I’m interrupting my planned third part of my series on the role of luck in athletic success. Links for the first two parts are below. I’ll resume the series soon, maybe even later this week.
I decided today that anyone who has any kind of platform should be using it. And I don’t think staying “neutral” or “above the fray” is an acceptable use of a platform by anyone privileged enough to have one. We’re past that point.
What I’m referring to are the three people killed during immigration raids since New Year’s Eve. Keith Porter, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
People with more access to the facts than I have, can focus on the details of what happened in each of those killings. What I want to talk about is the reaction to this whole thing in the manosphere. Because that’s my lane and it’s where I think men have some important work to do.
So I have a challenge for you, especially if you’re a man:
If your first instinct when hearing about these killings was to find ways to blame the people who were shot – to immediately assume they “must have done something” to deserve it – I think you should examine that reaction.
That’s not thinking logically. That’s not thinking for yourself. That’s automatic defense of authority and automatic dehumanization of the people killed. And that’s the kind of reflexive, tribal response the manosphere trains men to have. It’s exactly the sort of thing the manosphere ascribes to “sheep.” Who’s acting like sheep?
Here’s what I mean by slowing down and examining your reactions:
When you hear that someone was killed by law enforcement, what’s your immediate response? Is it “I wonder what happened?” or is it “they probably deserved it?” Or, worse, is it, “I better jump into the socials and figure out which side I’m on?”
If it’s the second or third one, ask yourself: Why do I think that? What am I protecting by immediately siding with the people who did the killing? Am I actually examining the facts, or am I just defending my team?
The manosphere teaches men to have strong, immediate opinions on everything. Never show uncertainty. Always be ready to defend their position aggressively. To treat nuance as weakness.
That’s not strength. That’s intellectual laziness dressed up as confidence. That’s juvenile. That’s when the schoolyard bully’s friends gather round to taunt his latest victim.
Real strength is being able to say, “I don’t know all the facts yet” or “This is very serious, and I need to think about it with the deliberateness it deserves” or “Even if I support immigration enforcement, killing people during raids is a problem I can’t just dismiss.”
There are lines. For me, this is one. I don’t care what your politics are; if your reaction to hearing that people were killed by government agents is to immediately look for ways they deserved it, or how to dogpile onto the thread of your “team,” you’ve dehumanized them. That’s where every atrocity in history starts.
This isn’t about left or right. It’s about whether you’re willing to sit with discomfort instead of reflexively defending whatever maintains your worldview. And I get it, there’s so much violence in the world, we wouldn’t do anything else if we stopped everything to reflect on every death. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying the internet and social media world is full of people who are encouraging men to just excuse it. And that’s not healthy. And it’s not okay.
It’s also not masculine in the way that the manosphere tends to define it. Being submissive to someone else’s view or agenda and blithely going along with their narrative because it’s easier than examining your own feelings? No, real strength is to allow discomfort to wash over you, look at it with curiosity and examine things. Everything else is just performative.
I know this post isn’t the tone you may have become accustomed to. But I started this newsletter because I think men can do better. We can think for ourselves. We can sit with complexity. We can refuse to dehumanize people just because it’s convenient.
But only if we’re willing to examine our reactions instead of just defending them.
Part 1 on the role of luck in athletic success: https://warmcurrent.me/2026/01/15/how-my-track-team-got-so-huge/
Part 2 on the role of luck in athletic success: https://warmcurrent.me/2026/01/20/the-myth-of-control/
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