On this episode, the girls/women bicker about the value of human life. Maybe fewer humans is better for humanity? Or maybe population collapse will send us spiraling into extinction, which would be terrible for our subscription growth. Is there anything we can do to stop the ongoing panda-fication of our youth? Or will the kids just happily lay around eating bamboo, never reproducing, but always looking cute.
I think my understanding of "settling" is different from how it seems to often be used in these conversations, which seem to employ it to mean "being with someone with lower educational status/fewer markers of social success." In conversations with fellow single early-30s/late-20s women, "settling" has meant not-really-feeling-deeply-in-love-with-your-boyfriend-but-not-seeing-much-else-out-there. In those scenarios, the settled-for boyfriend often is educationally/financially/socially successful--those are the traits being settled for, in lieu of a strong emotional connection. I'm not saying there aren't status- and money-focused single women out there, but that isn't what's keeping the ones I know single. And I'm not convinced it's possible to socially engineer a society away from love marriages once it's transitioned from arranged/survival marriages.
As as an art-college-educated white woman with a dad who went to college and a mom who didn't, I don't think white-collar women "look down" on blue collar men, it's just class difference. People do not pair up outside their class, plain and simple. Class is beyond income- people who went to college have a lot more in common with other people who did. I'm pretty sure the college-educated carpenter who makes custom teak coffee tables would greatly interest the single female lawyer.
When I graduated college and got a job as a waitress, I worked with a lot of well-read hipsters that skipped the college track. They were perfectly intelligent and capable, but we didn't have the shared experiences that usually bond people together. (This is another reason we should have compelled national service!!!)
It seems there is a large number of women who "don't want children"... and then later in life they do. Which is a problem because up to that point they haven't "built themselves" to support children, which includes finding a partner, and accepting the idea of working on personal (as opposed to professional) relationships. I think that many woman who "can't find the right man" to have children with may need to ask themselves if they are part of the problem.
Im not much for the red pill dudes or the trad guys, but like a lot of the more extreme views being vocalized today, there are small truths at the bottom of the house of cards.
One of these truths is that women these days are far more invested in education than men are on a broad scale. This has its own repercussions economically but when you consider how selective people are becoming about whether someone is their “equal”……. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a man that cared much about whether his girlfriend or wife had a 4 year degree or a masters. I personally know several women who use this as a reason to not date a man. It’s wild to me.
Like I said. It’s not worth building a house of cards on this small truth, but it is a real thing. To me it’s an argument for getting married younger, where the playing field is far more leveled and it’s much easier to get to know each other before any harsh judgements are made.
Trying to convince people to have kids to ensure the solvency of the social security system will convince no one. Spend more time explaining how children fulfill a person's life, which was not referenced until about an hour into the podcast.
You erroneously spend more time blaming men than women for both not being suitable partners and their unwillingness to settle down. While men are more judgmental about the appearance of women than vice versa (which creates a huge barrier for men); women are likely more demanding about every other quality.
I know this may sound a little offensive to Meghan (please know I love you), but women are often not good judges of women's appearance. To a women, every female friend is attractive.
And, if I have written this a million times I have written it once, men do not need to invest (a minimum of) four years of their lives and spend (at least) tens of thousands of dollars in a college education to find numerous, decent paying career opportunities. I think millions of female social workers, teachers, nurses, and their sisters toiling in the nonprofit sector are not looking down their noses at men because they failed to go to college, as much as they secretly are jealous (that they do not need a degree to find a good job).
Most young adults are fairly immature, not just guys. Many men spend too much time following sports and/or playing video games. Too many women waste time with reality tv. We all spend too much time on social media. It is a reflection of living in a more privileged society.
A stress fracture doesn’t mean that anything specific happened to the bone. It just means that it gave out after repeated small impacts and now there’s a little crack, which can be quite painful. Usually happens in feet because your entire body weight is coming down on them, and more commonly in women and particularly older women because of bone density. Of course, women of a certain age should be getting a DEXA for bone density, but the main thing to do is look at footwear and activity patterns and see if there’s anything to do to reduce the stress.
Gout is most commonly in the big toe but can occur in other joints. It is because you’re not getting rid of some particular compounds that can turn into crystals when your blood gets overloaded in them, and the crystals tend to get stuck in your joints. It is extremely painful, and usually very obviously inflamed in one spot.
I have gout, Meghan. Fortunately mine's pretty minor. It's genetic - my father has it. It tends to get worse with age - he's in outstanding shape for his age while I am not, but he gets it much worse than me the past few years. If you don't have parents/grandparents who suffered from it, I'd wager it's unlikely you have it (but I'm no physician).
The main trigger for me is actually stress (one of the up-sides of unemployed periods is that I never have flare-ups during them. Heh). Under-hydration seems to be a factor, too. My self-designed "treatment" when it pops up is to drink lots of water and resist holding my urine. So essentially I make myself pee a lot. Seems to keep the urea washing consistently out of my system, which gets rid of the crystals that cause the pain. (Also I only rarely drink, so that helps. Alcohol is terrible for it.)
Lots of good comments and food for thought. You mentioned Paul Erlich and his badly missed predictions. He has had good research in his own field, but his failed predictions for the world ("Population Bomb", etc.) have been so wrong for so many decades I am always surprised that anybody now gives him the time of day. He is always claiming that he is just wrong about the timing. Gosh. (Actually, not surprised, because he is predicting doom, which is always more interesting.)
They keep going to this cornerstone vs capstone thing, but from my perspective, it’s more like a locked door that leads to all sorts of things and only opens for a few lucky people.
Visiting DC recently reminds me that perhaps the reason I am so jaded is because it is the epicenter of the current cultural pathology and perhaps has some of the world’s worst women, but taking that into account I’m not sure I’ve ever even been in a room with a potential wife. And if I did, I’m certain that it happened after I turned 30 and moved across the world.
For all this high-minded talk about kids and careers, the bar right now is trying to find a women who will actually acknowledge that there is such a thing as a woman. And on top of that, that this person likes being a woman. And then on top of that, that they actually like men. These criteria alone rule out the overwhelming majority of women I’ve ever met. And it’s not so much that people genuinely believe the gender stuff, but if you’re so shallow that you just adopt whatever the current craze is, you’re not a candidate for a committed lifelong interpersonal relationship.
I think my understanding of "settling" is different from how it seems to often be used in these conversations, which seem to employ it to mean "being with someone with lower educational status/fewer markers of social success." In conversations with fellow single early-30s/late-20s women, "settling" has meant not-really-feeling-deeply-in-love-with-your-boyfriend-but-not-seeing-much-else-out-there. In those scenarios, the settled-for boyfriend often is educationally/financially/socially successful--those are the traits being settled for, in lieu of a strong emotional connection. I'm not saying there aren't status- and money-focused single women out there, but that isn't what's keeping the ones I know single. And I'm not convinced it's possible to socially engineer a society away from love marriages once it's transitioned from arranged/survival marriages.
"The best time to have a baby is when you're a black teenager."
-Sarah Silverman
As as an art-college-educated white woman with a dad who went to college and a mom who didn't, I don't think white-collar women "look down" on blue collar men, it's just class difference. People do not pair up outside their class, plain and simple. Class is beyond income- people who went to college have a lot more in common with other people who did. I'm pretty sure the college-educated carpenter who makes custom teak coffee tables would greatly interest the single female lawyer.
When I graduated college and got a job as a waitress, I worked with a lot of well-read hipsters that skipped the college track. They were perfectly intelligent and capable, but we didn't have the shared experiences that usually bond people together. (This is another reason we should have compelled national service!!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18bhyZIFXF4
""Society Is A Ponzi Scheme" - Warning On Population Collapse & Hopeless Generation | Eric Weinstein"
It seems there is a large number of women who "don't want children"... and then later in life they do. Which is a problem because up to that point they haven't "built themselves" to support children, which includes finding a partner, and accepting the idea of working on personal (as opposed to professional) relationships. I think that many woman who "can't find the right man" to have children with may need to ask themselves if they are part of the problem.
Im not much for the red pill dudes or the trad guys, but like a lot of the more extreme views being vocalized today, there are small truths at the bottom of the house of cards.
One of these truths is that women these days are far more invested in education than men are on a broad scale. This has its own repercussions economically but when you consider how selective people are becoming about whether someone is their “equal”……. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a man that cared much about whether his girlfriend or wife had a 4 year degree or a masters. I personally know several women who use this as a reason to not date a man. It’s wild to me.
Like I said. It’s not worth building a house of cards on this small truth, but it is a real thing. To me it’s an argument for getting married younger, where the playing field is far more leveled and it’s much easier to get to know each other before any harsh judgements are made.
A few comments about this episode:
Trying to convince people to have kids to ensure the solvency of the social security system will convince no one. Spend more time explaining how children fulfill a person's life, which was not referenced until about an hour into the podcast.
You erroneously spend more time blaming men than women for both not being suitable partners and their unwillingness to settle down. While men are more judgmental about the appearance of women than vice versa (which creates a huge barrier for men); women are likely more demanding about every other quality.
I know this may sound a little offensive to Meghan (please know I love you), but women are often not good judges of women's appearance. To a women, every female friend is attractive.
And, if I have written this a million times I have written it once, men do not need to invest (a minimum of) four years of their lives and spend (at least) tens of thousands of dollars in a college education to find numerous, decent paying career opportunities. I think millions of female social workers, teachers, nurses, and their sisters toiling in the nonprofit sector are not looking down their noses at men because they failed to go to college, as much as they secretly are jealous (that they do not need a degree to find a good job).
Most young adults are fairly immature, not just guys. Many men spend too much time following sports and/or playing video games. Too many women waste time with reality tv. We all spend too much time on social media. It is a reflection of living in a more privileged society.
You can indeed read Rieff's "The Triumph of the Therapeutic." It's on Google Books.
https://books.google.com/books?id=GhOOI4N-XLkC&printsec=copyright#v=onepage&q&f=false
A stress fracture doesn’t mean that anything specific happened to the bone. It just means that it gave out after repeated small impacts and now there’s a little crack, which can be quite painful. Usually happens in feet because your entire body weight is coming down on them, and more commonly in women and particularly older women because of bone density. Of course, women of a certain age should be getting a DEXA for bone density, but the main thing to do is look at footwear and activity patterns and see if there’s anything to do to reduce the stress.
Gout is most commonly in the big toe but can occur in other joints. It is because you’re not getting rid of some particular compounds that can turn into crystals when your blood gets overloaded in them, and the crystals tend to get stuck in your joints. It is extremely painful, and usually very obviously inflamed in one spot.
no one is going to give a shit about your career. and visiting patagonia 27 times isn't going to seem as sweet when you're 80 and in a nursing home
First!
Re: birthrate doomerism, something I saw on last year’s “Google Rewind” has stuck with me like a cavity.
Google Rewind was basically just quips over news stories and trend (from 2022 in this case). One of the stories was about plant sales and it just said
“Plant Mom is the new Dog Mom!”
🤢
I have gout, Meghan. Fortunately mine's pretty minor. It's genetic - my father has it. It tends to get worse with age - he's in outstanding shape for his age while I am not, but he gets it much worse than me the past few years. If you don't have parents/grandparents who suffered from it, I'd wager it's unlikely you have it (but I'm no physician).
The main trigger for me is actually stress (one of the up-sides of unemployed periods is that I never have flare-ups during them. Heh). Under-hydration seems to be a factor, too. My self-designed "treatment" when it pops up is to drink lots of water and resist holding my urine. So essentially I make myself pee a lot. Seems to keep the urea washing consistently out of my system, which gets rid of the crystals that cause the pain. (Also I only rarely drink, so that helps. Alcohol is terrible for it.)
Lots of good comments and food for thought. You mentioned Paul Erlich and his badly missed predictions. He has had good research in his own field, but his failed predictions for the world ("Population Bomb", etc.) have been so wrong for so many decades I am always surprised that anybody now gives him the time of day. He is always claiming that he is just wrong about the timing. Gosh. (Actually, not surprised, because he is predicting doom, which is always more interesting.)
Re: rich parents, y’all gotta read Penelope’s posts about Sheryl Sandberg
They keep going to this cornerstone vs capstone thing, but from my perspective, it’s more like a locked door that leads to all sorts of things and only opens for a few lucky people.
Visiting DC recently reminds me that perhaps the reason I am so jaded is because it is the epicenter of the current cultural pathology and perhaps has some of the world’s worst women, but taking that into account I’m not sure I’ve ever even been in a room with a potential wife. And if I did, I’m certain that it happened after I turned 30 and moved across the world.
For all this high-minded talk about kids and careers, the bar right now is trying to find a women who will actually acknowledge that there is such a thing as a woman. And on top of that, that this person likes being a woman. And then on top of that, that they actually like men. These criteria alone rule out the overwhelming majority of women I’ve ever met. And it’s not so much that people genuinely believe the gender stuff, but if you’re so shallow that you just adopt whatever the current craze is, you’re not a candidate for a committed lifelong interpersonal relationship.