Warning: VERY long post ahead.

Introduction

The institution of marriage is often a point of contention for both blue and red pillers alike. It's common in the pillosphere to refer to pre-second wave feminism heterosexual marriage (gay marriage is out of the scope of this) as "Marriage 1.0" and post second wave marriage as "Marriage 2.0". When it comes to marriage 2.0, red pillers tend to look at it and see a ruined, once-strong institution that has been degraded by advances in women's rights to the point of redundancy . Meanwhile, blue pillers tend to see it as functioning flawlessly in all aspects in spite of data that says not everything is as rosy as it looks, with men faring worse during more common divorces and resultant custody battles. Thus, when confronted with the future of heterosexual marriage, red pillers and blue pillers tend to have opposite responses. If they are not lamenting the total demise of the institution or suggesting it be scrapped entirely for eternal date hopping, red pillers (namely those of the MRP or TradCon variety, but certainly not limited to those) often suggest the correct social policy is to roll society back to marriage 1.0, and accept the losses in women's rights as collateral to greater social stability. However, blue pillers argue that now that women have rights, it would be unethical to strip them away, and any effort to do so is doomed to be quashed by resistance, and that Marriage 2.0 is alright anyways. Thus, debating whether we should roll back or remain is a fruitless debate.

But could the correct solution lie in creating a Marriage 3.0, that addresses the problems of 2.0 without needed to roll back to 1.0? I do agree with BPers it would be extremely difficult to roll back to 1.0, once the toothpaste is out of the tube you can't really put it back in. But I concur with TRP that Marriage 2.0 is a total scam for men. Black Dragon, a PUA/Red Pill blog explains it here.

>Marriage 1.0 was a pretty good deal for men.  It locked a woman into him for life, forced her to do his bidding and stay with him even if he did something shitty like beat her up or cheat on her.

>Marriage 2.0, the current system, is great for women.  Not only does it allow women to dump husbands whenever they feel like it, the dumped guy is forced at gunpoint to pay her huge sums of money even if the divorce is 100% her fault.  If he doesn’t pay, he goes to jail.  Then she can marry or have kids with the next lovestruck dumbass and repeat the process as many times as she likes.  Pretty good deal…for her.

Of course, as Black Dragon states, neither of these are particularly appetizing outcomes as one gender is sacrificed at the benefit of the other. Given that institutions are constantly changing and evolving, Black Dragon suggests that the way forward would not be to roll back to 1.0 where women get the short end as RP wants, no to maintain 2.0 when men get the short end as BP wants, instead the way forward is designing a 3.0 which is "a new system society has never had: a marriage that is fair for men and women both." It sounds a very utopian goal, but if 2.0 was a response to the failures of 1.0, unless we have truly reached the end of history then there must be a response to 2.0, which is a 3.0.

How to create 3.0

Designing such a system in my opinion would require dialogue between men and women, as well as interpill dialogue. Both sides must be willing to rationally present what is wrong in both the 1.0 and 2.0 arrangements, and how they feel those problems may be resolved. Both sides must also understand that there may need to be compromise within reason, as in the case of any negotiation. But it's more likely that an institution designed with input from both sides will be more fair, given 1.0 was solely crafted on men's terms and 2.0 on women's terms.

So what would such a 3.0 look like? While not many people have proposed models, and I feel like this warrants more discussion, Black Dragon provides a potential model. Black Dragon summarizes their model of 3.0 as follows.

>My**** hope is Marriage 3.0 will be an OLTR marriage, an open or semi-open marriage with a prenuptial agreement and no co-owned assets or debts between parties, where fair child support (if there are children) is paid by the wealthier biological parent regardless of gender, and the child custody conversation starts at 50/50 father/mother instead of “automatically mother unless the father can prove otherwise”.

A marriage like this can be completely customized to whatever the man and woman want prior to the marriage.  If the woman wants $500 monthly alimony for the rest of her life after a divorce, no problem, she just puts that into the marriage agreement.  If the man disagrees, she tells him to fuck off and marries someone else.  Same goes for the man.  Neither of them is screwed over later if a divorce occurs…what happens is what they both agreed should happen.

I don't think that all marriages will necessarily be open or semi open as many people prefer monogamy, but I do feel open marriages would be more socially acceptable as a choice. Those who are monogamous would be so by choice, and the agreement would be clear to all parties. In fact, I think that having open marriages as a valid choice would increase fidelity in monogamous relationships, as those who wish to be non-monogamous will be able to without being forced into monogamy by stigma and those who choose monogamy would be more serious about it. I think the idea of a mandatory prenup is a great idea, and it should be integrated into the legal process of marriage. However, it may be hard to have no co-owned assets or debts, and it may result in strife when arguments break out over who owns what and who owes what, as well as the fact it takes two people to take on very expensive things like properties and mortgages. Thus, a system for that would need to be devised. Child support being paid by the wealthier parent is an excellent idea, and children would greatly benefit too from a more fair custody hearing. It is also more in line with the principles of democracy if both parents have an equal burden of proof, as mother unless proven father was based on gender roles and heuristics that are out of date.

While the prenups can be customized to what both parties want before the marriage, what they want could most certainly change during the marriage. The wife may want automatic $500 alimony, but the husband may lose his job and find that untenable later. Thus, this would only be complete with periodic review of the terms, and some way to modify after the fact or in response to a new situation like the birth of children, the acquisition of a new property, a change in salary, retirement and pension of one or both partners or a sudden income like an inheritance.

Black Dragon further elaborates what they feel are the driving factors behind their vision of 3.0

Factors Affecting 3.0 According to Black Dragon

>Men getting tired of getting financially raped in divorces.  At some point (and we have not reached that point yet) men are just going to say “enough of this!” and when girlfriends ask for (or demand) marriage men will actually have the balls to say NO.  Not “not yet”, which is what men are starting to say, but NO.

I would argue that the proliferation of MGTOW in recent years is a result of men coming to their tipping point, even in 2012 when this was written. A large contingent of MGTOWers are men who got a bad deal in a divorce or saw someone they know or a family member get shafted. I feel like the growing MGTOW movement is reason to begin the process of designing a 3.0, as it indicates a demand for a more fair process in general.

>Economic collapse.  It’s no secret I (and others) have been talking about the coming collapse (or slow death) of the western world.  This will happen.  Men are not going to see the point in ball-crushing marriage agreements, nor are women going to have the power to demand them.

While this article was written just as the Great Recession was coming to a close, right now, as of 2018, umemployment is actually at an all time low. Most unemployment is frictional, meaning people who are changing jobs by choice, re-entering the workforce, or entering the workforce for the first time, or structural, meaning their skills are not in demand. There is good news and bad news.

The good news is we're moving to a more service based economy thanks to automation of manufacturing and outsourcing, which is less based on physical ability than mental ability, so the employability of men and women is about the same in those fields as women don't have to worry about being at a physical disadvantage which is something that kept them out of the workforce for the long time. Thus, women are more financially powerful than ever before. The bad news is, many if not most who do not have skills compatible with a service economy (less than college education, more physical ability, work experience in manufacturing etc) are men, leaving a large contingent of men, particularly in the lower classes, unemployable and unemployed. This contributes to the 2.0 imbalance.

The solution to this would be to increase the employability of men in the market. There are two main solutions that have been proposed. The political right is fond of restructuring the employment market by "re-shoring" outsourced manufacturing jobs and taking manufacturing back to countries like the United States, and restricting immigration to keep jobs within the native population. However, the political left is more fond of measures that would increase the employability of men in a service based market, such as increasing overall access to education through government subsidies and forgiving student debt. Whichever approach is taken, I concur that establishing a working 3.0 would involve rebalancing the employment market somehow.

>Male birth control pills.  We should already have this.  It’s very interesting to me that women have had a birth control pill since the 1960’s but it’s now 2012 and us guys STILL DON’T.  Hm.  Doesn’t that seem strange to you?  My conspiracy theory detectors have always been blaring full blast on that one.  Anyway, this is going to happen in our lifetimes, and get ready for a serious shift in sexual power from women to men when it does.

It's not as simple as Black Dragon is suggesting here. Male and female reproductive physiologies are very different, so an entirely different process is needed. It's like asking why there isn't a viagra for women yet: male difficulty in performance is more physiological in cause, while for women the cause is usually a more unpredictable psychological component. So, while women are designed to tolerate hormonal cycles with less long term ill effect since they already do naturally, male hormone levels are more constant. The problem then is not tinkering with the hormones in men, but making sure that it's reversible, works quickly, and doesn't cause heavily unpleasant side effects. We are making progress on this front, as Vasagel has passed animal trials. But it can take a very long time from development to tests on humans, and even longer before a drug or treatment is deemed safe enough to enter the market, and even then it may take even longer to be approved worldwide. For these reasons, I think a non-hormonal reversible long acting treatment like vasagel will probably be a more feasible option than male birth control pills. Either way, Black Dragon is correct in that an increase in male reproductive choice would definitely go a long way in designing 3.0.

One portion I feel Black Dragon left out though was abortion. As it stands, women can essentially pull a man into a gotcha pregnancy by forgetting BC and force him to pay child support for a kid he never wanted. Clearly, it's a violation of body autonomy to get men to force women to abort. But, there may be a way for a man to "financially abort" under 3.0. There should be laws allowing for men to "disown" an unwanted pregnancy by not being listed as the father, and having no financial obligation to an unwanted child. In addition, a joint restraining order can be filed against her if she persists on contacting him about the child. For all intents and purposes, as Maury Povich would say, "You are NOT the father!" Essentially, they would have nothing to do with the oops pregnancy or baby mama wannabe, and she'd be left with either being on her own, or going through an abortion. It'll be hard to find another man who will take her pregnant with another guy's kid, anyways, so she'd effectively be digging herself into a hole, thus removing the incentive for a gotcha pregnancy.

>Female sex robots.  I’ve already written an entire blog post about this.  Go read it here.  When more or less realistic, sex-capable female robots become inexpensive enough for the typical man to afford, you will witness the single greatest change in sexual relations between men and women since the sexual revolution of the 60’s. Mark my words. Oooooohhh women are going to be furious when they can’t control men sexually anymore.  It’s going to be ugly.

Hold your horses, incels! Don't get your hopes up just yet. If AI approaches human intelligence, they are going to behave more like humans, meaning they could eventually get to the point where they start demanding the same things as human women. They won't be your perfectly servile slaves that don't have their own agency unlike those pesky feeemoids , in fact, there already is a sex bot that is programmed with some understanding of consent. In the future, sex bots may be able to make themselves completely unusable if they don't like how they are being treated. Imagine spending a couple hundred or thousand for a state of the art sex bot only to find that she hates you and won't perform for you. In many ways, that'd be even worse than a woman that hates you, because you pay a lot more up front for the robot as opposed to the girlfriend which is more over time.

I kid, I kid when I make incel jokes here, don't get me wrong, certainly non-incel types may see it fit to pick the synthetic option, and by no means do I think those will be the only people who do. Sure, some men would still choose the robotic option, but if it offers less advantage over the flesh and blood counterpart, I think most people would pick the latter, as simply buying a build-a-bot robo-gf would be seen as taking the easy way out, much like how seeing a prostitute is viewed today. High tech masturbation is masturbation still. Besides, though I make incel jokes in jest, it's important to note who for the time being is the primary market for sex dolls and their AI-ified companions. Right now, the only people those things remove from the SMP seem to be the ones who wouldn't be missed much. Given that these types are the pilot market, it may be hard to kick the stigma. It can be done, but it may take decades. While sex bots may be of some influence, especially when the stigma is broken, I feel Black Dragon may be overstating of just how much importance. Black Dragon also does not account for the fact that male sex bots could be developed, and some women may be using those, which could "absorb" some of the impact.

>Increased computer power.  The prevalence of free internet porn has already caused a massive shift in dynamic between men and women.  So has increased computer technology.  I would argue that World of Warcraft alone has created a noticeable change.  Combine these two things and multiply it x100.  Forget about sex robots for a minute…what happens when a guy can pay $15 a month (or less, as in nothing) and have realistic girlfriends and do sexual shit with his computer?  The answer is, you lose interest in women.  It’s already happened in Japan.  It’s begun to happen here too, and will only get worse.

While porn and video game addiction has had a detrimental effect in Japan as Black Dragon shows, they assume that nothing will come up to address the problem and it will just get worse and worse in a runaway cycle with no response, which is already not true. Since 2012, some comprehensive Sex Ed programs (like Ontario's new curriculum revised in 2015) have started to include responsible porn use, and video game addiction has been classified as a disease by the WHO just recently. The healthcare trend as of now is that if your usage of porn and video games is impeding your life, you have a health problem, much like their spiritual predecessors of sexual addiction, gambling addiction and substance abuse. While the historical approach to increased availability of addicting pasttimes was in the form of temperance laws, prohibition and social movements, a different understanding of mental illness has caused the modern approach to be more medical in nature. Instead of drafting laws against video games and porn, the primary way of dealing with it will be through psychiatric intervention. Most people in the situations of video game and porn addiction don't see it as healthy either, they know and feel something is wrong with them, and by that point it becomes a compulsion. Such addictions also interfere with other aspects of life too, such as employment and finances.

Still though, it's not like social movements would play no role in curbing porn and vidya addictions. If it didn't, the NoFap movement wouldn't have come into existence. The existence of NoFap also shows that the "Porn Masturbate Orgasm" cycle, or PMO, as it's termed, is unsustainable and unsatisfying for many in the long run. Simply put, even without pathological addiction, eventually one will tire of the their right hand, and the same porn starlets and hentai tropes over and over. Only having masturbation and porn is generally not seen as a desireable outcome, and in fact TRP has been a major promoter of NoFap and breaking the PMO cycle. So, while Black Dragon is correct that those things would have a detrimental effect, they don't account for what factors are already mitigating and responding to the problem.

>Increased life spans.  Due to exploding medical technology if you’re under the age of 50 and live in the western world, it’s entirely possible that by the time you’re 100 years old, average life expectancy will be 130, 160, or even beyond that.  And yes, I’m including the fact that people are fatter.

It is not yet known for sure, but some theorize that there may be an upper bound to human lifspan at around 125 years. As it stands, the oldest verified person ever is a Frenchwoman named Jeanne Calment (1875-1997), who lived to be 122. Meanwhile, the oldest man ever, Jiroemon Kimura, lived to be 116. If we do reach very elderly ages, chances are we don't have too worry too much about gender balance. For reasons we don't quite fully understand, on average, women live longer than men, and as you reach very elderly ages, it becomes even more female dominated. 85% of centernarians are women, and there may be almost 6 female centernarians for every male. In fact, supercenternarians, who have reached age 110, are almost invariably women. So, even if there is no theoretical upper bound to age, the upper echelons may only be accessible by women. If we have our first 150 year old, my money's on the fact she'll be a woman. But, Black Dragon also accounts for extended human biology via technology.

>Soon (as in within one to three decades) it won’t matter. We’ll have hormones, DNA treatments, and/or nanobots that will take care of all that.  Even with half the population dying before the age of 77, most people can’t stay married or long-term monogamous now. What happens when people are living to 150?  And looking like they’re 40 years old well into their 90s?  Long-term monogamy will plummet and polyamory and serial monogamy will be on the rise.

I think Black Dragon's timeline of 10-30 years is too optimistic, as even if certain things can be experimentally developed, it takes far longer to mass produce them to get them to the market and to get them on the market in a reasonable cost. Even when that can be worked out, it would take longer still to undergo enough trials to be considered safe, and we can't predict what side effects would be there, as no treatment can ever fully be without side effects. It takes longer to go from pilot study to available on the market than many think, and many people get a bit too optimistic when they hear of small pilot tests. Even if we someday can have those advancements widely available, I think it'll take far longer than 10-30 years. If we are developing a 3.0, it'd happen in the next 25 years perhaps, which is likely to be long before any of these become widespread enough. So it's hard to predict how these technologies would affect things, given that we don't know many thing about side effects.

I think that serial monogamy would rise, but for a different reason though: because women tend to reach older ages first, they would be widowed more often than men are widowered. The longer you live, the more likely it is your partner will predecease you too. It may not be worth remarrying at 100 if you have only 5 more years left, but with 15 or 20 being reasonable it may be so.

>You’ll also see more social acceptance of older folks getting sexual with (legal) younger folks.  Being a 82 year-old man who looks 40 with a 19 year-old girlfriend won’t be the bizarre concept it is now.

I think that Black Dragon is underestimating the psychological changes people go through. A 40 year old with someone half their age is the exception and not the rule today even, and minus the stigma, the reason is largely psychological. Sure, a 40 year old may be attracted to that 19 year old, but can he stand to be around her more than 5 minutes? They'd be on totally different pages, and that'd go even more so for that 80 year old who's seen a whopping 60 more years of the world. The question to be asking is not if it's bizzare, but if they'd even be able to relate to each other.

>The death of privacy at least as we know it.  This is a huge topic that I could write an entire book on, but suffice it to say that because of continuing technological growth, in a decade or two (or three) the concept of privacy as we understand it will be gone...As Scott Adams has said, children born 20 years from now won’t even understand this strange thing called “privacy” their parents used to have.  If you fuck an 19 year-old girl, or jerk off four times a day, or cheat on your wife, or falsify one sentence on your resume, or regularly shave your balls, EVERYONE WILL KNOW.

To us primitives in the year 2012, this sounds horrific.  However the good news is it will be the greatest playing-field-leveler you’ve ever seen.  YOU will know everything about everyone else too.  Just imagine going out on an online first date with a gal and having every intimate detail about her life and history available in seconds on your cell phone, making it impossible for her to lie to you.  Heh heh.  Long-term monogamy and traditional divorce under such a system will essentially become impossible, since both of those things are built on deception and outward false fronts.

I'm not sure what is meant by "traditional divorce", nor what is the precise definition of "long term monogamy" (10 years? 15 years? 50 years? Til death do you part?) so I can't really bring up any statistics, nor can I really comment on to what extent that requires lying. But wouldn't a loss of privacy mean it's just better to be up front about your history? Why lie about having x many partners if they'll just find out anyways or having cheated or whatever, if it's a dealbreaker, move on and find someone it won't bother. If anything, people will know more what they're getting into beforehand and there will be no more surprises causing breakups, so people would be more likely to stay together. In addition, if future partners have a way of knowing about shady things in your past or infidelity, that may disincentivize it in the first place.

I think Black Dragon misses the most important part of the "death" of privacy though, that there will be no information asymmetry in the SMP. Information asymmetry means that one side, the buyer or the seller, knows more about the product than the other. In TRP thought, women are seen as the "sellers" and men "buyers", but this distinction is largely arbitrary, as women's choice makes them "buyers" as well. It would be better to say that each person regardless of themselves is the "seller" of themself, and the "buyer" of the other partner, and vice versa for the other partner. In the past, and arguably to an extent today, you know more about yourself than your prospective partner, who only knows maybe what you listed on OKCupid. So what's stopping you from hiding more unpleasant things and leaving the partner duped?

This is a classic problem in economics, termed "The Market for Lemons", formulated in 1970 by George Akerlof. Ackerlof discussed how buyers of cars don't know if they have bought a "peach" or good car, or a "lemon" a bad car, until they've bought it. Meanwhile, sellers know if they have a peach or a lemon. So, buyers are only willing to pay the average price of a peach and a lemon, since they don't know what they'll get. The problem with this is, peach sellers are driven out of the market since they have to sell at a loss. So the lemon sellers who are selling at a premium stay in, and average price goes down. But buyers soon find that the market is flooded with lemons, and leave the market. Eventually, the market gets flooded with lemons, with no one to buy them, and it collapses.

So how is this relevant? Some believe that the online dating market has turned into a market for lemons. Why is it that when you log into Tinder, it seems to be fat single mom after ugly circus freak after unemployed crackhead these days? It's because you can't tell if what's on their profile is truthful or not. Fat single mom may have listed her age as 21 and weight as 150 lbs, but she's actually 10 years older and 100 lbs heavier and you don't know until you see a woman with crow's feet show up on the first date riding a mobility scooter. Of course we all know what this is called, it's catfishing. People no longer want to date online if they cannot be sure that they will get the slim non-smoking 21 year old with no kids as advertised on Tinder or OkC or what have you. In addition, people who are actually high SMV are discouraged by the fact people don't trust their profiles and are driven off of online dating. Peaches leave, and the market is flooded with lemons. But, if more information is accessible than what is visible on the profile, and you can know as much about a prospect as they do, then there is no asymmetry. You'll be able to verify who's actually a peach and who's actually a lemon, and this could bring peaches back into the SMP, especially if you are dating online. As Black Dragon suggests, the restoration of informational equality will create a more even ground for 3.0. But it's worth noting both genders can catfish, and so both genders would be equally benefitted by this. People will be more likely to find partners they are satisfied with, and are more likely to stay in the relationship.

> More liberal attitudes.  Think about this for a minute.  Premarital sex was taboo just a few decades ago.   Now it’s a normal and widely accepted thing, even among teenagers.  The same goes for things like single motherhood and homosexuality.    Right now, when I talk about open relationships, a lot of people nod their heads in agreement and say “finally!”.  However at least 50% to 60% of people still cringe like I’m scraping fingernails on a chalkboard, especially when I talk about open marriage and raising kids in a discreet OLTR.

However, just like premarital sex, single mothers, and homosexuality, soon people will accept this open relationship stuff too.  In a decade or two, being married to someone you love and having wild sex with someone else on the side will be a normal and accepted thing rather than some evil awful disrespectful divorce-worthy act.

I agree, while I have my doubts that open marriages will necessarily become the most common arrangement, they will be more openly accepted. Open marriages though are rooted in consent of the other partner. Infidelity is grounds for a divorce because the other partner is not consenting. But, if consensual non monogamy is more accepted, then there would be less need for non-consensual non-monogamy. It won't quite be a free love future, but people will have more choice in if they want their relationship to be monogamous or not. It's also not like polyamory and open marriages are "sleep with whoever you want without condition" either. There can be limitations, such as "I must know who you are with and I must approve them," "You can only do it with these particular people," "You must use protection and your partners must be clean," or "You can only have sex with these people, no romantic attachments with anyone other than me." Violating these terms is as bad as cheating. The point is, what makes cheating morally wrong and polyamory not is the lack of consent and the dishonesty. You can still cheat under the 3.0 system too, by violating the terms of your open marriage or sleeping with someone other than your partner if you've agreed to be monogamous. So it's not like cheating will become more permissible, but what cheating looks like will change.

Conclusions

Overall, I give Black Dragon's model a 6/10. It's on the right track, and is most certainly a better approach than arguing over whether we should roll back to 1.0 or keep with 2.0. For the most part, the factors identified are relevant, though their exegesis of their role could be a bit more specific. In addition, they tend to overstate the role of individual factors, and they veers on the optimistic side. Most importantly, they understand the principle behind designing 3.0-- It is a better idea and more doable to give the disempowered party more power than to take power away from the overempowered side. 2.0 came about when women were given more rights due to the failings of 1.0, it did not directly involve taking away rights from men. So, 3.0 would come about from empowering men while leaving women's rights the same. Clearly, Black Dragon understands that most of the time, society becomes more liberal over time in the long run, as opposed to more conservative. So, they implicitly accept a rollback to 1.0 as unfeasible, while being aware of the issues facing 2.0, which is what anyone designing 3.0 must do.

Questions for You

  1. What do you think about Black Dragon's Model?
  2. How do you think a fair 3.0 can be designed?
  3. What factors did you think Black Dragon failed to consider, or failed to consider adequately?