Office Hours, Birthrates, Authoritarianism
Links and recommendations + the best sleep upgrade I've ever had
Rob Henderson’s Office Hours are here.
I’ll be doing a regular informal, unscripted livestream here on Substack every Wednesday at 8ET/5PT.
If you can’t catch it live, no worries—it’ll be available every Thursday for paid subscribers. Substack Reads announced the show last week:
Rob Henderson, bestselling author, psychologist, and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explores the hidden forces shaping class, status, and human nature in this unscripted, thought-provoking live show. Rob challenges conventional wisdom, explores new luxury beliefs, and uncovers the psychology behind the views that define our culture—and our lives. In this debut episode, Rob will be break down the concepts of dominance, prestige, and power.
You can catch last week’s livestream here.
NYC Event:
To celebrate the paperback launch of Troubled, I’ll be in conversation with Dr. Drew at a live event in New York City. March 17 at 6pm.
Details and registration here.
My latest in City Journal:
Governments have been paying people to have children. Instead, they should pay people to get married.
Want Higher Birthrates? Promote Marriage
The Best Sleep Upgrade I’ve Ever Had:
I’ve always been skeptical of sleep gadgets, but the Eight Sleep Pod is the real deal. It personalizes the temperature of my bed in real-time, so I get uninterrupted, high-quality sleep.
As far back as I can remember I’ve had difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. I solved the first issue years ago by placing my phone on the other side of the room and reading a book before bed each night until my eyes get tired. Usually I fall asleep within 15 minutes.
But staying asleep remained an issue—until very recently. Many of you are aware that I recently moved to New York. I had to buy a new bed. I went with an Eight Sleep setup. Heard a million ads on podcasts etc. and tuned it all out. Huge mistake on my part. Now I'm mad I didn't get one way sooner. When I used to wake up in the middle of the night, the usual problem was temperature. I’d be too warm, or (less frequently) too cold, and struggle to find a comfortable temperature to fall asleep.
The Eight Sleep Pod fixes that. It adjusts the temperature of the bed automatically. It’s incredible.
I personally bought an Eight Sleep Pod. About two weeks later I learned that one of the Eight Sleep founders follows me on X. I sent a DM mentioning how great the product is and figured I could share my experience here with my readers. I personally use this product literally every night.
The other day I was listening to the All-In Podcast and heard Naval Ravikant say he uses Eight Sleep–it wasn’t an ad, just Naval briefly mentioning his sleep routine. It seems like every third smart person I know has an Eight Sleep setup now. It really is that good.
Why It Works
The Pod is a high-tech mattress cover that you can easily and quickly add to your existing bed. This cover is packed with advanced technology that allows it to automatically cool, heat, and even elevate.
Here's why this matters: the Pod has been clinically proven to increase quality sleep by up to one hour each night. That's a massive boost to your recovery time, which can translate to better physical performance, improved cognitive function, and enhanced overall health. Having a Pod is like having a sleep coach, personal thermostat, and advanced fitness tracker all rolled into one.
The Pod uses precision temperature control to regulate your body's sleep cycles. It can cool down to a chilly 55°F or warm up to 110°F, and it does this separately for each side of the bed. This means you and your partner can each have your ideal sleep temperature.
The really cool part? The Pod learns your sleep patterns over time and automatically adjusts the temperature throughout the night to optimize each phase of your sleep.
I’ve been using the Pod since last December. My sleep has been noticeably deeper and more restorative. I wake up more refreshed and focused, which makes a real difference in my productivity and overall well-being. If you care about performance—whether in work, fitness, or life in general—this is a serious upgrade.
Exclusive Offer for My Readers
If you want to experience the best sleep of your life, use my code ROBHENDERSON for:
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Your future well-rested self will thank you.
Links and recommendations:
Why We Keep Playing The Status Game by Jonathan Clarke
Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent? by Rory Sutherland
Clumsy Gods by Paul Bloom
Hollywood Morality by Michael Huemer
Men wanting women by Richard V. Reeves
‘The Russian soldiers raped every German female from eight to 80’ by Antony Beevor
Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than Twitter/X, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories
You can follow me on TikTok here
Three interesting findings:
1. Seventy years ago the psychologist Hans Eysenck found evidence that authoritarianism existed among left-wingers as well as right-wingers. He was ignored by both American and British intellectuals because, at the time, they greatly admired Joseph Stalin. (source: The Psychology of Politics by Hans Eysenck).
2. If you are looking for a happy and long-term romance, pick a partner with high levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. These traits are associated with longer and happier marriages. Men and women high in conscientiousness tend to be more faithful. (source).
3. Machiavelli's reading routine:
Here’s mine.
That is a good point about encouraging marriage. It's good news that single women are bearing fewer children; now we just need to encourage more couples to marry.
This got me thinking about what I've noticed over the course of my life. When I was growing up in the '70s and '80s, I think the divorce rate was reaching its highest point. I remember by the time I was in high school (early/mid '80s) the majority of my friends had divorced parents. There were only a few of us with parents who were still married. This was in a wealthy, upper-middle-class town.
Since then, the divorce rate for college-educated, upper-middle-class professionals has fallen considerably and now I believe that is the demographic with the lowest rate of divorce. My theory is that back in the '70s and '80s, getting a divorce was almost a bit of a status symbol - it meant you were Finding Yourself, or being a Strong Independent Woman with a Career, or you Weren't Bound By Society's Shackles, or some other such nonsense. But once The Poors also started getting divorces, it began to seem rather downscale and icky - so upper-middle-class, well-educated people became less enthusiastic about it.
Now, out of my childhood friends, I have noticed two trends. Some reacted to their parents' divorces by doing the exact opposite - getting married, staying married, and taking family life very seriously. Others reacted by being extremely skittish about any sort of legal commitment, and opted to marry very late or not at all. Still, even among the ones who were spooked by the idea of marriage, vanishingly few had children outside of marriage. In fact, I can only think of two - one was the child of very wealthy parents but had drug and alcohol issues, and fathered a child in his teens; and the other was a girl who grew up in a working class family and whose mother was a bit of a trendsetter, as she had five children by at least three or four different men.
I think upper-middle-class people having children outside of marriage may have had a brief moment in the early '70s when it seemed like a cool, liberated sort of thing to do amongst those who fancied themselves to be hippies; but once again, The Poors started doing it - a lot - and it began to seem more trailer-park or ghettoish and thus undesirable. I know when I was in high school and college, it was Just Not Done by our sort of people.
Now, there's been a lot of messaging to girls, for many years, that you shouldn't get married "too young," for fear it will end in divorce; and that they should focus on their education and careers, and travel and "experience life" before marrying.
I kind of think that a lot of this advice really boiled down to "you are young and dumb and your boyfriend is a loser - don't settle for him, wait until you meet someone we actually approve of." However, Boomer parents seem to be a bit allergic to sounding like their own parents, so they tried to take a somewhat more positive "think of all the things you would miss out on!" approach; and Gen X seems to be following the same pattern.
Now, my own young-adult Gen Z daughter once asked me "Why do people say that? Why can't you have a career AND be married? And why can't you and your husband travel together?" I told her "Of course you can have a career and be married, and it's much more fun to travel with your husband than it would be alone!" So, she got married, and has a career, and she and her husband love to travel; and they plan to start a family in a few years. But I've noticed most of her friends are rather terrified of the concept of marriage, either because their own parents had nasty divorces or because they have absorbed the general "you'll miss out on life if you're married!" messaging.
Have enjoyed reading Machiavelli, and spending time with him, much as he spent time with the ancients.