site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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.

14
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

She can very easily get a partner without resorting to such artifaces, all she has to do is be realistic about what her value as a 36 year old woman like her is. The odds of that happening though, even for a rationalist woman, aren't particularly good.

Once again this isn't all (or even mostly) her fault, but rather it is a fault of the society and milleu she lives in that her (inflated) hopes and dreams are about to go splat on the ground and this is one final desperate attempt from a struggling soul to avert doom.

They say that disappointment is caused by the difference in expectations vs reality, and by sending expectations for middle aged women to the moon without doing anything to change the reality on the ground modern Western culture claims for itself another victim.

What she is able to get and keep lies on a cline between the 21 year old incel and the 60 year old functioning alcoholic, the time to find a long term partner was 10 years ago for her. Had she been told at 26 that if she left it until 36 she'd only be able to get the dregs of society to commit to her there is a very good chance that she'd be happily married today. Instead her society which looks down on inflicting short term pain for long term gain has now condemned her to far greater suffering, probably for the rest of her life.

I've learned to phase out and stop caring about such cases, much as we've all phased out to the massive hunger and suffering going on right now in Africa.

You seem to be assuming that this her posting that doc is some kind of desperate Hail Mary attempt to find a partner.

You should keep in mind though that she is a rationalist, which means that writing three page documents for her is like writing two sentences for the average person. Rationalists for some reason tend to be extremely verbose, they shed words like cats shed fur. And being a rationalist, she is probably more comfortable with being literal in social situations than most people are.

This might not be a desperate Hail Mary for her, it might just be a normal Tuesday. If she did not write this document, maybe she would have felt compelled to write a 20 page-long essay about AI risk and post it on an Internet forum instead.

by sending expectations for middle aged women to the moon without doing anything to change the reality on the ground modern Western culture claims for itself another victim.

I don't get where this meme comes from. The idea that "women" as a group have "high expectations".

Plenty of absolute loser men manage to get laid and get married all the time. No money, unstable employment, obese, criminal record. They still find a way. Nondescript men too, men who are average and unremarkable in every respect. I've seen instances of every type of case. Clearly, the women that these men are dating don't have high expectations, at least not in the way that's typically thought of on this forum.

Perhaps men need to reexamine their own expectations? If every woman you're interested in is, in turn, only interested in millionaire VCs, what does that say about you?

I can agree with the 'get laid' part. With regard to the 'get married' part, I'm not so sure. I think the statistics on marriage rates among the lower class and underclass prove this, although I honestly can't be bothered to try digging them up right now.

deleted

Might it be a matter of age, as the common wisdom is? Women age like milk and men age like wine and all that. Not that I’ve really agonized over this much, but I think it’s plausible that women have a perceived upper hand in the dating market initially (which might translate to more women trying to go for broke), and this slowly gets reversed to a clear male advantage in middle age or so. I think part of this is the reason for the perception in unfairness, since early adulthood is seen as when people “should be” dating and starting to settle down, and that’s when women are perceived (by themselves and by men) to have greater bargaining power in the dating scene.

What are the demographics of the men who are complaining about women having high expectations, actually? I honestly am not sure, I haven’t really exposed myself to the dating scene much. I’ve only dated two women lifetime and they’re both better catches than I think I am.

I don't know why women seem attracted to bad boy types, but especially if you have been one, this pattern is unmistakable.

Because lack of willingness to commit is a masculine signal of high value genetics. He can have his pick and he knows it.

This would be a real problem for women in a world in which less-exciting, more-committal men refused to raise the children of the first type once those women have 'gotten serious'. But generally those guys are happy enough with sloppy seconds, the companionship of a woman who still isn't too unappealing, and occasional obligatory sex, maybe even a kid or two of his own.

Culture can tune for this.

If you look at romance novels, it would suggest that women are interested in slightly (too much) older, dark (no blonde men please), gloomy, incredibly rich men, preferably with hereditary titles.

So, basically, Batman. (OK technically speaking Batman is not a hereditary title)

I think Mr. Darcy is who we're looking for. But then maybe Zoro is Mexican Mr. Darcy so Batman still counts.

Batman is not a hereditary title

I feel like some of the various writers of the comics and the TV shows kinda wanted that, though.

(I think the Batman Beyond crossover episode of Justice League Unlimited made that a thing.)

Plenty of absolute loser men manage to get laid and get married all the time. No money, unstable employment, obese, criminal record. They still find a way

but they did not necessarily start this way, for example, couples gaining weight during relationship due to age. Having a criminal record is not disqualifying at all though, but being short not uncommonly is.

There are lots of short auto mechanics who have never been in shape on their third wife.

It seems very possible that PMC women are as a group unrealistically picky, but men marrying down is an age old phenomenon.

all she has to do is be realistic about what her value as a 36 year old woman like her is

I guess so, but maybe she just isn't interested in anything less than the best? This could make sense from an ev-psych point of view. If you have kids with a genetic dud, presumably your kids will also struggle more with mating, potentially creating a vicious cycle. I have no idea what the actual relationship between male attractiveness and long-term genetic ROI is, but I could imagine that in some environments, the expected genetic payoff of having kids with a bad enough mate could be close to zero.

This suggests an intervention that could get women to be interested in less-attractive men: censor or hide attractive but unavailable men from them, until her estimation of relative value of the available men goes up. Right now we have the opposite, with media showing unrealistically handsome and high-status men (i.e. James Bond or Tom Cruise) all the time.

This could make sense from an ev-psych point of view. If you have kids with a genetic dud, presumably your kids will also struggle more with mating, potentially creating a vicious cycle

Nothing that a 36 year old childless woman does makes sense from an evo-psych view. Such creatures would never have existed in the ancestral environment, because women needed to start exchanging their wombs for mastodon steak at 14 or they'd just die of exposure.

But even if they had it wouldn't make any sense, because having a kid with a genetic dud still gives you more chance of grandchildren than does having no kids, which gives you zero chance.

You are assuming that our distant ancestors saw absolutely no value in women other than their wombs. Which might be true, but I am not convinced of it. Even non-human animals are often more complicated than that in their psychological motivations.

having a kid with a genetic dud still gives you more chance of grandchildren

Not necessarily, because of the opportunity cost. It could easily be better in expectation to wait and hope for a slim chance of a better mate down the road.

I'm not claiming it is in her case, but I'm claiming that even the ev-bio-optimal strategy would sometimes wait too long and result in no baby at all.

Infertile women were always a thing. The tale of Abraham and Sarah was intended to be deeply relatable.

Infertile women were always a thing.

I don't think they were, but it's irrelevant to the point. Even if I grant your hypothesis, they weren't a thing that could leave an impression in evolutionary psychology, because no infertile person ever can.

Also, Biblical Times substantially post-dates the ancestral environment.

Counterpoint: insect colonies. Almost all bees in a hive are infertile females, therefore the phenotype of infertility can be selected for, unintuitive as it sounds. In any social species you could have similar "worker bee" individuals who perform some useful role without reproducing themselves, to the point individuals who do reproduce are advantaged by making them.

Of course it can. Thedesire for sexual novelty (reduced if children are produced, ie sense of responsibility) would benefit someone who is fertile who married someone infertile.

Somewhat jokingly, PMS is anger directed at a man who didn't impregnate her this month. Maybe that is evolutionarily beneficial

She's not infertile in that sense. She just made choices.

The massive hunger and suffering going on right now in Africa

Is this even true anymore? Back when Singer wrote Famine, Affluence, and Morality, people were literally starving to death. Nowadays it seems like people everywhere get enough food to survive, and the suffering is due mostly to endemic disease.

yeah. obesity rates are surging in Africa. It's going to be worse there because those people have biologically and culturally optimized to having so little food, so introducing western diets and sedentary lifestyles will cause even worse obesity than seen in the US. Too much food is the problem now. Scientists have to invent a drug that costs $1200/month just to prevent people from overeating

The fact that she didn't just download some random dating app and wait 30 minutes for a match suggests that her expectations are at least high enough that she can't get the sort of man she wants from a dating app.

Preposterous comment.

It should be 30 seconds.

There’s a massive hole where her “what I expect from a partner” section should be. There are implications to be drawn from its absence, but I think most people are projecting.

If Yud can get laid with multiple women in rat circles, then I'm willing to believe that no, they really don't require a 6'+ gigachad at minimum or anything like that.

You may not like it (and me neither), but Yud IS the rat circle equivalent of a 6'+ gigachad.

I'm not sure that the dating success of one of the most prestigious figures in the rat movement indicates that rat women have modest standards.

However, in my experience, most women's "standards" are more likely aspirations, which they will compromise if things feel right. Dating is not shopping - even women's shopping is not often shopping, as most men understand it (= you work out what you want and you go looking for it at an acceptable price).

Technically this could meet her expectations, but I think we can all read between the lines.