8 ms·

I've noticed this among the young men in my extended family and friends. One guy is model cute, and goes out on Tinder "dates" whenever he wants (new girl week

I've noticed this among the young men in my extended family and friends. One guy is model cute, and goes out on Tinder "dates" whenever he wants (new girl weekly, at least). He had a live-in girlfriend, but with an open relationship. And if I were one of these women, I'd probably do the same thing. Even if you can't marry a hottie, if you can have sex with one a few times, that still sounds like fun. The other guys, who are "normal", and certainly not homely, just don't go out at all, even at what I would consider to be a fairly advanced age. I suspect some are still virgins. Instead, video games and pot. Since I am homely, this is exactly what I'd be doing if I were young now, given society's recent barrage of disparagement towards men. And especially if I knew someone like adult-me who got absolutely crushed by alimony. I foresee no particular solution. I think we'll just follow Japan and South Korea. Other societies with different norms will simply displace us. Which I think is fine.

notyourday 6y ago
> Instead, video games and pot. If their free time is about video games and pot, I would say they only have themselves to blame.
- vsareto 6y ago
  There's women who do that too, it's just the connection is missing
  - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
    Those women are dating, or at least having sex with, different guys.
  - notyourday 6y ago
    > There's women who do that too, it's just the connection is missing Because both video gaming and pot smoking is a solo or a very small group activity where the slots get taken by pot smoker's and video gamer's buddies.
- chrisjarvis 6y ago
  I generally agree with this but I think our society has somehow morphed into a place where you have to actively and mindfully avoid this lifestyle. Video games, binge watching, pornography, fast food, pot, alcohol, etc. The drugs of the modern world are pervasive and this lifestyle is not stigmatized whatsoever even though it is a recipe for depression.
  - codezero 6y ago
    > mindfully avoid this lifestyle Whoa! I never thought of this, and it seems particularly more apt of an observation with the trend towards legalizing marijuana, and even further, decriminalizing other drugs like mushrooms and LSD. On top of that, games have adopted more and more gambling-like and actual features, and have long been playing on peoples' addictive natures by design.
    - distant_hat 6y ago
      I don't think you should club together drugs like LSD and mushrooms with pot. I've known nobody addicted to LSD or whose lives are significantly negatively affected by them. Pot, yes, despite the propaganda that it is not addictive, does seem to have a component of addiction and people who take it regularly can't seem to stop talking about it.
      - codezero 6y ago
        I’m clumping them together because there has been a renewed interest in clinical study to treat things like pain and depression, as well as a trend to decriminalize them. Sorry about your friend.
- downerending 6y ago
  Okay, but when looking at societal outcomes, pointing the finger of blame isn't particularly useful.
  - notyourday 6y ago
    "My product is great. I do not understand why the customers are not buying it. It is not exactly helpful that I'm told my marketing sucks"
roosterdawn 6y ago
Sadly, this feels intuitively correct. I've heard a formalization of the prisoner's dilemma called the IQ shredder [1]. Whether it's a reach or not is something I am still debating internally. At the very least, I do sense that I, as someone who's working in tech and experience relatively stable upward career momentum, there's only so long I can "hang on" to my yuppie lifestyle before it works against my end goals to reproduce and have a family. While there's a playbook for what got me here, there's not one for what's going to get me to the next step. ``` Mr Lee said: “[China] will make progress but if you look at the per capita they have got, the differences are so wide. We have the advantage of quality control of the people who come in so we have bright Indians, bright Chinese, bright Caucasians so the increase in population means an increase in talent.” How many bright Indians and bright Chinese are there, Harry? Surely they are not infinite. And what will they do in Singapore? Well, engage in the finance and marketing rat-race and depress their fertility to 0.78, wasting valuable genes just so your property prices don’t go down. Singapore is an IQ shredder. ``` [1] https://www.xenosystems.net/iq-shredders/ https://www.xenosystems.net/iq-shredders/
- Nav_Panel 6y ago
  IQ Shredder is a dangerous concept, because it displaces "human worth" onto _individual_ fertility and offspring. If we follow that ethics a little further, we might find ourselves fully devaluating any religious practice which has an element of chastity (because it's dysgenic, obviously!), as well as condemning homosexuality along similar lines. The fact of the matter is that, psychologically speaking on the level of a single individual, we do not seek offspring so much as pleasures, and sex and child-rearing are some of life's greatest pleasures. But that does not mean they're the exclusive sources of pleasure available in any culture, and I would warn against putting too much faith in any such notions.
  - roosterdawn 6y ago
    > it displaces "human worth" onto _individual_ fertility and offspring I think the word "worth" could be an anthropomorphization. I read the concept through the lens of survivability. Hypothetically, a societal identity which does not ensure biological reproduction could be evolutionarily outcompeted by one that does. Even, or especially by a fertility cult. I remember this being one of the central, disturbingly dystopic outcomes that Mike Judge's Idiocracy tried to address. A lot of progressive technocrats look at model citizens with technologically harnessed upward mobility. They observe and want to enable global movement towards this. But if the environment that enables the financial prosperity of these model citizens also disables their ability to reproduce their way of life, how does it successfully compete in "the marketplace of ideology" against opponents who out-produce them by default? Wouldn't that be a local maximum? Without some kind of mechanism in place to address that, the progression has no guarantee of continuing. And this could lead to the dystopic scenario outlined in the film.
sjg007 6y ago
The advice to the normal guy in this scenario is to stop smoking pot and hit the gym. That will make up for a lot.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- coryfklein 6y ago
  Sure some of one's attractiveness can be improved with fitness, but for everyone there's some amount of genetic lottery there; if you don't have it you ain't gonna get it.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Right but you are the product of a previous mating and kids to resemble their parents so the odds of that are low. If you are a single guy looking for women the best places to live are NYC, Vancouver and parts of the Midwest with major hospitals. In those places there are more women than men. Yes you can work in SV but there’s way more guys then gals there.
  - antepodius 6y ago
    That's a good story to tell someone to make them give up. Maybe that's why it's being spread. Keep most guys down, sitting at home alone, so the few in the (not-so) know can have all the chicks to themselves...
  - inamberclad 6y ago
    For me, the gym is as much about self reflection and self mastery as physical improvement. It helps on many levels.
    - downerending 6y ago
      I had to read that twice to get that "self reflection" didn't mean admiring oneself in the mirror (at the gym). :-)
- 6y ago
koonsolo 6y ago
> And if I were one of these women, I'd probably do the same thing. My wife works with men and women who have a hard time finding relationships, so I have a bit of insight here. You are completely wrong about what women want. You think that women are the same as men, but you are wrong. Women do not want a 'hottie'. I can tell you those women who go out with that 'hottie' have no self esteem, and are not happy. They end up at my wife's practice. Men want a hot wife, because looks are very important. Women want a successful man, who can take care of the family, and is strong enough to protect the family. Women most of the time describe it as a "real man", but this does not translate well in what men thing a "real man" is. Most women do not want a player, and only end up with one because of the low self esteem. The good news is that men can influence their chances with women a LOT (and no this is not becoming a player). The sad part is that most men are too stubborn to accept this reality, and much rather blame their failure on women, other men or something else externally.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- troughway 6y ago
  >Women do not want a 'hottie'. I can tell you those women who go out with that 'hottie' have no self esteem, and are not happy. They end up at my wife's practice. Out of curiosity, how do you integrate the online dating studies that point to 70%+ of women only wanting the top 20% of men (ie. the "hotties") into your wife's practice, and what she sees from her clients?
  - luckylion 6y ago
    They don't "really" want them, they just "want" them because of low self-esteem seems to be the approach of matching that particular theory to reality.
  - koonsolo 6y ago
    I looked at that data together with my wife, and my analytical mind concluded that it's all bullshit with a clickbait title. Take this for instance: https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-your-2ddf370a6e9a https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-g... , based on 27 women, and he even says himself "Additionally, I am only accounting for the percentage of “likes” and not the actual men they “like”. I have to assume that in general females find the same men attractive. I think this is the biggest flaw in this analysis". So yeah, basically you can throw away any conclusion there. Other articles are based on this "study". But maybe there are new studies that I haven't seen yet. I have a problem with the word "hottie" because we men know very well which girls fall into this category. But because women have way more and different dimensions to select on, a male photo model doesn't have as much attraction as you would expect. Men in that sense are really lucky, because we can boost our attractiveness pretty good. Women on the other hand, if you don't have the looks, there is only so much you can do with makeup.

notyourday 6y ago

> Instead, video games and pot. If their free time is about video games and pot, I would say they only have themselves to blame.

vsareto 6y ago
There's women who do that too, it's just the connection is missing
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  Those women are dating, or at least having sex with, different guys.
- notyourday 6y ago
  > There's women who do that too, it's just the connection is missing Because both video gaming and pot smoking is a solo or a very small group activity where the slots get taken by pot smoker's and video gamer's buddies.
chrisjarvis 6y ago
I generally agree with this but I think our society has somehow morphed into a place where you have to actively and mindfully avoid this lifestyle. Video games, binge watching, pornography, fast food, pot, alcohol, etc. The drugs of the modern world are pervasive and this lifestyle is not stigmatized whatsoever even though it is a recipe for depression.
- codezero 6y ago
  > mindfully avoid this lifestyle Whoa! I never thought of this, and it seems particularly more apt of an observation with the trend towards legalizing marijuana, and even further, decriminalizing other drugs like mushrooms and LSD. On top of that, games have adopted more and more gambling-like and actual features, and have long been playing on peoples' addictive natures by design.
  - distant_hat 6y ago
    I don't think you should club together drugs like LSD and mushrooms with pot. I've known nobody addicted to LSD or whose lives are significantly negatively affected by them. Pot, yes, despite the propaganda that it is not addictive, does seem to have a component of addiction and people who take it regularly can't seem to stop talking about it.
    - codezero 6y ago
      I’m clumping them together because there has been a renewed interest in clinical study to treat things like pain and depression, as well as a trend to decriminalize them. Sorry about your friend.
downerending 6y ago
Okay, but when looking at societal outcomes, pointing the finger of blame isn't particularly useful.
- notyourday 6y ago
  "My product is great. I do not understand why the customers are not buying it. It is not exactly helpful that I'm told my marketing sucks"

roosterdawn 6y ago

Sadly, this feels intuitively correct. I've heard a formalization of the prisoner's dilemma called the IQ shredder [1]. Whether it's a reach or not is something I am still debating internally. At the very least, I do sense that I, as someone who's working in tech and experience relatively stable upward career momentum, there's only so long I can "hang on" to my yuppie lifestyle before it works against my end goals to reproduce and have a family. While there's a playbook for what got me here, there's not one for what's going to get me to the next step. ``` Mr Lee said: “[China] will make progress but if you look at the per capita they have got, the differences are so wide. We have the advantage of quality control of the people who come in so we have bright Indians, bright Chinese, bright Caucasians so the increase in population means an increase in talent.” How many bright Indians and bright Chinese are there, Harry? Surely they are not infinite. And what will they do in Singapore? Well, engage in the finance and marketing rat-race and depress their fertility to 0.78, wasting valuable genes just so your property prices don’t go down. Singapore is an IQ shredder. ``` [1] https://www.xenosystems.net/iq-shredders/ https://www.xenosystems.net/iq-shredders/

Nav_Panel 6y ago
IQ Shredder is a dangerous concept, because it displaces "human worth" onto _individual_ fertility and offspring. If we follow that ethics a little further, we might find ourselves fully devaluating any religious practice which has an element of chastity (because it's dysgenic, obviously!), as well as condemning homosexuality along similar lines. The fact of the matter is that, psychologically speaking on the level of a single individual, we do not seek offspring so much as pleasures, and sex and child-rearing are some of life's greatest pleasures. But that does not mean they're the exclusive sources of pleasure available in any culture, and I would warn against putting too much faith in any such notions.
- roosterdawn 6y ago
  > it displaces "human worth" onto _individual_ fertility and offspring I think the word "worth" could be an anthropomorphization. I read the concept through the lens of survivability. Hypothetically, a societal identity which does not ensure biological reproduction could be evolutionarily outcompeted by one that does. Even, or especially by a fertility cult. I remember this being one of the central, disturbingly dystopic outcomes that Mike Judge's Idiocracy tried to address. A lot of progressive technocrats look at model citizens with technologically harnessed upward mobility. They observe and want to enable global movement towards this. But if the environment that enables the financial prosperity of these model citizens also disables their ability to reproduce their way of life, how does it successfully compete in "the marketplace of ideology" against opponents who out-produce them by default? Wouldn't that be a local maximum? Without some kind of mechanism in place to address that, the progression has no guarantee of continuing. And this could lead to the dystopic scenario outlined in the film.

sjg007 6y ago

The advice to the normal guy in this scenario is to stop smoking pot and hit the gym. That will make up for a lot.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
coryfklein 6y ago
Sure some of one's attractiveness can be improved with fitness, but for everyone there's some amount of genetic lottery there; if you don't have it you ain't gonna get it.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Right but you are the product of a previous mating and kids to resemble their parents so the odds of that are low. If you are a single guy looking for women the best places to live are NYC, Vancouver and parts of the Midwest with major hospitals. In those places there are more women than men. Yes you can work in SV but there’s way more guys then gals there.
- antepodius 6y ago
  That's a good story to tell someone to make them give up. Maybe that's why it's being spread. Keep most guys down, sitting at home alone, so the few in the (not-so) know can have all the chicks to themselves...
- inamberclad 6y ago
  For me, the gym is as much about self reflection and self mastery as physical improvement. It helps on many levels.
  - downerending 6y ago
    I had to read that twice to get that "self reflection" didn't mean admiring oneself in the mirror (at the gym). :-)
6y ago

koonsolo 6y ago

> And if I were one of these women, I'd probably do the same thing. My wife works with men and women who have a hard time finding relationships, so I have a bit of insight here. You are completely wrong about what women want. You think that women are the same as men, but you are wrong. Women do not want a 'hottie'. I can tell you those women who go out with that 'hottie' have no self esteem, and are not happy. They end up at my wife's practice. Men want a hot wife, because looks are very important. Women want a successful man, who can take care of the family, and is strong enough to protect the family. Women most of the time describe it as a "real man", but this does not translate well in what men thing a "real man" is. Most women do not want a player, and only end up with one because of the low self esteem. The good news is that men can influence their chances with women a LOT (and no this is not becoming a player). The sad part is that most men are too stubborn to accept this reality, and much rather blame their failure on women, other men or something else externally.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
troughway 6y ago
>Women do not want a 'hottie'. I can tell you those women who go out with that 'hottie' have no self esteem, and are not happy. They end up at my wife's practice. Out of curiosity, how do you integrate the online dating studies that point to 70%+ of women only wanting the top 20% of men (ie. the "hotties") into your wife's practice, and what she sees from her clients?
- luckylion 6y ago
  They don't "really" want them, they just "want" them because of low self-esteem seems to be the approach of matching that particular theory to reality.
- koonsolo 6y ago
  I looked at that data together with my wife, and my analytical mind concluded that it's all bullshit with a clickbait title. Take this for instance: https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-your-2ddf370a6e9a https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-g... , based on 27 women, and he even says himself "Additionally, I am only accounting for the percentage of “likes” and not the actual men they “like”. I have to assume that in general females find the same men attractive. I think this is the biggest flaw in this analysis". So yeah, basically you can throw away any conclusion there. Other articles are based on this "study". But maybe there are new studies that I haven't seen yet. I have a problem with the word "hottie" because we men know very well which girls fall into this category. But because women have way more and different dimensions to select on, a male photo model doesn't have as much attraction as you would expect. Men in that sense are really lucky, because we can boost our attractiveness pretty good. Women on the other hand, if you don't have the looks, there is only so much you can do with makeup.