“[The Conservative party] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.

"American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.”

Robert Lewis Dabney (1897)

Looks like some guys at a hedge fund had some spare time and put out a 10 page report on how online dating has fundamentally changed the dynamics of the dating market. Nothing too striking for regular TRPers, but noteworthy that more people are becoming aware on how the dating game has decisively shifted in favor of women.

The report shows that online dating has become by far the dominant method through which relationships form, and that it has reduced the cost for a woman of finding another date to zero. Data from OkCupid show that women find the average man unattractive (while men find the average woman to be average). Women can work and support themselves, so they just don't need men any more, unless he is Chad. Dating has become much more unforgiving because even fat women have hundreds of other suitors just a swipe away. There is no need to work things out, or accept any compromise, when someone better could be just a swipe away.

Again, nothing novel for TRPers, but there were a couple insights I thought were interesting:

1. As online dating has become more dominant, perfume sales have either stagnated or declined. At the same time sales for cosmetics have steadily grown. As a Bloomberg columnist cleverly put it, "you can't smell a selfie."

2. Divorce rates have been coming down, possibly because apps have made it easier for people to find their best match. Anyone can go online and sort people by a wide range of metrics to find someone who checks all the boxes. In essence, the dating market is more efficient. I'd think this makes marriage rates much lower since women are always looking for the absolute best, but I guess it's possible that when marriages actually do happen that they may be between better suited people.

Of course, the report doesn't tackle the big implications of this structural change in the dating market. What happens to all the men left behind, and what happens to the women who can't lock down Chad?

Find out in the coming years!