I posted this post apparently nine days ago and the way my mind works is it brews ideas below the surface and then they pop up fully formed.
Countries need families. Countries need stable family units. Countries need babies. People aren't doing this enough because whippersnappers on their iBooks etc. The problem is real.
What if the state has a registry of single people, and invites about 100 of them – matched for age and other basic compatibility factors – to the same event on one night. They do speed-dating, get through 50 people in a night, 2-3 minutes per person. Then they give the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to each person.
At the end of the night, people will have an average of at least a few (maybe 2-3, pessimistically) potential matches. But do it every Saturday of the summer, and you have 40+
And then they follow up with a long-form date. Not sure if that's also state-run, I'll need to check the budget.
Gonna be real with you Mr. Abe - state-run speed dating is not going to fix your birth rates.
Said it last time. Will say it this time. People are dating plenty. They're just not having kids because it's too expensive. If the state wants people to have kids then government-run speed dating is not going to do it.
I find it surprising you've never heard about social breakdown til today –
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https://ourworldindata.org/loneliness-epidemic
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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high/
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https://news.iu.edu/live/news/26924-nearly-1-in-3-young-men-in-the-us-report-having-no
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Share of people marrying falling, people marrying later, citing both financial reasons (41%) and not finding the right person (59%): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/09/14/as-u-s-marriage-rate-hovers-at-50-education-gap-in-marital-status-widens/
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Median age at first marriage: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf
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Number of people with no close confidantes tripled 1990-2010: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910600
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Teen loneliness really started rising in 2012: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/teens-loneliness-smart-phones/2021/07/20/cde8c866-e84e-11eb-8950-d73b3e93ff7f_story.html and https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.adolescence.2021.06.006
you think you can fix general alienation with state run speed dating? one of the problems in neoliberalism is that you only have free time to spend with at best one person, meaning that relationship becomes overburdened. people need friends first and foremost
one of the problems in neoliberalism is that you only have free time to spend with at best one person
You would have time for more people if each relationship lasted 2 minutes.
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Countries need families. Countries need stable family units. Countries need babies.
Countries need families. Countries need stable family units. Countries need babies. People aren't doing this enough because whippersnappers on their iBooks etc. The problem is real.
What if the state has a registry of single people, and invites about 100 of them – matched for age and other basic compatibility factors – to the same event on one night. They do speed-dating, get through 50 people in a night, 2-3 minutes per person. Then they give the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to each person.
At the end of the night, people will have an average of at least a few (maybe 2-3, pessimistically) potential matches. But do it every Saturday of the summer, and you have 40+
And then they follow up with a long-form date. Not sure if that's also state-run, I'll need to check the budget.
Show
It's all fun and games until you wake up to find yourself being spooned by a Stalin cosplayer
just got to have free fun things for people to and public transport for them to get to it. have singles events too. speed dating is stressful.
I think this is the way. People will work things out if they find each other attractive. The problem is that there's nothing to do and nowhere to go. Skip the dating event and just create some kind of gigantic fun event and invite shit ton of single people to it instead of doing the "feel like you're being interviewed at gunpoint" thing.
State Run Speedrunning.
Countries need video games to be over with fast. Countries need stable gaming rigs. Countries need speedrunners. People aren't doing this enough because whippersnappers on their iBooks etc. The problem is real.
What if the state has a registry of single people, and invites about 100 of them – matched for age and other basic compatibility factors – to the same event on one night. They do speed-running, get through 50 gamws in a night, 2-3 minutes per video game. Then they give the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to each person.
At the end of the night, people will have an average of at least a few (maybe 2-3, pessimistically) personal bests. But do it every Saturday of the summer, and you have 40+
Can this be hosted in a purpose-built facility shaped liked Stalin's spoon, and the event opening speech be something equating people to corn or wheat or rice and make it that all of us are mixed in the spoon and hail to the power of planned agriculture and whatnot?
