Falling Out of Love with Dating Apps
H-1Bs, family china, converting to Catholicism and more in this week's digest
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What I’ve been reading: Winter, Spring, and Summer by Karl Ove Knausgaard. The Right: The Hundred year War for American Conservatism by Matthew Continetti.
If you are looking for inspiration for New Year’s resolutions, check out Jonathan Edwards’ 70 life resolutions he made.
WASP Decorum
Former President Jimmy Carter died last week. In America, we have a social rule that says not to speak ill of the recently departed. Yet a number of evangelicals decided to publicly bash Carter for his theology, his politics, and more.
I don’t think every statement about someone who died has to be hagiographic. Obituaries should be balanced. There’s a place for talking about flaws, including theological ones, in the context of an overall assessment that people will see as attempting to be fair.
But I don’t think piling on someone who just died is productive. It only makes you look bad in the eyes of normal people.
The old WASP Protestant elites lived by a code of manners. There’s something to be said for that. I don’t think we should be exchanging calling cards, or letting “what would the neighbors think?” be our controlling rule for life.
At the same time, having a sense of decorum and high mindedness is something to aspire to.
Immigration and the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect
There’s a media phenomenon known as the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect (the term was coined by Michael Crichton and named after the physicist Murray Gell-Mann).
It works like this: you open the newspaper and read an article about a topic on which you are personally an expert or have direct first hand knowledge and say to yourself, “They got that completely wrong!” Then you turn the page and read the articles about things you don’t know about and treat those articles as gospel truth.
I thought of this while watching the huge X blowup over H-1B visas, typically used for Indian tech workers, over Christmas break. Silicon Valley and lots of pro-immigration advocates insist that these are great for America, bring in top talent we need, etc.
As it happens, I used to work for a large outsourcing company and have direct experience with H-1B visas. I know for a fact they are used as a cost saving measure to disemploy American workers. I was “in the room where it happened.” We were directly told that we could not use an American worker unless we could show that we couldn’t use an H-1B or similar foreign worker. (And we couldn’t even use them unless we first showed that the work couldn’t be done fully offshore).
Given that in the one area where I have direct personal knowledge, the official line on immigration is a lie, I’m not going to fall prey to the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. I assume pretty much everything we are told by pro-immigration advocates is a lie. If they can’t even publicly admit the problems in a program like H-1B, why would we believe they are telling the truth about anything else?
I will probably be talking more about H-1Bs in my next Member podcast. But immigration is not my major beat so I don’t want to devote too much ink to it here. If you want to read more see this Compact piece (unfortunately likely paywalled).
You can also read Harvard labor law professor Michael S. Teitelbaum’s book Falling Behind?: Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent, which shows that the idea of a scientific talent shortage is largely a myth.
Peer Review
During the immigration debate, a pro-H-1B advocate demanded that I produce “peer reviewed research” to support my claims. I had already mentioned Tietelbaum’s work. His book I referenced above is on Princeton University Press, which means it went through a peer review process before publication.
But of course this guy just kept on talking about how I need to show peer reviewed research.
It’s similar to the “Do you have a source for that?” response people sometimes give. When someone demands that I provide a citation for a fact they don’t agree with, I’ve only once ever has someone changed their mind or approach after I provided one.
My rule of thumb is that pretty much all demands for citations or peer reviewed research are made in bad faith. They are just an attempt to trip you up and discredit you, not a legitimate search for knowledge.
In my experience, it’s rarely a productive use of time to engage with these people.
Falling Out of Love with Dating Apps
The Financial Times had a “big read” article about people abandoning dating apps.
Although its brands now cater to tens of millions of users globally, Match’s market value — roughly $8bn — is just a fifth of what it was three years ago. Last month, Tinder, Match’s flagship brand and the app that arguably invented the modern dating industry, reported that paid user numbers had dropped on a year-on-year basis for the eighth consecutive quarter.
Nor is it just Match: the world’s biggest online dating companies are in crisis, as their target customers, particularly women and younger users, increasingly look elsewhere, towards niche apps or real-life meets — or even opt out of romantic relationships altogether. In a recent survey by Forbes, 78 per cent of respondents reported feeling “emotionally, mentally or physically exhausted” by dating apps.
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Many commentators were horrified — soon after its launch the Guardian described Tinder as “the shallowest dating app ever” — but singles signed up in their droves. Tinder had more than 50mn monthly active users by 2017, when it was acquired by Match Group and parent company IAC at an estimated value of $3bn. The swipe was replicated by nearly every rival, and the app’s viral popularity helped to destigmatise online dating.
Tinder reached a peak of more than 73mn monthly active users in 2020. Since then, however, the romance has faded. Although Tinder remains by far the world’s dominant dating app, monthly active users have dropped more than a third since 2020, according to figures from analytics company Sensor Tower.
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Even insiders admit that dating apps have a foundational problem: love and friendship are not easy for an algorithm to serve up. Humans have complex tastes; the data that many dating apps are built on only provides an approximation of what someone might find appealing — and harder still for the feeling to be mutual.
“Your [favourite] Spotify song doesn’t have to like you back,” says Justin McLeod, the chief executive of Hinge, which was released in 2012 before being rebranded to focus on longer-term relationships four years later. “It’s a complex, messy problem.”
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Critics of the dating industry often have a more fundamental complaint: that the incentives for the corporations that make dating apps and people who use their products are inherently at war. Hinge markets itself as “designed to be deleted” — something that would seem to be in conflict with the need for ever-expanding revenue and growth.
The traditional dating-app business model relies on churn: attracting people to sign up, encouraging them to pay for extra swipes or features, then replacing those that leave (presumably once they’ve found love) with fresh users — meaning that companies, more so than in other sectors, always need to be replenishing their user base.
Dating apps already face allegations from users that they hide the best potential mates to keep people swiping — theories that have led to entire forums online devoted to “gaming” the apps. While these accusations are denied by dating companies, they are grounded in “the very real lack of transparency” about how matching algorithms work, says Sharabi of Arizona State University.
Click through to read the whole thing (though the FT has a very hard paywall).
People very obviously are getting sick of these apps, but it’s not clear that they are trying other approaches vs. simply not dating.
In another disturbing story, Axios writes about the growing trend of boyfriends and girlfriends freezing embryos in case some day they decide to get married.
No longer are couples just having the DTR talk ("define the relationship") — now many also want to DTFE: "decide to freeze embryos."…For those dating, the question of whether someone wants to freeze their eggs solo or freeze embryos with another person is sparking conversations about the future and commitment, sometimes earlier than expected.
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D.C. resident Amanda Anderson opted to preserve her fertility at age 35 after delaying parenthood to prioritize travel, hobbies, and working. Because she wasn't married to her partner, she decided to freeze both eggs and embryos, and her partner froze his own genetic material separately, too.
There are no brakes on this train.
Protestants Lose Another Scholar to Roman Catholicism
Sociologist Brad Vermurlen posted on X that he now believes Catholicism is true (and presumably will be converting from Protestantism).
Vermurlen is a sociologist who wrote his dissertation on the New Calvinist movement that was latter published as the book Reformed Resurgence with Oxford University Press. I previously interviewed Vermurlen about it on my podcast.
I can’t judge how good a sociologist he is, but Tim Keller largely accepted the framing of his book. That’s saying something right there.
I don’t know all of the particulars of Vermurlen’s journey, but my impression is that he did not get much love from evangelicals. He notably did not end up with a professorship at an evangelical college and instead was hired by a Catholic one in Houston. He previously noted that he ran mostly in Catholic intellectual circles.
Addressing issues like this, where Protestant intellectuals or high level achievers are drawn to Roman Catholicism, is a big reason why I’m doing my project on the “evangelical elite” problem.
Related: Last year I wrote a piece about why JD Vance left evangelicalism for Catholicism.
Best of the Web
Anthony Bradley: 'Biblical Masculinity' Does Not Exist - An interesting piece. At one level it’s true, but one another this approach is one that underlies evangelicalism’s seriously flawed gender teachings. In practice, everything gets divided into two categories: Biblical truth and cultural truth. (Hard science like physics might be a third). And if the Bible doesn’t directly and explicitly define masculinity, then it is culturally defined and thus relative. Hence, our culture’s views of masculinity can be largely accepted as valid. This misses a more robust view of substantive gender complementary that I think we can see from social sciences.
The Observer: Welcome to the femosphere, the latest dark, toxic corner of the internet… for women
Nathan Pinkoski: Barcelona's Darkness - An interesting look at Whit Stillman’s great film Barcelona.
NYT: One Set of China. Five Generations - A family’s set of dishes has passed through five generations of women, but will the teacups, plates and bowls make it to a sixth? - An interesting story about traditions and changing times. A set of fine china has been handed down through five generations of a family, but the current holder had only sons who don’t want it.
We talk about wanting more rooted, multigenerational traditions and heirlooms but in fact we don’t really want them. Having those requires us to maintain things that are of limited direct value and may even be a hassle. The article has a good description on the decline of china. It made my think of my classic grandmother’s punch bowl that I had for a few years. What would I ever do with that? (I eventually foisted it off on my cousin).
At the same time, one day these boys may regret what they are taking a pass on.
American Affairs: How the West Was Lost - A review of Emmanuel Todd’s The Defeat of the West. If you didn’t see it, I also wrote a piece about the book that is very complementary to the American Affairs one.
Chris Arnade: America the Beautiful - a positive take on the country from one of its critics.
New Content and Media Mentions
I got mentions in Newsweek, the Daily Signal, the Daily Economy, and American Reformer.
I was a guest on Solid Steps Radio discussing my book.
Jason Jewell put my book on his ten best of the year list.
Latest content:
My pre-holiday podcast was with Musa al-Gharbi on his book We Have Never Been Woke.
I also did a retrospective on 2024 and preview of 2025.
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I enjoy the anecdotes on H1-Bs. You didn't spell this out, but my understanding is that what you're describing is the reverse of the letter of the law: in theory a job is supposed to be advertised to Americans and an H1-B visa is only supposed to be approved if no qualified Americans showed up. Of course, this rule is widely flouted. I wonder how much could be accomplished by rewarding whistleblowers and punishing violators for this.
In college, I worked in the office of a major grant-producing medical researcher whose group made extensive use of H1-Bs. I'd actually say, in contrast to how corporations mostly use H1-Bs, these researchers were closer to being the "good guys": they were mostly using H1-Bs to bring in experienced foreign researchers with specialized knowledge relevant to their research, in many cases for a temporary collaboration, and that research was directly relevant to improving the welfare of the human race. Most of the visa holders were from Europe, and none from a country poorer than China.
But even so, they flouted the requirement that the H1-B position be publicly advertised to Americans. The office manager kept them in a hard-to-see corner of her office, behind the door when it was open. She said, disingenuously, "Well, everyone in the labs comes in here at one time or another to pick something up from me, so I would qualify this as a public place." It was interesting to me that, even when the job description was written with an ultra-specific resume in mind that perhaps only one person on Earth qualified for, they STILL didn't want to run any kind of risk of an American actually applying for the H1-B job.
H1-B: I work in software engineering, and have worked for many software companies. I have some experience with H1-B as well, as a hiring manager and leader. Some software companies use H1-B to pay less for talent. Every software company I've worked for that has hired engineers under H1-B, however, has ended up subtly or overtly taking advantage of those workers because unless they can find another company to take on sponsorship, they are unable to quit without having to leave the country. Time and again I've seen this create serious, intense stress for these engineers.
Dating sites/apps: A dozen years ago I met my current wife on a dating site. I intensely disliked the experience and had canceled my membership and was letting it run out when I was matched with my now wife. I am intensely fortunate that it worked out. I felt like chances were always slim given my age (at the time, pushing 50). But after my unpleasant dating-site experience I was fully ready to give up on ever finding a partner, and figure out how to have as fulfilling of a life as I could as a single man.