Have people even retained a sense of what chastity and integrity mean — and why one without the other makes no sense? The hottest skill for making money these days is simply knowing how to scam people well.

Information noise shapes public opinion into “trends.” These don’t come from nowhere — they grow out of everyday tendencies and what society takes as a moral compass. But here’s the core truth: you are not really “yourself.” You’re a distorted reflection of those who raised you and those who influenced you socially. You either walk in the footsteps of your environment — or you go against it. And this is not just about your job or field of study, but about morality and values.

That’s where things get interesting. For a very long time in human history, a child’s upbringing was handled by parents and close relatives, sometimes even neighbors. The mother served as the main moral compass, the father as a living example of higher values: honor, courage, and integrity. Add in a big extended family and many siblings, and you had an environment that produced people who were more or less alike — at least within the same region, since they shared the same conditions.

With progress — especially information technology — these factors flipped. Families became smaller, relatives less numerous and less close. The bond between parents and children weakened. Instead of moral guidance and role models at home, kids got their examples from movie heroes — and later those heroes were replaced by life coaches, influencers, and “self-help gurus” online.

Now moral role models are shaped by the most obvious and basic flaws of personality. What used to be shameful is now just another “social media talking point.” How often have you caught yourself noticing this? Those same coaches, psychologists, and wannabe mentors sell people their own vices back to them — and of course it sells, because it’s easy to market what already tempts you. The problem is, those “solutions” don’t actually work. They only reflect greed and ego. You can convince yourself you have privileges — but you don’t. You can convince yourself you’re exceptional — but you aren’t. Even in marriage, rights are mostly an illusion. What exists in reality is the man’s legal responsibility for the financial side of the family, plus a mutual promise of loyalty and partnership — but even those ideas have already become relics.

So, why have a family? Why have kids? For most of history, the answer was practical: more hands around the house, future heirs, someone to take care of you and your household in old age. The bigger the family, the better. Today, family mostly means extra costs — financial and emotional — without a clear purpose. Any answer to “Why have kids?” works in a philosophical sense, but in financial terms it’s always a minus, and morally it can be a minus too. You might spend your best years on children and get nothing but ingratitude and selfishness in return. Not always, but often enough to be a real risk — especially when parents don’t really raise their kids. And nowadays, that neglect has practically become a norm. Parents expect schools, daycare, or even the army to handle moral education. Rarely is it done at home anymore, not as direct lessons or expectations, but as the simple lived example of the parents themselves.

That’s why, today, most of our “upbringing” comes from the internet — and from a society infected by it. A society that mirrors generational trends rooted in vice. On that soil, coaches, influencers, and pseudo-psychologists grow like weeds after rain, selling people colorful packages with slogans like “100% insight” and “proven methods” (just swap in whatever’s trending for the target audience). All of this shapes the mood of society — and with it, the modern idea of family.

In recent years, the cultural agenda has gone so far in “defending” women’s rights that it often looks more like stripping men of theirs — not just in law, but in morality and social norms. Unsurprisingly, this triggered backlash among men, which in my view has led to the collapse of the modern family as an institution.

But hey, don’t despair. Even in such a mess, there are winners: those in power, and all kinds of charlatans and “thought leaders” who scoop up money from the confused public. As the old saying goes: divide and rule. Or, more bluntly — without suckers, there’s no profit.

Real personal growth starts in childhood, with the lived example of parents. Think of the “Mowgli kids” — if a child doesn’t learn to walk and talk by age three, they’ll never truly catch up. The same goes for curiosity, drive, initiative, courage, and even a sense of what happiness means. Schools don’t really teach these qualities. If anything, they suppress them. And parents? Too busy. At best, they help with endless piles of homework — meaningless and ruthless toward a child’s natural curiosity.

So we end up with crowds of people who don’t know what they actually want, what’s worth valuing, or what’s worth striving for. No real morals, no inner core, no worthy goals — just an endless chase after personal gain.

Where will this lead us? That’s the wrong question. The right one is: where should it lead? But in today’s reality, even asking that sounds like mockery, and the “correct” answer feels absurd.

So I’d simply recommend this: start with the basics — the real base — if you want to get who and what we actually are. And if you’re looking for an answer, you’ll find it laid out in my Biology of Mind theory.