I recently got flooded by all kinds of videos by or about that Andrew Tate guy who is supposed to be controversial. I watched lots of it, mostly because I have an instinctive dislike for the guy and I wanted to get to the bottom of that, since my dislike obviously doesn’t have anything to do with the things he is actually saying, which are both true and so self-evident one really has to wonder about the nature of the world we live in if it’s controversial that 2+2=4, the sky is blue and rocks are hard.

Also, I don’t know whether I dislike the actual person or a persona he’s putting on for the sake of the audience; there are contradictions there, so I got interested enough in the guy to watch a lot of his stuff.

Recently, he got arrested in Romania on what looks like fabricated charges, which appears only to have increased both his fame and the amount of his stuff in my YouTube feed, so I had enough material to articulate my opinion, so here it is.

He is a pashavi, which is what yoga and tantra would call a “physical” type of a human, who is for all intents and purposes a body only, and perceives only the physical world. I heard that Gnostics also have some classification, into physical, intellectual and spiritual types, but Gnosticism is not my thing so I am not too familiar with its nuances – in any case, you can probably understand what I’m trying to say. The guy thinks he figured out the rules, he’s winning the game, and all men want to be him, and all women want to fuck him. That part is actually funny; what I find annoying is the “if you have it, flaunt it” attitude (money, houses, cars), which I perceive as crass, rude and oozing hubris. The reason why I think that is obvious from what happened to him – someone in the top echelons of politics or intelligence agencies simply pressured the Romanians to put him in jail, and this suddenly put him in a position where all the things he was so proud of were suddenly of very little use. Basically, I find it very annoying when someone who is basically a slave flaunts “status symbols”. Conversely, one of the most impressive status symbols I’ve seen is the fact that Mahavatar Babaji from Yogananda’s “Autobiography of a Yogi” is described as being dressed in a simple piece of cloth and owning only that cloth and a staff. Why is that impressive, you’ll ask? It’s impressive because he can materialise a huge palace or any other object if it’s needed to give some student a lesson, he travels by teleportation and can basically do whatever he wants. The minimalist appearance is in fact the ultimate statement of power; basically, compared to him, an expensive car is merely compensation for not being to move quickly on your own, so you need an expensive wheelchair. An aeroplane is just evidence you can’t fly on your own. A house is a thing weak beings use since they are otherwise harmed by so many things. When someone flaunts signs of human weakness and limitation as status symbols, it strikes me as a sign of idiocy. Having the best, jewel-encrusted wheelchair still makes you a cripple. Just have your normal wheelchair, it’s actually less pathetic.

What kind of status symbols make sense? Something that has something to do with your accomplishments – for instance, the protagonist of Carl Sagan’s book “Contact” wearing improvised jewellery made from throwaway synthetic rubies she made when designing MASERs for amplifying radio signals from the Arecibo telescope. The other example is Tim Cook wearing an Apple Watch, or Mate Rimac driving a “Nevera” to his wedding, or Richard Feynman drawing Feynman diagrams on his van, or the guy who designed the Mars rover having a “my second vehicle is a Mars rover” bumper sticker. What did that Tate dude do to make his money? He’s pimping out cam whores. Literally, he whored out his girlfriends to entertain perverts on the Internet for money for him. I would understand if Elon Musk or Mate Rimac wanted to flaunt their accomplishments; at least Rimac acquired Bugatti the right way. Just buying one because you can afford the cost is a second-rate accomplishment. Driving one because you own the company would be another matter entirely. That, BTW, is also the reason why I feel contempt for all those Arab petroleum billionaires who flaunt their wealth around, and their only virtue is being born at the place where the black stuff squirts from the sand, and somebody is prepared to pay huge money for it, and they don’t think it’s ethical to just take it from you and have you enslaved, although they easily could.

What do I consider to be proper status symbols? The things that can never be taken away from you. The things that show pride in your personal accomplishments – a doctorate in physics, a Nobel prize, a technological artefact that improved the world and made you rich, a medal of honour, a scar you earned by doing something virtuous, a monument commemorating your heroic death, praise from the people you helped. Pimping out your girlfriends and buying a Bugatti to show off your great success? Go fuck yourself. You know whom I admire? I’ll tell you a story. A Russian fighter-bomber pilot, a squadron commander, got shot down in Syria fighting ISIS. His wingman was ordered to return to base immediately because of enemy fire from the ground. He disregarded the order and stayed in the air, providing air support to his commander, under enemy fire, until he saw that his commander died taking out himself and the surrounding terrorists with a hand grenade rather than be taken alive, and he himself ran out of fuel and actually had to return to base. No Bugatti, no 300M dollars, no yacht, no private jet, no whores.

I watched a short video clip where Jordan Peterson answers a young woman’s question about “toxic masculinity”, and it turned out that she couldn’t even define the thing, at least when asked about the differences compared to toxic humanity or toxic femininity. Dr. Peterson then proceeded to make a statement that would have one believe that “toxic masculinity” is just one of those liberal leftist phrases that are poorly defined and are in fact meant to target positive traits by being over-generalized, for instances purporting to target “toxic” masculinity, and in fact targetting masculinity as such.

Without necessarily disagreeing with his thinking in regard to this, I immediately thought that I actually do perceive toxic masculinity, and I think I could cite enough examples to be able to come up with a generalised enough definition. So, let me cite examples.

I’ve seen men starting to act like fools when they are around other men. Acting dumber and speaking in a more coarse and simplified language, typical of the lower social classes, usually in deeper voice, and talking in ways that accentuate the assumed consensus with other males. Also, talking about generically “masculine” topics, such as football or other generally popular sports, about cars, construction equipment and building houses, and consuming alcohol in amounts significantly greater than they would consume normally. Furthermore, displaying an aggressive, overtly-masculine stance, where you need to look tough and get into fights. Women are discussed with a dismissive, detached attitude, where the goal is to fuck them and increase the counter, and a wife’s place is in the kitchen, and so on; such an individual will treat even his wife worse when he’s around his male friends. Basically, the point of having sex with a woman is to increase your social standing among men, and the ideal wife is a combination of a cook, a house maid and a whore. Seeing your wife as a friend and a partner, and someone you talk to about sophisticated ideas, would be ridiculed in those circles. Trying to appear less intellectual, simpler and more “down to earth”, because that’s how men are supposed to be. Frowning upon any display of vulnerability and gentleness. Constantly poking other men and trying to establish hierarchies by either bullying someone, or sucking up to the perceived leader by going along with his nasty shit. Trying to think in wolf-pack hierarchies of either being an “alpha” or a “beta”, and a “true man should be an alpha”.

I think we have enough of a pattern here to attempt a definition; toxic masculinity is appropriation of patterns of behaviour that are perceived as stereotypically masculine to the point of caricature, in order for an inherently insecure individual to find acceptance and belonging in male company, even when those patterns of behaviour go against his personal choices manifested in his private life.

So, it is quite obvious that I find this pattern of behaviour objectionable, and let me tell you why. I find it objectionable because it reeks of weakness. It is all about making a show of strength because you are weak and you don’t have the courage to calmly stand behind your personal choices and defend them even if they go against what “everybody else” believes. It’s about being afraid of the consequences of not fitting into a group, so you make compromises that go against your personal beliefs and choices to the point where you feel humiliated and worthless afterwards. It’s about appearance over substance. Also, it’s a reduction to a pattern typical for men of lower social standing, and this is not something one should aspire to. If you think you have to reduce yourself in order to fit somewhere, you are probably trying to fit into a wrong group.

It seems we have a robust definition of toxic masculinity, but it is so obviously an aberration that we must also define healthy masculinity in order to get a clearer picture.

Confidence. Competence. A man should be confident enough of himself to persist in his personal choices and behaviour regardless of the preferences and beliefs of a group. His confidence and composure will in fact make others want to follow and emulate him, rather than him having to conform to the beliefs and actions of others. If he doesn’t belong to some established social group or a pattern, he will shrug and leave, and it is very likely that a new group or a pattern will start to form around him, simply because he creates an aura of coherent stability around himself, and if this is based on competence, it has great persuasive power, because other competent people will always prefer the company based on competence and calm confidence, to some vacuous concept such as hanging out at a bar and talking about football and getting into fights when drunk. Such a man will see a woman as a valuable person and talk to her seriously and directly; if he thinks she is wrong, he will clearly state this and show her the errors in her thinking, instead of being either dismissive of her and acting as if trying to score points against her to impress other men, or being so entranced by her femaleness that he would swallow any kind of nonsense she spouts. His attitude towards a woman he likes is “I know the goal, and if you trust me, I will lead you there and take care of you”. He is confident enough to constantly learn, instead of trying to pretend to know it all; mistakes are immediately acknowledged and corrected. Weakness is not tolerated, but weakness is defined as insufficient moral and spiritual strength to adhere to the right goals, principles and ideas. If he needs to change the course, or persist on the current course, he will think about this from the position of higher values and higher good, make a choice and then implement it. He’s not scared of appearing indecisive, of changing course, or of persisting until death. He’s scared of not seeing what the right thing to do is, because that’s what a man is supposed to do – see what the right thing is, and then do it; also, cooperate with others who want to achieve worthy goals, and oppose those who are disruptive, who want to impose unworthy goals and ideas, and are of lowly character. Follow God and the right principles and ideas, and lead and protect your wife and children first, and, as an extension into a wider society, show such good example of virtue, proper spiritual orientation, kindness and strength, that others would want to follow your good example and cooperate with you in creating a wider society based on such virtuous principles. Be a barrier of force between good principles and good people who chose them, and predatory seducers and evil ones who want to lead them astray. Attempt to raise the level of every social interaction by demonstrating a good example of kind humour and intelligence. Ignore bad ideas and people of lowly character, and steer the direction of a conversation towards something of value. If your company shows resistance to goodness and virtue, leave. If you see something admirable, follow it.

So, there you go, it wasn’t that hard.

I know most people will read my previous article and think they can see a realistic scenario for surviving without electricity. Let me see:

1. Going completely pre-industrial. Have a farm, grow livestock, staples and vegetables, use animal waste and compost as fertiliser. Use wind or water to power a mill. Manage a forest as a sustainable source of fuel for the winter. Great plan, it would work, until hungry, desperate, violent and armed people from the cities come and take your farm. If you resist they kill you, if you don’t resist they make you their slave, and since there’s lots of them, the farm suddenly can’t produce enough to sustain all of them. Best case scenario, they repeat the dark ages feudalism scenario and occupy several farms on a territory, and take 10% of produce from each. This is long-term sustainable, but it would take lots of trial and error until they get there. Let’s say you were very “lucky” and you get to live as a serf.

2. Going sustainable high-tech. Have a solar power plant on your farm, produce biodiesel for your tractor, grow animals, staples and vegetables. Great plan, and it would work, until something breaks down and there are no spare parts; also, everything from 1. applies and you are eventually found by an armed gang and either killed or enslaved.

3. Let’s say you create/live in a sustainable enclave, or you are seriously lucky and your community can control a power plant (hydroelectric or nuclear) that can work sustainably for decades. You also have functional agriculture and limited industry. Good for you. Now you’re the prime target for everybody else in the world who wants what you have. You defend it, and the armed conflict destroys the assets and now nobody has them; everybody dies. Or you don’t defend them and somebody else takes over, and you are either enslaved, killed or exiled.

4. You have an underground shelter stocked with food, have access to a filtered water source or huge tanks of water, have some sort of a power generator that can go for decades (let’s say it’s hydroelectric, powered by a subterranean water flow). Nobody knows you’re there, and you don’t know what’s outside. You possibly use your underground facility as a base for conducting raids on the surface, to replenish your supplies. Congratulation, you became a Morlock.

5. Join an armed gang that robs, kills and enslaves people. The problem is, you turn into a predatory beast and sacrifice virtue for survival. Not the best tradeoff to make, in my opinion.

6. Form an alliance with farmers, where you protect them with weapons and they feed you. Alternatively, the farmers form a wider alliance and feed a protective paramilitary force that’s known and trusted. Joining such a community is a good option, if they will take you, but the problem is that they will most likely shoot outsiders on sight.

7. You have an unsustainable, but substantial cache of supplies. You wait for things to improve. They don’t. Your supplies either run out, or attract robbers.

8. You belong to some native community that traditionally survives off the land in some rainforest, desert or wasteland, where trained traditional people can live off the land, but the resources are so shitty nobody else would find it worthwhile to fight over. The problem is, if you don’t live like this now, it won’t happen.

So, this is my problem with preparing for apocalyptic scenarios: when I apply game theory to them, they all either turn into dead ends, or shitty life that’s not worth living. All the prepping scenarios where you can do something constructive are those that assume a local, contained disaster where the rest of the world is fine and help will eventually come, or a disaster that degrades the civilisation, but everything more-less manages to limp along afterwards, and improves after a while.