Algorithms Monetize Isolation

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"I worry that at the hands of this godlike technology regulated by paleolithic instincts and medieval institutions, that we're evolving a new species of asocial, asexual males." - Scott Galloway

Scott Galloway walks Lewis through a crisis most people can sense but few can articulate. Sixty-three percent of men under thirty aren't even attempting to date anymore. One in seven young men are NEETs, neither working nor studying nor training for anything, just existing alone with screens. Galloway explains how we got here with uncomfortable precision. Online dating condensed human worth into brutal metrics like "six feet, six figures," which describes exactly two percent of available men. Meanwhile, every traditional venue where men could demonstrate excellence over time has evaporated. They're not going to church, not showing up to offices, not in classrooms where someone might notice they're funny, kind, outstanding at what they do. The algorithms figured out they can monetize every second they keep a young man staring at a screen instead of living in the actual world, and young men are uniquely vulnerable to this because of biology, less developed impulse control, higher susceptibility to dopamine addiction. Why face the rejection and effort of making friends when Reddit offers connection without risk? Why navigate workplace politics when you can trade crypto from your bedroom? Why pursue romance when porn is right there?

Galloway isn't offering easy solutions because there aren't any yet. He's diagnosing something that should terrify us. Forty percent of the S&P 500 by market value is now AI-related companies whose algorithms, not through malice but through optimization, have figured out how to sequester young men from their relationships and monetize that isolation. Women, celebrated for walking away at the first red flag and conditioned to demand perfection, are simultaneously dealing with a dating pool that's shrinking not because men are unworthy but because they've stopped showing up entirely. This isn't about blame. It's about understanding that trillion-dollar economic incentives are arrayed against human connection, and young men, through a combination of biological vulnerability and vanishing social infrastructure, are losing that fight. Galloway predicts you'll start visibly noticing fewer young men at malls, events, anywhere public. They're going to be alone in rooms with screens, and we're all going to live with the consequences of that.

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