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 -
What have you tried, exactly?
Dating apps, on and off (because they are psychologically corrosive).
Dance classes (going to one tonight, actually), referrals from friends, bars (of various types), hosted gatherings at my house, gone to speed dating events, gone to car meets, church, social media, the gym. I'm currently pursuing a random DM I got from an (apparently) real woman on twitter that I already know isn't going to work out.
I am able to get dates. But the quality of woman I find is generally lacking, and they will ghost you without any warning even if you're 3 or so dates in. The norms around appropriate behavior are in shambles. Because women will accept zero correction of their behavior.
It is very expensive to keep paying for all these whilst seeing such poor results.
I've done everything except a Matchmaker or going abroad/mail order bride, basically. And I actually DID do a consult with an AI matchmaking startup, Keeper.AI and one of the founders himself told me "check back in 3-6 months" because they had no truly viable matches (as per their system) out of the 1.25 million women in their database.
The nearest/best one was a bit overweight for me, I was told. Ozempic to the rescue?
Do you still discriminate based on body count? If so, I wonder if that is actually being too strict. Like it or not, hook-up culture is highly pushed on young women, to the point where most who are capable of participating will do so for some part of their lives. If you sort out women based on whether they have slept with more than a handful of people, you risk removing a ton of otherwise dateable women from your pool of potential partners.
It is possible that body count in the modern world is simply a bad (or at least unattainable) heuristic for figuring out whether a woman is relationship material.
I've become a bit more strict about body count because the girl I almost married I met her during her 'hoe phase' (which she was open about) and thus I knew she had some history but was willing to take the shot anyway. She did end up cheating and leaving and to this day remains unmarried, 5 years later. She turns 31 shortly.
Its a signal that one cannot ignore, especially with how women will seek to hide it.
But you have to be flexible on that point. However, society becoming flexible on that point (thanks, sexual revolution!) is a large part of the underlying issue.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I wouldn't mail order but I would go abroad if you're in the anglosphere. Dating culture differs significantly within a country and between countries. In one place I dated for 2 years and never got stood up, in another place I got stood up frequently, in another I actually found a wife.
My top advice is just selection effects and heredity over everything. Men need to sample from as many places as possible through pure online dating but other than that you especially need to sample from wherever has the women the most like you politically and intellectually.
It still took me probably over a year and that's not counting the time I spent not using this strategy (that would make it several years), so 4 is not really out of the ordinary. Hopefully you will find something soon. The reality is that the system is messed up because it's all too costly and annoying in time and money even when it works out. What age bracket are you dating by the way? Marriage rates are down but young marriage is especially down so if you are dating under 25 it's clearly a systemic issue.
This is hiding alot of assumptions; for one, you need to either be rich enough or have the right sort of job to be popular abroad. Not exactly an option for regular joe schmoes that are hurting in the dating market, so guys able to take advantage of this are still in the upper percentile range.
Second... Look, I'm not going to belabour passport bros thier options, but the idea that there exist places where I'd absolutely slay just because I'm white and American sounds absolutely ludicrious. I don't fucking beleive it. I suppose the only way to test this out would be to go over there, but, see point one.
Third, as faceh points out, it just exports the problem to that country.
Fourth, I'm a horrible racist and want my kids to look like me, so that nixes most Asian countries. I suppose, in theory, that means I should be going to the region of Eastern Europe, but, well... see points one and two.
I mean you're not necessarily teleporting to 10/10 but generic white male goes from being neutral in most Western countries to an active plus even in places in Asia where there's not a massive incentive to go passport hunting. Between exoticness, norms around height/gender roles being different etcetera.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I sort of reject this solution because it exports the problem to that country. where are THEIR males supposed to go?
I mean, if I take a trip for other reasons and happen to find a wife, whatever.
Yes, and the political gap between young men and women is the largest its ever been. The women have flown off into la la land and nobody is correcting this trajectory.
Hence, the pool is too small.
I have no reason to think I will.
However, that is also not a reason to quit.
But understand that I AM OTHERWISE WELL SITUATED. I own a house. I make six figures in a decently high-status job. I am extremely physically fit. I am a martial arts instructor (i.e. I can physically dominate 90% of the male population), I am well liked, I can repair stuff, I'm not bad looking. And I'm six foot two.
There is zero reason I should be struggling.
And if I'm struggling, I can only imagine how bad it is for guys not so well situated. And I think its best to help out their plight too.
Basically anything above 21 and still in decent child-bearing shape. If I got my pick I'd aim for 25-27 (I'm most comfortable dealing with women in that bracket) but I have DIRECT EVIDENCE that I can pull 24-year-olds too.
But as to the filtering issue, finding a woman who is GENUINELY serious about getting married and is marriageable is the big one. There's no pressure on women to actually get married, and serious pressure on her to delay until she has her fun/her career is established. I don't think any individual guy can defeat this social pressure with a lot of assistance.
Man, how many 6'2" lawyers are around here? The 6'2" law firm could be unstoppable.
More options
Context Copy link
They marry your women. Go look it up you can find plenty of that, if you can't you are probably shooting for too low of a country. Don't marry a fillipina or cambodian.
You should assort on genotype and not phenotype. If you nail the genotype converging in your relevant beliefs will be easy. The easiest way to target genotype is to simply target a percentile among women. You do the same thing for height if you want tall kids (I don't recommend assorting on height now as that's frivolous and the market is in ruins) and intelligence. I believe that the median female is 4 IQ points dumber than the median man (a lot of people run denialism on this point but idk their issue), on top of greater male variability, which means that if I wanted to marry an at least 130 IQ man I can actually marry a woman with an IQ of only 121 or so.
There's plenty of affluentish countries/social clades in Asia that are a great place to marry into (even a Filipina/Cambodian if you get a fairly-wealthy Expat Chinese the calculus is a lot different) and whilst AMWF seems to be slowly ticking up it's far from being an 'even trade' at this point.
More options
Context Copy link
Which countries would this be? Argentina and areas of not-indigenous S America? Indian/E Asian a little bit but still skewed heavily male taking female.
Even Bill Gates daughter took an Argentinian so definitely an equal play place.
Yes and the Catholic/southern parts of Europe are noticeably better than the US or UK when it comes to women. The protestant Continent is in between. He should probably start learning Spanish and French.
Catholicism seems mildly protective against the woke package as a whole, without necessarily defeating any individual piece. Including very liberal catholicism; even James Martin has some issues with the woke(boomer TDS, on the other hand).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Funny enough I have met a good number of white male-filipina female pairings that seem pretty happy! The women can apparently be fiercely loyal too.
Unfortunately it'll also produce kids that are shorter than average, which might be bad for any future sons.
I might consider Singapore.
I've got an AI agent set up that is specifically designated with helping me both identify good places to go and try and meet women, AND vetting the ones I do find at least a bit.
I am at the point where I am willing to 'cheat' like crazy and pull every string to just get this process over with, but I also have to be realistic about the general odds.
Singapore isn't a great idea for finding a woman. Essentially same pool of people amongst Malaysian Chinese but less Western norms and Singaporean women have essentially all of the Western culture stuff going at full speed.
More options
Context Copy link
Orientals have weak genes, assuming you're white it'll just breed out.
More options
Context Copy link
Fortunately not. Filipinos are not genetically short; the nation's average height is mostly a result of malnutrition. I've got some tall cousins who attest to this (both families were short, and the European side definitely not due to malnutrition). I guess hybrid vigor is another possibility.
Not what I've observed from those particular pairings, but maybe just select for one with taller siblings.
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
More options
Context Copy link