This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Lots of discussion in the last few weeks on the dating recession, and I wanted to add another (anecdotal) data point to the pile.
I've been swing dancing here in Baltimore on and off for about the last three years (started in 2024 after my girlfriend broke up with me). Initially classes and actual dancing were heavily female dominated, often at ratios of 5:4 or even 3:2. This year that has completely changed: my class tonight was short 11 follows in a class of ~30 total people, meaning the ratio of men to women is about 2:1. The instructors managed to get some more advanced people to drop in to help out as follows, but half of them were dudes who wanted to learn the follow part. This was roughly true in the last session of the class as well although not as pronounced.
What I hypothesize that has happened is the message that dating apps don't seem to work has trickled down to the male part of the population. Around the same amount of women are taking this class as in the before times (2024), but the number of men has almost doubled. Men are starting out to try and meet people in real life again! Which is awesome. But for whatever reason, this hasn't happened with women.
I'm not entirely sure why this is, because dating apps don't seem to particularly work for women either. Maybe the illusion of abundance is enough to keep them from thinking that they need to meet people in real life? Maybe they're all in a situationship with the same man (lol)? Maybe women just have stronger social connections in general and don't need to do something like dancing to meet people?
Thoughts TheMotte?
Because women get a steady diet of fear porn about how men are all out to get them(and to be fair, some are. Not all or most, but certainly some). When they've had 'men are malicious and dangerous' pounded into their skulls they'll not go out of their way to meet men. Simple as.
As @Quantumfreakonomics alluded to, a much larger proportion of men are "out to get them" in the sense of a pump-and-dump. Unfortunately, I doubt that their cautious instincts are well-calibrated on average to avoid this, but it is a legitimate cause for concern on their part.
I think two things can be true at once, for example the average man on a dating platform might not be out to get you, but the average man you meet on a date made on that platform might be. The average man who manages to get you agree to sex on the first date is probably not going to be around for a second date.
Basically, the question to ask would be: "If this guy is such a great catch, then why is he single?"
I think there is a large gap between the hottest man (by whatever metric) a given woman might get to have sex with her and the hottest man a given woman might get for a longer term exclusive relationship, and a minority of men use that to be unethical sluts.
An awful lot of women don't actually care, though, except for the implications to their status. I met a very beautiful girl through a friend and she confided in me that her dating-app match had just messaged making it clear he expected her to put out on the first date (in about four hours time). She raged and vented for some time: did he really think she was the kind of girl who would do that?
You've already guessed the punchline. I commiserated with her over the failure of her date plans and she looked at me like I'd dribbled on her shirt. "Obviously I'm going. He's hot," she huffed, and flounced away.
It’s way too early to be reading blackpills like this.
Consider the implications for a hypothetical “no hook-ups” dating app. Are they really going to ban people for consensual encounters? How would they even know?
This encapsulates my entire objection to the Apps as a class.
Regardless of how they advertise the intentions of their service, the ONLY thing they 'promise' is to show your profile to other people, and to initiate a connection if you both click 'like.'
They have done no vetting, their algorithm is sorting your matches but makes no guarantees as to quality, and they give you no recourse if your match doesn't pan out despite doing everything 'right.'
They abdicate all responsibility for filtering and policing and otherwise giving any useful feedback, basically disclaiming any blame for what happens after the match. WHICH IS THE PART THAT MATTERS.
And yet, they expect to be paid money for this service, and refuse to openly admit they can't help police people's behavior, continually implying the blame lies solely with the user.
This would be intolerable in about any other industry.
Anyway, if I were going to pass just one law to regulate these apps without banning them outright, I'd require they post their 'success rates' for the average user (by gender) for both achieving matches, and achieving actual relationships.
And have these appear on the screen for like 5 seconds every time you boot into the app.
If you're going to turn dating into a casino, you should be required to post the odds.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link