Excess Males (Crossposted from Big Balkan Family)

 There are about three prevailing theories for what causes war and conflict. The number one is poverty; number two is the cost of reproduction; and number three is an overproduction of elites competing for the same number of jobs.  For the final ones, there are too many undergraduate educated young adults, MBA's, lawyers, and PhD's all fighting for the same limited amount of elite positions. 

All of these can overlap. A good example is the current situation in the United States. People became poor during the Great Recession and the coronavirus lockdowns, the cost of education, healthcare, and housing have delayed the age of marriage which has reduced reproductive outcomes such as births, and there are too many lawyers and PhD's fighting for the same jobs such as adjunct professors, government jobs, and law office interns. This is why we have so many mass shootings, protests, riots, and events such as the storming of the Capitol on January 6th. Young men cannot provide the way the Baby Boomers did, young men are not having sex or making the attachments that they need to, and they are not making enough money.

In Nigeria a similar situation occurs. People are poor due to corruption, the lowering levels of Lake Chad, and the lack of development in the North. Bride prices are large (up to $50,000), and show no sign of stopping growth. There are too many elites fighting for the same jobs. That is why you have terrorist organizations such s Boko Haram. They provide jobs, stability, and intervene in reducing the costs of marriage. They are in effect a quasi-government providing an outlet to the chthonic sexual and violent desires of young men. 

One final example is China. China, due to the One-Child Policy and the preference for males in society to carry on the family name, has seen an overproduction of males. The best way to get rid of said males and by extension overproduced elites is to go to war against an external enemy so they do not feel constrained to fight in a revolution against their home government. Changing the government to enhance reproductive opportunities is an old strategy for what Professor Scott Galloway calls "young, broke males." It is also why during both the American Civil War and the recent Iraqi War, both were accompanied by a large demographic boon of 11-16 year old hormonally charged young men looking for a leader and a way to channel their inner aggression. This is the final clincher in a civil conflict according to an Air Force study that I would love to have released to me, declassified of course!

https://www.profgalloway.com/threats/

Mother Nature for this reason tends to allow for the spontaneous abortion of males more frequently than females. Excess males do not produce more children, but the limiting resource in any population is the number of wombs. 

With this data in mind, a recent study suggests that young men are more likely to commit suicide so that they can change the undesirable political and socioeconomic circumstances they find themselves in. When I drafted this, the study was easy to find. Now I cannot find the essay. But I think this makes more sense on why mass shootings and suicides are increasing. Young men can't provide, young men cannot find outlets for sex and reproduction, and they cannot make as much as they used to. These suicides and attacks are a signal that multiple factors need to change.

As someone who has walked down this road to a certain extent, I can tell you that society does focus too much on having pre-marital sex, or in cultures like mine that do not that focus on making out with a girl by age 18 as a marker of manhood, and making young men conform to this, is another cause worth considering.

https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mass-shootings.html