<v SPEAKER_01>I think it would be extremely bad advice to tell your male friend, well, yeah, women be neurotic.

<v SPEAKER_01>So don't chill out.

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>You know, if you're a typical man, the odds that you will meet a woman who is like as quote unquote chill as you are just very, very low.

<v SPEAKER_03>You know what I mean?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like there is just a there is a game.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think we found a real real argument here.

<v SPEAKER_03>Hi, I'm Matthew Iglesias.

<v SPEAKER_01>Hi, I'm Jerusalem Demsis.

<v SPEAKER_03>Welcome to the argument.

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh this week, Jerusalem's got a take for us.

<v SPEAKER_01>I hate dating advice on the internet.

<v SPEAKER_01>I hate the people who give it.

<v SPEAKER_01>I hate what it says.

<v SPEAKER_01>I hate it.

<v SPEAKER_03>Why?

<v SPEAKER_03>Because you're just like single and bitter.

<v SPEAKER_01>No.

<v SPEAKER_03>You're tired of the change.

<v SPEAKER_03>I'm married.

<v SPEAKER_03>I knew that actually.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um It's not the first time we've talked.

<v SPEAKER_03>I was married.

<v SPEAKER_03>No, no, no.

<v SPEAKER_03>I'm just, you know.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm glad I remembered to wear my rings today because that makes for a very good, like, I'm I'm negging because I've read the game.

<v SPEAKER_03>So I know what's going on.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um But why?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like what's what's the why why why is this even on your mind?

<v SPEAKER_01>Noah Smith, who is a prominent economics blogger, writer, uh uh will link his piece in the in the show notes today.

<v SPEAKER_01>He actually had a good piece on dating advice for men, which I thought was largely um reasonable and positive and had good good points in it.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um but in general, the entire like genre of dating advice I think has taken more hold of like the wonk class uh these days, um, in part because no policy making is happening, and in part because there's this sort of macro critique of wonks in general and like liberals in general that like all we care about is, I don't know, expanding health care and improving social welfare and economic growth.

<v SPEAKER_01>And you know, I I agree there's more to life than you know figuring out how to build uh politics for a single payer option, but uh so it does seem like society is maybe falling apart at the scenes, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>This is a thing people people say this.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>People certainly say that society is falling apart.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I mean, I just think there's like a there's like a larger critique going on.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm being like kind of facetious right now, but um you know, there's a larger critique about how like we need to care more about these non-policy things, like are people coupling up?

<v SPEAKER_01>Are the young people uh reading fiction?

<v SPEAKER_01>Are they developing good habits and morals?

<v SPEAKER_01>Do they care too much about making money?

<v SPEAKER_01>Um are like women and men able to be friends?

<v SPEAKER_01>There's like a lot of these things which obviously have like intersections with policy, but are largely often like cultural, philosophical, sociological, sociological.

<v SPEAKER_01>And um, I think as a result, you're getting to see like a lot more of this discourse take root in the chattering classes.

<v SPEAKER_01>So right.

<v SPEAKER_03>So Noah's like in our lane.

<v SPEAKER_03>He wrote this piece, we were talking about it, then we got to talking about the whole, the whole phenomenon.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, I just kind of feel like you don't like the way that these, you know, you start on the subject of like how do you get girls to go out with you?

<v SPEAKER_03>Or, you know, how do you make men like you, or whatever it is.

<v SPEAKER_03>And you're dealing in a world of like broad generalizations and stereotypes because that's that's the only way it's the only way it could be tractable, yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>Right?

<v SPEAKER_03>If your piece was just like, well, different people are different, it's like that wouldn't be that wouldn't be much of a I think this is actually not true.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, and this is just like now it's now it's Jerusalem giving Damien advice, so it's kind of this weird like circular loop here.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um But uh I I think that there's like broadly like two sorts of things that are true about if you are trying to get into like a meaningful long-term relationship or even just like meet people and have fun or whatever.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like one is are you yourself someone that people would want to hang out with and meet?

<v SPEAKER_01>And that has to do with stuff that has to do with like personal grooming, it has to do with like, do you have interests, like do you have hobbies, like, or like whatever it is, like whatever it is that makes you interested in other people that you want to hang out with, like, do you provide that as well?

<v SPEAKER_01>That is like almost nothing to do with gender stereotypes.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, there's some of that with personal grooming about like what might attract like the average woman or man or whatever it is, but like it's like self-improvement type stuff.

<v SPEAKER_01>And the second is like once you're in that situation where like, okay, I want now not to just like meet someone to like have like a nice conversation over at a bar, but like actually I want to be like in a dating conversation or how do I like transition this?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, I think that stuff is like actually so particularistic in a way that like the actual best advice is hey, treat the other person across from you as if they're like an individual person, not as if they're a like notch on your head post.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think that's actually like very good advice.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, hey, ask them about themselves.

<v SPEAKER_01>What do they like?

<v SPEAKER_01>Some people will really want you to pick them up from a date and like give them flour.

<v SPEAKER_01>Some people would be like, that's like really unnecessary.

<v SPEAKER_01>I just want to meet you at a bar, it's way too much too soon.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like you can't actually find that sort of thing out if you're like looking for advice that's being given from some guy in a completely different context with completely different values and desires.

<v SPEAKER_03>So I guess my, you know, I'm I'm old now, I'm 45, uh, I've been married for 13 years, maybe 14, something like that, some large number of years.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, that's high.

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh I met my wife, you know, before we were married.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's been a long time since I've been dating.

<v SPEAKER_03>But, you know, there was a time in my life when I felt very puzzled uh around the question of, you know, how do you go from not just having friendly interactions with a person, but romantic interactions with a person, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And it is of course true that people are different and like what works has some variation according to who you are and what's there and so on and so forth.

<v SPEAKER_03>But you gotta you gotta start with something, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>You cannot obtain perfect information about the person you met recently before you like decide how to make your move, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>You've gotta go on the basis of some presumptions about how the world works and how dating works and how men and women, you know, get along and the birds and the bees and so on and so forth.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I found it helpful to have people talking about these kind of subjects.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I feel like, you know, for for sound political reasons, liberals are against stereotyping.

<v SPEAKER_03>And that's fine, but then it's kind of created a situation where there, at least when talking about content focused on men, where there's kind of a dead zone around practical advice giving.

<v SPEAKER_03>I was I was checking some stuff out, you know, after we talked about this abstractly.

<v SPEAKER_03>I went on YouTube, I was looking at dating advice for men.

<v SPEAKER_03>I saw one thing from Andrew Tate, who's like a notorious, like terrible person in scumbag.

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh, but like the clip I got, I thought it was like actually fairly reasonable.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like the thing that he was saying specifically there, just that it's a competitive environment, that it's not like just hanging out with random friends, that you need to like try hard to be impressive.

<v SPEAKER_03>This is not earth-shattering material, but I think it can sometimes be a useful kick in the pants for people.

<v SPEAKER_05>You have to outcompete other men.

<v SPEAKER_05>You have to be as competitive as possible.

<v SPEAKER_05>You have to be as successful as possible in all realms.

<v SPEAKER_05>You have to be as good looking, as funny, as smart, as spontaneous, as interesting, as charismatic, as rich as possible.

<v SPEAKER_05>You need to try very hard to be your absolute best.

<v SPEAKER_05>And as you become a better man, you'll crack through different tiers of attractiveness and eventually you get to the top and you'll be able to have any girl you want.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think he falls into like that.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, not him personally, who is, as you said, like a rapist and a horrible person.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, the specific things that he says, one, are that, you know, it really depends who what who the woman is.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like he like does live out in that one moment that there are differences among women.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like, secondly, he's like exactly what I was saying earlier about like, yeah, you have to improve yourself.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, you need to be someone who people would want to hang out with.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like that is, I mean, that's like maybe if it's just like, okay, motivational, you need someone who you admire to tell you that so that you'll be willing to do it.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, maybe we just need Barack Obama telling more people to, hey, like, you need to be attractive and you need to like work hard or whatever.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think he does say stuff like that, but uh maybe we need more of those clips floating around the internet.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I just think that like, I want to distinguish here between like broadly advice that's meant to motivate people to be the best version of themselves and then to like pursue relationships or dating or sex or whatever it is.

<v SPEAKER_01>And then like what I see most of the time on the internet, which is actually both in my, you know, just normal like social media scrolling, but also I created today a uh like uh, you know, uh, you know, incognito mode made a YouTube uh Juve ma account as like a man and like started looking for dating advice for men too.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like there's a ton of this stuff which is just like actually not just saying, hey, like when you approach a woman, you should be polite.

<v SPEAKER_01>Here are potential questions you could ask her.

<v SPEAKER_01>Here's like random pieces of advice, whatever to give.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's also just like women want money and they want power and they need you to dominate in the conversation, and they won't want you to like not make a decision.

<v SPEAKER_01>They want to be the one who like feels taken on.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm like, none of this is like this kind of reifying of gender stereotypes is actually completely separable from this like other question of like, can you give broad pieces of advice of like how to chat up girls at a bar?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, these things don't have to go hand in hand.

<v SPEAKER_03>Well, but I I mean I do think there's there's some relationship between them.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I also just I mean, I'm I'm concerned about the the politics of this.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like another guy who I saw who I, unlike Tate, I'd never heard of, but somebody called um Dan Bilzerian.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I saw one thing of his, and he was advising men like if a girl texts you, wait at least five minutes before texting her back.

<v SPEAKER_06>Don't text a girl back within five minutes under any circumstances.

<v SPEAKER_06>If you immediately respond, you're overavailable.

<v SPEAKER_06>If you don't respond, it gives her a bit of time to like wonder what is this guy doing?

<v SPEAKER_06>Should I have sent that text?

<v SPEAKER_06>Let them overthink.

<v SPEAKER_06>The more a woman overthinks and the more she thinks about you, like I said, when you're not there, the more you have power and the more attraction is going to be unconsciously built towards you.

<v SPEAKER_03>I have no idea.

<v SPEAKER_03>I've not uh, you know, like run a randomized control trial on this idea that you should try to like provoke anxiety in this other person rather than coming across as overly eager to text her back.

<v SPEAKER_03>But you know, it's a hypothesis, it's out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um when I was in this mode of my life, we like didn't have as much texting, but there were like similar things about how soon should you call people back, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

<v SPEAKER_03>I've seen friends, don't worry.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>This this comes up in the rules.

<v SPEAKER_03>You know, there's a lot of this kind of discourse.

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't know who's right or wrong about this.

<v SPEAKER_03>It just it also turns out that this guy has like totally insane, far-right, and also super anti-Semitic uh political opinions.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I would be really upset if somebody came across um some of his like little psychological gamesmanship ideas and was like watching a couple of these, and next thing you know, they're like into these conspiracy theories about the elders of Zion.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um and I felt a little bit more comfortable in the world where I was a young man, where you could get this kind of stuff.

<v SPEAKER_03>One literally, he has one bit where he's talking about um if you meet a girl, you should ask her, you should like challenge her to describe three good things about herself other than her good looks.

<v SPEAKER_03>And this is something he's just plagiarizing from uh Neil Strauss.

<v SPEAKER_03>This was like an old bit of his that I remember from from when I was young.

<v SPEAKER_00>In LA, everyone's beautiful.

<v SPEAKER_00>Everyone beautiful comes to LA to try and make it, right?

<v SPEAKER_00>So if you're beautiful, so what?

<v SPEAKER_00>You got lucky in the gene pool, right?

<v SPEAKER_00>So if I was to ask you to name three things about yourself that would make me want to get to know you better, and none of them can be about your looks or what you do, what would they be?

<v SPEAKER_03>And the theory, again, I don't know if any of this works, but like the theory of that is A, you're like complimenting her, but backhandedly, by like saying like you're not allowed to talk about how good looking you are.

<v SPEAKER_03>And then you're just shifting the frame of the conversation away from one in which you're super agreeable to one in which you're like putting her on her toes and you're making the interaction more interesting.

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>Is that a good idea?

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>But it's interesting, it's something, it's something to try out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I just think it should be possible for people who are feeling a little shy and confused and they don't know what to do to get material that they can engage with that is not politically correct or whatever, but also isn't coming from uh far-right sociopaths.

<v SPEAKER_03>I mean, like we need we need to we need to rebuild, you know, the the sensible center of the pickup artists and just like exist in society.

<v SPEAKER_01>So I want to separate out two things.

<v SPEAKER_01>One is that I think I I agree with you that the I mean, this is something that I don't know, like has dominated left discourse for the last four years.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's just like, why aren't there like left-wing podcast bros?

<v SPEAKER_01>And then like there are some left-wing podcast bros, like people like Hassan Piker, who obviously is getting a lot of attention these days.

<v SPEAKER_01>I'm hearing about him more and more.

<v SPEAKER_01>I don't know if you are.

<v SPEAKER_03>No, but I mean the thirstiness around Hassan is telling, though, because as some of the Piker skeptics have pointed out, his show is just like not that popular compared to.

<v SPEAKER_03>I mean, it's maybe more popular than our show, so you know.

<v SPEAKER_01>Recommend it to your friends.

<v SPEAKER_01>Exactly.

<v SPEAKER_03>Spread the word, get out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>We need, we need, you know, not everything needs to be far left socialism.

<v SPEAKER_03>Joe Rogan is incredibly just like wildly super duper duper popular.

<v SPEAKER_03>But it tells us something, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And the point is, like, he's like handsome and strong.

<v SPEAKER_01>It is obviously the case that the I advice of uh, and you know, I've got a lot of my thinking on this from my friend Rachel Cohn is currently writing a book about personal agency.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, but like the a lot of the personal agency advice giving side of the internet has gotten a little bit more right-coded because there's been a lot of criticism of the idea of personal agency as being really important or relevant towards how people's lives turn out.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like structural ideas or structural um forces are what are going to be to blame.

<v SPEAKER_01>So, like whether or not you end up in a good school or get a good job and get a good partner, these are like not really things that you can like tinker through your own self-effort.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I don't think that, you know, this argument is made like super explicitly by a lot of people.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think that often at the individual level, like many people don't actually believe this and they do work very, very hard.

<v SPEAKER_01>But um I I agree with you on that personal advice base.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I just again, like, I think that like there's this now, this effort, as we're like having a rebound um, you know, reaction to the woke era to like just completely course correct rather than say, like, there are things to have like taken from this period of time that were like valuable and convincing and persuasive to a lot of people.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that, like, yes, getting personal advice to like young people who want to figure out how to meet other people is like totally fine and reasonable.

<v SPEAKER_01>And also not only is it like reductive and bad to gender stereotype, it's actually going to lead you astray.

<v SPEAKER_01>A lot of these pieces of advice that I come across, again, I can't speak for every individual person.

<v SPEAKER_01>There are like billions of people on this planet who have like different views about stuff.

<v SPEAKER_01>Uh, I think 8 billion now.

<v SPEAKER_01>How many are we in?

<v SPEAKER_03>Throwing you off base.

<v SPEAKER_01>Fact-checking in the middle of the spot.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, but I mean, there are billions of people, but like I just want to say, like, I think it is not true that like it is genuinely good to spend a lot of your time thinking, how can I throw a girl off off kilter so that I can like get her to like think of me in a more flirtatious mindset.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's just like I actually don't find that to be positive advice that I would give to a lot of my friends um if they were trying to pick up women.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah, well, you're supposed to say, like, you don't ask a fish how to catch fish, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Something like that.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um the I I recommend it, but no, but I I do think that it's true, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>I it's true that people do not have perfect self-knowledge, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah on these kind of things.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I think that that is an important aspect of dating and relationships that, you know, sort of has to be out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>What people say they want and what they actually respond to in real time can be quite different.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, you know, and that's like a sort of important thing.

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh there's a lot of, I mean, when thinking of like advice focused on men, I think mostly falls into these kind of two buckets, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>There's this fundamentals-based stuff that's like you need to get more jacked and have more money.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, which I think is uh on the one hand, you I I I I think actually tends to get overblown.

<v SPEAKER_03>You know, there's too much indexing actually on those two characteristics versus um it's helpful to cultivate certain kinds of interests that you're more likely to find something in common with women who you talk to.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, and also you should think about because people are individuals, like who shares interests in common with you, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And like actually try to pay attention to what you're doing.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, and then there's this kind of tactical stuff, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Which is about, which is interesting because again, uh, my wife and I met on Match.com.

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh, but I spent when that was new and when internet dating was very marginal.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I spent many years before that out in the wilds of pre-internet dating.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I feel like this tactical stuff was really big then, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>That there was some before times when I don't know what, like, you know, either the village elders were arranging marriages for you or in America, you know, people were meeting at work, they were meeting through church, uh, if applicable, um, they were meeting in college, maybe, something like that.

<v SPEAKER_03>And then we had this new world in which people were supposed to um meet people in bars or meet people at parties.

<v SPEAKER_03>And there was a lot, and some people were really good at that.

<v SPEAKER_03>I think, especially people who are just very extroverted.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, and others, like me, not as good at that.

<v SPEAKER_03>And there was a lot of advice focused on sort of how do you, how do you like close the deal?

<v SPEAKER_03>How do you turn a fleeting interaction into a date, something like that.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, now I feel like people just don't do that as much, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And we have this internet dating economy that I feel like people are very unsatisfied with.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I mean, I met my husband on Hinge, designed to be deleted.

<v SPEAKER_01>So we're we're both uh, I guess, uh, the faces of internet dating.

<v SPEAKER_03>But you guys are like the exceptions.

<v SPEAKER_03>Well, you're not the exceptions, because everyone Everyone meets their partner on Hinge.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yes, and I mean everyone who is married who's young met their partner on Hinge.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>But also like way fewer people are getting married.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I have the perception that it's like these apps have like ruined society or something.

<v SPEAKER_01>I I think this is like an overblown thing.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think that the apps exist in the exist in the context of everything that came before them.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um but I mean I think the apps didn't fall from the coconut tree.

<v SPEAKER_01>They did not fall from the coconut tree, no.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, but uh I think specifically on this like uh um question of like types of advice, I thought was very interesting is like how different the advice for women is and the advice for men.

<v SPEAKER_01>So like I sorted the advice for women that I see um into like three categories.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like one is sort of like the if he wanted to, he would type advice, which is largely um the idea that like if a guy doesn't do things that you want him to do, like text you back, make plans for a date, whatever, like that means he doesn't like you.

<v SPEAKER_01>That means he's not into you.

<v SPEAKER_01>There's like an earlier iteration of this from this movie He's Just Not That Into You that came out when I was like in middle school.

<v SPEAKER_01>That's from a book.

<v SPEAKER_01>It was a I was talking about the movie adaptation from my childhood, but yes, it is from a book.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like again, like this is a very like long-standing strain of advice, which is the presumption is that like a lot of women are in this position of just like wondering whether men are into them and then like having to decode signals about their behavior and like really encouraging a lot of like I think neuroticism uh in women to like decode this is is kind of the the baseline way that like women are expected to interact.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so he's just not that into you is meant to be like kind of like freeing.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, okay, like don't even worry about it.

<v SPEAKER_01>If you, if a guy is into you, he'll make it so obvious, he'll be so obsessed with you that like you won't have to do anything.

<v SPEAKER_01>And this is just like I think like as what I was saying, like I think factually inter incorrect.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think there are a lot of men who are into women all the time who do not make it like extremely obvious that they're into them or like know that there are these things that maybe they should do to make it into that make make it clear, like, you know, hey, like you should open the door for her, or like there's like random rules that pop up which are like, you know, you should stand on the outside of the sidewalk while she's walking, so you're the one by the cars or whatever.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, and again, like there's just the proliferation of these rules.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like this this advice was originally quote unquote meant to free women from having to deal with all this neurotic thinking about whether men are actually into you based on how they're calling or talking or like shooting signals, but instead it formed an entire plethora of new rules where, like, oh, well, the way that you actually know is if he fulfills all these other sets of rules.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, that's one category of the.

<v SPEAKER_03>Well, so I I thought I I actually felt like there were two I mean, maybe this is the same as what you're saying, but the the things you showed me, it seemed to be fell into two different categories.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, no, that's just one category.

<v SPEAKER_01>The second category is sort of like around like don't let yourself be embarrassed type stuff.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Which is like the presumption here is, I mean, I think this is kind of related to the first thing, but it's like this presumption is like sort of you are at risk as a woman.

<v SPEAKER_01>And the risks are that a man will cheat on you, the risks are that he will, you know, you'll get pregnant and he'll leave you, or that he won't get married to you, or that predominantly that he will embarrass you in some way.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, this is like a huge theme of like relationship content online, is like men embarrassing their partners, like women posting the fact that like a man didn't do something for Mother's Day, and then a lot of women online will be in her comments being like, divorce him, if not, like don't tell us about it.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like that's kind of like a main theme.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like you don't want to end up like these women who are in these relationships with these shitty guys.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so, like, the way that you avoid this is by never texting back if he doesn't confirm the day of, don't show up on the date that you planned, like all these different pieces of advice.

<v SPEAKER_01>So, like dating advice is largely how to avoid.

<v SPEAKER_01>This really bad tail risk.

<v SPEAKER_01>And then the third version is like this kind of like soft, like trad wife type thing, which is sort of like, oh, to attract men, you have to be like in your feminine energy.

<v SPEAKER_01>Matt and I, I tried to get Matt to take a quiz on the show about whether or not we were in our feminine energy given by this dating coach.

<v SPEAKER_01>He did not want to do that.

<v SPEAKER_01>He thought that was too far afield from the conversation.

<v SPEAKER_01>So if you want to hear our results, uh let us know and we'll do it.

<v SPEAKER_01>We'll put them on subspect notes.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I think this third is like the one I think is most similar to the male dating advice, which is like very specific.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, here's the type of makeup you should wear if you want to look like a soft trad, you know, soft feminine energy woman.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, this is how you should talk.

<v SPEAKER_01>You should like talk very slowly, you shouldn't nag him.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like there was this one specific video where this woman was like, don't yell at him about not cleaning up around the house.

<v SPEAKER_01>Ask him in this very soft voice if he wouldn't mind helping every once in a while.

<v SPEAKER_01>And it's like, like all of these videos, they're like kernels of true things.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, yeah, it's like probably you get more benefit out of asking someone to do something in a nice way versus in a very like harsh way.

<v SPEAKER_01>But also at the same time, like, I don't know, people's particular circumstances.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like maybe you guys are in a fight about this, or maybe you're kind of being unreasonable.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, there's nothing.

<v SPEAKER_03>Right, but so I mean, there's a big asymmetry here, which is that you know, a a large share of the woman focused content that you you shared with me and that I checked out is like it's not dating advice at all in the sense that I would under it, it it's like don't date advice.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, people not date.

<v SPEAKER_03>You know, it's it's warning you off all of these bad men.

<v SPEAKER_03>And sometimes the warnings I think are good, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like within the he's just not that into you kind of spectrum, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Some of the examples that I saw, I would have said, you know, as a man, I would have been like, yes, correct.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like what?

<v SPEAKER_03>This is the behavior of a guy who is stringing you along and doesn't actually care about it.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like the not texting you thing or what?

<v SPEAKER_01>And text back.

<v SPEAKER_01>That's what Matt's.

<v SPEAKER_03>I thought my I thought the best example of that from one of them was that if he won't travel to see you.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>Right?

<v SPEAKER_03>That, you know, that's like if he if he liked you, he would want to go spend time with you.

<v SPEAKER_03>Right.

<v SPEAKER_03>But then at the other end of the spectrum, one of them she was advertising as the bare minimum.

<v SPEAKER_03>And she was just rattling stuff off that like clearly isn't the bare minimum.

<v SPEAKER_03>Now it's fine.

<v SPEAKER_03>A person is allowed to set whatever kind of standards they want, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>But it's kind of you can set prices high.

<v SPEAKER_03>In a practical sense, it's it's like anti-dating advice, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>It's telling women to be less accepting of the foibles and failures that one just often encounters in the experience of interacting with other people.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think it's also to interpret certain things as failures, whether or not those are actually true.

<v SPEAKER_01>So, like someone not texting you back quickly could be a signal of lack of interest, or it could be like they were at work and they can't look at their phone.

<v unknown>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I mean, there's a but there's like a real bias on this advice of like interpret this stuff as well.

<v SPEAKER_03>But it also just could be that it can both be true that some behavior is like non-optimal, and also that it's just worth putting up with.

<v SPEAKER_03>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_03>Because the flip side of your whole point, like people are different.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's like, yeah, like people are different.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like you are probably never going to meet someone who is perfect in every way.

<v SPEAKER_03>You know what I mean?

<v SPEAKER_03>And there's a kind of a baseline question of like, what do you make of that?

<v SPEAKER_03>I thought Noah's piece, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>The the core uses that he was operating with was to try to talk men out of a male version of heteropessimism.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>Right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Heteropessimism is this idea that like people who are very, very uh, I guess it's really in the name, pessimistic about heterosexuality.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's largely this performed in a way that it's women kind of being very down on the way that straight relationships harm women and that they're really toxic.

<v SPEAKER_01>But yes.

<v SPEAKER_03>Right.

<v SPEAKER_03>But there's also, I mean, there's a there's a kind of a uh a female-oriented sort of feminist version of heteropessimism.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And there's like a male-oriented anti-feminist version.

<v SPEAKER_03>And, you know, so the in the male-oriented one, you're saying women are really only attracted to like 10 to 20% of men out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's hopeless for everybody else.

<v SPEAKER_03>Maybe some girl will string you along to exploit you for free meals or something.

<v SPEAKER_03>And so Noah's saying, like, no, that's not true, that like average women like want to date and marry average guys.

<v SPEAKER_03>You just gotta like, you know, get out there, give it your best shot, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, I basically agree with everything that he's saying out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>What is true though, and that you opened my eyes to, is that there is this fair amount of not like dogmatic, you know, political lesbianism, but this kind of, you know, telling women that they should be much more unforgiving, of not like abusive partners or cheating or, you know, just things that anybody would be like, stand up for yourself, girl.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like, don't put up with that.

<v SPEAKER_03>But just kind of like.

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>I I I get why these things could bother a person, but you know, speaking to the the larger question, like, do we all want to like die alone?

<v SPEAKER_03>Or do we want to find somebody to spend our lives with?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, this is my thing, my big core problem with so much of this is that so much dating advice is given by people who don't seem to be interested in helping people achieve their long-term happiness.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, long-term happiness of people who are interested in getting married, having a family, whatever, um, want some sort of like romance in their lives requires risk.

<v SPEAKER_01>It is like a risky thing to do to decide that you're going to take a chance on someone, that if they're going to make a mistake early on, that you will like forgive them and let it happen again.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like this culture that I think on both sides alienates like genders from each other.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, on the f uh, you know, on the female side, like there's this idea that, you know, every mistake is a hint of this person's um, you know, long-term ability to destroy you.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, whether it's, hey, like it this is as good as it's gonna get kind of stuff, where it's like, okay, he didn't, you come over to his place and it's not clean.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, that means that you're gonna have to clean up after him for the rest of your life.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, and, you know, uh on on the male side too, I mean, I think it's like so toxic this idea that these women are just only able to be attracted to these like uh specific characteristics that they're not full and total people.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I just think that like if Mr.

<v SPEAKER_01>Darcy in Jane Austen's famous book, Pride and Prejudice, had had one of these dating influencers in his yapping in his fucking ear after Elizabeth Bennett rejects him the first time, like he does not go back to her when she's like clearly had more of a change of heart and like re-pledge himself to her, and then they end up married and in my head happily ever after, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And like to me, like romance and these kinds of relationship choices that are risky are often only read as positive when they work out, and you can't know that at the front.

<v SPEAKER_01>So, like, you do have to risk a lot.

<v SPEAKER_01>You have to risk getting rejected as a guy, going up to a bunch of different girls and saying, like, hey, like, I would love to talk to you about whatever the fuck your interests are.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, talk about them because that's what you want at the end of the day.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because if you're selecting for women who aren't interested in what you want to talk about, five years from now, you'll be in a relationship with a woman who's not interested in talking to you about what you care about.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay, but like this like online advice that's like, hey, you should definitely go up to her and like neg her into telling you what she's actually good for so that she'll be like interested in you.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like now you've like somehow gotten all of these dates with girls who can't actually fulfill your long-term well, what's the point?

<v SPEAKER_03>Okay, but this is where I feel like fundamentally the greatest social value of this kind of like game stuff dedicated to men is exactly what you were saying.

<v SPEAKER_03>That like there with no risk, there's no reward.

<v SPEAKER_03>And for whatever the flaws of the specifics and the details and so on and so forth, the basic message of that kind of content is that like you should go and try.

<v SPEAKER_03>And with the understanding that it will not always work, that people who, you know, you talk to them for two seconds and they seem interesting and hot or whatever, like you might just not like them, you know.

<v SPEAKER_03>And if you try to ask a girl out, like she might shoot you down.

<v SPEAKER_03>She also just she might have a boyfriend, you know.

<v SPEAKER_03>She might say she has a boyfriend, but actually she's shooting you down.

<v SPEAKER_03>And like these things all happen, and like nothing will happen in life if you don't try, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And that that's I think a really it's an obvious message, but it's an important message.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I think it's increasingly important because we are not in um, I was gonna say Victorian England, but Jane Austen has said earlier than that, uh, but I forget when.

<v SPEAKER_01>Uh Regency, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Regency, that's what they call it, yes.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um like Napoleonic Wars, whatever.

<v SPEAKER_03>So we used to have a society that was just much more built around like telling everybody all the time that like they need to get married, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And there's a lot of downsides to the structure of 19th century society.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, but it was very heavily, you know, sort of like, you know, everyone was like on tracks leading to that sort of thing.

<v SPEAKER_03>If if people go to a dance, right, like the point of the dance is that somebody's gonna ask you to dance, and if you have a good time, it's like you might get married next week.

<v SPEAKER_03>And the modern world is not like that at all, in mostly good ways, but it does mean that I think people require more um information and ideas and encouragement, or else you get um you get no couples, you get passivity, you get things not happening.

<v SPEAKER_01>I just actually think declining couple rate has like quite literally nothing to do with what's going on, like online dating advice.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I I think the thing I would say is on the margins, if I was saying there's like if if I if I was thinking of a person who is looking for a relationship and having trouble and they don't know why, and I don't know anything about this person, my advice would be go to someone who cares about you and knows a lot about you and try to get advice about why you're not able to be partnered from them.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think the idea that I would say like turn to like random like YouTube or Twitter or TikTok influencers is like basically next to zero.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think that like the advice on average to me leads people astray.

<v SPEAKER_01>I agree that like having more people share pieces of information about, you know, what has worked for them would be positive.

<v SPEAKER_01>And again, like lots of advice people get about dating and relationships is often like not explicitly advice.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's like things you pick up from like witnessing successful relationships.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like you see your buddy as a girlfriend.

<v SPEAKER_01>How does he treat his girlfriend?

<v SPEAKER_01>What do they do?

<v SPEAKER_01>How does it go?

<v SPEAKER_01>When they get into arguments, like what occurs?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like that kind of thing is like things you absorb through Moses.

<v SPEAKER_01>You things see through your parents, you see people in your family, how do they engage with each other?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, what does this tell you about relationships and how they work in the long term?

<v SPEAKER_01>Your siblings, your friends.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I think like what messages are being sent here.

<v SPEAKER_01>We moved really positively, I think, in the 2000s and uh, you know, 2010s away from a view that like you could really, really reduce people down to like extreme, well, women in particular, like down to extreme stereotypes.

<v SPEAKER_01>And at the same time, we started like, I think, shifting the stereotypes associated with men in ways that were like really, really negative and harmful.

<v SPEAKER_01>And now, again, as we're like, okay, this wasn't the we did not achieve the peak of feminism and egalitarianism in the 2010s.

<v SPEAKER_01>I really don't want the reaction to that to be like we should uh go back to the 90s because like to be clear, like there was a lot of angst around dating and relationships in the 90s.

<v SPEAKER_01>There were lots of concerns about like the internet.

<v SPEAKER_03>People are always concerned.

<v SPEAKER_01>But but I mean, like, even then, but the things were it wasn't like people were like, oh great, like this dating device is all leading us into a positive direction here.

<v SPEAKER_03>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_03>There's limits to stereotyping and big problems.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's also true that like there are real measurable gender differences in personality that I think it is worthwhile for people to be aware of.

<v SPEAKER_01>But you're not dating this is one of the things where I'm like, there are things that are obviously true.

<v SPEAKER_01>It is obviously true that when you look at studies of big five personality traits and you map people based on you know whether they're male or female, you see differences on average here.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>But you're not dating on average.

<v SPEAKER_01>No, no, no.

<v SPEAKER_01>You're dating an individual person.

<v SPEAKER_01>I agree.

<v SPEAKER_03>But but I mean, yes, but a person needs to understand, a heterosexual person needs to understand how knowing that they themselves are an individual.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And then anybody they may date will also be an individual.

<v SPEAKER_03>But that's I think actually not focused on.

<v SPEAKER_03>I I agree, I agree.

<v SPEAKER_03>But I mean, but you also do need to situate yourself, you know, in the landscape of averages, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>So, like, you know, in the in the uncontroversial realm of physical attributes, like most women prefer to date men who are taller than them.

<v SPEAKER_03>So fair enough.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's very controversial, actually.

<v SPEAKER_03>Well, okay, but like that that's just true.

<v SPEAKER_03>And also, you know, if you're a woman who is five foot ten, you need to be aware that like you are substantially taller than the average woman.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And the set of men who are taller than you is a relatively small number of people.

<v SPEAKER_03>Now, you can do with that what you will, but like you should know that factually.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I do think that everybody knows that factually.

<v SPEAKER_03>Where I think people sometimes lose sight of it, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Is like women experience more anxiety and depression on average than men do.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um well, women are diagnosed more.

<v SPEAKER_03>No, no, no, no, no.

<v SPEAKER_03>I mean, not not just like clinical, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>But just, you know, fleeting anxiety is just more commonly experienced.

<v SPEAKER_01>I just mean like there's like a dispute about whether it's in the survey data because men aren't admitting to it or whether it's literal experiences.

<v SPEAKER_01>This is a yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yes, there is.

<v SPEAKER_03>And and but you know, again, in the survey This is true.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And and men get angry more than women, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And so, again, not everybody all the time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

<v SPEAKER_03>But in most heterosexual couples, it is just likely, if you are a typical woman, that you will experience more anxiety than the man that you are dating.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I think this is actually the point, this is an example of like the way in which these averages can actually confuse things.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because first, I mean, like, again, like it is true, literally true what you're saying that when you look at surveys, men will report anger more than women, et cetera.

<v SPEAKER_01>There's a lot of evidence for this.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think often this is also like a labeling exercise.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, what is anger?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, what does it look like?

<v SPEAKER_01>How does it function?

<v SPEAKER_01>What does it mean?

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, these are things that are often like at some level, like it's difficult to even categorize what another person's experience of an emotion is.

<v SPEAKER_01>So, like, there's like that issue, but philosophy is challenging.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes, but even all across genders too, like, you know, there's obviously socialization here.

<v SPEAKER_01>So, like the way that women express anger versus men, like, men are gonna we all we know that men have more testosterone, that's that can lead to rates of aggression that are different than women on average.

<v SPEAKER_01>But like, you know, I I just I think if you're in a relationship or you're trying to date people, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>And in your head you have, well, men are more angry than women on average, or women are more anxious than men on average.

<v SPEAKER_01>How does that help you get to a relationship in a better way?

<v SPEAKER_01>I think in general, what it does is it for it actually has you be less curious about the individual you're interacting with than more curious.

<v SPEAKER_01>You're like, oh, he expressed anger.

<v SPEAKER_01>That's what guys do.

<v SPEAKER_01>No need to ask him questions about like why he's angry, like the men are men, men be angry.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, like I think that's what that's I think in general that's what stereotypes do, is they like they flatten individuals to the point where people don't need to be curious about their causes.

<v SPEAKER_01>I don't need to be curious about why my wife's anxious about cleaning.

<v SPEAKER_01>She's a woman.

<v SPEAKER_01>Women are anxious about cleaning.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like it's just one of those things where I'm like, what if you were instead like, oh, I'm approaching Matt as an individual person, he seems really angry.

<v SPEAKER_01>Why are you angry?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, that's just like a different way of relating to the world.

<v SPEAKER_01>And as someone who spends most of my life in population averages and in stats, I think it's so useless as a way of relating to individual people.

<v SPEAKER_03>But like go back to your content, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Where it's like all these women and they're stressing out about, you know, the details of like when did this guy text them or something, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And the and the game that those content creators are are playing, right, is they are trying to like exacerbate the anxieties of anxious people in order to get them continually clicking and scrolling and so on and so forth.

<v SPEAKER_03>And it might be useful, I think, to women to know that just most men, on average, are just more casual in their way of doing things than most women are.

<v SPEAKER_03>And that like there is probably no signal in the noise.

<v SPEAKER_03>And that that's just like an op a possibility that you should open yourself to.

<v SPEAKER_03>That like the nature of, you know, um, a heterosexual relationship is that it is probably going to pair one person who is physically larger than the other person, is probably going to pair one person who is more like, you know, um for people on audio, Matt made a very interesting face and waved his arms about.

<v SPEAKER_03>More like worried about what the exact meaning of a social interaction was.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And that that's not just true of the heterosexual interactions themselves.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like as a married person, you know, I I hear uh like what women say about their interactions with other women, and they just perceive there to be more going on than most of the men I know in their interactions with other people.

<v SPEAKER_03>And that, you know, it's fine if you're not like that, if you're an exception, like that's great.

<v SPEAKER_03>But that if you are just having a typical experience of the world, you will have this kind of binary quality.

<v SPEAKER_03>And everyone could relax about it a little.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think we agree on the like end state of like how someone should approach dating as like, hey, like people are very different and you should approach them that way.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I don't really get how like someone knowing gender stereotypes outside of like the way that like we all know gender stereotypes.

<v SPEAKER_01>We like live in a culture and a society where there's like movies and like gender is obviously entirely like culturally like uh constructed.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um and gender, Matthew.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_01>Not sex.

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't, I don't, I forgot to be able to do that.

<v SPEAKER_01>We'll do this and we'll do this in another plot on what gender is.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I I I think that like I don't really get what these stereotypes are benefiting when you're like a young man trying to get a date.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, what does it help you to know that like women are anxious about it?

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>No, no, but I mean I mean you opened my eyes to some of this like pathological woman-focused content, which I felt would have benefited at some points from just like a more clear discussion of what kinds of gender differences we are dealing with out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>Again, you know, in terms of um, you know, people set standards for themselves, um, and that's great, and like that's fine, but that you should know, you know, how unusual is what you're looking for out there, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Oh, flopside, you know, like men, you always, you know.

<v SPEAKER_01>There's a form of content like this, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Where they're like, I think it's like uh, you know, a lot of Manosphere guys will do sort of, okay, if you're looking for a six-foot man who are in six figures, who hasn't, you know, who has a job and hasn't been to jail or whatever, and like you're talking about X percent of the population, there's like a lot of content about it.

<v SPEAKER_03>Sure, yes, yes, yes.

<v SPEAKER_03>There's versions of that, but and usually like in this kind of like particular but you know, I I guess the you know, people will be like stressed out about their girlfriend or whatever, and it's like, oh, like why can't she be more chill and whatever?

<v SPEAKER_03>And like I hear you on that.

<v SPEAKER_03>But also it's just, you know, if you're a typical man, the odds that you will meet a woman who is like as quote unquote chill as you are just very, very low.

<v SPEAKER_03>You know what I mean?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like there is just a there is a gap.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think we found a a real argument here, which is that I think it would be extremely bad advice to tell your male friend, well, yeah, women be neurotic.

<v SPEAKER_01>So don't don't don't chill out.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, I think that probably you should not engage with your relationships that way.

<v SPEAKER_03>Aaron Powell I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>But I mean it's like I think you have to, I don't think you have to, but I think it is uh You should accept the neuroticism of women because that's just gonna be true for for heterosexual men to deal with.

<v SPEAKER_03>Aaron Ross Powell That like it's just the way that things are going to be, you know, unless you're in a real statistical outlier relationship, which some people are.

<v SPEAKER_01>Aaron Ross Powell I think the way that we're talking about this indicates that we think, or that you think maybe that like most women are like these like really neurotic.

<v SPEAKER_01>No, putting a small, small gap.

<v SPEAKER_03>I mean, yes.

<v SPEAKER_03>I mean the gaps are not gigantic or anything, you know, in the absolute scheme of things, but they do structure people's experiences of each other.

<v SPEAKER_03>Or the flip side, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like the ones where it's like some of your your Instagram women are like, like the man should be like planning all this stuff for you, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And it's like, I don't know, like why, you know.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um isn't this of a male content too, or uh where it's like you need to plan a date, you have an idea of what dinner is and what's for where you're gonna go after, like women like men who have a plan.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah, no, no, no.

<v SPEAKER_03>I mean it is, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And you know, um, but so you know, when you look at like the extroversion personality construct, men and women are about equal, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>But women score higher on certain things.

<v SPEAKER_03>Related to like interpersonal warmth and men score higher on like sensation seeking, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_01>So what does that mean?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like sensation seeking.

<v SPEAKER_03>Well, it's like trying to come up with stuff that'll be like cool and exciting.

<v SPEAKER_01>Okay.

<v SPEAKER_03>Right?

<v SPEAKER_03>So, and we all in life, I think, free ride to some extent on people who are like more sensation-seeking than we are, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like somebody who gets you to go do something that you wouldn't have done on your own.

<v SPEAKER_03>But it then like it turns out to be fun, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>And so, like, on average, men are more likely to be like that.

<v SPEAKER_03>Okay, women are, which is, I think, part of the reason why this kind of like stereotype-based script arises.

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't think that's that like a man should be coming up with all this amazing fun stuff to do.

<v SPEAKER_03>And as a very boring person, personally, like I struggle with this.

<v SPEAKER_01>I don't think there's I I think largely what's happening there is like there's this idea like women will be like uh uh on on hinge or whatever, like, hey, like a guy will ask them out and they'll be like, okay, what do you want to do?

<v SPEAKER_01>And the guy will be like, Yeah, what do you want to do?

<v SPEAKER_01>It's like you make the plan.

<v SPEAKER_01>And it's like all a result of the guy trying to be like really easygoing and chill, but really he's just like having the woman do all the planning effort of like finding a bar, saying, like, we should meet here and at this time and making the reservation.

<v SPEAKER_01>And that, like, often there's this actually, I think that part of what's going on in a lot of why female-focused dating content is so focused on how to prevent you ending up in a bad relationship is that like, you know, you're trying to figure out if like this guy you're dating is going to turn into the guy who's gonna make you do everything around the house and like isn't gonna be a good partner to you in all the logistical parts of life.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like the one of the big signals of this early on is like when you're asked out on a date, are you asked out and like the guy has like the capacity to call and make a dinner reservation to figure out where you live and is it near you?

<v SPEAKER_01>Is it like equidistant to you, or is it like near your work, or is it at a good time?

<v SPEAKER_01>Has he like checked ahead to make sure the men whatever, like all these things, and I think it's like much less about like sensation seeking and more about like can you uh do the mundane things about life that are boring?

<v SPEAKER_03>Ah, but see, I well, yes and no.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah, um, I mean, I agree, you know, you're trying to display some competence, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>That that's like out there, so on and so forth.

<v SPEAKER_03>But I mean, part of the question, I mean, this was in Noah's piece.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's like, it's like, what are people looking for out of each other?

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like, why do people want to be in relationships at all?

<v SPEAKER_03>Because we're not in a world of um strict economic complementarities, you know, like we used to be, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>It's uh people have companionate marriages where they're supposed to um like get along and spend time with each other and and bring joy into other people's lives.

<v SPEAKER_03>I thought that whole like feminine energy thing was like kind of silly, um almost deliberately so.

<v SPEAKER_03>But but there's I think they're very serious.

<v SPEAKER_03>But there's like something to the idea of like what what is it that you are like bringing to the table?

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah, right.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like why is there a man and a woman in this couple?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like what are we doing?

<v SPEAKER_01>I think that's actually it really explains why so much of coupling is going down, is that there is kind of a reconsideration of like what is the value that each of us are bringing to each other's lives.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, you know, part of why you see it going down most with uh non-college educated men, uh, particularly ones who have been to jail, um, is that like if there's not even like this like material benefit that you're adding to someone's relationships, then even more so it becomes like a big question mark of like, well, like, are you making, are you like, are we reading books together?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, are we like watching movies together?

<v SPEAKER_01>Are we like, are we enjoying something else here?

<v SPEAKER_01>And like that's just not the kinds of questions people are asking.

<v SPEAKER_01>Because like, to be clear, like, marriage was largely about like having a family and then like you need two people create children and then take care of them together.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, if that is no longer like those things aren't like so closely linked, like I think it does become very hard to justify, like, well, is the marginal marriage actually that beneficial for the couple that's getting together without that like larger cultural script around family rearing?

<v SPEAKER_03>So that's what I thought was interesting and a little um saddening about um the female focused dating content, which is that it did mostly seem to me to presuppose that like you'd like don't necessarily like not that you don't want to meet somebody and get married, but that you mostly should view dating as this like minefield of asymmetrical information in which you are uh being warned off various landmines.

<v SPEAKER_03>No, I mean there's some truth to it.

<v SPEAKER_03>I I I I wasn't I wasn't like, I don't understand what like what this is for exactly, but it was kind of sad.

<v SPEAKER_01>It is sad.

<v SPEAKER_01>I mean, this I mean this this is how we feel looking at all, I mean, this is why my original take was just so like, I mean, I I like Matt had to half convince me to do his podcast because I was just like this, I find this thing so depressing because I just I felt so much through the 2010s that like a lot of what had happened is that I had become very uh alienated against men as an entity.

<v SPEAKER_01>I was like, these are on average, until like they've proven differently, they're bad people and like they have these, and like it was very essentialist.

<v SPEAKER_01>It was like very much like there's something wrong with them.

<v SPEAKER_01>They have this structural power imbalance, they've been coded to believe that women are gonna like have to serve them, have to do all this sort of thing.

<v SPEAKER_01>I was witnessing and like we were obviously seeing as a culture all of this stuff around how men had exploited women in all these various industries, all these like very true things that happened, and like a lot of men who not maybe didn't participate in it but covered it up or like made jokes about it or whatever it is.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like, I just think that like this sort of engagement with one another, even when there are truths underneath it, is only going to serve to like really tear apart like men and women from being able to understand each other and be friends.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like we live in a society.

<v SPEAKER_01>There were you will always live with men and women near each other.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like that's just gonna happen because that's how procreation occurs.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's like that's how you get more people.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's a very optimistic take.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I just, I just I think that there's like it would be really, really bad if like we just end up in a situation where people really do believe that these stereotypes are correct, especially as coupling rates are going down.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so there's no way to actually disprove this in the long term.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, if you're, you know, whatever, men ha and when they're tw in their 20s, if they have like this view of women and women in like, you know, in their 20s, they have this view, but then they like end up married anyway, and then they realize, hey, like, this is a man who has very different is is different from averages in certain respects, even if they're similar in other respects, like, then that can falsify that viewpoint.

<v SPEAKER_01>And I mean, I think you you see this one often when people have children of the opposite gender, like you see this with uh men who have uh uh daughters end up being much more positive on various egalitarian um policies around, you know, uh uh women's suffrage, women's uh ability to access uh high levels in the workplace, competence, etc.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, you need these close relationships with people of the opposite gender to like see their humanity.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like I worry that like this kind of content is like pulling us apart rather than bringing us together.

<v SPEAKER_03>So just a peer review.

<v SPEAKER_01>Let's peer review it.

<v SPEAKER_03>One thing that we know brings men and women together is fracking.

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh, previous papers that we've talked about uh show the because because fracking on the producer side has a kind of gendered impact.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's it's mostly men uh working out there.

<v SPEAKER_03>But this paper by Lucas W.

<v SPEAKER_03>Davis uh is titled, How much has shale gas saved US consumers?

<v SPEAKER_03>Um and so it's just looking at the question of on the consumption side, like what is the benefit to Americans of this increase in natural gas production?

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh, they are able to just look pretty cleanly at price differences between the US, Europe, and Japan, because even though gas is traded globally, there's a physical constraint on how much gas can be exported.

<v SPEAKER_03>Uh, so the gas has become quite a bit cheaper in the United States.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, and they find it is saving American consumers about uh 164 to 227 billion dollars per year, um, which seems like a lot, uh, a lot of money.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um and I mean this is a major people have been talking a lot about the sort of divergence uh between the American and European economies.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, and this is like a non-trivial slice of that pie.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's just like we've got we've got this cheap gas.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um and I don't know, I feel like I feel like in in progressive circles, like nobody, nobody wants to talk about it.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like this unfolded uh during the largely during the Obama and Biden presidencies, um, also during Trump's first term.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, I mean, I think uh the reason people don't want to talk about it, or at least I don't know if it's not don't want to talk about it, but um don't view it as uncomplicatedly positive is because there are fossil fuel implications of uh the natural gas industry.

<v SPEAKER_03>So what's a fossil fuel?

<v SPEAKER_01>So I mean, I mean, you know, the Shale Revolution in many ways is like it's like a technological revolution where they figure out how to like, I guess, like frack down and then to the side, but then they also figure out how to like jet stream water down and that like pushes the oil out, sorry, the natural gas out.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, I don't actually uh uh any physicists out there that's how it works.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think it is how it works.

<v SPEAKER_01>What do you mean?

<v SPEAKER_01>I think it's yeah, it's like they uh you know they they pump and pressurize water and then Yeah, to fracture the shale.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, and then yeah, that's what natural that's what shale gas is.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um but anyway, uh apologies for my lack of officers.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_01>I've never drilled.

<v SPEAKER_01>Someone who's drilled in the comments, let us know who was closer, me or Matt.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um but anyway, I mean, I think that uh, you know, there's actually like a really interesting debate about whether this was positive or negative for the environment.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um it has to do with like, what did natural gas displace?

<v SPEAKER_01>Like, what would we have done with energy without that?

<v SPEAKER_01>But also I think a much more difficult like calculation problem, which is um methane gets released when you are uh uh producing natural gas.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so like methane is way worse for the environment than carbon emissions because it just traps uh heat more uh potently.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so like it heats up the earth faster if you were just gonna put it if you had just much.

<v SPEAKER_03>But it dissipates fast.

<v SPEAKER_01>It does, but like it uh this is my point.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's a very difficult calculation because you have to measure the short-term versus long-term.

<v SPEAKER_01>You have to measure how much methane leaking is happening in different scenarios, what happens if there is a natural gas, like a uh, you know, uh uh disaster or when there like you know a bunch of it leaks out, if there's like a um, you know, um, you know, an accident or whatever.

<v SPEAKER_01>But then on top of that, too, like what is the technological um, you know, trade-offs, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>Because like there's uh what one idea is like, okay, well, a bunch of investment, and this is kind of like Ashamooglu-esque argument around like a bunch of investment goes into um uh natural gas technology and fracture, uh hydraulic fracturing, then like does that displace the type of innovation, whether it's the capital or it's literally the people, the scientists, the energy um uh uh experts who would otherwise have been focused on more climate-friendly green tech.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like this seems like more likely in recent years to have panned out for the pro-natural gas side because it's helped us figure out geothermal, which is using a lot of the same technologies as um drilling.

<v SPEAKER_03>Wait, let me let me talk about these environmental impacts, though.

<v SPEAKER_03>Because like I think this is really important, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Um so like natural gas.

<v SPEAKER_01>My point is just like it's a difficult calculation.

<v SPEAKER_01>I think you can like you can't.

<v SPEAKER_03>See, I like I actually don't think it's difficult.

<v SPEAKER_03>I I think it's like an easy calculation that has been made to seem difficult by by bad factors, right?

<v SPEAKER_01>But like me.

<v SPEAKER_03>Well, just natural gas on its own has modestly lower carbon dioxide emissions than coal.

<v SPEAKER_03>It has dramatically fewer particulate emissions, you know, for air pollution, things like that.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, natural gas is also has a lot of complementarity with wind and solar, because the whole deal with, you know, it's like the sun doesn't always shine, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Um But natural gas plants are easy to turn on and off compared to coal and nuclear plants.

<v SPEAKER_03>So, you know, this expansion of shale gas not only saved American consumers a lot of money, but it displaced a tremendous amount of coal off the grid and it reduced carbon dioxide emissions, it reduced particulate emissions.

<v SPEAKER_03>So you've then had this other concern about the methane leaks.

<v SPEAKER_03>And now I agree, you know, ideally you want to minimize methane leaks, but like methane only counts as a more potent greenhouse gas agent if you're using a short time horizon.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And the whole argument for caring about climate change is that we should care about a long time horizon.

<v SPEAKER_03>So I I think you've got a thing where like it was a big win for consumers, and it seems like a modest win for the environment, but it happened over the objections of the environmental movement that like got fracking banned in New York State and you know other places like that, and like all of Europe and stuff like that.

<v SPEAKER_03>And it was just like a mistake, and there's been a real unwillingness to own up to that.

<v SPEAKER_03>But you know, when I think back to uh uh Silent Spring and like what's right and what's wrong in there, like what was right was doing the empirical work on like what is the impact of large-scale pesticide spraying, and what's wrong is this just kind of like, oh, change is bad.

<v SPEAKER_03>And here's one where, you know, sometimes doing the empirical work supports the conclusion that change is bad.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>But in this case, you know, green groups like they really stuck with change is bad in the face of the empirical evidence.

<v SPEAKER_01>So I don't I don't want to obscure the fact, which is that at the macro level, Matt and I like largely agree about the um about uh about the shell revolution being um um likely positive for CO2, but I don't want to understate the negative case, which wasn't just about methane, which you're correct.

<v SPEAKER_01>If you're taking like the long view, um uh, you know, the methane leaks will wash out.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, but there is this like question about like short run CO2 goes down, but cheap gas kiss it uh cheap gas like kills the uh like economic case for a lot of green technologies right at the moment that they were beginning to scale.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like the counterfactual there, I think, is genuinely was like at least at some period of time, was like genuinely difficult to weigh out.

<v SPEAKER_01>Like I think it wasn't clear what was going to happen with a bunch of these green technologies.

<v SPEAKER_01>And now we're seeing like a revolution, I think, in part because of the uh um China's uh investment in in various green technologies, in part because of the IRA, um, you know, some of these tax credit that have invested in in things like battery and uh um uh uh different different um you know, green technology.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I'm just I'm just saying like the case was I want to make sure we're not like straw man and that the case was not just about methane, it was also about like the counterfactual here is difficult to know given how much capital and um you know uh fixed costs like were built up in the fossil fuel sector during the Shell Revolution.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah, although even there, right, so a lot of promising clean tech, right, like our aforementioned Chinese electric cars and stuff, right, is electrification.

<v SPEAKER_03>Yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And part of the case for electrification is that an electric car, even if it's powered by coal, is cleaner than a gasoline burning car.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um and similarly with home heat, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Because these little, you know, uh a little home furnace or like an engine that can fit in your car is just low efficiency compared to um uh a power plant.

<v SPEAKER_03>And so again, like driving down the price of electricity has complemented some of these clean technologies.

<v SPEAKER_03>Now, maybe it's slowed the deployment um of wind turbines and and solar panels, although I'm skeptical, but I I I see what that argument is about.

<v SPEAKER_03>But it just seems even on the technological side, like it's a mixed bag, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like accelerant to geothermal.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um, I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>Like what should we tell people what geothermal is?

<v SPEAKER_03>No.

<v SPEAKER_04>Go ahead.

<v SPEAKER_03>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>No, this is the one, this is the one where I'm only faking that I know.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um it's like it's like there's hot stuff underground.

<v SPEAKER_03>So if you can drill you can put water through the drilled hole and it will boil because the box are hot.

<v SPEAKER_01>This is incredible.

<v SPEAKER_01>I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_01>No, I think that's right, but I don't know.

<v SPEAKER_03>I mean, like So you need better drills.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's the heat beneath the earth's crust, and we're getting it out somehow.

<v SPEAKER_01>There's tons of energy.

<v SPEAKER_01>There's a reason why in Iceland there's tons of geothermal, it's because if you've been to Iceland, a lot of volcanoes.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um I have been to Iceland.

<v SPEAKER_01>Have you been to Iceland?

<v SPEAKER_01>I have been to Iceland.

<v SPEAKER_01>I went I visited the uh geothermal um and carbon capture and storage uh facility.

<v SPEAKER_01>Wow, that's very exciting to talk to.

<v SPEAKER_03>I went to the Blue Lagoon, which is just a giant.

<v SPEAKER_01>It was closed because of a uh volcanic eruption when I was there.

<v SPEAKER_01>But getting back to like the I think the original point of the paper, I do think it's underrated how much uh like the environmental movement has been in contention with like cheap electricity prices because like there's this like obscuring of this fact in many respects, like oh because people were trying to convince themselves, us, everyone, that the price of green energy had gone down, and like that is true, and like it is true that in like some specific situations, like the price of like solar is cheaper than the price of given fossil fuel or whatever, and like we see this on the Texas road all the time.

<v SPEAKER_01>But I think that like at a macro level, it is the case that if you like stopped drilling for all fossil fuels, like energy prices would go up.

<v SPEAKER_01>And like this conversation got very confused.

<v SPEAKER_01>And so I think there are actually a lot of people out there who are like unaware of like the massive, massive like shitstorm politically we'd be in if like we just like had not had the shell revolution.

<v SPEAKER_03>Well, I think yeah, I mean the distinction right is oftentimes the cheapest thing to do is to deploy renewables.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yes.

<v SPEAKER_03>It's never the case that's like making fossil fuels illegal is gonna save you uh uh money because uh you just wouldn't do it, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>Like the the the the the environmental impact of banning fossil fuels is coming from preventing them being deployed in cases where that would be.

<v SPEAKER_01>Yeah, yeah.

<v SPEAKER_03>And it doesn't mean you should never do it, right?

<v SPEAKER_03>I and I get that people don't like to own up to trade-offs and so on and so forth, but at a certain point, if you start taking all your advice and information from people who won't ever own up to trade-offs, you're gonna really struggle to govern um correctly.

<v SPEAKER_03>And, you know, I again, like not to, you know, play dumb, I understand why Democrats uh senators have mixed feelings about the fact that the economy of the Obama and Biden years was substantially powered by the growth of shale gas.

<v SPEAKER_03>But it's factually true that that's what happened.

<v SPEAKER_03>And that being unwilling or unable to say that, you know, narrowly, who cares?

<v SPEAKER_03>More broadly, like if you want to be effective stewards of the economy, you need to be able to have like accurate factual information about what's happening.

<v SPEAKER_03>And I I worry increasingly about, you know, whether we're there or not.

<v SPEAKER_01>Well, now that we've started green bashing, I think that's a good time to close out the podcast.

<v SPEAKER_01>We got that in.

<v SPEAKER_03>Sure.

<v SPEAKER_01>Uh if you enjoy the podcast, uh like, comment, subscribe.

<v SPEAKER_01>We're new, we're growing.

<v SPEAKER_01>Tell your friends the best way that podcasts grow.

<v SPEAKER_03>Um if you if you meet somebody at a bar, be like, have you heard this new podcast called?

<v SPEAKER_03>Called The Argument?

<v SPEAKER_01>It's a great pickup line.

<v SPEAKER_01>It's worked on many, many.

<v SPEAKER_01>This is the new game, the argument.

<v SPEAKER_01>Um, well, thanks.

<v SPEAKER_01>See you next week.

<v SPEAKER_01>Bye.