population catastrophe
the mating dance, politics, and technology that lies beneath it
american politics is the most compelling version of successful politics i’ve witnessed. in the sense that it’s intensely human, renders meaningful change, and reifies the rise (and fall) of every successful civilization known to man for the last 14,000 years. i’m not being sarcastic, and not discounting that it’s harrowing for some people. this tweet explains it:
population decline - the crisis of all crises
over a decade ago i learned about population decline, but shrugged it off. i’d learn later that declining population was a salient feature of every fallen empire, from the fertile crescent to the ottomans to now the united states. the roman empire at its height had 1.2 million citizens, the quality of life peaked, and in less than 200 years it dwindled to a few ten thousands before it entirely collapsed.
the difference we have now is this: we live in a post-scarcity world. we no longer work for food, we work for dreams, solving contrived problems of civilization. we live in abundance. in the absence of famine, epidemics, tribal bloodshed, unknown natural calamities, or the frugal life of our ancestors, we choose childlessness to pursue what we don’t have - more freedom, more resources, and more leisure.
population growth - how?
one bothering outcome of the red-blue politics in america is that only one of them acknowledges population crisis. the rest of us are fighting operational causes, and lost control of the strategic vision (if i may use my corporate honcho lingo).
america is the only place fertile for trump, jobs, musk, and obama to flourish in just one lifetime. we should be proud of this eclectic mix as much as we hate some of these men. this, the rise of iconoclasts, demagogues, and mavericks, that i have witnessed just by living here for about 20 years isn’t possible anywhere else on earth. i don’t believe romantic-era europe produced this much impact in all of 1700s and 1800s combined. and that’s mostly because these men stand atop the influence and far-reaching technology produced by the american empire.
so then is it possible at least for america as a country to reverse the trend of dwindling babies? direct economic incentives do not seem to work as much as we have seen (eg. hungary). neither does indirect economic incentives like free childcare (eg. quebec1, germany). mass immigration isn’t sustainable - it’s mired in fraud and dilutes the very culture that makes immigration attractive in the first place (eg. canada2, uk). but developed nations are dangerously close to population collapse. japan as a country wouldn’t exist in 2100s. countries that make enough babies (in africa, india) are going to plateau in the next 20 years. american fertility rate, although shrinking, is better than that of italy, japan, or canada currently, but what keeps average american from mating is not just related to economic incentives or hedonism.
the way we form relationships have changed.
hypergamy - the cruel game of evolution
explain your life to a hunter gatherer from 30,000 years ago. try a much advanced peasant from 6000 years ago. you’ll realize you’re already living in whatever utopianism that humans have ever been capable of imagining. forget lifestyle, humans lived only for about 40 years up until early 1900s. children’s survival rate was too low in the absence of vaccines and modern healthcare that you had to make many babies to have at least some of them survive into adulthood. we almost lived like animals even at the ascent of industrial age. you on the other hand choose your situationship by flicking your thumb on a brick from your commode.
you’ve made it. you’re god!
yet it seems that it’s increasingly difficult for us to find romantic partners. why? it’s not the algorithm. it’s not any mysterious change in human psychology. in fact not a lot has changed romantically, except for the delaying of marriage and the sheer number of potential mates you now have access to on your smart phone. so why would more opportunities make it more difficult?
hypergamy is why.
hypergamy is essentially the sexual selection process. women choose the most competent, dominant man they can find using cultural proxies (athleticism, wealth, power, humor etc.). men choose the most sexually healthy, feminine woman. evolutionary gender roles of 100s of 1000s of years and physiological differences would mean that women are far more hypergamous than men. women are also the gatekeepers of sex because child rearing in humans is the most punitive among all animals and women have a higher investment in it. but both genders want the same thing - xerox their genes for continuity.
the internet put hypergamy on steroids
when people are free to choose their partners, as opposed to being chosen for them via traditions (eg. arranged marriages), and then also provided with an app of endless choices, they will inadvertently set high expectations on their hypergamous selection process. data from match group that owns most dating apps in the market (bumble being a popular exception) says that between 65 - 75% of app users are men. so it might seem that 35 - 25% of users that are women have a lot of options to choose from. but these women collectively choose only 5 - 15% of those men3. so women do not get what they want4 because these men have all the attention they can handle and some more.
dating apps surely made it worse but did not create this abundance problem (or scarcity problem, based on how you look at it). this is how hypergamy have always worked. only 40% of men ever lived have reproduced (with 80% of women ever lived). willing men have always had concubines throughout history. not that women want to share their man. but they would rather share a competent man than submit to an incompetent man. this setup is good for genetic selection but creates an army of romantically indignant men in every generation.
welcome to the battle of sexes!5.
traditions help with social order
in the past religion mitigated this mating disparity despite all the atrocities they have come to unleash. christianity established monogamous relationships bound to a contract. vedic culture had a dating practice called gandharva vivah but hinduism which came after it practiced a more egalitarian version that we now call arranged marriage. even islam known for harems reduced the number of concubines a man was allowed to have.
another deterrent to polygyny in the past was lack of birth control. childlessness and lack of sexual activity was directly proportional. in fact women used to spend most of their time birthing children for men they were committed to. so sex was accompanied with commitment (and if the moon aligns, children!). one theory in anthropology suggests that PMS evolved as a mechanism to deter infertile men because monthly periods would happen only when an infertile man was around. if the man was fertile there was no time to be menstruating.
anecdotally, a young girl at the peak of her fertility (ages 16 to 22) no longer has the fortuitous yet inevitable experience of holding a random family member’s newborn baby. if you’re old enough, you’ve probably witnessed it at a family event - the girl swoons upon grabbing the tender bundle of life as her maternal instincts kick in. it’s as if tradition’s sleight of hand furtively plants the seed of motherhood in her brain.
we’re ditching tradition and bringing ai
we live in a post-scarcity secular society influenced by third-wave feminism. traditions are whatever catches our eye while doomscrolling. we not only have birth control, but also vibrators for mathematical precision of climaxing. so we fuck when we want to, splurge on insta-worthy eurotrips, and anthropomorphize dogs instead of coddling babies.
as a technologist, i’m not sold on the silicon valley utopianism that ai will solve inequality and human suffering. sexual selection via hypergamy will ensure that women will continue to select for the winners or the competent losers. men will continue to engineer status games to play in the selection process. inequality is the foundation of how we choose to reproduce, not something that accidentally or diabolically happens.
we need a plan that doesn’t depend on natural selection to reverse population crisis. a serious policy intervention. something like darpa, but for baby making. please, it can’t be elon musk going around america.
quebec is an interesting case study in population decline. one of the most successful french colonies (albeit being propped up today by alberta’s equalization payments), it can attribute its success to the 800 french women, known as fille du roi, sent from the french kingdom in 1600s for the sole purpose of repopulating new france, aka quebec - and it worked!
i am a canadian citizen who became one via an immigration program aimed at bridging the gap between declining tax revenue (from dwindling birth rates that leads to a shrinking market) and the steep welfare (enjoyed by an aging, economically non-productive majority whose life expectancy is only going up!). i ended up returning to the united states
the gini coefficient of attention inequality for men on hinge is a whopping 0.73. gini coefficient is a statistical measure ranging from 0 to 1 used to determine income inequality. in the case of dating apps it explains how a very few men get all the attention. if likes, texts, and matches were currency, intrepid men venturing into hinge fare worse off than income inequality in south africa which has very high poverty, a shrunken middle class, and wealth disproportionately held by a few.
bear in mind the briffault’s law: the female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. if the female derives no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place.
a study published in 2024 by scandinavian journal of psychology concludes that highly attractive men and highly unattractive men show the most hostility towards women. men that receive overwhelming attention have no incentive to calibrate to women’s preferences. men that are entirely ignored have every incentive to act against women’s preferences. what about the majority that’s neither too attractive nor too unattractive? well..
