Kind: captions
Language: en
I will start us with a Washington Post
survey that shows that the rate of
sexlessness among young men has tripled
in the decade leading up to 2018
what in the hell is going on yeah so
that that is a big kind of statistic
that was flying around there there's
some new statistics actually that show
that that sexlessness uniquely being
towards young men has actually reversed
somewhat and part of that might be that
during the pandemic young men might have
been more risk-taking and they'd be more
inclined to go out during the pandemic
they were taking bigger risks I thought
for sure that number was going to go the
other way right yeah but young men would
be less kind of uh disgust sensitive
than women so they'd be willing to maybe
take the risk especially for sex so that
has reversed why would that's why would
that go up during the pandemic like that
felt like a time where everybody was
becoming more and more risk averse so
what what about being isolated or
clamped down on or even just the risk of
literal death made them more risk-taking
so the sexlessness for men was going up
up until 2018 but now the new statistics
are showing that it's not uniquely men
that are sexless with the women are
virtually overtaken them and that's if
what we're saying it might be a response
to the pandemic that women would be
staying in more risk adverse comparing
to men men would actually go out and
take the risk to have sex but uh so what
I'm trying to wrap my head around is is
that a response to women pulling back
which then make men go harder is that
what we're talking about yeah I think
men typically will be more willing to
take the risk women won't there'll be
fewer women who will take the risk and
more men would be willing to have sex
with them that's just one Theory the
other idea could be that it's just a
naturally kind of cycling back and forth
that this unique spike in sexlessness
for young men wasn't any major artifact
uh at all and it's kind of evening out
so if it went up I think the stat was 28
percent
what's it down to now I can't recall the
exact statistic now but I know that it's
reversed and that women have overtaken
that it's there's more yeah are we
talking 26 are we back down to like 10
12 I think it was around the 12 Mark 12
15. so it properly just completely
reversed so mating crisis over we're
good not necessarily so uh you know I've
spoken about that statistic on podcasts
before as one kind of data point in what
we call the larger amazing crisis but to
think about it as a made in crisis the
evidence of a young men reporting having
sex within the last year I don't think
it's the best evidence of any phenomenon
you can still have this made in crisis
with a lot of dissatisfaction with the
mailing Market from both sexes for men
and for women and there's still a lot of
data points in that so for example new
Pew research showed that upwards of 30
percent of men just simply aren't even
seeking romantic relations at all even
for casual sex they're just backing out
completely so help me reconcile that we
went from 20 seclessness before the
pandemic to its drop back down we don't
know the exact number but more or less
reversed but guys are pursuing sex less
how do I I don't know how to make that
make sense yeah so it's kind of just
pointing to this having sex one time
within the last year isn't necessarily
the greatest country sex ones yeah like
they're not pursuing it yes just like
does that you define the what is then if
you think there is a mating crisis I I
thought the mating crisis was people are
not having sex so we're putting that on
the Shelf so if it isn't that what is
the mating crisis okay so the maiden
crisis can be traced back to an essay my
supervisor wrote in 2016. so my
supervisor is Dr David Buss at the
University of Texas at Austin an
evolutionary psychologist and he wrote
this this essay saying the amazing
crisis among educated women you talk
talks about this mismatch Between Women
beginning to outpace men in educational
settings so he used the University of
Texas at Austin as an example where
women are beginning to outpace men in
education at rapid rates it's called the
pink campus and I know you've had
Richard Reeves on to talk to you in the
podcast and he lays out all of those
statistics in his book of boys and men
now when you combine this socio-economic
success of young women in recent decades
with their evolved mate preference for
an equal or higher status mate it just
simply means that there's a skew in
terms of the lack of eligible men that
are out there and when you have a skew
in a mating market like that so fewer
eligible men for women to compete for
the the market favors the scarcity so
those few men at the top that women are
interested in are less willing to commit
to long-term mating because they're the
scarcity and it becomes a problem so
women have a double-edged sword because
Highly Educated women are competing with
Highly Educated women and lower educated
women for the same increasingly small
pool of men that they're deeming
eligible
and you know you see articles every week
about this uh talking about how women
are beginning to freeze their eggs at
rapid rates in response to this lack of
eligible man out there
um you see can you so I know you've
already said it but I think it it Bears
when you say eligible men you mean women
have a set of criteria on average and
given the only thing you've listed so
far is college but I'm guessing that
there's going to be a broader set of
things at play than that yes but given
that the women are just demolishing men
into educational realm and that's one of
the criteria that they use to determine
eligibility yes uh that their their
narrowing the pool by being I don't I'm
gonna I'm gonna say too selective you're
gonna have a problem with that and
understandably so but from their
perspective just from a numbers game
it's too selective if you want a broad
pool yeah it is just literally making
narrowing your pool that you can choose
from and broadening willing to choose
from yes that's the thing I don't want
to get lost in this conversation just to
make it nice and sticky yes absolutely
but yeah when I think about it like that
I wonder what advice would I give to a
sister of mine if I had one I I don't
have a sister the perfect follow-up
question right what would I advise are
oh just simply lower your standards
marry a man less educated than yourself
even though you're not really sure
that's what you want I don't know if I
could bring myself to give that advice
and there is some evidence that um women
are beginning to do this and I think
that's somewhat inevitable so the
phenomenon or the mating strategy that I
described there of women tending to mate
with higher status Partners is called
hypergamy and you probably heard a lot
about that on internet discourse all
around the place but it's a very very
real phenomenon and um there is some
evidence that hypergamy is in Decline uh
women are beginning to marry men less
educated than a little in decline or a
lot in Decline uh I can't remember the
exact figures uh off my head but uh a
little in Decline but it still tends to
be the preference but they're beginning
to to mate down so to speak but this
comes with a whole host of other
problems so in those mate trips where
women beginning to mate down uh we see
increased infidelity for both sexes
increased use of insomnia anxiety and
depression medication among both sexes
you see a massive prevalence of intimate
partner violence there was a huge study
done on 27 EU countries with over 21
000 EU women and it showed that the
woman earning more or being higher
educated than her partner was a massive
risk factor for all types of intimate
partner violence Jesus which is kind of
a really dark finding but it makes sense
from another solutionary point of view
because in evolutionary psychology we
have something called mate retention
strategies and you have two strategies
to make retain to retain your mates you
have the benefit provisioning strategy
which means you can provision your
partner with so many benefits that she
doesn't want to leave she's happy to
stay she gets a lot of benefits from you
whereas if you don't have a lot of
benefits to provide you choose the cost
infliction mate retention strategy and
that's the type of inflicting costs on
your partner to lower her self-esteem so
she doesn't feel like she can leave you
in in the most extreme circumstances
that even includes intimate partner
violence so you might recognize that in
the kind of abusive language of abusive
men who might say who would ever have
you except me you're lucky to have me no
one will ever have you and you try and
lower your partner's self-esteem or
their sense of their own mate value so
they don't leave you for someone else
and that makes sense if you think about
a man who's suddenly threatened that his
wife is earning more than him
or has begun to earn more than him or is
higher educated she's spending her time
around other high status men more High
status than you she's away from you even
just from a proximity point of view you
are at risk a bigger risk of losing her
so it is a threat to you so a lot of men
do choose that that strategy which is a
pretty dark uh dark finding but one we
maybe need to reckon with as Richard
Reeves points out women are beginning to
outpace men so starkly
so let's go back to your hypothetical
sister what are we telling her yeah I
mean it's just an artifact of the modern
mating Market that the Sexes aren't
really depending on each other as role
mates in the same way if we think even
ancestrally two of the main things that
women used to rely on men for are
protection The Bodyguard hypothesis
protection from other men and protection
from the Hostile forces of nature that's
not really such a prescient Factor
anymore
and also it's a protection and
provisioning resources if women are
gathering their own resources the state
is protecting them as The Bodyguard now
for a large degree they might choose to
you know to just go their own way kind
of thing we hear about men going their
own way but it actually might be the
case that women are beginning to go
their own way and um you know it's just
not obvious what a woman might get out
of settling down and it might just be a
a bleak truth we have to reckon with
that for the past number of decades
maybe centuries women had been perhaps
settling with men that they ordinarily
wouldn't want out of strict economic
necessity or strict monogamy Norms that
I ask a really uncomfortable question go
ahead were they settling for men that
they didn't want or did that change the
context enough that there was just a
broader pool of men that they wanted
yeah I think the latter is probably more
true I don't think we had generations of
women who were like oh my god what have
I had to do I hate my husband I don't
think that's the case I just think we
had very strict kind of uh you know
stricter lines around role mates and it
was people were happy to kind of live in
that world you know there's a really
good book by a psychologist called Eli
Finkel called The All or Nothing
marriage and it talks about how in
recent decades we've began to put such a
high stakes on our marriages that we
demand them to be all things their your
partner must be sexually fulfilling to
you your best friend help you fulfill
your potential all of it all in one
package whereas for most of our
ancestral history or in recent decades
or recent centuries your partner was a
role mate that you chose to go through
life with there wasn't so many options
to choose from in your city you didn't
have access to the whole world on a
dating app to choose from so it's a very
very evolutionary novel mating Market
we're in now and one we really need to
think about all right so your sister now
better understands the problem but she
still does not know what on Earth she is
supposed to do
and I know you don't have like a a
preset answer but I think I my whole
thing in life is one ought to have a
method by which they think through a
difficult problem so help her and all of
the women listening right now and guys
honestly for that matter uh that are
listening how do they think through this
problem like there is is a thing that
they need to do and so when you talk to
Richard Reeves it's you can't leave men
behind you have to find a way to start
supercharging them and that for sure is
where I come at this problem is like
look as some I am married to a woman
that went from when we got married she
was going to be a mother and she was
going to raise the kids and then we end
up pivoting into our marriage and she's
now an entrepreneur doing her boss [ __ ]
thing and all that that was like a whole
thing like we had to figure out how to
navigate that not easy but one of the
things is and people are gonna hate this
but I was like a word like I'm going to
outperform you like I'm going to still
be somebody that you look at with
reverence and that meant that I also had
to step up my game so it's like I I am
both in need of encouraging her to
become everything that she wants to be
and then absolutely making it anathema
to my entire existence that I would ever
say slow down so I can lead yes so it's
like okay cool if she's running faster
and I want to lead and look I've got a
whole thing you need to be able to both
lead and follow I don't want people
taking this out of context but setting
that aside for a second we can talk
about that in a minute
but if I want her to still be able to
say I have dated a cross or up uh I have
to move faster as well right and I think
that that that is something that is
getting lost in society right now I
think there is a massive
um
we are I've heard you refer to this as
we're making the male way of moving
through life like the default thing I
don't think that's actually accurate I
think we're telling women like go be
aggressive go be dominant sort of
abstracting that from male-ism or
maleness uh and we're saying to men
don't take up so much space don't be so
aggressive that's icky that's toxic and
so you're masculinizing women you're
feminizing men and now you're asking
them to come together all while an
artificial womb it feels like it's six
weeks away it's like dude this feels
like a recipe for disaster
um so what say you I think you hit on
some real accurate uh cultural forces
and the kind of cultural rhetoric that's
happening with the the male default
being what you were encouraging women to
Aspire to every week you see this
article about how much better life is
for women not having been straddled with
a family and things like this
um and it's just not clear to me that
that goal is what women will want
forever and always it might be
throughout their 20s but most women are
equipped with evolved psychology to want
to start a family so I'll give you some
maybe folk wisdom from Mommy Costello my
mother she raised three boys she didn't
have any daughters but she told me that
if she had a daughter and she was facing
this problem she would advise her you
can have it all but not at the same time
so for women I think that's very
important is that this boss pitch energy
Paper Chasing throughout your 20s is
running up against a ticking clock the
people are kind of reluctant to talk
about because it's seen as quite sexist
to highlight that women have a narrow
window or window to get their uh you
know their biological kind of needs met
in terms of starting a family that is a
more time squeezed Mission for Women
but I really liked your idea of the
aspirational Viewpoint for men is that
yes the women have had the breaks taken
off them in education and the workplace
and they're killing it in a brain-based
economy rather than a broad-based
economy and yes that makes for fewer
eligible men and yes that sucks that
makes it harder for you and in the 1950s
you would have found it easy to get a
job and easy to get a wife but so what
that's where you are it's kind of you
take the Jordan Peterson kind of maxim
of pick yourself up by your bootstraps
book oh you kind of have to you don't
really have any other option you can
complain about the world and say I wish
it was different but you're not going to
slow women down now that kind of train
has run away and nor should we you know
there's probably so much of an economic
gain out of women's Liberation into the
workplace that that's not gonna go back
um and also just from a point of view of
the amount of women that now have
Financial Freedom to kind of not be
dependent on perhaps abusive men that's
a an undirect knowledge net good of
women's Liberation and women I speak to
talk to me about that they say oh it's a
great relief to no longer have you know
to be dependent and so that's one
positive that's not often talked about
but yeah so I think men need to be
aspirational yes we need to have a
cultural conversation about what we can
do to support them kind of in a
feminized education system so to speak
um but yeah aspirational is the way to
go for men and in terms of the
conversation towards women I would say
mother Costello had some good advice on
think about your timing of all these
things how does that play out so what is
have it all let's start with defining
that so if if we're saying have it all
by today's maybe vision of success about
having your own career having a great
husband and a family to all of it in the
one and women often talk about that
there's a lot of pressure to have all of
these and probably because they come up
against each other at awkward times so
just at the point when women are
beginning to really thrive in their
careers towards the end of their 20s
that's the point where they really
really want to start a family and you
know the gender pay Gap is really a
motherhood penalty kind of Gap and men
if they took a break from you go go into
that a little bit because I think this
is super controversial yeah but makes as
a as a CEO I'll just tell you this this
makes so much sense to me
so what why do you call it a motherhood
penalty why isn't it rightly understood
as just a gender pay Gap yeah because
there's a lot of evidence I believe in
22 specific cities in the U.S is very
apparent that women are actually even
out earning men up until the age of 29
and then it flips because that's the
precise age when women are kind of
exiting the workforce necessarily if
they want to have children if men had to
take time off work to have children they
would probably suffer a penalty as well
so you know I'm all for doing all sorts
of initiatives make Child Care easier
more support there follow like a
Scandinavian model to help people get
back into work after having a family all
for that but it's absolutely the case
that women just when they're about to
really thrive in their career and it
baffles me when people speak about the
gender pay gap on a very one-dimensional
level and speaking to you with your CEO
hat on you'll probably realize this you
don't want to lose the female talent you
have at that age right nobody does so
it's a you know and you see these
cultural kind of corporate drivers
Morgan Stanley releasing this um you
know report talking about how it's the
rise of the Shi economy and how majority
of working age women will be single and
childless by the year 2040 and it's like
you know is this the the vision is the
dream I don't know if that's the case
for most women who I so I will just tell
you this is fun talking to somebody who
knows evolutionary psychology so well
from an evolutionary standpoint I
promise you that is not the vision uh
just because Evolution bifurcated the
Sexes a very long time ago and said okay
we have to make this an incentive that
the Sexes will actually come together
and you're far more likely to have a
child that lives long enough to have a
child if you've got two parents coming
together and obviously making it and
then taking care of it but I think that
as you get into evolution narrowly novel
environments when when the rate of
change
from a cultural standpoint
outpaces The evolutionary ability to
keep up with it like I don't know that
there is a we get on the other side of
this and all as well and I'm a hyper
optimistic person but as I look at this
stuff the only way that I can stay
firmly like planted in the optimistic
Camp is when I just go it'll work itself
out somehow right in the what was it
Stephen Pinker it's like you can't look
at however many thousands of years of
tomorrow is better than today over and
over and of course there are blips and
wars and things like that but I mean
it's just the long Arc of History has
tended towards things getting better and
better and better
but I don't actually see the path and so
the I want to introduce an idea I've
never talked about it out loud so I
don't know how articulate I'm going to
be on this but this this feels like a
very important idea we have become aware
of the relation between the sexes
and we're aware of how much things can
be malleable and once you have that
level of self-awareness
in a world where you have the internet
and ideas can spread at the speed of
light there be there there comes this
um
everything is like self-referential it's
all Pastiche it's all
um it's so self-aware wink wink that I I
don't know that that goes anywhere other
than the the cynicism of the eternally
visible God I'm trying to put words at
something so uh
I grew up in the 80s and I fell in love
with filmmaking in the 80s and the
action genre of the 80s was very
unself-aware and so you could have
Arnold Schwarzenegger throw a knife into
a guy and it would pin him to uh a beam
behind him and stick around right and
you just laughed it was so great and so
unexpected now if you say that line
you're saying it like with a wink
because we've heard that line and and
that created
a a downfall of Cinema from my
perspective once everything became we're
so aware we we already know how a
movie's gonna begin we know that what
happened because you you have so many
books on like how screenplays were
structured that in the middle I'm going
to ruin it for people that haven't
become aware of this yet in the middle
of a story it's called the midpoint
you're going to be as far away from how
you're going to be at the end as
possible so if they have completely
failed at the midpoint guaranteed they
succeed in the end and vice versa
and so once all of that stuff is so
known you have a real problem of like
having a fresh story so once men and
women both know like uh oh women uh
hypergamy is a real thing uh women use
their sexuality to attract men uh no
matter how old the guy gets he finds a
22 year old attractive uh women look for
status money access resource like it's
just so known that you get what I'll
call the Obama effect which actually
learn from you okay and this is uh this
is a really interesting idea so he
writes his book his Memoir and says oh I
read these books in order to be
attractive to these different women and
then people went nuts on them like oh my
God they're so misogynistic and so
manipulative it's like but that is life
that is evolution but now that we're all
aware of it it feels icky yeah it's
almost too on the nose to do something
like that you know get the goal get the
girl but that feels like such an
intuitive idea for young men you can
reboot your life your health even your
career anything you want all you need is
discipline I can teach you the tactics
that I learned while growing a billion
dollar business that will allow you to
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that's what I'm saying it's because
we're now aware of it it's like when it
was you just sort of figured it out like
I figured it out along the way I was
very bad with women in the beginning I
learn how to play the game of
um seduction of becoming sexually
attractive all of that but I didn't
think of it as a game and so it wasn't
icky I was just like oh okay this is
what I have to do wow I'm really
beginning to understand it but now once
there's like websites memes it's so
obvious now it's like
am I being manipulated because
somebody's making themselves more
attractive to me it's just the tactics
are so visible that cynicism seems the
only outcome and I don't know how we
step back from the precipice of cynicism
where it's like even as I say guys go
get [ __ ] tough go make money go
figure out making money as a proxy for
you know how to control your environment
you know how to create something of
value uh you know how to organize people
there's a whole list of things that go
along with your ability to make money
but go make money it's super valuable it
is not an end in itself it is a uh it's
the great facilitator as I call it
anyway
make money Master your emotions get
physically strong educate the [ __ ] out
of yourself like do all of these things
gain confidence
but now that it's like a known thing
it's like you get oh it's toxic
masculinity you shouldn't do it like how
do we step back from that yeah it's
strange and even like as benign
self-development advice as Jordan
Peterson gets framed as misogynistic
it's as if to develop yourself
particularly with the goal of achieving
romantic success that that gets framed
as misogynistic but you touched on a
very interesting point there earlier as
well about how you had to learn the game
or you had to go through the trial and
error and I was talking with my friend
Chris Williamson about this and we
talked about how the mating market and
The Mating Game is the only game in town
that you don't get to practice for it's
a real baptism of fire you have to go in
there clumsily develop yourself figure
out what works get your heart broken get
rejected get all of that anxiety and
people being very anxious and risk
adverse know are not willing to do that
and even to do that is also kind of seen
as to make those mistakes along the way
in the mating Market it comes with a lot
of costs and you mentioned like the
metoo era there's potentially a lot of
real costs associated with making a lot
of mistakes along the way there so I
mentioned that before we started rolling
so for people that
um don't know so I married my student it
was a school for adults
um but yeah we in another timeline I
often say that we're a metoo story but
the reason I had brought that up and
this goes back to the same idea is I was
24 when I met my now wife and I was dumb
I was
um undereducated in life I did not make
much money at all and yet I was able to
attract her because she saw me teaching
so it was me teaching something that I
knew and loved and was passionate about
she saw me at the front of a classroom
so it's like forget what the name for
that is where where when other women are
paying attention to you or when people
are paying attention to you it's a
status thing so she me everyone in the
room is paying attention to me I know
more about anybody in the class about
this thing and so it was like a very
artificial environment but the perfect
environment for a woman to find me
attractive and it's like yeah of course
like one I want to be very clear I made
a move on exactly one student and I
ended up marrying her so this was not
like a thing but I was very aware that
that was
um going to put me in my best light yeah
and you know throughout recent decades
and recent history a lot of people met
their partner at work uh you know both
my brothers are married to or engaged to
women they met at work as well so you
know it's not like this absolute Fringe
phenomenon that should be always frowned
upon and if you close that door for
people to you know you're no longer
allowed to me he's a romantic partner at
work we spend all our time at work it's
like you're in proximity to people kind
of with similar interests they're gonna
see you who fully shine in a industry
that you belong in and should be
thriving in of course romance is going
to Blossom there so that seems a bit of
a misguided cultural idea to just
completely shut down a workplace
romances and yeah I think that's uh it
would be a shame if that was a complete
I mean I believe even like Facebook or
Netflix have a policy whereby it's just
not allowed at work for employees to get
together which seems very strange
it doesn't seem strange to me again
putting my CEO hat back on it seems
stupid to me but it is not strange in a
world where it's lawsuits this that and
the other like look and this is easier
for me because I'm married but when I
step into the work realm I turn my
sexuality off because I am so paranoid
about somebody misreading it and feeling
like a power play or whatever and
um again this is one of those where I I
don't know how we step back from this
but you can't expect anyone guys or
girls because you could easily what I
mean is guys typically make the first
move but even if you flipped it and said
women are going to make the first move
you are still going to run into a
problem where an unwanted Advance is
made yeah and to your point about this
is the one thing where you don't get to
practice even if you could practice it
it's also the one thing that when you
make the move for real like we're living
in a time right now we're that an
unwanted Advance is like seen as
violence like literally said that is
violence yeah and so it's like whoa like
what play that one out where do you
think that goes for sure I think the
idea of flipping it flipping the Sexes
there would have more legs than perhaps
we might think because although it is
still making a move uh men would
perceive a move being made on them as
much less harmful even sexual harassment
men perceive it as way less harmful when
it's uh towards a man
um men perceive sexual harassment as
less harmful generally towards men or
women but specifically towards men so
flipping it would be I think would have
some legs I think the worst most men
would probably be flattered and say so
why don't we flip it uh I think that the
desire is not there for women I think
most women want to be pursued rather
than pursue men themselves uh it's just
that they want to be pursued by men they
deem eligible or competent and they've
got this kind of Avenue to repel
um or to kind of punitively punish men
they don't deem eligible who are giving
them the ick for coming on to them
um which is a shame you know it it's a
there's a funny phenomenon because men
have this sexual over perception bias
whereby we perceive a smile from a woman
as giving us sexual interest and this is
there's good evolutionary reasons for
this is because our ancestors weren't
the ones who missed a queue of sexual
interest it's actually like the smoke
detector principle it's better to be
overly sensitive to these cues than to
miss them so we've got this over
perception bias but meanwhile women have
got uh for a whole host of reasons
they've got a strategy to kind of give
soft rejection or to misrepresent
romantic interest for a whole variety of
interests one of which could be wanting
to feel safe not feeling safe enough to
forthrightly reject someone so you've
got these two mechanisms running into
each other where women are giving this
kind of ambiguous no or token resistance
to romantic Pursuit and men are kind of
learning from that combine this with
their over perception bias and you've
got a recipe kind of for a disaster
there it's a strength I think both sexes
could do better to understand
engage in better cross-sex mind reading
which is something our lab is studying
right now try to see things from the
other's point of view learn about these
biases that exist and be more maybe
forthright and clear I do have sympathy
with women who say that they're
reluctant to give firm rejections to men
because I've seen some men get very
aggressive even in response to to
rejection
um which isn't very nice for a woman to
have to deliver but there's a whole host
of other reasons women misrepresent
romantic interest 33 of women report to
have engaged in a foodie call which is
misrepresenting romantic interest in
order to dine at a man's expense whoa
yeah so it's pretty high you'd think and
fruity calls are a real thing yeah and
you imagine this drives a frustrated
young man on the dating scene crazy
because I heard that the average cost of
a first date in New York was ninety
dollars and it's like wow if you a young
man and you don't have a lot of money
and you get burned with a few foodie
calls what a Tinder keg for resentment
towards the other sex you know
so it's not good you know I don't know
I'm not saying that's very typical
that's 33 of women have engaged in a
foodie call at some point I don't know
how typical it is or how often the
frequency they engage with it but uh
more common than maybe we thought that
is shockingly uh High by what I would
have guessed but um I bet you're real
happy you're married now yeah it's well
so I'm real happy that I'm married for a
lot of reasons like when I think about
uh I just missed online dating so that
wasn't even a possibility I'm trying to
make sure that's true as far as I
remember it was not a possibility when I
met my wife shortly after we got married
it started to be like a real Fringe like
oh God can you believe cringe cringe
um but
it wasn't an option and so I'm very glad
about that now that I hear more and more
sort of what that ends up becoming uh in
terms of
um creating this very interesting thing
where you talked about this at the
beginning where a very small percentage
of men that are quote unquote eligible
which I want to keep saying is
self-defined this is what women find
attractive but uh this super narrow pool
and then they become the scarce resource
I'm literally parroting back what you
said at the beginning but this is one of
those things that really took me a while
to understand this so women crush the
not not Crush they have a natural bias
to want a certain subset of things and
as they move up the sort of hierarchy of
performance that the raw number of men
in that begin to get smaller smaller
smaller small smaller but now because
the dating apps they can find those guys
but those guys still are a small
relative number they become the thing
that are pursued which then clicks over
into we should probably get more into
evolve preferences on on the sexes
because they are very very different
robust repeatable in study after study
but uh guys when they're the ones that
are the the coveted thing
um they're not going to commit and so
now you get another brick in this wall
of the mating crisis absolutely yeah so
the sociosexuality is either restricted
or unrestricted and it begins to mirror
the one that's in the scarcity so if
women are in the scarcity men are more
uh Keen to commit long-term and that's
just as a crude sex ratio kind of
balance but because they have to commit
to get the girl right exactly it's like
oh I need to I'll give you anything you
want there's not that many women around
I need to make sure I get one so you
mirror the the sociosexuality of the
other sex but yeah exactly right and
what online dating does as well is it
exacerbates this problem because it
reduces uh the person down to a set of
static data points so your height your
income or your educational level and
that really is what's weighted stronger
than your personality even which doesn't
really shine through in a dating app
despite what a lot of people say the the
example I always give is that dating
apps don't allow a nice Charming Irish
accent to compensate for being five foot
seven which leads me to believe I
wouldn't get on so great on dating apps
and and that's true I mean you know the
dating app hinge I heard the
relationship science director talking
with my friend Chris that if women set
their height preferences to six foot or
over in America they're reducing their
mating pool down to just 18 percent of
women men if they set it to six foot
three and over they're reducing it down
to just three percent of men so when
you're skewing the sex ratio against you
like that and encouraging men to see
themselves as this eligible men to see
themselves as the scarcity that's uh
setting the deck against yourself for
women which is and that's so interesting
because one this whole arms race begins
with height is a an easy one to talk
about but looking at the I have ladies
you have to forgive me this is what it's
called uh it's like the female
delusional calculator or female delusion
calculator something like that so and we
we did a test here at the office and we
said all right ladies uh give me a guess
six foot or higher a hundred thousand or
dollars or above uh not obese and any
ethnicity what do you think the
percentage ends up being it's 0.35 and
they were all guessing like 15 20 30
were like you are so far off and those
like the the sort of Meme and culture is
like well that's what I should get and
that doesn't seem that crazy but in
reality it's a ridiculously small
ridiculously small less than half a
percent yeah and in terms of like coming
at it from an evolved made preference of
point of view the selection pressures
that would have acted on female
chooziness for height and formidability
are that the idea of protection and
ability to provision resources it's an
example of evolutionary mismatch and
it's obviously a very convenient one for
me being five foot seven to talk about
but it maybe it's time we let that one
go you know that's hilarious yeah so
when we going back to like what what is
it that we can do about this so what
advice do you have for young people
anybody male female either like how do
we navigate this so guys we know like
you can push yourself you can make
yourself better but for real for real
like what do we do with women is it
paint a new picture motherhood is rad
and is it just beating that drum is it
um
uh we need to socially Champion people
that are far more feminine and aren't
stepping into a more masculine role like
what do we do for real so I'm optimistic
that the pendulum for women and their
drives might sling back towards the
middle right now it's what they want or
what Society reinforces both kind of
things because they'll kind of work in
tandem to some extent so it's not that
long ago it's only a number of decades
that women have really had the breaks
taken off them in education in the
workplace and they're beginning to kind
of really shine so it's a very novel
kind of thing and it's like the thing to
do of oh you know make your feminist
ancestors really proud you know what
would they think if you went to be a
Trad wife stay-at-home mom you know it's
kind of repellent right the nightmare
scenario can't do that but that pendulum
might swing and it might become a bit
more loose that people can choose from a
variety of different options which is
good right now the the main option seems
to be boss pitch energy but that might
cool as it becomes a little less novel
that women can do this
um one thing I would like to see happen
but I'm not I'm less optimistic about is
that made preferences
are very very sensitive to what we
assign status to so you can assign
status to any number of things so it's
not outside the realm of possibility
that you mean for men or for men and
women for men and for women what makes
it there is some sex difference that
physical Beauty results in high status
for women in a way that it doesn't
necessarily for men and kind of
resources reduces in status and strength
results and status for men in a way that
it doesn't for women
um but status is to some degree
arbitrary so there's a really good book
by an author called will store called
the status game really good book and it
talks about how there's this tribe and
they assign status to whichever farmer
in their tribe can grow the biggest yams
and that is the high status thing to do
so it kind of shows you this flexibility
of status so what I'm optimistic I don't
know that I agree with that okay so uh
for instance are women going to ever be
prized by men for the ability to grow
big yam
less likely but what I mean is the male
status what we assign status to for men
could be a bit more malleable yep so but
on that so one we've already now slashed
it now it's about men's status can be
malleable
but if there was no Fitness to the yam
thing do you think it would ever catch
on like for instance I've heard you talk
um not I don't mean this word in a bad
way but I've heard you talk
disparagingly about guys if you're
trying to make video games your status
thing women just do not care and so I
wouldn't pursue that angle uh and I yeah
I probably agree it's like I think I
agree with uh honorable exception I
think the really high status Gamers I've
come to learn uh can actually be kind of
very successful in the mission I I think
that that has to do with money and fame
I don't think it has to do with gaming
right and it's a very narrow pool of
those Gamers that are going to reach
those at those Heights and but yeah so
the the white pill I was trying to get
at is that maybe we could see a world
where we assign status to being a really
involved stay-at-home father but like I
say I'm less optimistic about it
um why are you you can give me either
the why you have enough optimism that
you say that or why you're pessimistic
that you want it to work but you
probably because I think that will never
work I'm less optimistic because none of
the data shows that that's what women
want there's one study that showed that
just five percent of young women desire
a partnership where they work full-time
and their partner works part-time or not
at all so that's very kind of Bleak and
that was the study of young women so
you'd think that those younger women
would be more primed to say yeah I'm
very egalitarian I could work and my
mates could be the stay at home dad so
there doesn't seem to be any uh made
preference shift for women there and
I'm optimistic or hopeful because I
think involved fathers are really
beneficial to families and to children
and that's something really important
that we need to as well as lionizing
motherhood we need to lionize fatherhood
too and involvement yes
but so uh
men as
mothers does not strike me as a winning
thing and I I trust me I hear the
comments Lighting on fire as I say those
words but what you're describing I will
say is traditionally the feminine role
and the reason that I think Evolution
will get behind that is from a
physiological standpoint only a mother
can breastfeed and give birth PS and so
once your Evolution you have to optimize
one of the sects to carry the baby to
term and then breastfeed it and I don't
think it's a mistake that Evolution
optimized just like I'm gonna put all of
those things in one bucket so I'm going
to optimize the the female hip design
for child bearing I'm going to optimize
the breast design for breastfeeding and
by the way I'm going to optimize the
brain design to care enough about this
infant to be able to pick up on cues and
maybe a guy doesn't pick up on also P.S
15 of women have a fourth photoreceptor
could that be tied to raising infants as
they can see different colors in their
cheeks and so they can really understand
I don't know I'm just saying that from
from a biological perspective evolution
is honed each of us to be good at
something and so when I think about
um evolved preferences a hundred percent
culture plays into this but again I've
heard you say that culture is Downstream
of biology which I agree very much and I
don't think that an alien civilization
their culture would look anything like
ours uh presuming that they evolved in
some different way so if culture is
Downstream of biology and evolution has
optimized one of us for the the very
tactile early uh nurturing of an infant
and the other for something else which
we can get into what that is in a minute
but I don't think that culturally you
could try to reinforce something that
goes against the biology so to be very
pointed I don't think you can ever get
culture to say a man staying at home and
taking care of an infant is of course
one-offs 100 but I don't think that will
ever take over the the
the physical preference uh it's a
terrible way to say it but the on mass
preference of women because it doesn't
have an evolutionary correlate
yeah absolutely yeah so the way we
describe it is that genes hold culture
on a leash and the culture is a
biological output and uh yeah ultimately
I do think you're right we'll neither
the mate preference won't shift or it
won't shift very fast anyway or in great
numbers uh and also just the personality
inclination of males to be interested in
being that involved in the home uh
humans are a remarkable ape and that's
the male invests as much as it does but
you're right to point out that males
invest far less than women do so yeah
it's a Perhaps it is as Bleak as we
might think yeah yeah I mean uh I won't
give myself over to bleakness just yet
but this does feel like something that
for us to get to a winning solution
people have to be able to confront the
truth the reality of how things actually
are and then we can build things that
work okay so uh this was me responding
to your idea of
um
involved fathers and I think that's
critically important so now from an
evolutionary lens what does a um an
involved father look like if it's
different than the picture that not to
get you in trouble that I just painted
of
um a more feminine role
so the main role of fathers outside of
Just The Bodyguard hypothesis of
protecting is a teaching and teaching by
action so men are very good at kind of
the Rough and Tumble and learning that
way and kind of making children feel
safe kind of thing and encouraging them
to take risks and go out and learn about
the world whereas women would be more
risky risk averse and be like oh don't
take a risk don't cycle your bike out in
the street come on you know just very
much keep safe safety conscious whereas
men are kind of like encouraging the
child it fortifies the child with an
ability to navigate the world in a way
that the safetyism of a female typical
parenting doesn't so I think that's a
huge one and if we look at the kind of
the current malaise of teenagers or
young people they're exactly this
problem they're safety conscious safety
is the Paramount value of all values and
they just don't take risks uh so that
could be lacking that could be just
would you call that the feminization of
culture perhaps yeah that's kind of
perhaps yeah does it make you uneasy to
say that a little but um just because
there's such variability among men and
women but no I think uh female typical
parenting certainly looks like more
safety oriented than uh than male
parenting when you say that there's so
much variability what do you mean uh
it's just that you know a lot of women
will actually have more male typical
psychology or male typical Behavior you
know I just hear the uh the complaints
of people saying well I know 10 women
who are not safety oriented at all so
you always got to kind of give yourself
a bit of ass Comfort there yeah so I
mean well let's address that head on so
um one I want to be very clear and I'm
sure I speak for both of us women should
be able to be whatever they want yes uh
I'm married to a woman that has chosen
not to have kids word I'm married to a
woman that is trying to be the best
entrepreneur that she can be word I love
it the most like I'm still with this
woman I'm in awe of her she's
unbelievable but at the same time I'm
very honest that that transition was
difficult it wasn't like oh okay cool
like we had to really think about what
that means and like how do we
um you know process through that how do
we position ourselves because I will say
that I think that
um not having kids is a way higher risk
strategy for especially women but I
think it's even a high risk strategy for
men in terms of being fulfilled at the
end of your life and I think if you go
into it with your eyes wide open then
you can mitigate those risks by how you
structure your life how you frame your
life intellectually how you think about
it but if you just go into a blind lead
there's going to be a real problem
anyway I say all of that in response to
um for a long time I was very hesitant
to even form a thought about how I
actually thought this all should be
because I was worried about the backlash
and uh when covid kicked off for a whole
host of reasons I realized that I needed
to start figuring out how I think
through these problems because I don't I
don't have wisdom on everything that I
talk about so sometimes I'm just like
okay how would I process through that
problem but when I get to something like
looking at what's happening in culture
right now it this does seem to be like
the feminization of culture and
I I think
that the way we should all be looking at
this and I think this is true for a lot
of things not just the male female
dichotomy I think there's a lot of
dichotomies in life's own business
there's one between a Visionary and an
operator and the solution to all of
these is the thing that makes it work is
the tension between the two and you
should never want for the conversion of
the other so for instance I don't if my
wife and I had kids I would not want for
her to convert to a masculine way
because oh my God like you're going to
make them scared to take risks no it's
going to be the tension between the two
of us where you're trying to keep them
safe I'm trying to encourage them to
take risks and so between those two
things they will find their path if it's
just all masculine energy you're going
to have certain pathology on that side
if it's all feminine energy you're gonna
have pathology on that side so it's like
maybe for all of human history we've
seen the pathology of too much masculine
energy cool I'm just saying the second
you