Video summary
The collapse of global birth rates is attributed to a three-step bottleneck process: finding a partner, deciding to have children, and physically making them. While sperm quality has decreased by 40%, experts maintain it remains sufficient for conception; similarly, female fecundity at earlier ages appears unchanged or improved. The primary issue lies in the first two steps, specifically the difficulty of forming couples due to shifting social dynamics over the past century. This phenomenon is most pronounced in Western nations where high levels of gender equality and women's empowerment have altered traditional mating patterns. Although the speaker strongly supports these rights as a moral imperative for future generations, he argues that current societal trajectories are leading toward population self-eradication if no corrective actions are taken to address the resulting demographic crisis. The evolutionary basis for this shift is rooted in human history spanning six million years, where pair-bonding evolved around four million years ago specifically for impoverished environments requiring mutual support. In these historical contexts, women developed an attraction system focused on men capable of sufficient provisioning and bonding, while men retained a more promiscuous drive to maximize genetic legacy through varied partners. However, the modern environment features high female autonomy in career choices and financial independence, coupled with dating apps like Tinder that facilitate short-term mating markets. In this new regime characterized by high promiscuity and abundant choice of higher-value male partners on platforms like Tinder, women's psychology channels attention toward men of superior mate value to avoid deception from similar-valued men. Consequently, lower-value men face reduced opportunities despite receiving less attraction, creating a dysfunction that worsens as society moves further away from the sexual revolution of the 1960s. A critical disconnect exists between how short-term and long-term mating markets operate, leading women to confuse power gained in one with expectations for the other. Studies cited regarding Norway reveal a stark disparity where Norwegian men desire an average of 25 lifetime partners compared to only five desired by Norwegian women; this imbalance grants women significant leverage on the short-term market but raises their standards for long-term relationships. When women access thousands of high-value potential mates online, it is natural that they increase their demands, yet finding a monogamous partner requires matching mating values in a stable regime where men and women are more equal. The speaker notes that many women feel they no longer need men emotionally or existentially as they once did, viewing the inability to find suitable partners not as a failure but as an individual choice supported by his 100% backing of female independence. Despite these valid individual choices, society faces an existential threat if current trends continue unchecked for another five decades without resolution. The speaker emphasizes that no human community has successfully navigated this transition between different mating regimes within such a short timeframe; while historical shifts took centuries or millennia, the modern crisis emerged in just 50 years. Fertility researchers often lack the necessary historical perspective to understand why these changes are occurring and tend to prematurely accept low fertility as inevitable rather than seeking solutions. The speaker advocates for abandoning forced marriage of "incels" and instead focusing on creating new dating arenas, increasing public knowledge about mating psychology, and changing societal approaches to dating. He remains naively positive that humanity can solve this challenge, citing our ancestors' ability to overcome tremendous hurdles over six million years as proof that we too can reconcile individual freedoms with social reproductive needs before the species faces irreversible decline.
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can you just square square the circle of
the Dynamics for me of what is
universally happening that's causing
this to occur because presumably the
intersexual Dynamics and the sex ratios
in different countries are all at
different levels and yet we seem to have
this sort of universal uh degradation of
birth
rate yeah um so um Let's Line this up
along the these bottlenecks that that I
talked about so um I like to view this
as uh something that happens in three
steps first you have to be able to find
a partner you have to date you have to
find someone you got have to agree that
you're a couple and that has become
increasingly challenging the next step
is that you have to decide to have a
children and there there are different
hindrances and then you have to be able
to make one now the latter one it's not
it's per it seems not to be that big of
a deal as you're aware sperm quality has
decreased 40% among men uh but according
to the expert
it's still more than good enough for
making children so it's not that we're
not able to now then there are some
problems for women because they postpone
having children but women aren't their
facundity has not decreased in all
likelihood uh at the earlier ages so so
the latter bottleneck seems not to be a
real issue um and then we have just just
to just to step in there you mentioned
that the early ages but obviously if uh
the first and the second one finding a
partner getting a partner then push you
into the third one the third one can
then become right I've I've jumped ahead
the ending but yeah yeah yeah yeah no
absolutely so the but the issue that
there has hasn't been changes in
facundity facundity seems to be the same
or better than before so it's not that
we're not able to have children but yeah
when women start very late then it
becomes more problematic but that is not
more problematic than it used to be it's
just that women are starting later so
then we have to look at then we have to
look at the world so where and and so
where in the world where birth rates
where people are still reproducing and
growing are in countries where female
equality is not a very high value and
and and this is an important factor this
is a result of the empowerment and
Liberation and equality uh afforded to
women in the process that has been
ongoing in the west sin for like 800
years and here it's very important for
me to State uh that I am an enormous
supporter of equality for women I am
such a big supporter of that that I
would like also women in the future to
have the same rights and opportunities
that women have to today if we continue
down the path we are now and just self
eradicate those populations that are
left are not champions of women's
freedoms so when when we go into this
and we talk about what has happened um
with women over the past say
particularly 150 years that
explains um much of the first bottleneck
but describing these mechanisms and this
process is not um doesn't mean that I
I'm against it I'm just describing these
are the mechanisms that are at play this
is how human nature plays out in certain
environments and I wish it wasn't that
way but it really seems to be that way
so this is what I I will be describing
so what we talked about last year is
that our lineage uh over the yeah it's
interesting to look at the last six
million years uh we became a pair
bonding species around four million
years ago and women only evolved an
attraction to men uh that motivated
sufficient parir bonding and
reproduction in really impoverished
environments so men as we talked about
because their promiscuous attraction
system is so uh generous they're a lot
more willing to have sex with women and
and engage with women than what or a lot
many different kinds of women than what
women are so if
if a man activates her peer B attraction
system that can be a man with similar
mate value as she has they fall in love
they have sex they have a child but if
you have an environment like you have
now that appeals predominantly to or to
a great extent to the promiscuous
attraction system which is what Tinder
us Etc um then women will be a lot more
selected so we have a few things that
have happened here women have been
empowered to have their own jobs make
their own money be free and importantly
to choose their own Partners For The
First Time in human history the result
of that has been that the better women
are doing the more they exclude uh the
lowest value men from their potential
pool of Partners and with prosperity and
with a promiscuous mating regime like we
have now or that is a lot more
promiscuous than
before female mating psychology
seems uh to channel the attention to
higher value men to avoid uh the
deception of similar value men that's
something that happens in promis when
there's High promiscuity while lower
value men in this in a in a um
environment like we have today even
though they are uh receiving less mating
attraction and having less opportunities
and we see their number of sex partners
going down they will have increased
expectations of
promiscuity uh so you you get more and
more dysfunction the further away from
this third sexual revolution of the
1960s we get this is only getting worse
so the problem with creating
relationships now and this has been
something that's been in the in the
debate in Norway to an enormous extent
what women are what very many women have
said in this debate I don't know how
representative this but their main point
talking point is that men aren't good
enough and if men do not become better
women simply don't want to partner with
them and certainly not have children
what do you think that they mean when
they say
better it's it's quite predictable women
of course because they have a because of
our evolutionary past they have a a
lower desire for partner variety while
men because by having promiscuous sex
they would leave a larger genetic laicy
they have a higher desire for partner so
one Norwegian one study show that
Norwegian women want five lifetime sex
partners and Norwegian men W 125 so this
is a question of how markets work when
you have a high demand of femal
sexuality and a low Supply women will
have the power on the short-term mating
market so as we know if you if you as a
woman go on Tinder now you will get
access to thousands and tens of
thousands of men and you will have men
that have much higher mate value um give
you a lot of attention and try really
hard to get a date with you and then get
you to bed so when you have that kind of
enormous choice that kind of power it's
very natural that you increase your
standards now if women understood better
and I do understand it many understand
it very well and some understand it to
some extent but this isn't this isn't a
cultural script that we're raced with
we're not offer this information when we
grow up it's just not a part of our
culture because it's mating Rim is so
new but it's it's a big difference
between a short and a long-term mating
market so if many women confuse the
power they have on the short-term mating
market with the long-term mating Market
where men and women are more equal so
the short their experiences on the
short-term mating Market motivates women
to increase their partner demands which
then when they when which they can do on
short-term Market there's no limits to
how many attractive men they can have
there but if they want a boyfriend then
they have to go on dates with men that
have similar mating value with them
because in a monogamous regime our
species mates sorta Lively people with
similar value find each other and this
makes it harder and harder for women to
find Partners uh and and the funny thing
in the debate that's been in nor is that
so many said that oh my God we real
those men need to stop telling women to
lower their
standards uh the problem isn't that we
have high demands and and then they go
and list 10 things that men have to do
to get better so um this environment
that we live in now it just motivates
women to number one they don't need men
anymore they used to need men and those
emotion that attraction women have for
men evolved in a much more empow
environment we're having a man was could
be of existential importance and now
they don't need him women can have
wonderful lives without men uh for many
women the type of men that they would
have access to Simply isn't good enough
to justify not longer uh being single
and on an individual level that is
perfectly fine and I support it
100% so what women are doing on the
short and long-term Ting Market I have
no issue on that as individuals I lay no
blame but our society will disappear if
we don't do anything about this and the
thing is this is a brand new system that
no human Community has succeeded with
we've been doing this for 50 years and
these processes these changing between
uh uh different mating regimes typic can
take centuries some of them the older
ones took much longer even so that we
after 50 years haven't found a way to
reconcile individual and social needs
it's no wonder but now that we see the
effect that our inability to find
Partners leads to selfic we need to talk
about it we need to agree that this is a
problem and that it's an existential
problem and we have to start
experimenting not by forcing women to
marry incels but to try to find if we
can create new dating Arenas if we can
increase the knowledge around this if we
can change people approach to dating and
mating then I am I am naively positive I
mean I I've studied the human or homine
mating over six million years we fac
tremendous challenges
and our ancestors solved every single
one of them and the 21st Century's
reproductive crisis it's not the biggest
one I I I I think we can make changes
and these fertility researchers that
I've talked with they don't have much of
an historical perspective they look at
today and they see this is a problem
they don't understand why it's happening
and then they give up and a lot of them
say we just need to embrace low
fertility we've solved problems like
this so many times in other news this
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