00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova. 00:00:31 Speaker 2: And I'm Nate Silker. 00:00:32 Speaker 1: So today on the show, we've got a fun one for you. We'll be playing a game that we've played on the show before, Good Call, Bad Call, and we're going to be starting up by talking about wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, who's about to become even wealthier because Tesla has given him quite the compensation package. So we'll discuss whether that's a good call or a bad call. 00:00:55 Speaker 2: And we'll be talking about the purported crisis of masculinity. I am trying not to add skeptical inflection to my voice. In fact, as we'll hear, you know, I don't think there's any particularly good reason to be skeptical, but maybe maybe Aria disagree. We'll have a fun segment, I predict. 00:01:21 Speaker 1: All right, Nate, le let's get into it. But before we do, I want to welcome you back to the United States. 00:01:28 Speaker 2: Thank you. No, I mean I if I had learned a word of Norwegian or Finnish, I would greet you in that language, but they're very fluent in English, and so it was not necessary to be honest. 00:01:40 Speaker 1: You and I were both abroad, but I came back a week before you from Barcelona, and you were in northern Europe. Was summer over in northern Europe. 00:01:49 Speaker 2: It was quite pleasantly temperate. I was in Norway. Saw some fjords, pretty good fucking fjords. 00:01:58 Speaker 1: Right. 00:01:58 Speaker 2: The first day we kind of drove around. We're like, oh, this is nice. Looks like Maine or something, right, And then the next day we took a fucking cruise on the real fjords. One of the most spectacular natural things I've ever seen. Hawaii is up there, but you know, top top three in terms of things that will hopefully outlast the human race. That sounds pessimistic, but you know what I mean, right, Eternal, I do know what. 00:02:22 Speaker 1: You mean, and I do I hope they outlast as well, and I hope that they last long enough at least for me to see them, because those are one that's one of the things that I've never seen that I would love to see one of these days. 00:02:34 Speaker 2: Then, since sent some time in Helsinki, Finland, you can tell I have some pronouncing it Helsinki, not Helsinki, which is how uneducated Americans say, very nice town, great food, which I wasn't expecting. And then Amsterdam. 00:02:47 Speaker 1: Briefly, where there's also delicious food. Hmm, you didn't agree. 00:02:52 Speaker 2: No, I think I like Amsterdam and Robbie and I have some friends there. I have visited a number of times, had a great visit. I think Amsterdam is pound for one of the worst food cities. 00:03:04 Speaker 1: Huh. 00:03:05 Speaker 2: And it's good like Nipalese and stuff, there's good. It's mixed at Nikolie right uh. And so like you know, the international food's good, but the Dutch food, the continental food, I know. 00:03:17 Speaker 1: So. So I think this is where you and I kind of differ because someone as someone who grew up eating hariring, I absolutely love it. And you can get really incredible hairing. 00:03:27 Speaker 2: And you get hair. We took the boat, the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia for a day too. Pretty good fucking haring on that boat. 00:03:37 Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I'm sure. I'm sure it was delicious. Well, welcome back to the United States. You were missed. I think New York missed both of us. But but now we're now we're all back. 00:03:50 Speaker 2: How did how did Barcelona but the Barcelona? How did Barcelona go how the epint go. 00:03:56 Speaker 1: It was fine. You know, it's very funny because I actually, you know, I'm normally pretty good at not cashing and then like having one big score when it comes to these. I actually cashed in I think half of my event and had no big scores, so ended down for the trip. The deepest I went was well, actually I got fourth in one event, but I missed out Nate on a thirty seven thousand euro page jump and it was really it was really heartbreaking. Had I just made it and had I lasted, and had I been in third, I would have been way up for the trip. So we were very close. And you know, we've talked on the show before about butterfly effects and how you know one thing affects another. There was a player who was the short stack, so people who don't play poker. He had the fewest chips, and it seemed pretty likely that I would end up outlasting him, and he ended up getting it all in with ACE five off suit and getting called by Ace King or actually Ace three, not ACE five, Ace three getting called by Ace King, and he hit his three and ended up doubling, and then he knocked me up out a little while later, so you know butterfly effects. 00:05:13 Speaker 2: It was it was a good player or bad player. 00:05:16 Speaker 1: Incredibly wealthy player who doesn't really care. He is capable of playing well, but at that point he was not playing well because he was kind of in and I don't give a fuck, but you guys all care about the money type of mood. He is a businessman, he's not a professional poker player. 00:05:34 Speaker 2: You know, sometimes people with a fucket attitude toward ICM. ICM. If you don't play poker, is the strategy the changes you make when you're trying to cash a tournament I've had, By the way, this is probably cashed a lot and nothing too exciting beyond that, right, But like, if you're really rich, though, and you just care about winning, then you don't have to play with ICM. And it's like annoying to all the other knits at the table who are. 00:05:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a t shirt that some poker players like to wear that says ICM is for poor people. That means that people who care about the independent hip model. You know, the value of your of your chips actually changes as these huge payge ump sloom. That means you're poor. And if you can say fuck it. Sometimes that's that's the way to do it, and you know, there is It's a it's an interesting analogy kind of to to life because there are definitely moments in life where you know it pays to hang around a little bit, but sometimes you're like, ah, fuck it, I want to play to win, right like I want to I want to get I want to take a big swing. I really want to go for it. And sometimes that feels really good, even if it's not necessarily correct, and you have to just try to think, you know what, what risks? Am I willing to take? What's the reward here? Is it worth it? And am I I think this is actually really important? Am I willing to walk away? Right? Like? It's kind of like the fuck you money type of type of concept, where will I walk away? Like if this doesn't go right? And ICM as for poor people, that person says, I am willing to walk away, right, I am willing to forego you know, forty thousand dollars, four hundred thousand dollars. It doesn't matter because I'm not poor and I don't care, and you do and. 00:07:19 Speaker 2: Your time is valuable too, you know what I mean? I mean obviously, sometimes you're just giving up thousands of dollars by not adapting your raine is right, but like, yeah, I think it's anything wrong with we're saying opportunity cost is high. I mean, it's a very very very very very slippery slope, but. 00:07:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly is. And on that note, Nate, maybe we should talk about someone who has the most fuck you money in the entire world, Elon Musk. So we play a game good call, bad call? You know, is this a good call? Is this a bad call? And right now we're going to be putting that lens not on Musk, but on Tesla's board because earlier this week, so we are recording on Monday, September eighth, So I guess it was last week that Tesla offered it's CEO, Elon Musk, a new compensation package that's going to be worth one trillion dollars over the next ten years and by the end of it if he actually earns out this compensation package, which is an if, right, there are a lot of things that have to go right, but he would own almost twenty nine twenty eight point eight percent of Tesla's stock because that's how his compensation would be paid out, which is huge, right, and that's a lot more than most CEOs ever get to earn of their of their company's stock, which would put him in a really interesting position. So basically, you know, the board has thrown money at him to try to get him to stick around. Nate, do you want to talk about some of the things that he has to do or should I just go through that quickly? 00:08:58 Speaker 2: Why don't you go You know, I'm still on finish time here, so why don't you go through it? Maria? 00:09:04 Speaker 1: All right? So, basically he needs to meet some milestones, which include everything from profits that have to increase over twenty four times to one million autonomous taxis that are going to be deployed, one million humanoid robots, and car sales obviously, so there are a lot of things that have to happen. So Tesla has to reach four hundred billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization annually, and right now it is earning less than seventeen billion dollars a year, so that's quite a high number. He needs to have an eight point five trillion dollar market cap. Current market cap is about one trillion. The robotaxis is a huge ask, right because right now they're way behind schedule on that. So they have to deliver twenty million teslas, which is actually probably the most attainable, but I don't know we can talk about that. 00:10:09 Speaker 2: I could deliver fourteen million teslas, and. 00:10:15 Speaker 1: And they're humanoid robots. Optimus is another one where they've had a lot of issues, including in their demos. The Optimus robots have not hit their benchmarks over time. I think Elon has been over optimistic with all of these, including the robots. But these are the things that have to happen for him to get his compensation. Except and this is one big except. So I was reading all of this and I was like, huh, interesting thing that they put in there. If there are factors quote outside Tesla's control end quote that hurts Tesla's ability to reach these milestones and reach these delivery targets, then Musk will still get compensated. And it seems to me that that's a pretty big out right that must can say, oh, well, you know this was up might. 00:11:04 Speaker 2: Have the best lawyer billing cycles in history. If there's a dispute over this, I would think. 00:11:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. So that's kind of the that's the one caveat This will come to a vote on November six. Listeners might remember as well that Musk already has a prior compensation package that is in courts right now because it was challenged. So yeah, so that's where we are. And the question is right, like good call or bad call on the part of the board of Tesla. Everything is going down. Profits are going down, Tesla's market share is going down. Is it a good call to just throw money at Elon and try to kind of get him to hit all of these targets to get his attention back? Do we think this is a good use of capital? Do we think Elon will be motivated by it? He's already the world's richest man. Do we think he's going to perform? Like? What do we think about all of this? I think it's actually a really kind of interesting psychological question about someone who's already insanely wealthy. You know, how do we motivate someone like that? And is this, you know, is this the way to do it? 00:12:11 Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it's a smart package. Actually, so you can burn me at the stake for being such a capitalist. But no, the reason why it's smart is because it would seemed to me like these targets are a not terribly easy to hit, notwithstanding the ambiguity of some of these you know, acts of God clauses, right and b. If the company is doing that well, then there's a lot of wealth to go around, right. We're talking about much higher than market growth. The fact that Tesla you know, is facing more competition from Chinese automakers. It's products you're not seen as innovative. They are all these things they are trying to do, robo taxis and stuff like that, but they're kind of like not as market leading right now. But like, but if he turns it around, then I think it strikes me as like fairly rational if it's unlikely to be hit these benchmarks. Although Elon has bet on himself before and been right, it's part of why he is already the world's richest man, I'm all for it. 00:13:08 Speaker 1: Well, so theoretically, I don't mind, you know, great compensation packages if there's a good end result. I'm wondering, though, if you want to get you know, the world's richest man right to focus on Tesla, even though his attention has been elsewhere, his ambitions have been elsewhere. You know, he's interested in X and SpaceX and all these other things. Is just like throwing dollar signs at it. Is that really going to be the best motivator? And the reason I asked that, and maybe the answer is yes, but the answer could also be no, because there is a lot of really great psychological research about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, and a lot of times the reason that games players want to play, you know, are four flow states and kind of things that are intrinsic to the game, right, Like they want to do better, they want to level up, they want to do this, they want to get that, like things that make them a good player within the game, right, that convey some sort of prestige on them. 00:14:10 Speaker 2: And it fits. 00:14:12 Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about people for whom like this is their profession and like they just need to get paid. But when you start replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation, right when you start putting dollar values on everything, sometimes motivation actually lacks. So there can be this you know, ironic effect where where when you actually get money, like all of a sudden, it's not fun anymore. And that's why a lot of people. You know, you sometimes hear the advice like keep your hobbies, your hobbies right, don't try to make everything into a side hustle, because you might find that you no longer enjoy the types of things that you used to really enjoy when you feel. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: Like you have to experience. Yeah, I'm curious, Nate. 00:14:54 Speaker 1: Why don't you actually say a little bit more about that, because I think that that is part of the question here right about whether this is the best motivator. 00:15:01 Speaker 2: Well, look, I'll talk about the two big things that I find very motivating, and maybe they're not so different than the way Elon thinks about the world. 00:15:09 Speaker 1: Right. You know. 00:15:10 Speaker 2: One is just to build a product that you think is really great. Right, to do something that nobody else has done, to differentiate, to add intellectual value, artistic value, aesthetic value, whatever it might be. Right, But it's like, Okay, here's the world. Nobody is building a good election model or writing a book like the book I wrote, or whatever else, right, and so I am going to do that really well. Right, And I think Elon is or maybe was motivated by that type of thing, right, he definitely has vision. I think you have to be pretty biased, not to give him credit for that, right, And the other big motivator is like the desire to prove people wrong and the fact that you'll have people like us say, oh, these targets seem very hard to achieve. They're kind of crazy. It can't be done. How can he do all these things where they're not even like leading the robotaxi market for example, Like, like that could be very motivating too, I think I think more so than the money, really, right, It's like they're not like that. You have very many anyone in Silicon Valley, be the founders or vcs or whatever else. They don't like just go and say, Okay, well I made a lot of money. I'm going to go right in the sunset and hang out at my private villa in Tuscany and show up and go to really nice three star Michelin restaurants. Right, They usually are still motivated to prove their doubters wrong, which makes them assholes sometimes. And I don't think anybody would would shy away from accusing Elon of that either, right, But yeah. 00:16:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that that is a very powerful motivator for people like Elon, Right, like, prove the hater's wrong. Prove that I can do it, prove that I'm better than they think I am because I know better now. He has shown a pension for overconfidence. Right. He has failed to hit very ambitious targets in the past, but they're actually you know, you know, I mean this is and listeners of the show no, no fan of Elon, but this is something that is actually pretty not smart, but like it is something that can work when you do set these ambitious targets, right, even if you don't actually hit them, you might hit a much higher target than you otherwise would have done in trying to hit this crazy target. Right. So it's kind of the opposite of customer service business or consulting when you say under promise, over deliver, right, Like, that's how you get people to be really happy. Like you tell them a little bit less than you think you're capable of doing, and then once you hit what you're actually capable of doing, they'll be like, holy shit, this is even better than I thought. And he is kind of doing the opposite, right. Historically, what he's done is over promise and underdeliver. That's not necessarily great for Tesla's stock in the short term, but it might not be necessarily a horrible strategy for motivating people within the company to actually strive to hit kind of these other milestones. And one of the reasons why I think that probably the board wants him there and is willing to kind of do any throw anything at the problem to get him there is that anecdotally, Musk does have a very strong motivating influence on workers when he's present, right, and when he's not, motivation tends to sag. Like. It is a very kind of cultive personality type of business from what we've heard and from what we've seen, and so maybe they're just trying to do everything they can to try to get him physically there and really trying to motivate people directly. I'm torn, right, Like, I don't know. Obviously, I don't think they should be throwing this amount of money at anyone, but like, let's just put that aside and just think about. 00:18:50 Speaker 2: Type of socialists are you running your rand moom Donnie's campaign? 00:18:55 Speaker 1: I know, I know, right, but so let's let's just put those considerations aside. 00:19:00 Speaker 2: And you believe billionaires shouldn't exist? Are billionaires Okay. 00:19:06 Speaker 1: I'm fine with billionaires existing, but but yeah, so so the I think the question here is is an interesting one in terms of how do we, you know, how do we get people like that to perform at peak? They, I think, are trying to throw everything into the equation, you know, all these targets, money, all all of these different things. The one thing that does worry me is that out clause that I read to you, right, because like, if he can just get the money without doing anything, I think that there's a good chance that he is going to potentially go there. So I might be worried about language, but that's my biggest that's one of my biggest Oh. 00:19:48 Speaker 2: Look, I assume that, I mean, Tesla's stock was up on this, right. I assume that, like the lawyers have thought about how that clause might be interpreted in their outclauses and in clauses. And I'm making that term up right. I assume that, like it's not just you know, writing things up on a white board, that they thought this through a little bit. But yeah, look, to me, the question is also, you know, does elon add that much marginal value over another CEO? That kind of thing is very hard to test, right if you go and I asked my handy assistant Claude the AI. But I asked Claude, what's the empirical literature say on whether CEO pay packages are worth it? 00:20:32 Speaker 1: Right? 00:20:32 Speaker 2: And Claude wasn't sure. There does not seem to be a clear consensus on this question in general and specifically. I mean, you know, Elon got very distracted by politics for some period of time. Well, that's stracts the right word. I mean, I think most people would say that XAI is doing interesting things behind kind of the big three AI labs, but is a serious player, right, there's SpaceX There's a lot of things, so yeah, you know. Meanwhile, Elon has also been accused of recreational drug use in well sourced stores in the Wall Street Journal. He is a polarizing figure. I don't believe that his approval writing. We've been tracking favorability of branks for Elon. They haven't really improved very much. And see let the White House. In fact, if anything, Republicans are more mad at him now than they once were. Democrats haven't really you know, returned to admiration for him yet. So there are a lot of disadvantages too. But you know, I mean, look, one of the other options he owns somewhere in the range of fifteen percent of Tesla stock, right, so who's the largest shareholder. If you wanted to oust him, you would have to have the majority of other shareholders wanting him out, which is very difficult for lots and lots of reasons. So, you know, maybe it's not a choice between Elon and generic CEO so much as motivated Elon versus unmotivated Elon. 00:21:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, so at the end of the day, night, good call or bad call. I think you know where you come down, all right, and I am it's hard going. I'm gonna waffle on this one. I'm going to say, I really I'm not sure I can see it going either way. And this is a very waffly answer, But that's at the end of the day where I'm coming out and yeah, I'm hedging, Nate, I'm hedging. So yeah, so that's where we are. Let's take a quick break now, and then when we come back, we're going to talk about the Battle of the sexes or you know, is there actually a crisis of masculinity. We'll find out after the break. Nate. Normally, when I think of the Battle of the Sexes, I'm thinking game theory. Right, there's actually a game that's called Battle of the Sexes. But in today's segment, that is not what we're talking about, well sort of, but not really. We're talking about kind of the headlines that have been in the news over the last few years about kind of a crisis of modern masculinity that men are not doing as well as they once were. Basically, you know, suicide as up, education levels are down, loneliness is up. You know, we're seeing a loneliness epidemic. And that's actually true of both sexes, but more for men than for women's suicide actually is also true that it's going up for both men and women, but more for men, and on and on. So the question here is is this actually a crisis of masculinity or are these overblown headlines that basically are just like little data blifts that really do not tell the whole story where there's actually, you know, just as much male dominance as there ever was, and maybe on the margins certain things are changing a little bit, but it's still basically same old story. So that is that is the topic for this Battle of the Sexes. And obviously I'm female, you're male, but I'm gonna let you kick this one OFFN eight. So what is your kind of initial reaction and then we can get into some data. 00:24:16 Speaker 2: Yeah, look, maybe I'm playing into the stereotype a little bit here. I think there's something real. I mean, one reason why I say that is because you can see it reflected in voting patterns too, which is something that I study quite a bit, where among young voters in the US and elsewhere, there are bigger gender splits than there ever have been before. Historically, gender is only mildly predictive of voting share. Usually women are a bit more liberal than men, but that's been more profound, for example, for Kamala Harris, for Donald Trump. And I think it reflects the fact that, like some men feel a little bit left out of the direction that society is headed, right, They feel society as too risk averse, They feel emasculated, They feel that, you know, institutions may be led. Well, I don't know certainly what I call the village in my book, right, the village is kind of academia and media and so forth. Certainly in that field you see more and more women leaders. Right in like democratic politics, a lot of people who work on campaigns you know, the women who ran Joe Biden's campaign was a woman. So yeah, I think there's I think there's something there. Maria. 00:25:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, having there be something there and having it be like a full blown crisis are two different things. So I do think that there's definitely I agree that there is dissatisfaction. I mean, I think a lot of what you're talking about is probably what got us you know, Trump two point zero, right, what got us to that, to that moment in time where a lot of people felt really disaffected. And by the way, you're seeing this in women too, where it's kind of a dovetailing that where you're seeing the tradwife movement right where women are saying, yeah, you know, we want to be at home and be wives and full time homemakers and cook elaborate meals and take care of our children and have lots of children. We've talked on the show a little bit about this movement in the past, but I think that these two things are kind of going hand in hand, right. So it's not just men who feel disaffected. There is a subset of women who think, oh, you know, it's good that women are staying at home. They shouldn't be in the workforce in the same numbers as men. Men should be the breadwinners. You know, we like traditional gender roles, So you definitely have this current, this subcurrent in society. That said, I think that some of the data that has been cited that shows that basically men are not doing as well as women. I think that a lot of those data points, if you dig a little bit deeper, don't hold a lot of water. So, for instance, when it comes to the workforce, we still do have quite a significant gender pay gap. So women on average make eighty three cents to eighty five on the dollar. 00:27:11 Speaker 2: Of what I'm going to I'm going to note for the record that I think people would be the. 00:27:15 Speaker 1: Causes of that, the causes of that. Yeah, that's that's totally fine. I'm just saying that this that this still exists right when, because if we're posing the question of men are not doing as well as women, I'm just kind of saying that there is a still a gender pay gap that is in favor of men, and it holds true over all education levels. So basically, men who have no education are able to get better jobs and women who have no education. Women with PhDs are paid more than women with PhDs, and we still don't see women progressing into positions of power at nearly the same rates as we see men. So we do. We do have that sort of thing and the fact that, oh that there's a crisis in higher education, or that women graduate from college more often than men. This has been the case for kind of a long time, Like women tend to do better academically and have for a very long time. So this is not something new. It's not like all of a sudden we have different education. 00:28:19 Speaker 2: I've got to push back. I mean, it has gotten I believe significantly big. I mean in terms of like college graduation rates is going to like three to two women or might go to two to one, and eventually, I mean this kind of leads to interesting things like should there be affirmative action for men on campus? It also affects things like the campus dating scene potentially. 00:28:38 Speaker 1: That's actually so nate, that's actually the kind of a data point in the opposite direction. If this is If it's true that it has gotten worse and there is still a huge gender pay gap and that men are still getting paid more than women, even though women are pushing to get educated and are more educated than men. That that actually shows that men are getting even more privileged when it comes to how much they're being paid than women. Right, Because if. 00:29:03 Speaker 2: You're no, I don't think necessary, I mean, are there are a few things here right. 00:29:09 Speaker 1: This is, by the way, By the way, the reason we're going back and forth on this is even economists go back and forth on this, like the data is, the data is really complicated, and this is a very muddy subject with tons of confounds, and it's really really hard to control for all of the variables. So I'm I'm just doing a little bit of a caveat on that. 00:29:29 Speaker 2: Let me go through a couple of arguments that I think the kind of economists on the other side of this issue we'd go through, and some of them are are explanations liberals would like more, some conservatives would like more. Right, you know, one belief is that women often take more time out of their careers to care for children, to care sometimes for other like ailing family members, for things like that, and that you know, if you count for that, then there's questions about how much of the gender wage gap remains. You know. The more plocularly incorrect thing too, This is kind of what got Larry Summer's in a lot of trouble at Harvard University. Right, you know, there are some evidence that men have higher variance, that they end up in really bad circumstances, commit substantially more violence and more crime. Right, can crash out in different ways. But if there's more genetic variation in a population, then maybe the very top earners Elon Musk of the world to bring him up again might tend to be men more, right, I mean, those are those are theories that compete with this, I guess, right, you know, I think one could ask how predictive is college completion of success in career anyway? 00:30:49 Speaker 1: Right, yep, that's a very valid question, especially now when you have you know, also the Pewter teals of the world paying people not to go to college. You know. There, I think we are seeing a very very different society than even ten years ago, and I think that that shift is going to all the all the evidence shows that that shift is not a prairiy blip that people are putting less value on. Okay, where did you go to school? Et cetera, et cetera. 00:31:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, and tech, as you said, is like the field where this is most pronounced. Right, there's now a you know, anti higher education quadrant in tech I would see, right, But it hasn't spread to like finances much, which is still a bit more hierarchical. But like all this is tied together, right, the backlash against elite higher education and the backlash against women's roles in society. These things are tied together, I think to like a greater and greater extent, right, you know, and again you know, Look, my premise is always at like, it doesn't do anybody any good to pretend that, on average, that gender differences don't exist. 00:31:59 Speaker 1: Right. 00:32:00 Speaker 2: If you look at measures of self reported well being, if you ask people are you happy or not? Basically? Right, First of all, there are enormous generational divides where a lot of gen Z reports very poor mental health, But there is a gender gap too. Men tend to report higher happiness, lower levels of anxiety and depression. If you look at like what circumstances, what life circumstances affect people's sense of well being? Right? For some types of things, men are more resilient, but not for work related stuff. 00:32:37 Speaker 1: Right. 00:32:37 Speaker 2: If you ask kind of questions about like what would happen if you got demoted at work or you weren't performing expectations that you know, men have a bigger psychological effect from that than women do on average, all these our averages. 00:32:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I will just add to that to kind of give a broader picture that usually the gender differences within genders are much much larger than the gender differences between genders on almost any data point you can find. Right. That means men differ more from men, and women differ more from women than men on average, and women on average differ from each other. That is something that is just basically true of almost anything you can find in the psychology literature. So I just want people to keep that in the back of their minds. 00:33:23 Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, you know, I just came from the self professed happiest country in the world, Finland. I was trying to do it. Oh my god. 00:33:31 Speaker 1: That that always just I get such a kick out of that. 00:33:35 Speaker 2: They seem pretty happy. They drink a lot, you get offered, Oh that's probably why. 00:33:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, they haven't bought into the alcohol is bad for you yet, so yes, their life satisfaction is probably higher. 00:33:48 Speaker 2: This could be, this could be a whole different episode. Not that we could do the boost thing, right, but like national happiness rankings, what do they really tell you, right, I think they're probably somewhat real. One thing you actually notice, I haven't published this work. Maybe I'll get around to it eventually. If you look at fertility rates by country, then happiness is somewhat predictive of that when you control for GDP. I mean, basically, you know, the big thing that no one wants to talk about is that, like both men and women have seen to discover around the world that like, when you get wealthier than maybe there are better things to do with your life and to have children, right, and this is causing potential decline in the global population. Right. That's a big difference between not really between men and women, but it's also a generational difference. 00:34:36 Speaker 1: Right. 00:34:37 Speaker 2: But people actually have, controlling for other factors, more kids in happier countries, which suggests to me that there is like some tangible difference here potentially. I mean, you could look at things like suicide rates. I haven't looked at that. Actually, you know, men commit suicide much more offer than women, even though even though they report higher self reported mental health, which is interesting. Maybe it's another case of like having more variation potentially, but I think these things are at least partly real, and some of us that it's more you know, the notion about like men not feeling like they have a lot of close friends, right. 00:35:16 Speaker 1: That's actually a huge thing. I think that there's a lot to that, and I think that there you know, women historically socially have had to kind of be more socialized, right. It's it's one of those things where women, I think, just in general in society have kind of had to get support groups, right, and be nice and be the people in the family who take care of calendars and appointments and keep up with other parents and like and do all of the social stuff. And for men, that once again historically hasn't always been their dominant social role. So we actually do see that that men tend to have smaller circles, and that those circles often shrink with age unless they do something specifically to counteract it. Something else that we mentioned briefly but have not gone into in detail, But I think it's important here, including in social circles who you interact with, and I think that this is affecting both genders, is that you know, teens right now. Tweens are coming up in an era where so much activity is online, right, and there's this atomization of society that we didn't experience you and I and A when we were when we were growing up. And I think that there are generational differences that we have no idea yet how that's going to play out, but as of now, I think that those do not have a great effect on mental health. Right if you socialize online versus in person, there is a difference. We do have data on that, and so I do think that we're going to be seeing kind of some spillover effects from that in the future. And it's too early to say whether you know what the gender differences will be, what kind of what the fall from that will be, But there is an important kind of generational shift going on right now that we should be paying attention to. 00:37:10 Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after this break. 00:37:25 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:37:26 Speaker 2: Look, I think some stereotypes are true on an average, right If you let's say I get dinner with a male friend playtonic right the next day, do I get like a follow up thank you We'll stening out again soon text? Probably not? Right with a female friend over fifty to fifty I would say, right, just an observation I think will hold true for a lot of people. You know, men stereotypically like to hang up by doing things together. Right, you're watching a football game, you're watching a movie, you're playing a video game. Right, maybe playing poker, women tend to you know, involve more talking on average, don't shoot the messenger, right, There is data on this, right, and like and that might be more threatened by a like a model where now you're hanging out in person or you're or you're not hanging out in person as much. Right, you know, I think poker is interesting and there is certainly outright sexism in poker, for sure, and yes, but you know, I also think it's a male bonding experience and an outlet for some men who feel like they don't have another way to like to make friends. Right, you go to the poker room, and believe me, there are some poker players who are very sociable and eloquent and everything else, but like you want, Yeah, some guys just want to play poker and talk about crypto and sports and women. 00:38:45 Speaker 1: Right. 00:38:45 Speaker 2: You know, that's one of the reasons why poker is a popular hobby with with with men right, and might encourage men who are like, Okay, this is my this is my safe space a little bit when you do see some of the more sexist behaviors, Oh for sure. 00:38:59 Speaker 1: I mean I've said that often that you know, especially at lower stakes, when you go to your local casino, that's where I've experienced some of the greatest misogyny because I think that people there are playing for different reasons than when you get to like high stakes pros for whom like this is a career, they're taking it like it's their profession. And at those lower stakes you often get people for whom like this is their socializing, right, like this is there, like I just want to be with the guys and like I don't want to watch my fucking mouth. Like you're the one who chose to sit at this table. If I want to, you know, hit on the dealer and like talk about her boobs and like mention your ass, that's fine, And if you're not comfortable, you leave, right, I'm not going to change my behavior. I'm here with the boys. I want to drink, I want to have fun. So I think that there's definitely something to that. And yeah, so I do think that all of these factors matter when we're thinking about, like, is there actually a crisis here? Right, So at the end of the day and night, how would you weigh all of this to say, you know, is there a crisis or are these just kind of some issues where men are winning some where they're losing. And it's true of women as well, and we're just in a moment of social change that's not necess necessarily gender related, which is how I would kind of think about it, as opposed to saying, yes, it's a crisis of masculinity, that would be my answer. How would you answer it? 00:40:19 Speaker 2: Well, look, I think most people are will tend to treat everything as a crisis, whether or not it's actually incret nor. The mental health numbers for young people are very bad, and I think it has to constitute a crisis. Now, they're worse for women than men. But look, okay, let me be a little spicier here, right, I think there is often implicit bias against men in how the village, right, the kind of progressive communities talk about some of these things potentially, Right, if you kind of get at the question of, like to go back to self diagnosed mental health, right, some people will say, Okay, women are higher and liberals are higher. This isn't even bigger different talking way, Liberals are higher than conservatives by a wide margin. 00:41:06 Speaker 1: Right. 00:41:08 Speaker 2: You know, they will say, well, that's because there is a stigma against declaring mental health conditions, and that women and concern or women and liberals don't suffer from the stigma, whereas conservatives and men do, right, to which I would say, okay, maybe there is something to stoicism basically, right, and you know they're popular still assists books and podcasts and websites and things like that where it's like, okay, you know, maybe there's something to be said for like toughing it out under pressure. Maybe this is actually an evolutionarily smart strategy, right, Maybe it's okay to like compartmentalize things a little bit, right, or you know, to kind of the example of what was kind of half joking about before. We're like men like to do stuff, women like to talk with one another, you know. Now and then I'll see like some op ed in the Atlantic or whatever. Right you Usually when by women they're like, well, men don't know how to good friendships. It's like fuck you if I want to go out and watch a baseball game with my friend, Like, don't tell me it's like any less valid than like chatting chatting chatting pressure. Yeah. 00:42:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, no. And by the way, I actually think there's good data for both men and women that you bond more through experiences that like that kind of stuff and doing things together is just good for friendship period. 00:42:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, people talk so much, you know, what's what's they to talk about? Go do something? 00:42:35 Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, but it sounds like it sounds like you're you're kind of on the same page as I am when it comes to like, yeah, there are obviously some issues happening, but it's less clear how much of it is. Gender is kind of a crisis of masculinity as such, right, because the mental health stuff that's that's a very different crisis like that is not The data, as you said, are not great for women either. So I think there are lots of things going on. I do think we need to there are lots of trends that we should be paying attention to. But I think the data inconclusive. When it comes to, oh, you know, is there is there a crisis for one gender or another? I think the answer there is no, there's not enough evidence for that, but there are some undercurrents that we should be paying attention to and monitoring, especially with the next generation coming up. 00:43:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I mean I don't know. If you look at like the male versus female employment population ratio, right, it's dropped actually for everybody, in part because you have like the population aging outside of prime working years, but it's dropped quite a bit more for men. Right in two thousand and five according to the Bureau of Labor Cystix before before the site gets compromised by Trump. So in two thousand and five, seventy three percent of men aged twenty and older were employed. Now it's sixty seven percent. Right, there's a drop off for women, but it's been less from fifty eight to fifty six. It looks like here, right, So, like I think, I think there's plenty of evidence for this, right, quantitative and qualitative and everything and everything else. 00:44:15 Speaker 1: But there's also evidence against it that we've talked about. I don't think we need to rehash it once again. But it sounds like you're coming out more on the side of crisis. I'm coming out less on the side of crisis. And I don't just don't like the crisis language. I think that is I think that's way too alarmist, and that is not how we should be approaching this. I'm much more in the camp of stoicism, you know, that's one of the underlying philosophies of my writing. So I'm all for that. This has been fun, though, and I think that it is interesting to look through these data. It's a really tough topic one that I'm sure some of these things will will be revisiting. But it also it goes to show that, you know, assessing these sources of risks, it's tough, right, and it's a really difficult job for economists try to parse the numbers, and there's so much going on that it's just not going to be a clear story ever, which is why people can right authoritative op eds on opposite sides of this insight data that seems to support their point of view. So yeah, this has been a fun show, Nate. I you know, one of the other things about northern Europe where you came from, is that there also is a lot more gender equality there than there is in other parts of the world. So curious if that has something to do with the happiness levels as well. But maybe we can. Maybe we can leave that for another show. 00:45:37 Speaker 2: Look, I think if you look at the happiest countries in the world, they're also smaller countries, right, I think that absolutely. 00:45:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, so many confounding factors. Yeah, lots and lots of confounding factors there. And on that note, Nate, I hope you have a lovely week, and let me invite you to dinner so that we can talk, because I'm female and you know I like to I like to bond over talking and good food. So let's get a dinner from the calendar. 00:46:01 Speaker 2: You know, maybe go to a Yankees game, Maria, you can get dinner there. 00:46:04 Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I will. I will go to a Yankees game, Nate, because I am a good friend. Let us know what you think of the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you that's coming up right after the credits. 00:46:29 Speaker 2: And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price. You get access to all that premium content and ad for listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows. 00:46:41 Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova. 00:46:44 Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit. Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger. 00:46:59 Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in.