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More debates revolving around young single men in the mainstream media. Particularly, who the young women are dating due to them being disproportionately in a relationship. The article provides some insight, stating that many are dating older men and each other. This has led to a more intresting conversation of if older men are increasingly monopolizing women. Leaving younger guys out to dry supposedly, however a good chunk (acutally half, according to study from pew research). The data gives two large reasons, mainly: Having other shit to do & just like being single. What i always found frustrating with the mainstream progressive view of this matter is that they seem hell bent on blaming Men for this problem. Greg Matos, who wrote this (in)famous article which pretty much embodies the progressive view on the matter, has stated: “Women don’t need to be in long-term relationships. They don’t need to be married. They’d rather go to brunch with friends than have a horrible date,”. The argument from the mainstream being in a nutshell: that these single men are misogynistic, shitty bums and deserve to die alone. That take leads to some rather intresting conclusions however, when looking at the data. From the first pew research link and another one. The people who are most likely to be single are men who are: Black, young, only highschool educated, low income, and living with mom and pops. Are we suppose to assume, blacks, the youth, poor men, men without degrees, and guys without their own place are inferior romantic partners, and or more misogynisitic than their rich, old, white, college educated, apartment renting counter-parts?
Could it not simply be that these mens moral characters are fine, but they simply lack the resources and experience many women desire? Is such a thing their fault? Is the black man to become white? Or the poor man rich (or at least reasonably middle class)? Could there not be barriers preventing them from achieving such feats? In most cases, progressives would be open to outside forces interfering with ones ability to succeed. The matter is being treated as if all of this is entirely within their control, and their failures are a simple matter of poor character. The issue appears far more complex is you ask me.
Perhaps a bit of a divergent, but the entire dilemma has led me to a larger question of how much of life success (in dating, in work, in school) amounts to hard work. There was a post about on star slate codex sub reddit about how good IQ was at predicting life success. There is a bunch data about how expensive being poor is, poverty traps, and how difficult escaping it can be. Disputes over gender wage gaps. Not to mention all the discussions being had about how race impacts such outcomes. Id be interested if there was some huge of huge meta study done on what percentage of these factors (IQ, class, race, gender, ect) all impact your chances at life success, if anyone had such information on hand. Though my intuition tells me that such a study would be insanely difficult to do, if it even exists.
I think that while that is an interesting question, a better idea would be to see if it possible to measure the predilection for hard work in the same way that we can measure IQ - a "HWQ" or some kind of general "hard work" factor. Seeing just how heritable that factor would be, how it is distributed among races/social groups/class/gender/sex/ideology would be incredibly interesting, but I don't know if there's any actual literature on the subject yet.
I think you won't find HWQ (conscientousness?) to be the deciding factor in life success. If you don't have high IQ, high HWQ will make you a great cog in the machine, but a cog you will be until you die. You won't slide down the class totem pole, but you won't rise up either. Which is not bad at all if you've been born a PMC and terrible if you've been born a working poor.
Oh, I absolutely agree on that front - I don't believe that IQ itself is an unalloyed good, and it isn't like there'd be a single optimal value for HWQ either. A HWQ that was excessively high would absolutely cause problems, albeit different ones to if it was too low.
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Ehh — plumbers make a good living. I am making the obvious American mistake of conflating class with wealth.
Plumbers may not be high class(and among the other skilled trades they are distinctly known for poor management of their personal lives and getting divorced a lot), but they live a pretty nice life.
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