno...be nice to women. Iggo 14 hrs ago #12
The Very Idea! MineralMan 11 hrs ago #15
There's a lot of work Starbeach 15 hrs ago #3
How about they step away from the computer? Ritabert 15 hrs ago #4
That is one of the biggest issues in modern culture. OldBaldy1701E 15 hrs ago #7
The AI... 2naSalit 14 hrs ago #8
OH, definitely! (n/t) OldBaldy1701E 14 hrs ago #10
Good points. Ritabert 14 hrs ago #11
I blame Joe Rogan SocialDemocrat61 15 hrs ago #5
EVERYONE is exploited by our consumer/capitalist society. usonian 14 hrs ago #9
I heard the mirror image DFW 13 hrs ago #14

AStern

(607 posts)
13. I grew up in the 1970s/80s and the worst of men were nowhere near as obnoxious as some are today
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 11:13 AM
14 hrs ago

I think it's the internet/manosphere/4Chan that really helped make this happen.

marble falls

(69,401 posts)
16. I am a man who worked with the public in the 60s and beyond and I can tell it was bad then. Part of the reason is ...
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 02:13 PM
11 hrs ago

... is that a lot of the behaviors common then don't fly now. What is different is how much of that tolerated bad behavior increased in violence.

Guys used to do a lot hitting of the women in their lives and nobody said nothing. Now they murder them, maim them. Men may be hitting less, but they are murdering more.

Girard442

(6,795 posts)
2. Geez, guys. If you want to live out the rest of your life in blissful ecstacy...
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 09:21 AM
15 hrs ago

...there's always fentanyl. How about trying to be a better person who makes the world better too?

Try it. You might like it.

OldBaldy1701E

(9,550 posts)
6. What is this blasphemy??
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 10:00 AM
15 hrs ago

There is way more profit in perpetuating the world as it is!

How dare you suggest such socialistic drivel!!

(Massive sarcasm... )

Iggo

(49,426 posts)
12. Or they could maybe...I dunno...be nice to women.
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 11:09 AM
14 hrs ago

For women to like you, you have to like them first. You know. Get some women friends. Hang around with them. Talk to them. Laugh with them. Cry with them. Take an interest in their lives without trying to figure out how to trick them into having sex with you. (By the way. It’s no trick. You’ll see. It’s amazing!)

To be blunt. If you want women in your lives, include them in your lives.

MineralMan

(150,334 posts)
15. The Very Idea!
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 01:29 PM
11 hrs ago

On the other hand, smart men have recognized this forever, and act accordingly. The rest of the men seem never to get it at all, and continue to behave like assholes.

Starbeach

(271 posts)
3. There's a lot of work
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 09:32 AM
15 hrs ago

to do in reducing male violence. There's no shortage of work if you're looking, guys. We could use the help.

Ritabert

(1,818 posts)
4. How about they step away from the computer?
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 09:40 AM
15 hrs ago

Get outside. Take a class. Join a club they're interested in: hiking, biking, visiting museums, etc. They'll meet people and they'll learn to interact.

OldBaldy1701E

(9,550 posts)
7. That is one of the biggest issues in modern culture.
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 10:06 AM
15 hrs ago

I am not sure how to change it, to be honest.

We kind of let them program us for screens a long time ago. This is just the latest step in their distractions tour.

If we are too busy attacking each other, we won't see what the 'elites' are doing to us. If we are constantly sitting in our houses and being fed shit, we won't get together and realize that it is they who are perpetuating the issues and they who seek to escalate things to insure even more profits.

But yes, women are not to blame for the delusional world that is 'incel life'. Profits are.

There are so many aspects of our bias society that owe their continued existence to profits. There are whole industries that were created and are flourishing thanks to said biases and inequity. Changing them would remove those profitable industries.

So, you know they are not interested in changing a thing.

2naSalit

(98,959 posts)
8. The AI...
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 10:23 AM
14 hrs ago

Love affairs also serve to dehumanize women in the minds of those afflicted with this self gratification device.

SocialDemocrat61

(6,471 posts)
5. I blame Joe Rogan
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 09:53 AM
15 hrs ago

and other similar male influencers. They teach men to be jerks and to think that behavior is acceptable.

usonian

(22,507 posts)
9. EVERYONE is exploited by our consumer/capitalist society.
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 10:28 AM
14 hrs ago

I'd like to give examples, but it's basically "whatever sells", and to preserve the oligarchy, whatever outrages.



What "sells" is mostly in "The Seven Deadly Sins"



Porn? Get Rich Quick schemes? Weapons? Quadruple Hamberders? Hmmmmm.

Without these, what economy?

Anyway, I rant at some length here about being hoodwinked for profit.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1324&pid=4222

Spoiler:

“The Three Poisons, Institutionalized” reflects further on what distinguishes our situation from that of the Buddha. He emphasized the importance of transforming the three unwholesome motivations: greed into generosity, ill will into loving-kindness, delusion into wisdom.Today we also have to address their collective versions: our economic system institutionalizes greed, militarism institutionalizes ill will, and the media institutionalize delusion. Any personal awakening we might have on our cushions remains incomplete until it is supplemented by a “social awakening” and a social response to these institutionalized causes of widespread suffering.


I asked myself, having read about malaise (not our DU user malaise) among young men, and I find the common western notion of projecting/blaming others for one's fears, weaknesses and failures (does that sound familiar? ) an especially toxic failure mode, whereas finding one's inner light and strength, and helping others to help oneself, to be a step to success in life. 🪷

DFW

(59,382 posts)
14. I heard the mirror image
Mon Nov 17, 2025, 11:29 AM
13 hrs ago

Don't blame God for your ills. Blame Liberals. It was some Fox-watching idtiot in Texas, and as long as foolish slogans are in vogue......

For Pete's sake, are we to take this kind of thing seriously? Some Republican farmer loses his wife and his farm and socialism is to blame. If the pooor guiy is a Democrat, then capitalism is to blame? The miery of acute loneliness, if it to be addressed at all, should be addressed by dealing with the cause of said person's loneliness, and not some pre-packaged political formula that is more of a feel-good for the healer than for the afficted. I haveen happily married to a dedicated social worker for decades, and not once has she looked for (or found) solutions to helping her cases in political sloganeering. I can imagine a scene--

Herr Müller, what is wrong? You seem utterly depressed!"

"My wife divorced me two years ago. I haven't met anyone new. My business is not doing well. I just want a partner to share my life with me."

"Well, we'll get to work on that right now! Cheer up! Let's go tax the rich and you'll feel much better!"

Simplistic solutions offered for complex problems usually do not solve anything, and insult the sufferer. I have lived for many decades with a woman who has spent her whole professional life learning just that. I'd rather not go there..

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