“Disaffected men benefit from volatility: they’re willing to take bold bets to win status and wives. Crime, revolutions. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose”
The interesting thing is how this all plays out that low T men has become the new norm.
Why are you classifying "successful" women based on education? For the purpose of this analysis, it should be women preferred by men, just as "successful" men are those preferred by women. There are actually women who are measurably getting the short end of the stick, like less attractive men: inner-city black women (I recall a sociologist pointing that out when Robin Hanson brought up "sex redistribution"). Rates of death/imprisonment are significantly higher for the men in their vicinity, so the sex ratio is against them. Norms of marriage and a man supporting his children have plummeted. I would link to Alice Evans' recent blog post on that, but she appears to have deleted it.
Ominous. A remark on the public policy levers and testing the hypotheses.
First, through law the biological father to a child, even if not married to the mother, can be required to provide a certain amount of the cost of raising the child. If the expected cost of that obligation is raised in a jurisdiction, above some level, elite men would behave differently, screw around less, if they act cost consciously. Would be interesting to know if that prediction holds between jurisdictions.
Second, in the extreme case where public policy socializes all financial costs of raising a child, maybe even turning it into a source of income, then absent the psychological and cultural preferences, women should be less troubled by fathers of their children playing the quasi-polygamous game. Perhaps successful women would be the most impacted by this policy variation.
I’m thinking there is global heterogeneity in these two regards, so maybe testable?
I interpret what you write though to mean that the psychological desire to mate and marry (one way or the other) are very strong and when technology and culture change to enable certain base preferences again, now at even greater scale, then the financial cost levers matters less. This is above all a misalignment of modern cultural and natural programming with respect to the desire for romantic satisfaction as adult.
">>Beauty is a trap. Every sixteen year old boy might fall in love with the brown eyed waitress, but that ubiquity is the point (ie. there is a brown eyed waitress for every sixteen year old boy to fall in love with). Perhaps beauty’s defining feature is it convinces you of its uniqueness in every instance — despite its utter ubiquity. It’s a hamster wheel. The way to break it is with something non-fungible: your own children"
Beauty is only ubiquitous to high-status men: a small share of men. They're the ones scoping up most of the brown-eyed waitresses. "High-status men" or "elite men" could also use some more defining and refining: it's often not about money. A lot of guys without any money sleep with hot chicks, and a lot of guys with money don't.
"One might conclude that 'Nature herself' prefers us ignorant and/or traditional, and maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing."
To a western person, about the most barbaric culture is the Muslim Taliban. The Taliban forbids education for girls, and so they get pregnant earlier. They're ignorant but pregnant. Muslim societies produce more offspring than western societies, and their population grows. ALL Western societies are below replacement fertility levels, and so their populations decline.
Throughout history, there is no society which declined in population without also declining in overall economic health, influence, and vitality. So the Muslim societies with their "barbaric culture are growing, but sophisticated Western societies with their "advanced, progressive" cultures are declining. You draw your own conclusions.
“Disaffected men benefit from volatility: they’re willing to take bold bets to win status and wives. Crime, revolutions. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose”
The interesting thing is how this all plays out that low T men has become the new norm.
This, a thousand times. With testosterone levels in free fall and widespread endocrine disruptors... we could be brewing a perfect storm of sorts
Why are you classifying "successful" women based on education? For the purpose of this analysis, it should be women preferred by men, just as "successful" men are those preferred by women. There are actually women who are measurably getting the short end of the stick, like less attractive men: inner-city black women (I recall a sociologist pointing that out when Robin Hanson brought up "sex redistribution"). Rates of death/imprisonment are significantly higher for the men in their vicinity, so the sex ratio is against them. Norms of marriage and a man supporting his children have plummeted. I would link to Alice Evans' recent blog post on that, but she appears to have deleted it.
Ominous. A remark on the public policy levers and testing the hypotheses.
First, through law the biological father to a child, even if not married to the mother, can be required to provide a certain amount of the cost of raising the child. If the expected cost of that obligation is raised in a jurisdiction, above some level, elite men would behave differently, screw around less, if they act cost consciously. Would be interesting to know if that prediction holds between jurisdictions.
Second, in the extreme case where public policy socializes all financial costs of raising a child, maybe even turning it into a source of income, then absent the psychological and cultural preferences, women should be less troubled by fathers of their children playing the quasi-polygamous game. Perhaps successful women would be the most impacted by this policy variation.
I’m thinking there is global heterogeneity in these two regards, so maybe testable?
I interpret what you write though to mean that the psychological desire to mate and marry (one way or the other) are very strong and when technology and culture change to enable certain base preferences again, now at even greater scale, then the financial cost levers matters less. This is above all a misalignment of modern cultural and natural programming with respect to the desire for romantic satisfaction as adult.
">>Beauty is a trap. Every sixteen year old boy might fall in love with the brown eyed waitress, but that ubiquity is the point (ie. there is a brown eyed waitress for every sixteen year old boy to fall in love with). Perhaps beauty’s defining feature is it convinces you of its uniqueness in every instance — despite its utter ubiquity. It’s a hamster wheel. The way to break it is with something non-fungible: your own children"
Beauty is only ubiquitous to high-status men: a small share of men. They're the ones scoping up most of the brown-eyed waitresses. "High-status men" or "elite men" could also use some more defining and refining: it's often not about money. A lot of guys without any money sleep with hot chicks, and a lot of guys with money don't.
Game can help some guys unlock commodification and abundance, https://theredquest.wordpress.com/2019/10/09/women-hate-the-demystification-of-romance-commodities-artisans-and-the-game/
For the tiny number who have many children, maybe those children are fungible. I'm not saying I think this is good, but it is possible.
"One might conclude that 'Nature herself' prefers us ignorant and/or traditional, and maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing."
To a western person, about the most barbaric culture is the Muslim Taliban. The Taliban forbids education for girls, and so they get pregnant earlier. They're ignorant but pregnant. Muslim societies produce more offspring than western societies, and their population grows. ALL Western societies are below replacement fertility levels, and so their populations decline.
Throughout history, there is no society which declined in population without also declining in overall economic health, influence, and vitality. So the Muslim societies with their "barbaric culture are growing, but sophisticated Western societies with their "advanced, progressive" cultures are declining. You draw your own conclusions.