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.

  • Vampire [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I find it surprising you've never heard about social breakdown til today –

    • https://ourworldindata.org/loneliness-epidemic

    • https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/

    • https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high/

    • https://news.iu.edu/live/news/26924-nearly-1-in-3-young-men-in-the-us-report-having-no

    • 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/

    • Median age at first marriage: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf

    • Number of people with no close confidantes tripled 1990-2010: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910600

    • 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

    • blight [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      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

      • Vampire [any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.