Until it becomes socially acceptable to bring a tax return and 401k statement on a first date, nice clothes and a nice car are going to remain the only way to demonstrate success to a stranger.
First, not everyone defines success in such material terms. If you don't, you probably also aren't interested in attracting a mate who does.
Second, in a society as laden in consumer debt as the USA in the early 21st century, the nature of the correlation between financial wellbeing and ownership of nice things is far from certain. To put it in its most basic terms, the $40k someone spent on their BMW is, by definition, money they didn't stick in their 401k.
And unfortunately unless you're a doctor, lawyer, or CEO, 'having nice things' is the only socially appropriate way to signal that.
I don't like it, but it works really well and sexual selection is what sells luxury cars in general, not advertising.
Not to mention, 'compatible value systems' are not necessary to bring a girl home after a first date and have some fun...
>And unfortunately unless you're a doctor, lawyer, or CEO, 'having nice things' is the only socially appropriate way to signal that.
Meaningful conversation, a sense of humor, good looks, and an approachable demeanor are all perfectly socially appropriate, and they tend to attract people much more reliably.
There are obviously many other factors besides financial success (and more important ones!) in being attractive.
Yeah. That's why they lease those cars.
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Its rather easy today to borrow money and get things that are completely unsustainable. Nothing against people who actually like leasing cars (some people MUST have a new car every 2 years, so its cheaper to lease than to buy).
But a huge number of people who are leasing cars simply can't afford the car. So instead, they go for a "low cost monthly plan" that doesn't build any wealth at all.
It's just a heuristic, of course, but it does establish a bare minimum of financial success.
Nah, it really could just mean someone HAD managed to save up $2000 and are about to get that car repossessed in 4 months.
And based on the ridiculously dumb financial decisions of my friends and peers... that's what happens. Albeit with smaller decisions, but I've seen thousand+-dollar financial mistakes before.
Sounds more like biology to me, with the talk of sexual selection, signalling, etc.
Especially the bit where you use that jargon to dehumanize women by reducing their feelings to a set of base instincts.
You do realize that what Darwin is known for is discussing mating behaviour and natural selection, don't you? Or do you think that is not relevant because humans are not animals but special snowflakes, carried down on the wings of angels?
I'm not the OP, but I would say that kind of language is exactly what one would use in order to try to explain exactly what really motivates humans, beyond some ephemeral idea that our actions are based on "feelings", with no deeper interest in understanding of what might be the basis for those feelings.
And since you brought up dehumanizing (which I don't agree this is, BTW): If that is dehumanizing, would such a description not also dehumanize men, who are described as mindlessly dedicating a significant portion of their life to acquiring the money with which to impress? It's a pity that such behaviour would have no effect because women are humans with unfathomable and intractable feelings...
Or can we just admit that some women might be impressed by material wealth, making them precisely human, because some humans may be impressed by material wealth?
Dating's a way to get a read on someone's value system and find someone who shares your values. It's a mistake to think that everyone shares mainstream American cultural values, even in America. There are plenty of people who don't buy into consumerism or advertising messages.
And why "demonstrate success" on a date? What is the other person supposed to be? Whore/Gigolo?
Why demonstrate success on a date? What do you think the purpose of a date is? It's a courtship ritual where you try to demonstrate your reproductive value to a potential mate. There are many components to this; appearance, wealth, personality, etc.
I think you have this mixed up; a prostitute is precisely the person you don't need to indicate your value to. You just pay them.
I thought it was to get to know the person, build a relationship and maybe bed them (if you're too horny).
But now I've learned its purpose is to show your bling and evolutionary advantages to send the right primitive signals to the other hardly developed monkey-human.
>I think you have this mixed up; a prostitute is precisely the person you don't need to indicate your value to. You just pay them.
The distance between a whore and a golddigger is not that wide.
Talking to them, learning their past, their character, their preferences, their favourite Tom Waits album, etc?
>You literally mention sex in the same sentence;
Which we've managed to separate from pure evolutionary urges to reproduce at least some millennia ago.
>this is the fundamental evolutionary (not teleological) purpose of courtship, regardless of how you dress it up.
You'd be surprised, billions manage to have sex with billions without having children -- in casual relationships and such. And an increasing number of people (like 20-30% in the US I've read?) even for life.
All of these things except maybe Tom Waits are indicators of reproductive fitness. Why do you think your brain is structured to prefer these characteristics in a potential mate?
> Which we've managed to separate from pure evolutionary urges to reproduce at least some millennia ago.
Hardly. We've only had effective birth control for a few decades. Society hasn't fully caught up to this yet, let alone our evolutionary programming.
> You'd be surprised, billions manage to have sex with billions without having children
What planet do you live on? In fact, billions of people have had children!
Why do you think different men/women have completely different preferences on those things? Except if "reproductive fitness" is subjective, which defeats the whole argument...
>Hardly. We've only had effective birth control for a few decades.
We've had romantic (and even platonic) love, annal sex, gay people, and tons of other things besides arranged marriages or fucking for reproduction since at least ancient Greece...
>What planet do you live on? In fact, billions of people have had children!
One or two or five. They've had sex 100s of times.
Gosh, you are quite the romantic, aren't you... ;-)
That, or a completely irresponsible attitude towards consumer debt. In most cases, the latter. So, this isn't really a very sound strategy for finding a mate who is financially sound.
Read The Millionaire Next Door. Most people who are actually wealthy drive moderate cars that are completely paid for. Since many of them own a small business that often works in a fairly blue collar industry, they're more likely to be wearing jeans and a work shirt rather than a suit.
whoever wrote that book is selling you on a worldview. your quote is often repeated, but i don't find it to be true. i think it's wishful thinking for a lot of thrifty people, so they can feel superior by judging people they don't know by what they drive around in.
in my experience being a millionaire or not has absolutely no bearing on the kind of car you drive. some people like nice cars or sports cars, other people simply don't give a shit about cars, rich or not.
and from what i've seen, even the wealthy people who don't drive nice cars have other really nice shit, like $100k in road bicycles, or gigantic house(s) or a fully equipped fishing boat sitting in the marina. but they drive a prius, so they're thrifty and virtuous.
Rather than just anecdotes, the authors of the book did actual research and found that most people who have actual net worth above a million dollars did in fact get there by carefully managing their money, and conversely, most people who had the appearance of wealth in the form of expensive cars and boats, didn't have the actual net worth that it implied.
So, if you're judging someone's net worth by the things they happen to own, the whole point is that this is not a reliable indicator of how much wealth someone actually has.
my point is that you're doing the exact same thing, except in the other direction.
The only way you're speaking the truth is if just about every human behavior qualifies as demonstrating success. In which case, you're saying nothing. It is nearly useless for making actual decisions, and thus not something you are justified in believing strongly.
But you're still demonstrating value, yes? I admit that there is no universal value function. It is subjective to a large degree. However, we can pick out large-scale trends fairly easily.
> The only way you're speaking the truth is if just about every human behavior qualifies as demonstrating success
Not sure what you mean.
Sure, you can find trends, but you're never dating trends. Real people are not averages of a population.
>Not sure what you mean.
When you say "but you're still demonstrating value", you are reducing dating analysis to a tautology. It will either be untrue or useless. Something has to fail to demonstrate value in order for you to determine not to do it. And you can't do that without knowing the person you're dating.
Which is at the heart of everyone else's point: Dating is about finding out what your date values, not 'demonstrating' what you imagine it is that they value.
> you cannot reasonably predict it.
I think I just did.
When you go on a date, whether the average person would like you means nothing. Whether the person actually sitting in front of you likes you means everything. And you can't predict that. You are talking about the middle of a bell curve, and you're failing to understand how wide that curve is and how strong the tails are. Which is why I said you're failing to understand human diversity.
I think you have a very narrow definition of "date."
Life, and love, is far more than an exercise in evolutionary psychology.
> Life, and love, is far more than an exercise in evolutionary psychology.
I agree, there is additional value in the emergent behavior of evolutionarily driven organism (us). However, this isn't contradictory to what I said.
But it is neither scientific, nor evidence-based, and many Eastern cultures do not view mating or courtship in the same way you do.
It does contain theory, but it doesn't contain psychology or anything "pop". It's anthropology and evolutionary biology. My views also aren't popular among Western people, except those who like to scientifically pick apart the origins of beloved social traditions. This makes most people uncomfortable.
> many Eastern cultures do not view mating or courtship in the same way
That's nice. Do you actually know anything about "Eastern" views on courtship rituals, or are you just saying that my views aren't mystical enough and you assume that "Eastern" people have some sort of mystical interpretation?
The fact that you're appealing to cultural folklore about dating at all should cause you to re-consider your argument.
At the very pop level. No anthropologist or biologist would make as crude presentations of the relevant arguments -- or even think their interaction with culture is some solved problem and it's 100% "evolution" at play.
>My views also aren't popular among Western people, except those who like to scientifically pick apart the origins of beloved social traditions. This makes most people uncomfortable.
No, it's mostly the crude early 20th century scientism and basic oversight of empirical data.
>The fact that you're appealing to cultural folklore about dating at all should cause you to re-consider your argument.
Well, your whole premise was that evolution trumps "cultural folklore" and customs, to which the parent's reference is completely justified as a counter-example.
It's not the same as mine.
Of course sometimes you want to impress people who don't see this anyway, most obviously the job interview or the business meeting. Well in that case: it's incredibly easy to fake these signals, especially when you see them for what they are.
But you still went to tax return/401K, so defining success as owning a lot of the medium of exchange. Not that you have exchanged it for the correct things or gotten them some other way. So you got past viewing nice clothes and cars as and end in themselves but not past viewing money as an end in itself. There is another step you can take, another narrative that has been built to motivate you to act in another group's interest you can abandon.
Being shallow is exactly that: being "evolutionarily sensible".
Unlike animals, that can be only (or mostly) "evolutionarily sensible", we have critical and self-critical faculties, and can see beyond what's "evolutionarily sensible".
And of course, billions of people don't give a rats arse about whether the person they'll fall in love with has a fast car and a fancy suit, or the body type that signals "I'll have plenty of milk for our offspring".
>Any evolutionarily rational person would place substantial value on a partner who can provide for themselves and their offspring.
If they see the world as some kind of jungle where what matters is a partner who can "provide for themselves and their offspring" then they're not just shallow, but also regressive.
> And of course, billions of people don't give a rats arse about whether the person they'll fall in love with has ... the body type that signals "I'll have plenty of milk for our offspring".
Which billions of people? Females? Yeah, they're typically not looking for milk production in a mate. On the other hand, breasts are a huge component of male attraction in most cultures.
As for fancy cars, it's not the car itself; it's what it signifies. (Although personally, I would place substantial value on a mate driving fast cars! I love driving.)
In what way is it "regressive" to seek a mate who can provide for one's children?
"I liked her because she liked me because of my car"
said no one ever?
The idea is, no matter who you are as a person, the version of you that is healthy, fit, and clearly never has to worry about money, is one of the more attractive versions of you. She's not a gold digger, she just wants to be with someone who is financially secure.
There are far more important things to think about on first date such as "Do I like this guy?", not how expensive his car is.
One relationship has more fun/fulfilling lifestyle options available and the other has fewer. This applies to anyone regardless of gender, although a lot of people have hangups about traditional roles and money.
Fitness is an indicator of physical health and ability to defend from predators and fancy cars and clothes are indicators of mental/social prowess and ability to garner resources. They're both valid, if imperfect, criteria by which to judge someone for reproductive fitness.