 Well, we are filming in Skopje and yesterday we were roaming the streets of Skopje and you said look at this You know in the 90s you you would be able to pass here There were so many people having having a coffee having having a glass of wine Talking to each other now. There's they're sitting at home with Netflix and the question is do we need others? Do we still need others or a self-sufficient atomization the future? It's always good to start with reality. It's a habit that I have acquired over the years, right? So for example the latest statistics according to Pew Center, which is the major pollster in the United States the latest statistics In the United States they are that 31% of all adults are lifelong singles Life long singles never ever have never ever had never ever would have a relationship Another 15 to 21% depending on the age group, etc. are in between relationships, which are shorter than six months So we are talking about half the adult population who are alone and The majority of them seem to be alone by choice But when we study them actually when we interview them we discover that They are what we call ego ego dystonic or unhappy. They're not happy They have very high rates of anxiety very high rates of depression And so on and so forth. So it's not a happy state and yet they are alone they remain alone and so What you mean is they're not happy being alone. This is what what you mean because I don't know whether It's possible to measure how happy are people who are not alone We do that's precisely it We ask people who are not alone and people who are alone Okay, and the rates of anxiety depression and substance abuse among people who are alone are much higher We tend to attribute it to the fact that they're alone although when we ask them a Are you unhappy because you're alone? They will say no. They say no 2.2 they prefer career 2.2 more times than to be with someone So today in in the adult population in the United States People have a preference for having a thriving career Which is 2.2 times higher than a preference for being in a relationship In other words, the relationships are no longer in vogue They're no longer in fashion So to speak this is the United States the numbers are actually even worse in Italy I'm sure in other countries such as you mentioned Italy, but definitely Japan Scandinavia the United Kingdom United States still have has a massive immigrant population Which skews the results changes results. Yes, Canada for example is in much worse shape so We see a pandemic of loneliness or Shall I say a pandemic of aloneness now? What's the difference between aloneness and loneliness aloneness is a state of being? Yes, loneliness is a state of mind of mind. Yes, and loneliness Sometimes is the reaction to being alone, but not always some people are alone and very they're very happy They don't feel lonely. Okay, so what are the reasons for this and I isolated ten reasons, of course I am writing them down number one is technological self-sufficiency We simply don't need other people anymore. We can do everything from home at home This will become even more true with the introduction of the metaverse Because you'll be able to go to work in the metaverse You'll be able to have sex in the metaverse you buy fashion in the metaverse You will order your pizza through the metaverse and so on so forth your need and dependency on other people is Alas again like I asked you in the program about the metaverse will the pizza be virtual No, you will order real pizza, but you will do it through the metaverse So you and you will go to work in the metaverse your company and of course even today before the metaverse You can do that as well. You can they bring you your grocery That's the pizza thing and they bring you home But you will go to work in the metaverse your your company will have a virtual office in the metaverse Each of your co-workers will have an avatar and all your avatars will meet in the virtual office You will not go to a physical office ever avatar is like an image of image representation icon Yeah, not a hologram or something not not not a real picture of you, but something representing you now in the future Of course the avatar could be you like a fit picture of you or an animated version of you or or really you projected onto the the virtual office but You will have sex through the through the you will buy fashion you'll do everything through the so Okay, this is logical self-sufficient. This is tech next hollowing out of functions that used to be reserved to Units comprising multiple people. So for example the family The family used to provide only only 50 years ago 60 years ago The family used to brought to provide many functions Education was inside the family Healthcare healthcare was provided by the family people died in the family unit People gave birth in the family all these functions were Forced people to be together They needed to have a family and definitely an extended family in order to educate their children Bring them to the world take care of of health take care of old people seniors etc But today all these functions are outsourced all these functions come from the outside They don't come from the family you die in a hospital You give birth in a hospital your children are educated in a school or if they are very young They go to daycare. So the family was hollowed out. It has no no functions left So there's no need for a family and indeed 43 percent of children in industrialized nations Grow without a family. They grow in what we call single parent households So they don't have a 40 43 percent. Wow half of all children grow in In households with one parent and a majority of these single parents are women There's no need anymore for a family or a community because all these functions have been distributed and dispersed and are provided by suppliers simple Next is overcrowding Can you give me my phone? You can give me my phone next is overcrowding now. There's a difference between that's not my phone. It's my phone Thank you. There's a thank you Elvis. There's a difference between overcrowding and overpopulation People confuse it overpopulation is a global phenomenon. It's when we have too many people On the planet and therefore they consume the resources of the planet to the point of ruining the planet That's overpopulation overpopulation used to be used to be a problem Today we have a problem of underpopulation. I know it sounds bizarre on the globe Yes on the level of the globe. I know it sounds bizarre It does because we have grown from when I was born there were three billion and one is eight billion Right. So how come there's an underpopulation? The reason I'm saying this is that a sizable chunk of the global population is over the age of 65 So we have a shortage of 200 million children We don't have we we have an overpopulation of old people, right and an underpopulation of young people Consequently in the majority of industrialized and developing nations We are under the replacement rate. In other words more people are dying than being born Okay, and the population is declining That is true even in Russia even in China even in South Korea, etc. Which is good news for the globe. No, it's not good news for a good because because the for example We're gonna have a major economic crisis their pension schemes depend crucially on contribution by young people The young generation on on on the on the shoulders of the young generation Yeah, well will lie like a yoke Yeah, the the pension Sums of all we're gonna have an inverted pyramid where we're you know There's a very big layer of old people who require health care require pensions require and a very thin base of young people Who will be slaves will will actually work all the all the time to to support the old people That is unsustainable to create social unrest. It will be a huge mess. I'm convinced it will cause revolutions and so on You saw this conflict between generations in covid during the time of covid young people were blaming old people For all the restrictions and so on. They say why do we have to protect here old people? I mean yes, of course on the family level level. They they honor their elders, but But you're right. So I want to read to you But there is a problem of overcrowding Overcrowding is when we compress a huge number of people into a very small area of land And so we we create megalopolis is with 20 million people and more and there's already 10 of them Yes, and there's hundreds with 10 million and more and we have thousands of 5 million and more so we compress millions of people we were in London recently and the tube in London is Unbelievable so we have a situation of overcrowding now in in the 60s. There was a guy called Calhoun, of course And Calhoun conducted conducted experiments with rats and mice It was known as the rat utopia experiments or rat colony experiment But it's wrong because he conducted it with rats and then he conducted it with mice Which by the way have nothing in common people think they have a lot in common I thought they have nothing to do totally two different genera and I want to read to you the outcomes of his experiments what he did He compressed he put a huge number of rats in a very tiny colony a very tiny space Exactly like people in a city We put a huge number of people in a small city in a small space This is what happened to the rats when he overcrowded them Many I'm reading from his article Many female rats were unable to carry pregnancy to full term or to survive delivery of their litters if they did And even greater number after successfully giving birth fell short in their maternal functions among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic overactivity To a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge only to eat Drink and move about and only when other members of the community were asleep So they avoided each other they isolated themselves. They didn't want any contact The social organization of the animals showed equal disruption The common source of these disturbances Became most dramatically apparent in the populations of our first series of three experiments in which we observed the development of what we called the behavioral sink Sink like synchrony sink like all sink like a sink water sink The animals would crowd together in greatest number in one of the four Interconnecting pens in which the colony was maintained as many as 60 of the 80 rats in each Experimental experimental population would assemble in one pen during periods of feeding individual rats would rarely eat Except in Except when not in the company of other rats as a as a result Extreme population densities developed in the pen Leaving others sparse populations. So what is trying to say to cut along social when you compress when you put too many Organisms in a confined space They begin to dysfunction. They become crazy. They become violent. They become aggressive They can't even deliver babies even mothers are not mothers all all the so-called natural instincts disintegrate and Finally Everyone begins to avoid everyone else They go out to eat only when everyone else is asleep and When they go to eat they try to avoid everyone and because they try to avoid everyone They all of them end up in one of the four pens because they're running away from the others But all of them are running away to the same place so they end up in a in a crowd So this creates crowd mentality on the one hand and total isolation on the other That's exactly the picture of today's cities Exactly we have mob mobs You know Populistic dangerous nationalistic mobs on the one hand in total isolation and atomization on the other The next reason that's the fourth. That's the second the third. No, no, no, we had we had tech technology technology Hollowing yes, and then we had overcrowding overcrowding. That's a third. Okay. Now now comes the fourth. Okay Collapsology the fourth is known as colapsology. It is the study of societal collapse It's a new field. It's a new field. It was first described in 1988 by Tainter It's a new field that describes how societies collapse on themselves implode It is based partly on the work of Emil Dukheim and Hawkeimer and so on They they called it anomy they said that there are societies and nomic societies This is a sign almost means no no law exactly no no no norms Norma no normative society societies where there are no as you said no laws no no rules No more is no regulation or nothing no compass no guide Guidance as to how to behave so our societies are collapsing. They're anomic. There's no question about it. How do we know? suicide rates Dukheim predicted 110 years ago that anomic societies would increase the proof of the padding Would be an increase in depression anxiety and ultimately suicide now We see massive a massive explosion in the rates of depression and anxiety exactly as Dukheim had predicted Anxiety among people under age 25 and people over age 65 Anxiety is up 500% depression is up 300% suicide rates Among certain age groups is up 40% This is these are sure signs of societal collapse and anomy in Societal collapse and anomy There's a sense of unsafety lack of safety is there no rules anyone can do anything to you so people avoid each other They isolate themselves. It's another reason. The next reason is We are gradually coming to realize that being alone is Actually the preferred state people actually prefer to be alone if if all their needs are met So as long as you are technologically self-sufficient and you can call the pizza guy delivery to deliver it to your pizza You would rather not go out to the pizza to Pizza Hut Sam Williams when you say alone. You mean alone. I'm not a nucleus of of say a couple a couple We are beginning to discover to our shock that I was totalist. I was total Was completely wrong and I started said that men is a zone political Political animal and actually there's a wrong translation actually should be a social animal. So And I was totally was right for his environment people were dependent on each other you had to grow food and Yes, so people was Families were extended farmer. Yeah, society farming society So we were right for his period, but today there's no more need for other people and we discovered it when there's no more need for other People people actually prefer to be alone Now why do they prefer to be alone? That's the key question. The first reason is what we call compensatory under stimulation and I'll try to explain this concept When we expose people To too many stimuli too much stimulation They shut off for instance in the experience with the rats in the mice. Yes But in our case for instance the internet for instance Netflix or HBO for instance the smartphone We according to Alvin Toffler in 1970 in 1970 when he wrote the book future shock and then later in 1983 the sequel the future wave even then the third way even then In the third way even then Toffler said even then he said that in a single day in the life of a modern person He has more experiences than his forefathers had in a lifetime Even then that was 1970. Yes. There was 1970 since then The amount of information that a typical human being is exposed to a Typical human being with a smartphone and the television set and a computer is exposed to went up 95 times since Toffler Imagine in other words in a single day. Yes, if I put the two together a lifetime We have 95 lifetimes of our four single day in a single day Of course, this is over stimulation. No, we know from experiments not good We know from experiments that when we expose any organisms, I mean mice rats monkeys You name it when we expose organisms to over stimulation. They shut off and They they freeze They they stop they play dead. It's like a deer with the coming headlights. He plays dead. He freezes. So We have so this is called compensatory under stimulation We're trying to reduce the stimuli and this is the heading which is one of the boons of being alone Yes, when you're alone, you have less stimulation. Okay, because you're not exposed to other people So you're trying to compensate. We have a lot of stimulation from the internet from Netflix Okay, then I will not meet Ben again. I will cut off these stimulus. I will reduce my stimulation So the next thing is Stupid people socialize much more than clever people It's an unfortunate fact Established in numerous studies including lately in the British Journal of psychology. There's an article We by now have established clearly that there is a strong correlation between IQ and sociability The higher your IQ the less sociable you are Sociable, I don't mean that you socialize with like-minded people and you talk to them and Sociability means just to spend time for small talk and have a drink and go sleep a little and so on this kind of Sociability not goal oriented sociability if you and I hang out We are not wasting time. We are talking about science. We are talking about philosophy exactly. That's not social functions That's not but if you are and I hang out and we have a glass of wine And we just go sleep or just look at birds flying or whatever. That's socializing People with higher IQ socialize less. Okay. Now. Here's what happened counter-intuitively IQ levels have risen Risen actually in the past in the past 100 years they had yes in the past hundred years. There's been a rise of about 20 IQ points on average Wow, and levels of education have risen There are three times More college graduates than in the 1950s So people are more educated and they have higher IQs That makes them less sociable But there is an even more pernicious phenomenon while the majority of people are More educated and more intelligent the stupid took over Stupid people enabled by technology Because stupid people evaluate risks less well than intelligent people they took more risks Also, they are more foolhardy. The foolhardy means you take risks. Yes, exactly It was almost Totology, yes, they are more foolhardy exactly to take more risks. So they took over We ended up in a situation where the stupid ruled the world control everything and The intelligent the educated are actually suppressed. It's true And they're avoiding the world. They're avoiding reality. Anyhow, they have a tendency to avoid because they're intelligent But they have now added the incentive to avoid Because they will come against stupid people all the time This is called by the way the savannah theory of happiness if you want to look it up later savannah theory of happiness The next reason I'm giving you reasons why people all these are reasons and why people isolate are Subtopics of the boon of being alone. Yes, why people eyes? Yes, the next reason is Many many more people are traumatized than before Don't forget that in the past hundred and fifty years We have gone through seven pandemics two world wars The disintegration of all social institutions including the family for example divorce rates shot up five times Isms isms that collapsed isms of course fascism communism Etc. All the social experiments have collapsed even the democratic socialism even that is an under siege So many many more people are traumatized than ever before ever before I think personally It's the worst period in human history, and I know human history. Well, it's true that in the 14th century. There was the black death But Okay, so everyone around you was dying, but you still had your family you still had the church You still had the feudal lord. You still had the king You still had a rigid hierarchical structured society in which you could fit yourself and find your place In other words, all the support networks were intact Actually, there was no enemy. No enemy. You went through an exceedingly difficult period with the black death Because half of everyone died But you as an individual you were strongly embedded in a network of support which kept you alive and well mentally This is not the case today. We don't have the black death. Although covid was bad enough We don't have the black death, but we don't have any anything to hold us We don't have a family. We don't have a community. We don't have church. We don't trust the state We don't trust science. We don't we don't I mean it's a mess. We don't have anything any situation going on too Nothing. We are all alone. You're on your own You cope. It's a jungle. I mean you cope all of us. It's interesting that being alone. You prefer to be alone Because what's the alternative? You have no alternative It's precisely what I'm saying in the 14th century. I go go to the church to talk to the priest if he was if he was still alive But today I have no alternative who like so Post-traumatic condition today is very prevalent and we know from psychology That people after trauma Isolate themselves they tend to isolate they lick their wounds so to speak. It's like dogs Have you ever watched dogs when a dog is sick? He doesn't seek other dogs. No, it goes under a bush. Yes I was under a bush as well. I remember the cat so post-traumatic condition next thing is reaction to extreme uncertainty The environment today Economically financially Emotionally physically any dimension imaginable is uncertain and the uncertainty is maximum Maximum Futurologies never had the worst time is very difficult to predict the future We know that when people are exposed not only people excuse me organisms are exposed to extreme uncertainty They react in two ways They freeze or they fly away run away. Well, we know that It's called fight fight fight fight flight freeze But fight is when you have certainty, right when you have a tiger you have There's no uncertainty there. There's a tiger. There's a tiger when you don't know if a tiger is coming You actually freeze or run away So the problem is we don't know if the tiger is coming It's not that we are confronted with it and you don't know what is coming You don't know if it's a tiger. It's a tiger or for example, some acne. She's much worse Finally the last reason is I've given you quite a few And this this is the cutting edge of thinking about loneliness because I mentioned all the most recent Disciplines the deal with it and the last reason is a rise not rise What am I talking about supernova of depression anxiety? Including social anxiety we Know that people with depression and anxiety avoid avoid other people It's a given when you're depressed you want to stay in bed. You don't want to see anyone When you are you don't want anything you don't want anything don't want you don't want exactly a good definition of depression depression is a Collapse of the wheel. Yes, exactly and unwilling and So we know that and today a Shocking 35% of the adult population That's that's one of every three Have been officially diagnosed with major depression and anxiety disorders Shocking number used to be three percent Is to be three percent in the 70s 60s, sorry 70s it went up a bit But even in 1980 it was 15% Today, it's 35% These people out of the market because they have depression Lasting they want is to socialize in the bar. Yeah, we lost him They need a miracle one of the main reasons depression and anxiety rates are rising is For example social media the constant comparison with other people. This is called relative positioning We constantly position ourselves Relative to other people. So we have for example, body image problems Body image problems or what we call body dysmorphic disorders Exploded among women Exploded like never ever before by the way, it was it used to be a weight problem problem now It's facial operation not only facial and Botox and not only facial but women today for the first time in human history By the way, are unhappy with every single Feature in their body. They are unhappy with their breasts and with their buttocks and with their feet with everything first first time Because of the fashion industry fashion magazines and so on the advertising advertising on television Social media, etc. etc. at the same time The movement known as sex positivity also known as third wave of feminism has taught people That all types of sexual activity are not only permissible but obligatory So today if you don't have casual sex, you feel bad. Really. Yes, we have studies that show That women under the age of 25 Feel bad if they don't have casual sex and under they are under enormous peer pressure to Misbehave sexually we see that in movies and This creates of course added depression and anxiety and so on sex positivity and the third wave feminism are pernicious counterfactual Super dangerous and detrimental ideologies which I would compare to white supremacism I would compare to big toe men going their own way. These are noxious toxic emanations of the human mind and yet They are the orthodoxy in universities Third wave feminism and sex positivity is an official part of gender studies curricula in universities I have strong disagreements with almost everything Jordan Peterson says, but I strongly agree with him on this To teach girls age 17 in Canada 18 in the United States to have casual sex That casual sex is man is not an option is mandatory But it's a sign of good health good mental health, right? And is a sign of empowerment and if you're not doing this you need to see a therapist Something is wrong with you. You need to disengage sex from intimacy. It's sick to put sex in it This is thought I can show you textbooks This is totally sick and to teach to teach people of both genders That career should come first Self-actualization should come first fun being with friends should come first and they should delay relationships Minimum to their mid 30s 34 in in United Kingdom That's the age of marriage nowadays marriage rates have collapsed by 50% so people say who cares People are together without marriage. No, they're not They're not Pew Center studies are clear People are not getting married, but they also are not together Half the population is alone now. There's been one period this I'm finishing. There's been one period in human history Where half the population was alone and only one by the way only one period in all of human history with half the population Was long it was 1910 In 1910 half the population in the United Kingdom Which was the only country with reliable census figures, right? Half the population was living alone Many many scholars Attribute colonialism and the resultant two world wars exactly to this They say that because young men were disaffected had no families not children or nothing They went to they became adventurers. They went to go into India. Yes, and Africa Africa and whatever and By the way, that was true. If you were there, you saw young unattached men Go wandering there and rambling and committee atrocities against the natives What were the two world wars? There were colonial wars. There were wars between colonial empires between Hitler Wanted to colonize Eastern Europe for him. It was a colony It was these were colonia was how they've been so yeah, these were colonial wars and Colonialism was a direct result of a surfeit a surplus of young Unattached men and they were unattached because there was a giant population of spinsters and old maids who wouldn't get married This is the only time in human history that we have reached and now is happening a second time That is not a good sign already. You have movements of millions of young men Who are becoming radicalized violent and aggressive? Against women these moments movements are called migtail men go in their own way insults involuntary celebs Recently involuntary celebs started to kill women we have You're reacting like I'm these are facts When you leave young men Unattached with no commitments with no vision of the future with no family with no no reason to leave no They go It's a fact that men are much more aggressive. I mean this creates aggression and aggression leads to violence This could lead to violence on a global scale and social unrest on a global scale. We're only just starting Trend is just starting even in United Kingdom The trend started in 1870 culminated in 1910 and low and beyond four years later There was a culling of young men millions of young men died in in the first world war We and with this I will finish the war to end wars the war to end wars We think we are not animals The eugest mistake that we as a species make this what we discussed earlier that there is we and nature We are not part of nature. We are animals We know that in animals when there is a population surplus of population of a certain type for example too many men or too many women in All animal populations it creates a bloodbath There's no exception Why would we be the exception? Why I don't think we will and I think we're going to a seriously bad place with this Grim yeah, they're not grim tales a grim future I want to tell you that I regard this is a much bigger threat than climate change climate change is bad But we are adaptable animals so we cannot live on the coast so we will live in the mountains I'm not worried about this It will be a transformation of course and of course the coast coastal areas will become uninhabitable And so we'll have to move New York inland We will move New York inland But this but this is Unresolvable that you don't have enough children to replace the dying that half the population Don't have a relationship all life that in the year 2016 Was the first year in the United States? Where a majority of men and women? Hadn't met a member of the opposite species of the opposite sex a majority a majority and since then Haven't met a member of the opposite sex for any reason whatsoever all year long That young men and women are having less sex than my generation and fewer sexual partners What is sex Freud was right sex is the force of life Libido eros, that's the force of life eros is the opposite of Tannatov. Yes, so the only The only thing I can think of to to end up this This schmooze on a happy vein is to say that the futurist of the ninth of the Beginning of the 20th century thought that the major problem of the 20th century would be the manure of Horses in the streets of big towns and this problem was solved It wasn't sold it was solved by the by the income of became politicians No, but motor cars. No, this was sold. I'm joking. Yeah, so maybe there will be some miracle Maybe there will be some miracle. No, I think actually the very fact that we're having such conversations Of course, we are not alone having this conversation. It's a good sign. It raises awareness I think so. I think we are contributing what we can. Thank you