Share
Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry
Could A.I. find you a spouse? Maiden Mother Matriarch 176
Give the gift of everyday luxury and make every moment comfortable. Head
to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you
get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.
I know that there are many people listening to this podcast right now who truly and sincerely want to get married, but can't find the right person. They've done the usual things – they've tried the apps, they've tried going to church, they've asked their friends to set them up. These strategies aren't futile – we all know plenty of people who met their spouses in this way – but they're not a guarantee, either.
If we've learnt anything from the social experiment of the sexual revolution, it's that matchmaking is a difficult coordination problem. Earlier this year, I interviewed Christiana Maxion, a professional matchmaker who takes a very intuitive approach to her work. Today, I'm joined by someone who comes at the problem in a very different way.
Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico, and the author of books including 'The Mating Mind' (2001) and 'Mating Intelligence' (2008). He's also the Chief Science Advisor to a dating platform that claims to be able to match people based on A.I. analysis of reams of data. Things like IQ tests, personality tests, and demographic factors like age and socioeconomic status. Geoffrey believes that this non-intuitive approach to matchmaking is the way to bring happy couples together.
Today we speak about the science, and also the issue of expectations. What is it reasonable to want in a spouse? How can single people set themselves up to win in the marriage market? And what role should we give to other people – parents or siblings, for instance – in the process of matchmaking?
Discussed in the show:
More episodes
View all episodes
So, where are we now?
01:12:33|Give the gift of everyday luxury by going to cozyearth.com and using my code COZYMMM for 20% off site wide. And if you get a post-purchase survey do please mention that you heard about Cozy Earth from the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast. Whether you’re buying for yourself, or for somebody else, Cozy Earth creates the comfort that makes a house feel like home. MMM is sponsored by 321 - a new online introduction to Christianity, presented by former MMM guest Glen Scrivener. Check it out for free at 321course.com/MMM. Just enter your email, choose a password and you’re in — there’s no spam and no fees. The queen of reactionary feminism, Mary Harrington, is now hosting a monthly YouTube show with Socrates in the City. I was one of her first guests and the Socrates team were kind enough to let me share our conversation with you here. We discussed the disappointments of postliberalism, arguments over the feminisation of public life, the loss of male status in the modern world, conflict within the gender critical movement, and the debate over ethno-nationalism in Britain. To watch more of Mary's interviews head over to Socrates in the City on YouTube. She's also recently spoken to Jonathan Pageau, Nina Power, and Justin Brierley, all conversations that I'm sure will be of interest to MMM listeners.
Lindy West's confession
21:08|In this bonus episode, I spoke with Meghan Murphy about Lindy West's new memoir, Adult Braces, and her account of polyamory, fat activism, and mental illness.
Could Anglofuturism save Britain?
01:10:07|Britain is in a bad place at the moment. The country that gave the world the Industrial Revolution is now visibly deteriorating. "Managed decline" is the popular phrase, although there is a debate over how "managed" it really is. Tom Ough says that none of this is necessary. Britain could – and should – pursue a programme of innovation that benefits its people materially, but that also feels psychologically comforting in its cultural familiarity. The term for this vision is "Anglofuturism", our subject today.Tom is a senior editor at UnHerd, co-host of the Anglofuturism podcast, and author of 'The Anti-Catastrophe League: The pioneers and visionaries on a quest to save the world.'
Where the West is headed
21:17|For this bonus episode I went on Against the Grain podcast with Matthew Schmitz and Julia Yost. We talked about the migration boom in Britain, birth rates, religious revivals and more.https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/against-the-grain/id1823575411
Who doesn't want a better life?
01:17:34|In Lionel Shriver's new novel, a family with a large and lovely house in Brooklyn invite a Honduran asylum seeker to come and live with them. The young woman is pleasant and helpful. But the adult son of the family – unemployed, idle, and disagreeable – is deeply opposed to her presence in his home. This being a Lionel Shriver novel, the drama soon goes in an unexpected direction. 'A Better Life' is a novel about immigration, gender, and political polarisation – all topics we discuss today. Lionel is the author of nineteen novels, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction for the massive bestseller 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', and a columnist at the Spectator Magazine.
Who cares if Dubai is vulgar?
20:43|In this bonus episode, I spoke with The Telegraph's Poppy Coburn about the ongoing threat to Dubai, and the city's (very revealing) role in the British cultural imagination.
Pagan America
51:07|"It's not that it's fake, it's that it's evil." That was what today's guest replied when I asked him to describe the nature of paganism. It's a term that we usually associate with Ancient Rome. But John Daniel Davidson uses a more expansive definition of this particular outlook on the supernatural, and he warns against it in the strongest possible terms. John is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of 'Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come.' Today we speak about the dangers of re-enchantment, and why John believes that the dark side of the supernatural must be regarded with the utmost seriousness.
The worldview that makes the underclass
01:19:11|Anthony Daniels, also known by the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, has spent a career doing something very unusual for someone of his class: talking at great length to thousands and thousands of people at the very bottom of the socioeconomic heap. Daniels is a doctor, as well as the author of dozens of books. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of perhaps his most famous, 'Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass', a collection of essays about Daniels' time working as a doctor at both an inner-city hospital and a prison. One of his tasks in this role was to interview something in the region of 10,000 people who had attempted suicide. They would tell him about their lives, and about the lives of the people closest to them. "From this source alone," Daniels writers, "I have learned about the lives of some fifty thousand people: lives dominated, almost without exception, by violence, crime, and degradation." Today we talk about what he surmised from these conversations – about the true nature of poverty, of domestic abuse, and the social fallout from the sexual revolution. We also talk about what the British elites fail to understand about the so-called underclass.
Welcome to the new politics
20:46|In this bonus episode, I spoke with Ed West about the Gorton and Denton by-election, the Islamo-gauchist coalition, and Rupert Lowe's new Restore Party. Discussed in this episode: Serial series on the Trojan Horse affairHannah Spencer on NewsnightTony Blair documentary seriesPimlico Journal article on Restore