“Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. Hard times create strong men.”
It is a neat formulation. Cyclical. Comforting in its symmetry. It suggests rhythm. Balance. An almost mechanical progression from decline back to renewal.
Now ask yourself honestly: where are we on that dial?
We are not at the end of the storm. We are in the middle of the “weak men create hard times” phase — and anyone who believes the cycle has already corrected itself is indulging in wishful thinking.
This did not materialize overnight.
The entire carbon catastrophe — the regulatory overreach, the economic distortions, the institutional capture, the moral theatrics — was constructed over decades. Layer upon layer. Policy upon policy. Incentive upon incentive. Careers built on it. Industries reshaped around it. Educational systems feeding into it.
You do not unwind something like that in a single election cycle. Or two. Or five.
Strong leaders do not materialize out of thin air because circumstances become uncomfortable. They are forged. And forging requires sustained pressure. Exposure to reality. Confrontation with consequences. It is not a branding exercise. It is not a media strategy. It is not a speech.
It is heat and time.
And even when individuals exist who understand the scale of the distortion, they do not operate in a vacuum. They face institutions still convinced there is an easy fix. Populations that assume any necessary pain will be brief and mostly symbolic. Voters who believe trade-offs can be negotiated away.
They cannot.
Reality is indifferent to our preferences. It does not negotiate with narratives. It does not respond to slogans. It does not adjust because we are tired of consequences.
It exacts a price.
That price may be economic stagnation. It may be political fragmentation. It may be social fatigue. It may be lost opportunity measured in years rather than headlines. Whatever form it takes, it will not be painless simply because we wish it so.
And here is the uncomfortable part.
If you are in your sixties or beyond, there is a non-trivial chance you will not see the full arc resolve. Large-scale corrections unfold over generations, not quarterly reports. The institutions that produced the current distortions will not quietly dismantle themselves. They will resist. They will delay. They will rebrand.
If you are younger, you may well grow old watching the cycle grind through its corrective phase.
Which is precisely why waiting for the triumphant return of “strong men” is a waste of time.
The cycle does not reverse because we sit back and anticipate it. Hard times do not evaporate because we are fatigued by them. Strength is not summoned by nostalgia.
You prepare.
You adjust expectations downward. You reduce exposure where possible. You build resilience in your own sphere. You refuse to be paralyzed by the scale of the problem. You find competence where you can exercise it. You extract enjoyment from what remains stable and good.
That is not defeatism. It is realism.
Grow bitter and wait for a grand correction, or accept that the correction itself is the hard phase and live accordingly.
The dial has not swung back yet.
And pretending it has will not make it move faster.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/02/18/renewables-catastrophically-expensive/