A fascinating article on the economics (and economic inequalities) of dating: https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-the-dating-economy TL;DR: . the numbers show that men actually do have a much rougher time finding romantic partners than women . in a state of nature, the top 20% of males would monopolize the mating with most of the women (polygyny) . monogamy as a social standard has a re-distributive or equalizing effect on the dating market, by capping how many mates the top 20% can have at just one, therefore giving other males a much better shot at finding mates === Whether swipes on Tinder and OKC are fair proxies for real attraction -- this is the most obvious way to scrutinize the methodology. But the implications are solid.
Beware anything posted on Quillette. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quillette The fact that the author calls into question the existence of the gender pay gap tells you where this incel is coming from.
Ah, looked up the author. http://bradfordtuckfield.com/ Considering one of his hobbies is translating LDS General Conferences into Malay, I think it is safe to assume he is Mormon so writes from that viewpoint. Also, spends a lot of thought on the proper conservative ordering of society. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2017/05/what-is-best-bradford-tuckfield.html
None of which is particularly controversial. Do you care to address the ideas presented, or just attack the authors?
When the author’s conclusion matches their writing from four years prior (before their ‘evidence’ was produced) that should tell you something. The data is likely cherry-picked and misinterpreted in order to support a predetermined position.
It's not possible for a person to believe something and, over time, to gather evidence that supports it?
"in a state of nature, the top 20% of males would monopolize the mating with most of the women (polygyny)" I'm finding this position curious. What defines that "top 20%" that gets them "most" of the commodified cunny? Alpha douche-bro-ness? Stable daddy figure?
I presume that's the top 20% in attractiveness (however that's defined) as judged by the female population.
I'll take "People Unfamiliar With Mormon Doctrine" for $100, Alex. The Mormons, in addition to being anti-gay, host conferences which are so dry and boring that Teh Baba is the height of erudition by comparison. Even True Believing Mormons quite often complain about how horrifically boring they are. Somebody who has a "hobby" of translating such things is a bit "off" to say the least. Remember, these are things that Mormons actually believe: The Jews were brought to America hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus on submarines. That women should be subservient to men. That people have dark skin because they were cursed by god. And that when you die, if you were a good Mormon while you were alive, you'll get your own planet to rule over as a god, with as many wives as you want. @Bickendan will back me up on this, as he's an ex-Mo, and he'll also agree that I haven't touched on some of the craziest parts of their beliefs. One should be very skeptical about relationship advice given by a Mormon because their ideas as to what constitutes a "healthy" and "normal" are actually different than those of most Americans, regardless of their religious beliefs.
That can still be cherry-picking if you ignore evidence that contradicts your beliefs. I know that you and I both agree Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK. The folks who believe otherwise have compiled voluminous amounts of "evidence" which supports their position. They also ignore the evidence which contradicts their beliefs, even though that evidence is far more credible.
I don't need to know what sources Kim Jung Un is basing his statements on to consider them to be a bit suspect. I know enough about the society in which he lives to know that there's ample justification to be wary of his comments. The same is true of Mormonism and relationships between people who are in love. Especially when the person talking about such relationships is far more devout than the majority of the Mormon population.
i dunno... Maybe in their 20s, but even by the latter half of that it's been my observation women start balancing a lot of other factors besides pretty. I think the conclusion is often influenced by what a guy thinks he lacks to attract a lover. Looks, personality, social credit, sexual skills, assets... you name it. unless you're hitting every check box, you're going to focus on what you don't feel you measure up in and gripe about that disadvantage as the cause of your failure.
Oh dear. Let's list some of the assumptions this piece makes. These are not conclusions or observations, but axiomatic ideas that the author assumes as a point of departure and on which he builds his observations and conclusions: 1. Everyone is heterosexual. (No kidding. It's his first assumption.) 2. Attractiveness regulates access to sex. (Most people are disabused of this notion by the age of 20.) 3. Likes on an internet dating platform are: 3a. a good representation of notions of attractiveness throughout all of society 3b. a good representation of success on that platform 3c. a necessary (sic!) requisite for sexual experiences. 4. Attractiveness is linear and consensually determined, like the amount of dollars someone has to spend; different suitors do not disagree about a potential mate's attractiveness, and one attractive person is so at a quantifiable percentage above another. 5. He embraces the whole faulty nature vs. culture dichotomy, assuming that humans are inherently unnatural, which is generally false but especially makes no sense when you mix it with assumptions from biological evolutionary theory, as he does. 6. Within the confines of that dichotomy, he then goes on to assume that behaviour on an internet dating platform is a good measure of the most natural form of human mating. As opposed to monogamy, of which he assumes (a) that where it applies, it governs sexual behaviour in our society (uhm) and (b) it is a more recent cultural development, as opposed to internet dating culture, which is what monkeys would do. 7. Within the confines of that assumption, he then goes on to assume that women like male profiles and men like female profiles under exactly the same circumstances. He does not consider that men and women associate different costs and rewards with liking profiles, as e.g. different assumptions about safety, eligibility, privacy, goals come into play. He holds on to that assumption in the face of the only actual empirical data he has, which says that men and women do in fact behave completely differently in terms of liking profiles. Rather than abandoning his assumption, he now concludes that the only reason for this difference must be a difference in perceived physical attraction. Above all, he clearly welcomes the economy metaphor because it allows him to speak of two people having sex as one person "having access to sex", which brings with it the whole toxic incel rhetoric and just completely misses the point of sex altogether.
DING DING DING! We have a winner! The females are the ones who define "attractiveness" which can vary according to culture, personal preference, or just plain instinct. They are the deciders/the choosers and males have to dance to their tune. Life is not fair, nothing is distributed equally (sorry commies ) and "some guys have all the luck" is not just a song title, it's reality. Humans live in a "state of nature" like every other animal on this planet. Females prefer winners, not losers as the females (or the females' families in some societies) define them.
Attractiveness of men to wonen is probably different things in different times. In pre-civilization, women want men who are strong, capable defenders. In pre- and early industrial society, women want men who can provide. In modern society--where woman often have their own means--they want men who appeal to them sexually and aesthetically. It's more complicated than that, but those seem like the general trends.
"In modern society--where woman often have their own means - they want men who appeal to them sexually and aesthetically." - Paladin the mind boggles!
Quilette can be dismissed by left wingers, that's as sensible as righties ignoring Huffpostvoxcnnmsnbcabcnbccbs et al. But it's inaccurate to dismiss Quilette for refuting the gender pay gap myth. It (gender pay gap) is a myth because the gap disappears almost completely once adjusted for experience, position, vocation, FT vs PT, and seniority & duration served. You want to solve an actual problem, it's the pregnancy penalty experienced by women (who leave workforce to care for their children, then suffer setback penalty as they must reclimb the earnings ladder). Eric Weinstein had idea for solution (basically quantify the pregnancy penalty and reimburse these women for the negative earnings differential with tax dollars). With the advent of internet and e.g. tinder, the "top" men garnering a disproportionate share of the eligible females must be real, they even have a word for it: hypergamy. Plus someone made a chart.
If you are bothered because women are choosy and you are not close to worthy, go gay. Really, the problem with all of @Tuttle 's graphs and arguments is the idea that you are entitled to get a woman because you were born with a dick. Nature and civilization does not work that way. Women have a choice, and they are not required to let you fuck them. Those days are over so either go gay where you can easily get laid or suck a shotgun and do us all a favor.
And yet he has an extensive academic resume, much of which is in mathematics and languages. If being a member of a regressive religion disqualifies you from serious academic or social commentary, that’s 75% of Americans and most of the world at large. All of this is irrelevant, however. The level of ad hominem the critics here are indulging in — truly remarkable and telling. If he’s fudging the data or cherry-picking, then demonstrate it. Don’t just assume it. 1. This is your serious inference from the fact that he chose to write only about the heterosexual dating market? No, it isn’t. 2. Depends on how narrowly you define “attraction,” but yes. It does. Prostitution and rape are not considered legitimate by most people. People generally get sex because their partner finds something attractive about them. Beyond that, you're playing a game of semantics. 3. Yes, as I mentioned in the OP, there are limits to what Tinder and OKC can tell us. But consider their strengths. What data sets are more extensive and thorough than theirs? They have tens of millions of users, and OKC’s algorithms involve a lot more than swiping left or right. It’s hard to imagine a more complete data set. 4. Don’t really understand your point here. For the sake of this discussion, we don't need to understand how women (or men) arrive at their decision to find someone attractive and proceed with a romantic/sexual pursuit. We only care that they do. 5. I don’t think he does so as starkly as you’re suggesting, if at all. 6. Don’t understand this argument either, or how it’s different than your points #3 and #5. 7. Another iteration of point #3. This is tiresome. 8. Applying economic principles to the dating market is pretty common in academia and this type of social commentary. And as a serial dater (read: man slut) I think anyone who’s interested in successfully finding good partners needs to consider the market they’re in. So what’s the problem exactly? Sex isn’t meant to be based on ideas so cold and numeric? That’s very romantic of you but also naive.
But nothing in the fields of psychology, human behavior, or sociology? Those are the relevant fields here, not language and mathematics. Would you trust Stephen Hawking for car repair advice over a certified mechanic? Not really. Ever heard the legal term "fruit of the poisoned tree"? That's when a source is so tainted that anything has to be discarded because it is likely to be contaminated. You posted this, with the implication that you found it to be credible, for whatever reason. I've stated why I feel that the author of the piece should be considered suspect. I don't need to go into specifics as to why I don't buy a statement by North Korea to be credible, so why should this be any different? I would not accept the word of, for example, a fundamentalist Baptist on relationships because I know enough about their beliefs to consider anything they have to say on the subject suspect. Why should I treat this article any differently? It was not published in an academic journal, after all.
Yes, he is. He says so, pointing out that it is false, and then he does so anyway. You seem to think it's warranted because you assume that there is some separable purely heterosexual dating market. There isn't. I wasn't talking about prostitution or rape specifically, but note that legitimacy isn't the same thing as reality. However, if you just define attractiveness as all of the attributes that might lead to a person having sex, then you're the one playing semantics -- it becomes a tautology that says nothing. But that isn't how he uses it. He says 80% of men have none; that would mean that 80% of men have no sex. This is false. That doesn't mean it can tell us things it inherently cannot. He likens attractiveness to the amount of dollars someone has. It is necessary for his argument that everyone agrees about the amount of attractiveness each person has, as would be the case with dollars. This is obviously nonsense. he says that we have monogamy, and that it is unnatural. This is a direct logical contradiction. So you didn't understand 6 or 7. I'd help, but I'd need a better clue as to your problem. No, that's not the point at all. Everything can be broken down into numbers, but his numbers are false. If I use dollars to buy bread, there's an asymmetry between generalized and marginal value. When you sleep with someone, not only is your attraction buying access to their sexuality in this corrupt model, but the same is true vice versa. That establishes a doubled contingency, and that means you're not in a market of separable supply and demand. He begins with this logic, but then stops precisely at the point where the choice of his would-be partners can no longer be broken down into a generalized attribute of his capital. That's the very heart of incel ideology.
Point of order, OKCupid has admitted to manipulating their data, so it should be considered suspect at best.
If OKC is “experimenting” on its users, that would make it more sinister, but not dumber in the data it collects.
Well, you and Anc have utterly failed to convince me that there's anything wrong with this source. Your argument is that the article is toxic (you assume) because the author's personal beliefs differ from yours (you assume). No regard for the soundness of his research or claims, independent of who (you assume) he is. That's a bunch of horseshit.
I imagine there might actually be something to the study. What is done with the data and idea may be good or bad, but there is the reality that whatever is defined as attractive is going to be the choice for the chooser. When we look at human relationships the female is often the one who chooses. No one can really deny that. The male is the one who asks and the woman is the one who decides in the majority of cases. The problem with the data is not this part of the theory, but rather that it only really takes into account first choice, and completely discounts any other part of the decision making process. True, there will probably be those men at the top who father more children because they have whatever it is that gets the woman. That is not the end of the story. In the end when you are talking about a human society that does not exclude the second or lower choices from mating as harshly as nature can often do, you do not see the elimination of certain traits for more attractive ones as you might in nature. The data also does not take into account the mass variance of attractive traits that are present. What it does say is the vapid section of mating will tend to trend towards the trendy because that is how they select their mates. It does not extend much further than that, nor does the data support any further than that because it is shallow and does not explore any further than that.
I wonder whether even that is true. I hear people saying things like, "I can see that X is a very attractive person, but they're just not my type", or: "Y is not exactly beautiful, but there's something about the sparkle in their eyes that I find irresistible". As long as people separate their concept of attractiveness from their own choice, the notions are clearly not identical. Yes, very much this.
