Until this point, we have focused on the problems of creating a relationship between individuals. However, the large lacuna aids to be addressed: when young people start relationships it is in the context of a society most of whose objects the young people do not control. This leads us to the observation that while young people use the tools of society, they do not create them, they largely do not own them, and the mechanisms for creation are not all their construction. Young people use what old people designed for them. Whether it is where they meet how they need or what they are looking for each of these facets is designed by older people. That means that even the most easily focused method is designed by older people.
While it may be morally sanctimonious for older people to feel that the problem is one that younger people created, this is not the case. Older people make money from younger people meeting each other. And even the field of economics is about money, not love. This means that money and economic power need to be addressed and the responsibility for the problem needs to be reassigned: older people are engaging in processes that make money on the backs of younger people forming relationships, whether that is through church, restaurants, or dating applications.
This change of direction is important to understand why it is that there needs to be a shift in who is responsible for this problem. It also needs to be understood that it is the older people who are the beneficiaries of reproduction: being older people will eventually consigned to nursing homes which need to be staffed by younger people. That is, older people are the beneficiaries both in the immediate and long-term consequences of relationship formation. While the young people get a dopamine boost for having formed a relationship, be largest beneficiaries are the older people who will use the labor of younger people.
This is the cold hard truth: if younger people do not form relationships it is the older people who will be the worst off because the labor that they need will not be available. This also means that older people need to rectify this situation for the older people’s needs in the future. Whether in China the US or in Europe, the older people need to supply needs that the older people will have. This means that Internet dating in the US is largely a commodity that has defects. And the other alternatives in other societies have defects that are just as large, if not larger, than the Internet dating solution which has been proposed.
When looking at this from the perspective of economic historians, we can see that this is not the first time that the older generation has miscalculated relationship formation. The most obvious example is the great depression. While there are many effects of the great depression one of them was a deep reduction in relationship formation and the resulting children which are part of that relationship formation. While there are many differences between now and the 1930s, this is one of the hallmarks that there are some fundamental similarities between the two.
If one thinks about it for a moment, while the formation of relationships is a microeconomic trend it is influenced by macroeconomics. The macroeconomics of the situation is far more complex than can be detailed in one essay. There is not a single mechanism on the macroeconomic front that explains the entirety of the microeconomic relationship formation. But what is the case is that the microeconomics of relationship formation is key to having a next generation.
We can then look at the microeconomic details and see where the disconnect with relationships occurs, realizing again that it is not just Internet dating because it is a global phenomenon that has defeated many ways of forming relationships. This means that the forces that make men realize that they have better options than to randomly cast their lot for a female are also the same courses that macroeconomically drive a certain class of men from the dating pool.
The two largest problems with the male participatory relationship pool are that they are less than their parents did and the competition from above which gradually eases as women come to understand that, on average, male and female participants tend to get an equilibrium. Very few people can get better than their expected value. But this last pressure is normal for the relationship forming part of the equation: in every generation, women start with a very low sense of their value or a very high sense of their value. This can be seen by the fact that men and women feel equal with the applications over the long term.
This means that while the stem jobs are the ones valuable it is the “heel” jobs that have the most impact on the average male. While mergers are a long-term grind on worker’s pay and benefits, the downward pressure on younger males is not correlated to overall pressure.
shows the long-term pressure which is correlated to the neoconservative era beginning in the 1980s, which is too early for the selection pressure. In other words, the general downward pressure begins much earlier than the selection pressure. It may mean a correlation between the two of them, but this needs to be proved not assumed.
So we now have a particular selection pressure aimed at young people which correlates with Internet dating in the US but is much larger because many attempts to solve this problem have been made in different nations and they have had poor results. This is because the macro selection pressure is not with the young people but is correlated with how young people select mates. We’ve also seen that this is not the first time which this has happened particularly in the 1930s with a general downward pressure because of economics.
The next step is to see what conditions are present during those times when there is a collapse in mating pressures and what can be done to alleviate the root causes.
Reaction to Sterling S Newberry
The cold clear light of the present.
The absurd version
Feb 11. 2024
Economic conditions impact the young both as direct personal and less direct parental blows.
Poverty is a double whammy.
Prior to the 90s, the sample size for relationships for youths of similar age was limited by geography and mobility, and provided ample face to face assessments.
Social media has immensely exploded this sample size including the numbers of the "tens," most popular or desirable.
Thus competition for relationships is more fierce with little actual face to face assessments.
The antidote could be more face to face time, casual and exploratory and lower pressured.
Get Real
I don't want to
be alone
Don't want to be
stuck at first
Feel my luck
is a curse
I don't want
a solo berth
Don't want to be
a second place
With egg on
my face.
So get real
Get your head on straight
She don't want nothing fake
Stop spinning your wheels
Get real.
You don't need
a super star
Don't need the one
in everyone's eye
Cherry pie
in the sky
Get your feet
on the ground
You don't need
a plastered smile
Or a fast
One minute mile.
So get real
Get your head on straight
She don't want nothing fake
Stop spinning your wheels
Get real.
("Excuse me"
I notice you've
a lively smile
Below matching eyes
I couldn't help
but say hello.
How about
A coffee break
Maybe some other time
I'd really like
a chance to get
to know you).
So get real
Get your head on straight
She don't want nothing fake
Stop spinning your wheels
Get real.