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OK, here's a blackpilled (bluepilled...? whatever pill I'm supposed to take here...), really tragic story from our beloved The Economist
I have lots to say about this topic, not all of it derived from a dispassionate rational analysis.

I don’t date conservative or moderate men,” says Nancy Anteby, a 30-year-old New Yorker who works in social media. “I only date liberal men.” Politics is not her only concern. She is also looking for someone ambitious, with a stable career, who is Jewish and, perhaps most important, shares her desire to start a family. Finding dates who tick all of these boxes is not easy.
Good luck with that, asshat.
What's wrong with this broken market?
The fact that a large proportion of single people would rather be in a relationship (whether they are still looking for one or have given up hope) suggests that either there is some sort of dating-market failure that is preventing compatible people from finding one another, or that society is changing in ways that are making large numbers of singles incompatible.
100%.

"Europe each new generation is less likely to be married or living with a partner than previous ones at the same age"

Here's a year-or-so outdated FT graph that keeps me up at night (not literally...)

"As men have drifted to the right and women have become more liberal in America and parts of Europe, politics is getting in the way of pillow-talk,”

Across the OECD on average 51% of women aged 25-34 had a university degree in 2019, compared with 39% of men. That makes the old pattern impossible to sustain. “Highly educated women who still want to marry up won’t find enough candidates,” says Albert Esteve, the director of the Centre for Demographic Studies in Barcelona. “So the question is, are they going to start marrying down?”
there are growing numbers of lonely hearts, pining for a partner but unable to secure one. Don’t want a ring on it: There is an alarming mismatch in this regard between women and men. In the Pew survey, 62% of single women did not want to date, whereas only 37% of single men felt the same way.
if mathematics were the only driving force, rather than cultural norms, there would have been a big rise in the share of couples where the woman is better educated. Yet the expectation that women should marry up is hard to dispel. Researchers in Germany, for example, found that highly educated women over the age of 30 were more likely to remain single than settle for a man with less education.
The raw mathematics imply that either large sways of impotent, underachieving men have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (impossible, given the cultural norms and institutional barriers so strongly favoring women over men), or, the much more readily available opportunity: women widen their scope.

Have you tried feeling differently?

Do I blame women for this? Yeah, pretty much. But in a story as old as the Bible itself (#804036, #1011981)), men shrinking their responsibilities and women being placed in positions they’re not equipped to indicate a prior failing on the class of men themselves. Yes, it’s our fault. No, there’s nothing much we can do about it for this generation. Yes, the more readily available equilibrium solution is for women to change their goddamn minds and behavior.
Salty? Yes, absolutely. True? Probably.
Is the relationship market hopelessly broken? Undoubtedly.

174 sats \ 13 replies \ @Scoresby 16h
I'll add one to the sad list of reasons why people seem not to be finding relationships as much as they used to:
Waiting till you are old (I could have palliated this and said older, but who are we kidding: anyone over 30 is old) makes it harder to find a relationship.
When you are young, you are dumb, but also you aren't quite so firmly set in your ways. You haven't necessarily made your mind up about everything, or if you have, you don't have very well-considered opinions. Also, being young you are more concerned with sex than with being right. Plus, the dumbness of youth means you can't really fathom how awful your partner might turn out to be.
Get a little wisdom in your noggin, and some experience born of hard knocks, and maybe a win or two that makes you feel like you might actually know what you're talking about -- and it becomes very hard to find a partner who you think is your equal (and who will put up with you).
The message I received in my youth was don't worry about getting married young! Wait till you are well-established! Get a career going, maybe date around a little, figure it out in your thirties. That is shit advice. Get married when your young.
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Seconded (provided you found a right person)
The most important parts of your life, if you're lucky, will be your spouse and children. The sooner you get to those stages, the more of your life you get to bask in it.
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Yes, if you are lucky, but as the article and overwhelming evidence suggests the chances of finding the right person are not good.
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42 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby 16h
At least some of that evidence may be swayed by the "right person" becoming a narrower field as one gets older.
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There's a reason I said "a right person" rather than "the right person"
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Touche!
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100%
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what he said
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Yes the feminist narrative of women being equal is conflated into women being educated and prepared for a career and so the smartest ones have invested too much in career to have children when they are best able to and so only the least intelligent women still have children young.
Feminism is just one manifestation of the disease of entitlement that corrupts a culture that has been dominant too long. The cult of the rights and entitlements of the individual ignores the duty and obligations of the individual to the society that has raised and supported them.
Most Libertarians will choke on that last sentence as Libertarian ideology is just as poisonous and drenched with the sense of individuals entitlement as feminism is. Both are diseases of the modern western civilisation and make it vulnerable to more unified and collectively minded cultures- primarily China.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 11h
As one of the very few women on stacker news I read this comment and just think…
How did our boys get so lost?
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Please explain what you mean - demonstrating you can engage in reasoned dialogue...
If you can.
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Get a little wisdom in your noggin, and some experience born of hard knocks, and maybe a win or two that makes you feel like you might actually know what you're talking about -- and it becomes very hard to find a partner who you think is your equal (and who will put up with you).
fuck, this portion makes my heart sink. ugh.
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why? because you feel that way, or because you think women feel that way?
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I feel exactly that... very annoyed that I spent my prime matchmaking years (i.e., university) at the library rather than constantly at the social events. Completely misunderstood what the real purpose was... and now, here we are -.-
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Women are the problem as they are the gatekeepers of sex
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I'm interested in why women have drifted so liberal. Is it their choice of college major? Social media consumption?
I think social media causes people to have sharper opinions than they otherwise would, because of the echo chamber effect. It centralizes the opinions within subgroups, but sharpens differences between subgroups.
Not sure what the answer is. Cultural decline probably. Oh well, Western civilization, you had a good run.
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It happens before college, but is obviously reinforced there.
There's a firehose of careerist antinatal propaganda aimed at girls and young women. It's so broadly incorporated in our culture that I don't think you can really parse out who the culprits are.
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Have you seen electoral maps: if only women voted, if only men voted, etc?
Very illuminating
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I have.
There's an even more dramatic one I saw that was just single women vs everyone else.
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Definitely something feels wrong when your political preferences can be predicted so accurately by immutable characteristics.
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Being single is mutable, at least.
Also, party preferences aren't the same as policy preferences.
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stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.
Peer pressure and social status
Luxury beliefs aspirations
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45 sats \ 3 replies \ @optimism 15h
I just worry that politics nowadays play a role in love. That is insane.
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100%.
I had two separate dates recently that opened with "compatibility questions." (When my ridiculing answers tripped up some preconceived, unintelligent conviction, it was the end of that exploration.) I haven't met the Nancy Anteby that The Economist article open with... but I've met several version of her.
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111 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 14h
"compatibility questions."
tf! I'd walk out on that, but then I don't do first dates even if I were in the market. First date has to be organic in any way. I will not take anyone on a date if I don't know them prior. Organic, or fuck off.
it was the end of that exploration
The only good thing about that is that at least you know that you've wasted your time.
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so insane. Surreal freakin experience
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12 sats \ 1 reply \ @Dash_1971 7h
I'm sure conservative men will be devastated to hear that 30 year old progressive women "working" in "social media" don't want to date them
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Definitely, haha
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33 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 10h
My in-laws got married in 1964, and their politics are polar opposites.
She - liberal - very nice, calm, friendly lady, BUT, actually kicked chairs over in the kitchen, in a rage, when Trump was elected. He - conservative - constantly watching Fox news, then switched to OAN or something similar (more conservative). Trump lover
And they get along really well.
I don't know if that kind of story happens anymore. Like the example you gave, unfortunately some women really won't date someone that's not on their wavelength, politically.
I also saw a forum post once (MrMoneyMustache) where the lady poster would only date someone who believes in global warming. Sheesh.
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Incredible
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Avoid modern women at all costs.
The women were told you can do it you're the boss, you don't need a man, you can do anything a man can do.
Meanwhile ypung men were told, step aside let the women come through, you're a misogynist, you're an oppressor, you're controlling.
Young men didn't want to be framed like that, so they surrendered into this idea of being more vulnerable and emotional, to be revelant in this woke, inclusive, diverse era.
And that has made women hate men even more because the men are pantie wearing Nancy's
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step aside, siiiiir
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121 sats \ 5 replies \ @anon 11h
As one of very few women in bitcoin, much less stacker news and Lightning…
When will the boys grow up? When will they mature? Eventually Bitcoin has to grow up, mature, be about more than being a nerd and speak to all peoples.
Bitcoin is so much more than it is right now, and I still believe everyone will use it eventually.
But it will only mature when we spread it with love understanding that not everyone thinks like us or wants exactly what we want.
It’s still stuck in the MSDos era because it doesn’t have a good UI or the barrier to entry is too high. This barrier is cultural and social… it is person2person and reading comments from ‘the boys’ on SN I see why this is and I don’t know how to help yet. It will take time.
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Feminism is a gross misunderstanding of human nature. Feminists do not understand men, or themselves. It is really quite tragic, symptomatic of a culture in decay.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @anon 9h
it is literally defined as
"belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests"
it's not a misunderstanding. If you were female you would want equal opportunity as well
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Would you agree that some feminists have taken it beyond wanting equal opportunity and have started demanding equality in outcomes, irrespective of any inherent differences in life preferences or skill affinities?
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Fine words but in practice it has resulted in women increasingly competing with men and failing to work in a complementary manner with men. Result - failure of relationships and families and massive negative consequences including the genocide of millions of unborn children. Men and women are fundamentally different in nature - feminism does understand, accept and accommodate this human, cultural, biological and evolutionary reality.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 3h
It's quite telling that both you and I (#1277635) have to resort to the @anon handle.
How did OP, and some other commenters here, end up hating (or, at the very least, blaming) women so much?
Is SN representative of Bitcoin culture? Are Bitcoin men representative of all men?
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 12h
I saw that younger generations in the west are not drinking anymore. Maybe that could be part of the reason.
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You blame women but it’s the fault of men?
Men have not changed or maybe slightly
Women have changed significantly
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Education makes women unfit for raising children. The modern debt funded consumer based financialised economy provides them financial independence and encourages that financial independence (read dependence upon employment) as it boosts GDP. The western world cannot maintain its population and so imports labour to maintain/boost GDP, ultimately diluting its cultural integrity and unity. What happens when war breaks out with China and you find that the tech departments of your top stocks and universities are majority staffed by Chinese? The west cannot compete with Chinas mixed economy where industry is provided with lower priced inputs such as energy and labour and strategic investment by government in crucial technology like rare earths, robotics, infrastructure and energy generation and efficiency. The west is dying from its bloated sense of entitlement. Its Chinas turn to be the dominant and most sophisticated economy again, just as it was 500 years ago.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Dash_1971 7h
I find your posts illuminating and think you make many good points. But can I play Devil's Advocate and challenge you on two points? 1: Isn't China also failing to reproduce and facing demographic issues? 2: Isn't China essentially Japan 2.0? And look at what happened to Japan. Turned out they were working as slaves making cars and radios for entitled Americans just so they could earn dollars and buy treasuries which were unilaterally debased via monetary inflation. The life force of that one great nation has been slowly drained by the vampire squid dollar hegemony empire to the extent they are now prostituting themselves to tourists to make ends meet. How does China avoid the same fate?
I suppose it can be argued China woke up to the scam after the GFC and hence them moving to buying gold from that time. But what if China is repeating the mistake of the past of choosing the wrong collateral? As I understand from Saif's The Bitcoin Standard one of the reasons for China's fall was them choosing to stick with silver while the west moved to gold for reserves. What if that mistake is now being repeated by choosing gold over Bitcoin?
I ask these questions out of genuine curiosity. I'm open to the idea of China challenging the US but the fact is the US regime loves to have a boogie man (Germany, Russia, Japan, now China) which it likes to project on and accuse of all the things it does itself. But these boogiemen often turn out to be nothing but bums lined up to be knocked out by the great heavyweight champion the United States of America.
Also, one other thing I'd be interested to hear your take on: do you think the Israel alliance helps or hinders the US as it pertains to containing China? And by that I mean Israel is a formidable country with a population I would argue doesn't suffer the same entitlement and naivety as the US population. They are street fighters and are playing for keeps. That whole exploding pager thing showed that well enough. Does China going against US interests mean making an enemy out of Israel? Or will Israel just work with both China and the US, aligning themselves more with the eventual winner? Them being a nuclear power in the middle east and having the ties they do to Washington makes me think the Chinese need to address the Israel issue if they are ever seriously going to challenge the Petro dollar.
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Thank you for considering my arguments and providing some perfectly reasonable critical responses.
Firstly Israel and I want to emphasize on this topic I am much less confident and more speaking on gut feeling than any deep knowledge- with that said I see Israel as a Jewish state and I see Jews as highly skilled due to for many centuries having no nation state base but instead reliant upon skills. Jews have excelled in banking because of their exemption from Christian and Muslim sanctions on usury. Jewish bankers financed the powers of Europe - Hitler took them on and lost. Jewish bankers own the US government. So my guess is China will not be willing to be subservient to Jewish usury like most western powers have been for the last 500 years. The current power struggle between China and US leaves the Jews and Israel at risk of losing their military proxy-puppet, USA. China has backed Iran and Iran has financed the range of military forces who seek to confront Israel. Israel has shown great skill and ingenuity and needs to assert itself more as US power declines. China may not exert its dominance in the same way as western imperialists have- for one thing it will not be backed by Jewish bankers. China has historically expected tribute and subservience from neighbouring countries but also left them to govern their people in their way. Modern China appears to be similarly a mercantile power- interested mostly in trade and exchange, not military conquest and subjugation. China and the Jews both believe their culture is inherently superior to all others- traditionally China believed the further you are from the Middle Kingdom, the less civilised and more sub human you will be. The Jews believe they are Gods chosen people. Both cultures assumption of superiority naturally provokes dislike from other cultures...but their cultural arrogance has endured, where many other cultures have been subjugated and/or withered and died.
Chinese demographics- China could impose the one child policy which both enabled the early stages of modernisation but also went on too long creating an imminent workforce deficit. But China now leads the world in robotics and other high tech labour saving applications. China is also raising the age of retirement from 50 to 55 for woman and 55 to 60 for men. Retirement entitlements in China are lower than in the west but also not such a burden on the state and the state provision of health care is extremely efficient and cost effective. Most western nations are not replacing their populations internally but are increasingly reliant upon imported labour to sustain economy/GDP but there are problems with that especially if you enter conflict with other nations - how will the predominance of Chinese technicians in US universities and tech firms go as the trade war escalates? Cultural unity and self reliance can be a significant advantage in times of war. Diversity is often not.
China is not Japan- Japan has since WW2 been a military and monetary tribute state to the US. When in the 1980s Japan looked like it might challenge US wealth the US demanded changes to the Japanese monetary system and economy that threw Japan into the permanent stagflation it has been ever since.
Chinas entire process of development since WW2 has been to insist upon its right to true sovereignty on all levels. Initially the US did not recognise the PRC. China gained nuclear weapons and prevented the CIA from seizing the strategic military high ground of Tibet while also pushing back the US takeover of Korea where US troops replaced Japanese troops who had been occupying Korea through WW2. The threat of US infringement upon China was successfully used by Mao to strengthen the post war fragile unity in China under the CCP.
Chinese have not forgotten the humiliation of The Opium Wars and the hundred years of humiliation that followed. Few westerners understand the importance of this. If you want to understand China today start with the Opium Wars and read on through the 100 years of humiliation right through to Japanese Invasion and the Nanjing Massacre and through to the CCP seizing power immediately after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. China since WW2 has fought to assert its right to self determination- and unlike almost all other nations, has succeeded. Japan, S.Korea, Canada, Britain, the EU, Australasia are all monetarly and militarily subservient tribute states to the USA. China is the first, since 2016, nation on the IMFs board of reserve currency issuers, not to be a tribute state to the USA. Monetary and military power structures are highly aligned.
CCP ideology is inherently opposed to Bitcoin- Bitcoin being a model of money that gives the individual greater monetary power and autonomy but which by so doing reduces the states ability to leverage the populations savings. From Chinas point of view the need to be able to collectivise and project power (including monetary power) is fundamental to its core project of insisting upon the right to self determination. China has generally applied fiat monetary leverage with significantly greater skill and discipline to the west in recent decades...using it mostly to build productive economic infrastructure and capacity. Their CBDC is probably the most advanced one in operation and dovetails into mBridge and CIPS and the overall project of building an alternative to the SWIFT hegemony of the US. Trumps tilt toward stablecoins may force them to rethink but neither side is seriously considering allowing Bitcoin for international trade settlement. Trumps crypto projects look more like Britains Second Empire...a means of secreting wealth as the empire declines.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 3h
Hmmm, confused by some of the observations here.
I am a man. I'm from Europe.
My 3 female siblings don't have the same number of children (3, 2, and 0). They are all strongly in favor of feminism (as in, equal opportunities for women, rebalancing objective historical oppression). Same with most of my female friends. Most of them live with a "modern" man who supports them in their quest for improved women's rights. In exchange, these women, feeling validated by their partners, don't mind giving some of the best years of their lives to childbearing. Not just one kid, several kids.
So, maybe, part of the problem is with some of the men here.
Or maybe things are really different between the US and Europe.
Or maybe my experience does not apply to yours, and yours does not apply to mine.
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Margins or extreme examples don't inform the mean...?
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The underlying issue is the idea of revealed preferences, that underpin economic theory and justify all of these systems. "Give the people what they want" is what the tech bros say to sooth their conscience so night.
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