89 Comments
User's avatar
akash's avatar
Mar 3Edited

You need a healthy dose of autism to find much of this helpful 😅😆

lin's avatar

Tangentially, in addition to dating men who make a lot of money doing something that lots of women find a bit evil, I highly recommend being a woman who makes a lot of money doing something that lots of women find a bit evil. Twice as much money!

Viel's avatar

I wonder if this relaxing of ethics is unique to Substack or if it's common across the board.

Takim Williams's avatar

As an artistically inclined, stylish man with a good physique and low income I feel a little attacked but can't really disagree!

Also as a general warning for the age/money arbitrage, I looked like a future rich guy all through my 20s based on the degrees I had and my management consulting jobs and the career trajectories available where I worked. In my early 30s not so much. These strategies have to account for increasingly common corporate burnout, quarter life crises, etc., that completely shift a man's earning trajectory. Plenty of folks in law school won't become lawyers or won't be lawyers for very long. And then you've mostly married their student loans 🥲

cxj's avatar

Gonna be real, I been around a lot of men who fit your self description, & have never seen them bring anything but ruin to women’s lives. Attractive + low earning is women’s bane lol

Takim Williams's avatar

I believe it! Money isn't literally everything, but it's almost everything lol

Micah Gabriel Vigeant's avatar

This is one of the most unromantic survivalist ways of perceiving dating

Richard's avatar

Yep. Look at it this way: it would be unwise for anyone looking for employment to just go by feels. Yet deciding who to marry will affect your life more than any job.

Micah Gabriel Vigeant's avatar

I mean yeah — this article is just completely devoid of feels and feels like it’s advice to find a job that is completely transactional. Like dawg, that kind of mentality would not make me trust this kind of woman.

Richard's avatar

Just remember that all that lovey-dovey feeling fades over time, so you _should_ look for qualities in a mate that you'd like for roughly the next half-century or more.

cxj's avatar

It has plenty of feels & charm, just not to normies. This is the type of oddball, eccentric, outside the box thinking & writing the internet was truly made for. Normies don’t need this advice and probably couldn’t follow it if they tried tbh.

10/10 old internet vibes , would read again

Bob's avatar

I think it’s more about liking your partner. No amount of passion will survive the realization that your partner doesn’t actually like you.

Sanjana Iyer's avatar

Excited to see another update from my dating bible of choice. This has genuinely inspired me to book my 1:1s at EAGx London with the EA dating market in mind - what a prime opportunity lol (/s). Surely being an AGI-pilled rationalist woman has to count for something?

More seriously, I’m still trying to wrap my head around getting past a lack of shared worldview. Maybe I’m conflating worldview with values, but I can’t shake the feeling that there needs to be strong alignment there. I do agree that it’s important to date someone whose intellect you respect, and who respects yours in return. Also reassuring to see “lack of neediness” described as a desirable trait.

Really enjoyable read, once again.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

<3 <3

I could be wrong. It’s all tradeoffs in the end.

But I guess the more EA you are, the more uncertainty you should have in your worldview. It’s one of the tenets.

Sanjana Iyer's avatar

Haha I was definitely being sarcastic. Obviously one should never approach any “professional” space with romantic intentions. But one should move through the world open to connections of all varieties.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

I actually think you should use EAG as a place to meet people and they're being risk averse spoil sports. (Although you should, of course, follow their rules in their space)

wanderingimpromptu's avatar

The values one was the one that raised my hackles instinctively too. I think she did a good job making her case, but I’m still not sure I’m sold? Maybe this works for ppl who both share the meta-value that the correct way to deal with values differences is to discuss and debate and otherwise live in peace, but like, lots of people think that ppl who disagree with them are evil and it’s their duty to shame them. I can’t imagine a stereotypical wokescold and a stereotypical sanctimonious Christian trad living in peace!

But then, it’s arbitrage after all. Most ppl aren’t able to do most of these, that’s why the money is on the floor to be picked up to begin with. Ppl like me who can’t imagine living with a man who prefers central planning over markets without raging out at him just can’t do this particular one.

Sanjana Iyer's avatar

I think your framing of meta-values feels convincing. Perhaps worldview can be different but conditional on meta-values like the ones you described being aligned ? But then this requires some more rigorous definitions of worldview, value, and meta-values

Manuel del Rio's avatar

EA and Rat dating market? You're in for an embarrassment of riches I'd guess - but a big chunk can also be incredibly, unfathomably socially clumsy, I fear.

Manuel del Rio's avatar

While all this sounds like excellent advice, it also sounds like advice that the current generations are primed to absolutely reject. Which is probably telling and kind of the point, given how grim and depressing dating and marrying has become for young people.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

I think you’ve got to have a touch of the ‘tism to really want to follow this advice, but if it helps someone I’m happy

So's avatar
Mar 3Edited

I can certify you are doing "the lord's work" for us who never learned to channel the 'tism correctly in this area.

Skaffen-Amtiskaw's avatar

Yes, we all know that women prefer Gimli, no need to rub it in the face of that elf.

Matt's avatar
Mar 3Edited

A lot of this makes sense to me. Only thing I'd strongly disagree with is the profession thing. The kind of guy who goes into, for example, high finance or oil and gas (now, not 50 years ago) is telling you it doesn't matter to him if he's making the world worse every day as long he gets paid. That's on average of course. But it should definitely be a caution flag, not an arbitrage opportunity like, say, a crappy profile with good fundamentals.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

I’m coming at this from a centre/centre-right perspective. I don’t think finance or oil and gas are making the world worse — I think those are jobs that keep important infrastructure running.

Matt's avatar

Personally I think you haven't examined the evidence if you don't think the growth in modern finance is ~all rent extraction. But we don't need to debate that here. From the POV of dating, I think we can all agree that people go into finance to get rich, right? No one going into finance -- except for the tiny earn-to-give EA minority -- is weighing others in their career decision. That seems like relevant info when looking for good sources for a spouse. And fair enough if you value financial security way more than anything else. But otherwise it seems like a bad sign.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

The people I know who work in finance generally

- Like solving maths problems all day

- Are right wing who think it's basically a good/neutral thing to do

- Went into it when they decided to make money after doing something more fulfilling and deciding they wanted to be a grown up

- Crave financial stability after a turbulent childhood.

I think they're all basically good people

Matt's avatar

Fair enough. I have an applied math/stats PhD. The people from my program who went into finance were almost all immigrants or the guys I wouldn't recommend as future husbands 🤷 So maybe I'd edit my recommendation to don't date finance guys unless they're 1st gen immigrants.

Benjamin Yeoh's avatar

I don’t think you are looking at a robust sample. If you want to rely on anec-data - I’m currently at an healthcare investment conference which has hundreds to low thousands of finance investment people who are not only trying to make a lot of money but are part of the solution that has created life saving drugs and technologies which have overall saved millions of life years - I’m not sure I’d extrapolate to dating….

Matt's avatar

Ha. Touché. I was just giving an example. In general I've found most finance people I've met are not folks I'd be excited about a friend or relative marrying. And given the work is largely rent extraction it's never seemed surprising. But yeah obviously I don't have oracle power to give the abstract truth about the distribution of various personality dimensions in different careers.

Scoots's avatar

Why are the immigrants disculpated? If they had stayed in their home countries and pursued finance there would that have been a ropey indicator?

R H's avatar

In general, picking up and moving to an entirely new place is a strong indicator of ambition and drive; and succeeding in the quest for income and status despite dealing with cultural surprise and unfamiliarity is a strong indicator of competence. In the world model used in this article, these are people with better prospects than most people (women) expect of them, and thus an arbitrage opportunity.

SeeC's avatar

Well the point of capitalism is that by working for their own interests, people’s work will benefit others down the line no matter what.

I think it’s quite hard to get how finance people’s work is benefiting anyone but they are actually solving hard optimization/allocation problems and all kinds of value arbitrage based on loose/impartial information. It’s actually quite hard and quite valuable for society. Without this kind of work, it would be impossible to define the correct value of a currency and exchange ressources at planetary scale…

Matt's avatar
Mar 4Edited

This is simply false. The market is an incredibly powerful coordinating system. And there's a real time for finance in allocating savings into valuable investment. But you're just chanting a mantra.

Do you know what rent extraction is? Externality? Market power (*opoly)? Have you read the research pretending to back your claim? There's no magic wand that market actions at net positive for society. Finance now takes 30-40% of corporate profits at the height of each cycle. It was 10% 50 years ago. The cost of borrowing hasn't decreased since 1880. And the list of obvious rent extraction activities in finance that are net negative for society and the economy is too long for a comment.

Chris's avatar

Many girls think of a financial stable, high earning spouse as a good thing. Sometimes a job is a job and it’s better to have one that pays a lot of money.

Age of Infovores's avatar

>Personally I think you haven't examined the evidence if you don't think the growth in modern finance is ~all rent extraction

This is simply not correct.

Matt's avatar

Like I said above:

Finance now takes 30-40% of corporate profits at the height of each cycle. It was 10% 50 years ago (and it's not like the were no issues then!). The cost of borrowing hasn't decreased since 1880. And the list of obvious rent extraction activities in finance that are net negative for society and the economy is so long it's impractical for a comment. What's the value being created for quadruple the profit?

Age of Infovores's avatar

I’m mainly honing on your suggestion that anyone who has examined the evidence thinks it’s all rent extraction. In fact very very few people with expertise in the field think that.

Matt's avatar

Very few people IN the field think that. Among outside observers (as in, economists) there is a live debate with meaningful cohorts on both sides that in my opinion is pretty one sided.

Slinky dog bones's avatar

Then you’re not examining the world clearly enough or from a perspective with principles that are moral. If someone is “basically good” then they wouldn’t do work that creates demonstrable and obvious negative outcomes for vast swathes of the world.

At best you’re describing a fundamentally apathetic person not a good one. If you do not care about these things in a partner the you are also a fundamentally apathetic person at best. It is not a sign of maturity to wave away the moral weight of the work you and your associates do, it’s just moral laziness.

wanderingimpromptu's avatar

> It is not a sign of maturity to wave away the moral weight of the work you and your associates do

This isn't a guide to maturity, it's a guide to dating arbitrage! Your view is very common, that's why the arbitrage is there to begin with.

Fwiw though I'm not sure why you read a comment which disagreed with you on empirical beliefs and parsed it as "apathy about bad outcomes." Like, she's saying she (and I happen to agree) thinks that these jobs create *good* outcomes. That's empirical and perhaps moral disagreement, not apathy

Matt's avatar

She did call shifting into finance growing up. I grant that she called out an empirical disagreement but she also gave a moral one.

Slinky dog bones's avatar

And I have no disagreements with her empirical claims. However, she also makes a moral claim or at the very least a claim with that demands moral consideration not just empirical consideration.

I pretty much agree with everything else in the article besides her claims that values don’t need heavy consideration. I think that politics probably don’t matter that much since very few people actually have a strong political framework, but most have a robust (if not totally conscious) set of values.

The author clearly values caring and enriching companionship over moral consistency. Which is fine, you’re allowed to value companionship more than other things but this is not exculpatory with regards the morality of your partners actions and chosen profession.

Note that values and morals are not the same for the purpose of the argument I’m making. Note that I am also not claiming the author is immoral or amoral, only that their value hierarchy places good companionship higher than acting morally.

As I said, this is at best apathy about your partners morality as long as they treat you and yours well.

wanderingimpromptu's avatar

The empirical claim that I’m referring to is the claim that finance oil and gas jobs make the world *better* (“important infrastructure which keeps the world running”) Which you disagree with

But if you think this, you don’t see a moral tradeoff and no apathy is required

Slinky dog bones's avatar

Ahh I see. Then that’s a claim that needs justification. I’m curious about why you think that.

Salemicus's avatar

"Probably the sexiest thing you could get into is war."

What a wonderful quote. And it's true.

Regarding values, you are right that people drastically over-index on unimportant values like politics, but I think you are underselling the importance of being aligned on the practical values that structure your lives. It's OK to have slightly "different intuitions about managing money," but you need to be on roughly the same page on these big issues - financial disagreements are one of the most common causes of divorce. A critical part of dating is ensuring broad compatibility with on really practical values, like money, parenting, commitment - and the meta-value of how to approach disagreement. And our practical values are more stable than our political values.

But this is a minor nitpick in what has been a really good series.

Twink POTUS's avatar

Husband hunting with bleeding heart and cold, calculating mind. this is truly the effective altruism of dating!

I would recommend looking through “The Pragmatists Guide to Relationships: Ruthlessly Optimized Strategies for Dating, Sex, and Marriage” if you haven’t come across it yet. I recently used it to have the worlds most efficient recovery after being dumped by my ex, and to find my current boyfriend on Reddit

Aria Schrecker's avatar

I’ve read it and I liked it.

There are lots of parts of it that I don’t agree with/endorse but I think it was a very valuable foil for how I think about these things

Amber Bouabdallah's avatar

sending this to every single woman i know. 🫶🏼

Jacob Falkovich's avatar

Funny coincident: when I wrote about arbitrage in dating markets, I used your tweet (about a supposed blackpill) as a jumping off point.

https://www.secondperson.dating/i/151028592/arbitrage

Pleb Millennial's avatar

Re: shared values. I like this opinion. Shared values are overrated, because values change and many people don't see how you can compromise on a range. There are a few values you can limit, as you did, but the main ones are negotiable.

If somebody disagrees, for instance about having kids, the most popular of others' "Ask these 5 Questions on Your First Date!!! ", there could be both a scale of disagreement (1-10) as well as a scale of timelines (not now, not yet, not soon, and not ever).

Your choices and identity and your political affiliation aren't necessarily your values.

Rebecca Williams's avatar

Can confirm that the worst man I ever dated was extremely dominant. Also touted himself as a feminist, how fun. But when men can strike the balance of being dominant (they genuinely enjoy it) while also having a good heart and caring about people, they'll have their pick of whatever woman they want.

Niketas's avatar

This is so depressing - as a fellow centrist moderate lib I wanted to like this and I’m sure we’d be great friends. But damn does this methodology, in this particular area, suck all the fun out of life!

Niketas's avatar

I also love trains and Japan. I got my wife more into trains, she got me much more into Japan. But this sort of cold brutalism is just so depressing. You are right that your approach is like an arranged marriage.

Ryre's avatar

For a guy who is into (safe consensual, and mutually enjoyable) dominant sex, how would you suggest leveraging that? It’s a hard thing to advertise without seeming creepy, socially unintelligent, or dangerous.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

Here’s my rough guess (having not put much thought into it).

You can perform dominance socially. Command conversations, don’t let people fuck you around, assume that everything is your responsibility to execute.

Make jokes about being dominant

Have sex with lots of people in your social circle and the word will get out

Ryre's avatar

I am reasonably assertive but I have no interest in performing dominance socially, nor in being dominant in a relationship outside of the bedroom. (I don’t want to be pushed around either, just a good partnership with bedroom games.)

I tend to think this is what most women who enjoy dominance in the bedroom want too, and in fact some worry that they’ll only find the sex they enjoy with a guy who is also a pushy jerk in general. That’s not me (I hope!) but I am not sure how to signal “gentleman in the streets, master in the sheets”.

cxj's avatar

Tbh, I’m not sure “gentlemen in the streets master in the sheets” is even real. Being a boss irl is part of the foreplay to her. I used to bash people in mosh pits, & girls who picked me were really into that, along with the associated gang culture etc.

otoh, a “gentleman” really

Meant high status, and nobility were supposed to lead armies into battle, which is very dominant.

Lana Li's avatar

You can mention it on your Feeld profile, because it’s appropriate in that context. Do not mention it outside of that (on other apps) and do not initiate discussion of it once you match unless the woman brings it up herself. Proceed like feeld is a normal dating app unless the woman brings up kink/sexy topics.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

I think this advice is too risk averse

Ryre's avatar

This may be the best approach, but the problem with relying on Feeld is that it doesn’t reach the large number of women who enjoy a bit of domination but aren’t on Feeld.

Aria Schrecker's avatar

I played around on my friend’s Feeld and my general feeling is that the app is annoying to use

Richard's avatar

Aria gave good advice. Also BDSM websites.

Rebecca Williams's avatar

But the chance of him finding a woman on a BDSM website who doesn't want domination outside of the bedroom is extremely slim. The woman on those sites are FREAKS. (Not derogatory, just descriptive.)

Richard's avatar

1. Eh, there are all types on BDSM websites.

2. I don't see that as a drawback. ;)