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 -
You are asserting that there exists an injective function from the set of heterosexual monogamous men to the set of heterosexual monogamous women such that every woman prefers being paired to her corresponding man over remaining single or holding out (there are additional conditions, but this seems like the easiest one to break).
People underestimate how difficult the gender wars/dating problem is because they don’t think about it in the proper mathematical terms. The thing that we are looking for is a binary relation between two distinct sets that satisfies certain properties. It’s easy to make a bunch of observations such as, “men are like this, but women are like that.” Okay, what does this tell us about the function space?
'Pass' is totally a normal and reasonable option- at a certain point, the corresponding man to a given woman in the 'would you want your child in a relationship with this person' scale is literally incarcerated, while the woman still has a clean record and is in full time employment(probably at walmart, but still). Rather being single over dating a convicted felon who doesn't have a job is an entirely reasonable decision, and if you don't think so get back to me when you have a daughter.
I'm willing to admit that there's a problem with average women turning up their noses as merely slightly above average men. I live in a bubble with very different issues with the marriage market, but I'm willing to believe it and there does seem to be corroborating evidence. That doesn't mean every woman should marry her corresponding man. The point at which they start to beat you and drink away all the family money is higher than the woman being unmarriageable.
More options
Context Copy link
I didn't say everyone. I just said there is one out there for you dear reader. You are special for having read my spiel. You are endowed with knowledge that others of your gender do not have.
I even believe I can give you a leg up on the competition. Note, that in a competitive space someone is losing out. The people losing out are the ones without my advice.
No mathematical contradictions here, just a simple misunderstanding of not taking me literally enough.
This is a little chunibyo.
I had to look up what that meant. Think of it as closer to tongue in cheek.
But I also don't think people need a significant leg up on their competition in the dating market to go from 'hopeless' to 'will get married within a decade'. I think both sexes could level up their game by just knowing a bit more about themselves and the opposite sex. But good advice is hard to come by for them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If 30% of prime age females opt-out in their 20-35 years to be fun for chad, richer, and high status men then you completely change ratios within the dating markets.
And you cause issues that a SMV 8 male can’t find a SMV 8 female for a relationship and instead chooses to be the Chad of 6’s he doesn’t want to commit to.
Also just a lot are opting-out of dating whatsoever due to low-moderate unfounded terror. I know plenty of beautiful mids through my wife's social network who essentially never enter the dating market except for very sporadically downloading a dating app for a month or two out of boredom then deleting it the second they have a somewhat-meh experience or some other part of their life makes a demand of them. They're expecting somebody to cold approach them socially and yet frequently don't really have hobbies (and if they do they are 98% female), plus most reasonable people aren't going to brave work approaches these days. There's also a decent population of Chadwidows, but in my experience the failure scenario for most of the women who I'd consider to be 'wife material' is the above.
People just overfocus on the perpetual Situationship ones since they're more vocal on social media and more visible on dating apps.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's called Gale–Shapley algorithm. Oh, wait, I see what you mean: at some iteration women will start valuing staying single over the next batch of men asking them out.
Yeah, I think the closest thing to a solution would involve substantial government pressure to form heterosexual couples, potentially including criminal punishment for cheating.
This might not work and might have bad side effects, but every other proposed solution also wouldn’t work and would have bad side effects.
Last weekend, Aella and friends hosted SlutCon at Lighthaven in Berkeley. Described charitably, SlutCon seeks to heal gender relations by teaching socially awkward nerds how to flirt by giving them a sandbox of semi-professional “flirt girls” to practice on. This caused a lot of controversy in the community for reasons which people tended to dance around, but which boiled down to, “I don’t want the socially awkward nerds in the community to be trained to flirt with me.”
Uh, isn't slutcon basically just whoring routed through a different payment structure that isn't illegal?
It's hard to say. All first-hand accounts of the event deny it, but of course that's what one would expect them to say. Keep in mind that we are dealing with levels of autism that shouldn't even be possible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Your link is a wall of text, but this bit certainly sticks out:
Yeah, that's the problem: there are some men who are "overly pushy" but are also so timid that they aren't trying at all. LOL.
I'm pretty sure on the aggregate the overly-pushy men are going to get more success than the overly-timid, anyways. Sure a certain amount will overstep lines and get pilloried, but also you miss every shot you don't take and more chance of finding somebody reasonably-agreeable to say yes if you just chronically go for it.
More options
Context Copy link
I feel there is a non-zero group of very vocal women who's core argument against stuff like this basically boils down to that they hate the idea of men having to 'learn' to be 'chads'.
They don't want to find out that the man who managed to get with them used to be a socially messed up and worked hard to be charismatically smooth. They want a natural. The guy who just 'gets it'. Like, how the hell do they expect regular and/or awkward guys to learn this stuff? Yeah, I know socially extroverted people who make connections as easily as fucking breathing, but the rest of us have to put in the effort at it to atleast pretend to be normal, or atleast not an asocial retard.
More options
Context Copy link
Ozy agrees with you.
@Quantumfreakonomics
It's literally me.
Being a homeschooled kid for everything before college already put me on poor footing, but attending college in the mid-2010's meant:
Thanks to all these factors, the risks of any approach were exaggerated (or more conservatively, were implied to be exaggerated) by authorities and by the groups I chose to associate with.
At this point I'm a wizard and just hoping I'll get over the hurdle of self-preservation soon; I can't talk with shrinks about this because despite the seeming pointlessness of life, assuming I do find a purpose to living I am provisionally maintaining a stable job, and I'd like to keep it stable with no employment gaps or institutionalizations to my name.
If any staff member would like to ban me, I think I'm going to keep using this forum for venting, at least as context and drive permits, and that is trite.
I'm a lot older than you, and: It won't get better. The people who tell you it will are high-functioning, capable of navigating modern dating, and they pattern match "my life is intolerable" to "I feel you bro, it's been a few weeks since I got laid, too." The real world does not mete out suffering in a balanced way. And men in pain are not a problem modern society even acknowledges, let alone tries to solve. As you've mentioned, shrinks are legally mandated to make your life even worse if you're honest with them.
I have a few relatives who I stay alive for, but as I live a very unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle, I'm kind of looking forward to dying of a heart attack in a few years, alone as always. (Ironically, I do not think we're all going to get killed by AI.)
More options
Context Copy link
Why? Nothing you said seems remotely objectionable. You are sharing your experience, which is not against the rules.
Single-issue posting is against the rules, even if it's intermittent rather than constant. 1 2
You have to really stand out and be persistently obnoxious about it for us to invoke that rule. Everyone has their "thing" that they like to talk about - that is not what the single-issue posting rule prohibits.
More options
Context Copy link
Fascinating, so rules as written yes, but rules as intended? Haven't the mods clarified many a time that they define single-issue posters as "obnoxious" and "non-stop". My model for this is that you'd have to cluster closer the SS, or EC (might be remembering wrong) style of posting rather than this fairly timid mostly-lurker that occasionally comes in to vent about how homeschooling + feminism + Leftism fucked up his brain. He is essentially not prolific enough, aggressive enough, or obnoxious enough to seriously catch mod attention on the topic.
Seems like a case of: "Rules are a blunt hammer, sometimes you need the enforcer to recognize when they should be applied" or that you can't make rules for every situation that are 100% effective.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This comment seems relevant.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I linked the wall of text because it recaps most of the better arguments that were had. I probably won’t make a full post on the subject since everyone’s getting in their dating takes in this one, and a separate thread would just be dunking on Aella.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Speaking of: Singapore's govt dating app runs on Gale-Shapeley
Another demonstration of the incompetence of governments who also "want" to address the dating crisis but avoid this obvious solution.
More options
Context Copy link
This won't behave how we'd naively expect.
Let's take two hypothetical countres:
Country A : 1.5 men per woman
Country B : 0.75 men per woman
Mathematically, we'd expect the women in country A to want to pair since they will have higher quality matches available.
In country B, we'd expect women to resist pairing since high-quality men are scarcer.
Yet, the opposite behavior appears to be true. Given an abundance of thirsty dudes, women will often reject even high quality mates. See: San Francisco.
The supremacy of probability & statistics driven evolutionary psychology over specious econoreasoning. Gale shapley does not apply because women can be single and preferences are not stable in men. Women wield singleness to wait on the top men in the area for their temporary turn. They will do this in country B and A and this behavior means at any given time more men per capita in B are getting laid than in A.
More options
Context Copy link
Sorry to burst your bubble but if wealth + intelligence is your only metric for high-quality mates you have a weird skew. As the saying goes: "The odds are good but the GOODS ARE ODD". Autistic nerdy men who happen to make 7 figures do not high quality mates alone make.
It's almost a tautology at this point, but the Bay has been known for this sort of male population for a long time. So if men in the Bay are still struggling then it would behoove you to update your model on what is actually considered high quality (different than high status) instead of what autistic nerds would like to be considered high quality
It's a nice story, and I agree with your assessment on status, but it doesn't hold water.
SF has a bad ratio. This is the core of the problem.
The same man who strikes out in SF/Seattle goes to NYC and drowns in female affection. It's a well-known phenomenon. There is no magic soil in NYC that makes men less autistic.
We don't have to make broad sociological observations. It's 90% just the ratio.
Meh. They'd probably have a better shot in NYC than the West Coast but I'm skeptical that moderately cashed up Indian Product Manager with low-mid 7 figures in RSUs at a height of 5'4 is suddenly the alphadog of NYC
Meh. Don't ever start a comment with Meh. Meh yourself.
Yes, obviously your example is not going to bag a Swedish model. But he'd easily bag a 5'2 Indian Project Manager in NYC. In SF, she's already been bagged by a 5'8" white dude.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
One would wonder why no women from NYC go to SF/Seattle. Why do we never reach equilibrium between two unequal states unless transfers are one sided or the transfers that are happening aren't the problem population.
Theoretically, but among my remaining friends in SF/Seattle, including some who took 6 month hiatuses to NYC for this reason, I have not seen drowning. It's hard to prove or disprove this as phenomenon with relying on anecdotal data because while its theoretically possible its too multivariate to quantically determine it.
It's a good question. My guess is that the women who move to SF for love tend to be mercenary and guys get the ick.
But dating is puzzling. For all the complaining, most people are barely trying. Why don't fat women use a GLP-1? Why do men take pictures with fish?
I think it's more down to those women generally joining the hunt for the top tier of eligible bachelors and increasing the logjam instead of really meaningfully increasing the distribution of potential partners down the stack.
maybe, but that feels like a poor predictive answer, it relies on a very "simple" understanding that seems to be more of a "disparate impact" on outcomes sort of view.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Because women are low-agency.
I would also wonder how many of the men in san fran are not looking for, uh, female companionship vs NYC, given the reputation of san francisco...
Yes I have noticed this. I know 2 types of conservative-ish women. Those who think that since they are the woman, the man should come to them, and the type that knows what they want, and puts themselves in positions where the more compatible men are.
However I've noticed this equally applies to a sub-section of picky men, who refuse to make some level of actual effort that might require some sacrifice to get themselves into a place where their preferred partners exist. So "women are low-agency" has become more just-world fallacy to me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
In SF, age 25-39, it's 52.8% male. In NYC, it's 48.8%.
While that doesn't SOUND like a huge difference, let's say 80% of each group are open to a heterosexual relationship (with the remaining 20% being gay/not looking). Then let's pair off 70% of the remaining women with men.
In SF, there are 1.4 single men for every women. In NYC, its 0.84. The difference is stark.
But in the modern world, men will always be at a disadvantage. 51.2% of people are born male absent any sex selection. It's supposed to get down to 50% by the time men breed, but we don't kill each other with sticks as much anymore.
Are those the overall sex ratio numbers, not age specific ones? The ones for NYC get skewed heavily by the older cohort of women if you use overall numbers, and it doesn't do the average 25yo male much good that there are loads of single 50+ women in NYC (jokes about cougars aside). You said 25-39, but those sound more like the overall ones I remember.
edit: this one I was thinking of is old data. I wish I could see an update with moveable sliders like this one has. Set to 20-39 and the oversupply of women seems to vanish.
My data is for all people age 25-39. The discrepancy between the raw data and your "singles" numbers can be explained pretty easily.
Older men like to date women in the 25-39 bracket but not vice versa
Women in "situationships" tend to report being in a relationship while the man she is dating does not. One Chad might have multiple women who perceive themselves to be his girlfriend while he thinks of himself as single
Nevertheless, the difference between SF and NYC is stark. Men of Silicon Valley, get thee to New York (or better yet Asia) lest your bloodline be extinguished.
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
Uh, in San Francisco, many dudes are thirsty for each other.
True. And it still remains the worst urban dating market for heterosexual men.
Pour one out for all the Chinese families whose lines are being ended because their one son ended up in Silicon Valley.
Honestly I've always been vaguely jealous of the Indian arranged marriage setup since it makes a lot of sense for socially awkward good provider guys. I'm sure there's horror stories, but the Upper class variety I've seen friends of both genders engage with just seems like a super useful social technology that'd broadly benefit the average Mottizen.
The jews have it to, apparently. I've been told that the mormons have an informal one.
AFAIK the Jews aren't quite as strong with it, though I think it depends on which particular geographic region you're in. I've got a Jewish friend who seemed to get kinda-setup with his now-girlfriend who's smart and I think considerably better than he'd achieve on the open dating app market, but I don't think it's as frank and mercantile as the Indian system.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I second this, having watched my socially awkward Indian friends fail at western dating but then have the cushion to fall back on arranged matchmaker setups, and get marriageable, family-approved women with good jobs and prospects, often fairly attractive with such comparatively low effort, I can't help but being a bit jealous. I went through the fucking trenches of the dating wars to find my girlfriend.
Yeah. Sheer size of the Indian population and access to a hinterland of conservative women in the home country probably helps the system work, but it can't be that hard to work out something similar for other demos.
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
I saw recently that Singapore has created a dating app that uses Gale-Shapley, so maybe there is mathematical hope for the monogamously-inclined. I'm legitimately curious how that will go for them.
ETA: Curious which variant they're using. The bias in the method is well-documented, but there are egalitarian forms.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link