Philosophy Now Forum

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 6:18 am

godelian wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 7:55 am Let's first consider the following biological law:

There is not a problem with a pay gap if it's by informed choice.

Wow, AC...you're such a refreshing voice of sanity...I'm quite gobsmacked, that somebody so far away from my own beliefs is as reasonable and careful as you are. Big respect.

Sometimes it is: some women take on roles that deliberately aren't long-term because they wish to take on tradwife roles when marrying. That is fine as long as it's their informed choice. (Is it always an informed, non-coerced choice? I doubt it. So this statement is more philosophically distinct than it might sound at first glance).

Well, there are coerced choices of two types, aren't there? There are the aspiring worker-bees that are "coerced" out of it by societal pressure of some kind, and there are the aspiring wives and mothers who are bullied by the other side into giving that up to try to "prove" themselves to a world that has none of their values and doesn't actually care about them, other than their utility as symbols and proofs of the success of "liberation." Both are clearly coercive. As you point out, it's really an important matter of personal choice.

Unfortunately, and all the studies show this is true, women are high on the character trait called "agreeableness," and also high on the "negative emotion" scale, relative to men. What this means is that young women are disproportionately likely to feel social pressure, and that they find it harder to be happy, whatever they choose, relative to the average of men. (These are statistics, of course -- generalizations, not characteristics of particular individuals. You'll find exceptions. The rule will hold.)

However, outside of those cases, there should not be a gender pay gap. But there is.

Really? Where I live, that's actually been illegal, and for a long time. One has to pay equal wages for the same work, or one gets sued. But the alleged "pay gap" remains; because whereas women overwhelmingly choose low-risk nurturing jobs, like teacher, academic, nurse, men choose high-risk and intensive jobs, like lawyer, bricklayer, entrepreneur, investment banker, and CEO.

Until the age of about 30, women are employed at a higher rate, rise faster, and are more successful than comparable men in the same field. After that, they do what the men don't: they cut back on work in order to create a better lifestyle, have kids, and start taking time away. Their careers all nosedive after that. I've seen them do it, first hand: I worked for many years in one of the few professions where there are lots of women. This was a very common pattern.

This, too, is a choice. And I actually think it's a wise one. The male pursuit of "the big buck" makes perfect sense only if one is trying to provide for a whole family, esp. as the lone provider. If not, it's mentally ill. It bespeaks an imbalanced life, one in which too much emphasis is put on mere money, and not enough on people. And maybe that's why women realize the problem sooner, and get out of the rat race more readily: they intuit that people are more important than things. And if so, they're right.

And there is evidence that this sort of pay gap comes from explicit and implicit bias (we can see this when we look at how potential employers might adopt the same resume with a masculine or feminine name at the top).

Actually, up to the late 20s, this is not the case. The opposite is true. Women are more likely to be hired, and more likely to be promoted. But as the child-rearing age approaches, employers -- not out of prejudice but out of realization -- know that these women are passing their reproductive "freshness date"; and their market value falls, along with the expectation of time off and of changes in their focus.

So it's not bigotry...it's economics. After 30, women are just not as valuable as men to the project of making money, unless those women are childless and determined to remain so. And on the average, those that choose that option also rise faster than average men. There are no affirmative action provisions for men, and women are thus in very high demand if they will work like a man. There are quotas to be filled, you know.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 5:52 pm
Wow, AC...you're such a refreshing voice of sanity...I'm quite gobsmacked, that somebody so far away from my own beliefs is as reasonable and careful as you are. Big respect.

Respect returned from our previous conversations

Immanuel Can wrote:Well, there are coerced choices of two types, aren't there? There are the aspiring worker-bees that are "coerced" out of it by societal pressure of some kind, and there are the aspiring wives and mothers who are bullied by the other side into giving that up to try to "prove" themselves to a world that has none of their values and doesn't actually care about them, other than their utility as symbols and proofs of the success of "liberation." Both are clearly coercive. As you point out, it's really an important matter of personal choice.

Unfortunately, and all the studies show this is true, women are high on the character trait called "agreeableness," and also high on the "negative emotion" scale, relative to men. What this means is that young women are disproportionately likely to feel social pressure, and that they find it harder to be happy, whatever they choose, relative to the average of men. (These are statistics, of course -- generalizations, not characteristics of particular individuals. You'll find exceptions. The rule will hold.)

Sure, I've seen it: women (sometimes men) judging women for choosing tradwife life. I've never approved of it: doesn't seem very feminist to tell some woman what to do with her life, that's her choice alone even if it isn't a choice some of us might personally make.

I don't like the notion of coercion in either direction.

Immanuel Can wrote:Really? Where I live, that's actually been illegal, and for a long time. One has to pay equal wages for the same work, or one gets sued. But the alleged "pay gap" remains; because whereas women overwhelmingly choose low-risk nurturing jobs, like teacher, academic, nurse, men choose high-risk and intensive jobs, like lawyer, bricklayer, entrepreneur, investment banker, and CEO.

Until the age of about 30, women are employed at a higher rate, rise faster, and are more successful than comparable men in the same field. After that, they do what the men don't: they cut back on work in order to create a better lifestyle, have kids, and start taking time away. Their careers all nosedive after that. I've seen them do it, first hand: I worked for many years in one of the few professions where there are lots of women. This was a very common pattern.

This, too, is a choice. And I actually think it's a wise one. The male pursuit of "the big buck" makes perfect sense only if one is trying to provide for a whole family, esp. as the lone provider. If not, it's mentally ill. It bespeaks an imbalanced life, one in which too much emphasis is put on mere money, and not enough on people. And maybe that's why women realize the problem sooner, and get out of the rat race more readily: they intuit that people are more important than things. And if so, they're right.

There is some of that: and we see it in STEM, too. It was (and probably still is) called "the leaky pipeline." However, the factors leading to both is multitudinous.

First, as mentioned elsewhere in my post, identical applications (with the only differences being a masculine or feminine name attached) were rated "more competent" with masculine names (by both men and women). (Source)

Implicit biases are almost more sinister than explicit ones because it's likely probably very few involved in these kinds of assessments would vocalize or believe themselves to be misogynists (and it would be tough to call them so). That's the way implicit biases work. But that makes implicit biases all the more difficult to tackle because it's more of an Overton Window that has to shift.

From entry level to the top, men average more than $4,000 more than women in STEM (Source), and up to 40% more (Source. Stanford researchers blame ~2% of the difference on self-efficacy and confidence gaps between the applicants (that women with the same skills, degrees, GPA, etc. project less self-confidence in interviews). There's a lot to unpack with that. On one hand one could shrug and blame the women for not projecting more confidence, but I think that would be missing the point (and that's aside from the fact that confidence is not the same thing as competence, if anything one wonders why recruiters aren't more concerned about Dunning-Krueger effects).

On the other hand, this under-confidence (or is it male over-confidence? I will not try to ascertain that here) is related to all of the problems women face in the work force and part of how implicit biases snowball and self-exacerbate: by the time women are applying, they have already experienced implicit misogyny in academia itself for instance. The number one reported reason for women leaving STEM is an unsupportive or hostile environment explicitly linked to gendered biases in both academia and the workforce. Entrenched, pervasive attitudes in academia, the workforce, communities, churches, and families associate STEM with men more than women (which isn't even false on a sheer demographic level, but the demographics themselves produces a feedback loop of gendered bias). Inequitable language in the workplace and media emphasize "masculine" technical skills over "feminine" soft skills. That bias is at play here is more obvious and more prevalent when looking at research involving women that also happen to be minorities, who face even more significant pay hurdles and difficulty in upward potential.

When it comes to advancement, there is something called the Prove It Again bias where men are able to advance based on their potential while women tend to advance based on ratings of their current performance and past reviews (and Black women are even more affected by this kind of bias, with 65% of women in general and 77% of Black women experiencing this form of gender bias). (Source).

I could go on, but frankly, I've already linked too much and don't seriously expect someone to have to read all these links (they are just there if desired). At the end of my date the point is that there's this vicious circle that women have to deal with where they don't have a lot of female role models in STEM, they experience implicit biases, they experience outright harassment and doubt, all of this from academia, communities, families, etc. So when it comes time to talk to that interviewer, they might report less confidence for all kinds of psychosocial reasons that go beyond personality or even gendered personality idiosyncrasies. Some women drop out to start families (and that is perfectly fine if that's their choice), but some women also get coerced to drop out and start families. Which leads to fewer women in STEM, which leads to (and then you go back to the start of this circle).

Immanuel Can wrote: Actually, up to the late 20s, this is not the case. The opposite is true. Women are more likely to be hired, and more likely to be promoted. But as the child-rearing age approaches, employers -- not out of prejudice but out of realization -- know that these women are passing their reproductive "freshness date"; and their market value falls, along with the expectation of time off and of changes in their focus.

So it's not bigotry...it's economics. After 30, women are just not as valuable as men to the project of making money, unless those women are childless and determined to remain so. And on the average, those that choose that option also rise faster than average men. There are no affirmative action provisions for men, and women are thus in very high demand if they will work like a man. There are quotas to be filled, you know.

Women are not more likely to be hired and especially not more likely to be promoted, not even in their 20's. Do you have research that can demonstrate this assertion, particularly for promotion?

You actually bring up another point: some men leave STEM after having children as well (23% of new fathers, compared to 43% of new mothers):

We found substantial attrition of new mothers: 43% of women leave fulltime STEM employment after their first child. New mothers are more
likely than new fathers to leave STEM, to switch to part-time work, and to exit the labor force. These gender differences hold irrespective of variation by discipline, race, and other demographic factors. However, parenthood is not just a “mother’s problem”; 23% of new fathers also leave STEM after their first child. Suggesting the difficulty of combining STEM work with caregiving responsibilities generally, new parents are more likely to leave full-time STEM jobs than otherwise similar childless peers and even new parents who remain employed full time are more likely than their childless peers to exit STEM for work elsewhere. These results have implications for policymakers and STEM workforce scholars; whereas parenthood is an important mechanism of women’s attrition, both women and men leave at surprisingly high rates after having children. Given that
most people become parents during their working lives, STEM fields must do more to retain professionals with children.

Source

Now, what I think we are likely to butt heads about is this: I will think that women are doing this more often than men because of sociocultural factors (the aforementioned pressures in academia, family life, community, churches, particular Kansas City Chiefs football kickers, etc.) telling these women their whole lives that this is what they should do, so some of them will do it, and they'll even do it of their own volition. But coercion isn't always explicit, given in threatening tones. Coercion can be making someone feel like they "should" do something because that's the way things are, that's the way they are because of who they are, that it's in their nature, and so on. But it is still coercion.

I suspect you will side with the "nature" side of that debate over my "nurture" side of that debate.

You suggest "generalizations, not characteristics of particular individuals" and that "the rule will hold." I will pre-empt an argument here by not necessarily disagreeing with you (that doesn't mean that I agree with you, but rather that I don't have to in order to make a point). These numbers of women leaving STEM, or of being promoted, and so on, while still lagging behind men, have improved as societal views have improved, and that would suggest that at least some of the problem is an Overton Window problem.

If, at the end of the day, there really is some gendered personality bias that causes women to truly demographically prefer to leave STEM more often than men for motherhood (and that they would do so without coercion, implicit or explicit), then great: there is nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that's true, just saying fine. But shouldn't we be concerned that we're doing as much as possible to remove implicit biases and to help nudge the Overton Window enough so that as many women as possible that wouldn't leave fields, and would confidently seek promotion, will do so?

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 2:37 am Women are not more likely to be hired and especially not more likely to be promoted, not even in their 20's. Do you have research that can demonstrate this assertion, particularly for promotion?

It's complicated, because women are also apparently less likely to apply, but more likely to be hired. For example, one consultancy organization (Movemeon) writes, "Women are also an astounding 24% more likely [than men] to be offered a job after having been interviewed. The end result: after having made an application, women are 36% more likely to land the job than men. In essence, men are competing more but winning less." However, if women are also applying less often, that means they may still not get the overall results men are getting. So who's winning?

As for promotion, that's a different issue than outright hiring, obviously, the key difference being the track-record within the company. Women tend to get promoted from within an organization, apparently, but more men get hired straight into advanced positions. I'm not sure why either is the case. And I'm not sure what those facts indicate.

You actually bring up another point: some men leave STEM after having children as well (23% of new fathers, compared to 43% of new mothers):

Interesting...but half the rate, obviously.

Now, what I think we are likely to butt heads about is this: I will think that women are doing this more often than men because of sociocultural factors (the aforementioned pressures in academia, family life, community, churches, particular Kansas City Chiefs football kickers, etc.) telling these women their whole lives that this is what they should do, so some of them will do it, and they'll even do it of their own volition.

Well, this is probably attributable to that "agreeableness" difference between men and women. Women are far more susceptible to caring about what others think or want, or what they perceive others to think or want. But if it's "of their own volition," there's no problem.

I think there's a danger in the misleading Feminist meme about "internalizing your oppression." Yes, such a thing can happen. One can be told something so often one starts to believe it. But it certainly isn't a comprehensive explanation for anything, and it sure is a gate that can swing both ways. It can make you think that your impulse to think what you think is actually an idea imposed by somebody else, when it isn't -- it's your own heart telling you what you really want. If women are instinctively more inclined toward relationships and family (as how could they not be, since they bear the main burden of the reproductive role and potentials), I don't think they should be taught to mistrust that. That would be a different kind of coercion, to be sure...and it might to pushed on them in the names of "freedom" and "equality" and such...but it would still be a case of societal pressure coercing women into life-roles they don't actually want, and perhaps for which they really don't find themselves fit.

An the irony of this is that in a sense, men need the same view: that relationships are more important than careers. So we're not well-served by pressing the women, who are acting more judiciously, into the role of men, who are acting less judiciously, in that so many seem more susceptible to forgetting the importance of people in favour of pursuing things.

These numbers of women leaving STEM, or of being promoted, and so on, while still lagging behind men, have improved as societal views have improved, and that would suggest that at least some of the problem is an Overton Window problem.

Maybe. I can't speak to the world of STEM. It's a pretty male field, to be sure. But what I see is high schools and higher learning academies BEGGING young women to choose STEM rather than the Humanities, and young women still overwhelmingly going into things like human resources, nursing, teaching...and even motherhood. And if that's what the majority of them want to do, why should we tell them they're "internalizing their oppression" and must fight all that, and take on careers they don't want?

There are locations and situations that include examples of every possible scenario. There examples of exactly equal pay, of women choosing lower paying professions, of women being paid less for the exact same work, of being passed over for higher paying promotions, of deciding to work fewer hours etc. So anyone with a pre-determined agenda can cite an example that supports their view.

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 2:37 am Some women drop out to start families (and that is perfectly fine if that's their choice), but some women also get coerced to drop out and start families. Which leads to fewer women in STEM, which leads to (and then you go back to the start of this circle).

I work in a life sciences company with multiple types of STEM peeps, it's very noticable that that the STEM issue has a certain lack of balance for some reason (I have little insight into the why of the matter).

A solid half the people with scientist or researcher as part of their job title are women with a background in biology or chemistry. About a quarter of the data-scientists and bioinformaticians are similarly lady shaped. One software dev is a woman, absolutely none of our other devs is. As of right now we have no women designing chips and PCBs, and also none in hardware design as far as I know. (I only really know what goes on at the UK site, whatever happens in our American site is excluded from this anecdotal evidence)

We always have at least a couple of scientists out on maternity leave (mandatory 1 year in the UK) but it's rare for them not to come back. Unsurprising I think given the effort it took to get both a PhD and a cool job that makes reasonable use of it. I don't have insight into the payroll, but software development is typically well paid compared to science work.

The "Gender Pay Gap" is an empty statistic. If it takes an overall average of all salaries and wages and compares them men with women.
This would be flawed for several reasons, but the main one is that men tend to work longer and are more able to get raises for longer periods of work.
It could also be scewed since there are freelance jobs such as plumbing which woman for many reason woulc not find attractive, or such as building trade where more men would be capable due to stringth; where man are able to set their own salaries in some cases.
There is also the simple fact that the most capable and intelligent men are more capable and intelligent than the most capable and intelligent women. This might seem controversial. But it is also the fact that the most stupid men are more stupid than the most stupid women. Women tend to be more relaibly capable. But in the jobs field extreme and excessive weaalth tends to go to the most ruthless men. Which would skew the numnbers..

The only valuable measure is where there are two jobs iod equal importance in a firm, or where in fact men and women are doing the same job - that is where the comparison ought to be made. In this women are protected under laws that have existed for more than a generation in most countries.
And there have been many well publicised instances where compaies have be taken to court.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 5:52 pm The male pursuit of "the big buck" makes perfect sense only if one is trying to provide for a whole family, esp. as the lone provider. If not, it's mentally ill.

Briffault's law suggests that a man who wants a family pretty much has no other choice than to specialize in making enough "big bucks". He must significantly out-earn the woman who he wants to have a family with, because otherwise she will conclude that he has 'little to bring to the marriage bargain'.

The smaller the gender pay gap, the more difficult it is to achieve that. That is why starting a family is mostly unattainable for the average man.

The man with substantial income and assets has another problem. Divorce laws incentivize the wife to cash out on him and abscond with half of what he has painstakingly accumulated. Hence, the wealthy man typically won't do it either.

The solution for men, is therefore, jurisdiction shopping. The average man can find a country where his income actually does bring something to the marriage bargain. The wealthy man can find a country where the divorce laws won't strip him clean. Hence, the growing "passport bro" movement.

godelian wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2024 8:05 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 5:52 pm The male pursuit of "the big buck" makes perfect sense only if one is trying to provide for a whole family, esp. as the lone provider. If not, it's mentally ill.

Briffault's law suggests that a man who wants a family pretty much has no other choice than to specialize in making enough "big bucks". He must significantly out-earn the woman who he wants to have a family with, because otherwise she will conclude that he has 'little to bring to the marriage bargain'.

Yes, that's true. Men are keyed to maximized fertility, and women to maximized provision. But what's wrong with that? After all, a woman bears the primary physical and care responsibility for an infant. That her impending child should be adequately provided-for is her job to secure. It's the man's job to come up to that, so as to earn the sexual and reproductive opportunities he desires, and the woman's job to gatekeep that in her own interests and the interests of children. That's just the dynamics of sexual exchange, nothing sinister.

The smaller the gender pay gap, the more difficult it is to achieve that. That is why starting a family is mostly unattainable for the average man.

Yes, that's a serious problem...for both men and women. For men, it means he can't achieve provider status, and for women, that she cannot do what she is inclined to do, which is to look for somebody who can outprovide her own level in a substantial way.

The man with substantial income and assets has another problem. Divorce laws incentivize the wife to cash out on him and abscond with half of what he has painstakingly accumulated. Hence, the wealthy man typically won't do it either.

And the top men, given the promiscuity of modern women, do not have to. They can simply maximize their sexual opportunities cost-free, while 80% of women compete for 10% of men, and the 10% commit to none of them.

The solution for men, is therefore, jurisdiction shopping. The average man can find a country where his income actually does bring something to the marriage bargain. The wealthy man can find a country where the divorce laws won't strip him clean. Hence, the growing "passport bro" movement.

That seems quite fair, too. If women play the game their way, why shouldn't the men play it their way?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2024 5:38 pm Yes, that's a serious problem...for both men and women. For men, it means he can't achieve provider status, and for women, that she cannot do what she is inclined to do, which is to look for somebody who can outprovide her own level in a substantial way.

In fact, the list of issues is endless.

For example, when Joe Biden gave his misguided dating advice to the teenage girl, "No serious guy before you are 30", he actually explained how not to ever find a serious guy at all.

So, Joe Biden told the teenage girl to give it away for free to guys who bring nothing to the table, but to later make a massive u-turn after 30, and from there on demand that the next guy be serious and substantially outprovides her. That is indeed what you can observe a lot of women trying. On what grounds does Biden believe that the strategy that he advised her to follow has any chance of success? Did he measure its success rate?

The environment has changed. People have changed. Life strategies have changed. The incentive structure has changed. In fact, nobody knows what still works. People would have to try something so new that it cannot possibly have a track record of success. Chances are that nothing still works. The risk of failure has gone through the roof. If feel sorry for anybody who for some reason cannot leave.

godelian wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2024 6:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2024 5:38 pm Yes, that's a serious problem...for both men and women. For men, it means he can't achieve provider status, and for women, that she cannot do what she is inclined to do, which is to look for somebody who can outprovide her own level in a substantial way.

In fact, the list of issues is endless.

For example, when Joe Biden gave his misguided dating advice to the teenage girl, "No serious guy before you are 30", he actually explained how not to ever find a serious guy at all.

Yes, that's true. By definition, a "geriatric pregnancy," meaning an "overaged pregnancy" begins for women at age 35 (as WebMD says). Why would a man who is thinking of starting a family want to begin with "old" eggs, especially in a partner who's showing wrinkles, weight and perhaps some grey hairs? The natural inclination would be for a high-value, high-income man to prefer a fertile woman in her early to mid twenties...which is exactly what men happen to like...especially high-value men, who can choose from any dating pool they want...

So a woman in her 30s can expect her options to be a) a lower-value man, and b) a lower-income man, or c) a much older man who wants fewer children and isn't willing to be a passport bro. Anybody whom she really wants -- the wealthy, handsome, tall, desirable man of marginally-older years -- is able to choose at will from the 20-28 dating pool, and to guarantee a wife who is not only better looking but more fertile than those in the older pool.

The reason they don't 'get' these simple facts is also quite simple: that they all want to see themselves as "exceptional women," who "deserve" the best sort of man, even in their 30s. They've been puffed up in that belief by Feminist dogma, and also by their own pride. Nothing in reality, though, supports their delusion.

In fact, they are not cognizant of their real competition. Their real competition is not other women, so much as it is themselves, as the women they were in their own mid 20s. No woman in her 30s is "better," in the sense men care about, than she was, herself, in her mid 20s.

High-value men can find somebody LIKE her, but younger, more attractive, less "sexually experienced" in the negative sense, and more fertile -- as she, herself, perhaps once was, but no longer is. And in five years, they'll still get everything the now-30-year-old has to offer.

So she's on the severe downhill of her dating value, and is simply in denial of it. No wonder so many find that their delusions just don't work out.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2024 7:44 pm The reason they don't 'get' these simple facts is also quite simple: that they all want to see themselves as "exceptional women," who "deserve" the best sort of man, even in their 30s. They've been puffed up in that belief by Feminist dogma, and also by their own pride. Nothing in reality, though, supports their delusion.

It does indeed lead to a paradox.

The less she brings to the table, the higher her demands.

Furthermore, the fact that it fails again and again, does not seem to discourage them from trying again.

Men prefer younger women, and the solution is not to shame male preferences or insult them for being "pedophiles". Instead of merely being delusional, at that point, they even become outright detestable.

godelian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2024 2:05 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 14, 2024 7:44 pm The reason they don't 'get' these simple facts is also quite simple: that they all want to see themselves as "exceptional women," who "deserve" the best sort of man, even in their 30s. They've been puffed up in that belief by Feminist dogma, and also by their own pride. Nothing in reality, though, supports their delusion.

It does indeed lead to a paradox.

The less she brings to the table, the higher her demands.

Furthermore, the fact that it fails again and again, does not seem to discourage them from trying again.

That's how denial works. Truth hits, and she denies it, and continues to do the same failed thing she did before. So reality bites her harder, and she doubles down. Eventually, reality wins, and she loses.

Men prefer younger women, and the solution is not to shame male preferences or insult them for being "pedophiles".

That's a ruse. The women who say that are really just trying to argue men out of liking what men like. And that's not ever going to happen.

But imagine yourself as a 30-year-old, entitled, over-used woman, who is suddenly competing with fresher, more attractive 22-year-olds: you're going to want to level the playing field, so you can get back in the game. But it's too late for you. So all you've got left is the strategy of trying to shame the choosers and talk down the competition. So you call the men "pedos," and the younger women "children."

Instead of merely being delusional, at that point, they even become outright detestable.

They become "Karens": naggy, saggy, over-used women who say unpleasant things about things that are actually not their business at all, and act controlling. And yes, that's detestable, and is certainly counterproductive to their aimed-at goals.

Women's preferences are never shamed. They say they want an over-six-foot, interesting, attractive man with resources...one who has a desire to commit. Nobody tells them, "Oh, honey...you aren't worth that kind of man." But that's an incredibly small and highly-prized faction of the male population, who possess a glut of options. So what these women need to do is figure out what, about a 30-year-old, overeducated, over-entitled woman, that a high-value man actually prizes above youth, freshness, absence of partners, slimness, willingness to follow, fecundity...

Hmmm...maybe forget that. There's nothing to figure out. The problem's very obvious. Men will like whatever is in their real best interests. And why not? That's exactly what women do.

But what too few women figure out is that dating is a buyer's market, not a seller's market. The man is in the buyer position: it's he who must make the first move, follow up with evidences, and then produce the resources, and be willing to "close the deal." The woman is in the seller position: she's putting on display what things the man can exchange for the considerable effort, expenditure and risk involved in the deal. And if the buyer is not willing to buy, you have to add value until he does. You can't "sell" things that have no value to the buyer, even if it's your opinion he ought to buy. And you certainly can't shame any man with even a modest intelligence, far less a high-value, option-rich man, into thinking he wants to buy things he doesn't actually like.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2024 2:28 am But what too few women figure out is that dating is a buyer's market, not a seller's market.

Their market power depends on what market it is about:

- casual sex: handsome men, pretty/young women, average women, ugly/old women, average men, ugly men
- relationships: high-value men, pretty/young women, average men, average women, ugly/old women, poor men
- escort sex: high-value men, average men, pretty/young women, poor men, average women, ugly/old women

The top of the league are always the top 5% men.

However, in the casual sex market, even ugly/old women have more market power than average men. In other words, the casual sex market is very bad for men. Unless he is very handsome, it is a bad idea for a man to hunt for casual sex for free.

In the relationships market, however, average men have a much better position than average women. The same average woman who can reject an average man out of hand in the casual sex market, will in turn be rejected out of hand by exactly the same average man in the relationships market.

In the escort sex market, the average man has a better position than even pretty/young women. Given the fact that, morally, casual sex is at the same level as escort sex, the average man is better off paying for escort sex than operating as a sexual beggar in the casual sex market.

Pretty/young women are deluded to believe that they are the prize, i.e. the top of the league, which they never are, not even in the casual sex market, as they outnumber high-value men by at least 10 to 1. It is much harder for a pretty/young woman to get a high-value man than the other way around.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 10:11 am

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 8:37 am This is abject psychopathy

Yes, Flash has turned into a fuckwit..


You might want to view & share these from an Islamic Imam - just so you and the LGBTQs understand who they are marching with (NB - directly after Hamas did their atrocities majority of Palestinians and Muslims in UK applauded them)

There is more hatred directed at Jews instructing their extermination in the Koran than in Hitlers Mein Kampf - ergo both should be banned.

Imam makes SHOCKING confessions about Islam - Episode 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElY8sRu ... VqdrnieSkc

Imam Tawhidi - Sharaih Talk Epsoide 2 - What the Fatwa is Going On?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf_UX7WnSWs

Episode 3 - The Culture of Child Rape
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl3PjVzfoxI&t=21s

I see you still haven't learned how to use links in useful, informative ways. Let me ask you a question: would you watch 3 hours of YouTube videos from untrustworthy sources of I linked you to them right now?

This might sound a bit unimportant, but I think you should adjust your philosophy of how you link to things, why you link to things, what things you link. I guarantee you nobody is watching that shit, and the fact that you don't get it yet is concerning.

Note that I am not disagreeing with the point you're trying to make, I'm just saying the links you give in the way you give them doesn't do anything to help anybody come to the same conclusion as you. They're useless, you haven't figured out how to link to things in ways that people can use and give a shit about.