> Time to trot out my pet theory that explains this and the last few decades of politics: By some combination of evolution and culture, many young men feel a strong compulsion to seek out high-risk, high-reward endeavors.
> ...
> This is a generalization, obviously, but I tend to think of young single men like this as the TNT of society: incredibly powerful and useful when applied well, but destructive otherwise.
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(Bare branches refers to branches of the family tree where there's an unmarried male in a society where the male/female ratio is significantly distorted - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guang_Gun )
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/docum...
> Missing Women and Bare Branches: Gender Balance and Conflict
> We must also examine the reaction of the government. Historically, we have found that as governments become aware of the negative consequences of a growing number of bare branches, most governments are motivated to do something. In the past, “doing something” meant thinning the numbers of bare branches, whether through fighting, sponsoring the construction of large public works necessitating dangerous manual labor, exporting them to less populated areas, or co-opting them into the military or police. One 16th century Portuguese monarch sent his army, composed primarily of noble and non-noble bare branches, on one of the later crusades to avoid a crisis of governance; more than 25 percent of that army never returned, and many others were seriously wounded (Boone, 1983, 1986).
> We find that the need to control the rising instability created by the increasing numbers of bare branches has led governments to favor more authoritarian approaches to internal governance and less benign international presences. In many ways, a society’s prospects for democracy and peace are diminished in step with the devaluation of daughters.