Has intelligence become less valuable in todays dating society?

YtBlue · 2023-12-31T17:55:58+00:00

Problem is people don't view intelligence correctly. Just because someone does dumb things online, doesn't mean they're stupid. Smart people understand that really stupid actions get views. So they replicate that

DesertShifter · 2023-12-31T18:04:59+00:00

Education is a proxy for intelligence but it's not a guarantee of it. Intelligence is also more sought after now than it was before as nerdy hobbies and media have never been more popular.

The issue today is mostly errors with perception. People perceive things as too expensive because we perceive the world from the POV of singles rather than from that of couples. Two average earning people are in the top 20% of earners when they couple up/marry and can afford a lot, but since people see things from a single's POV most will tell you that things are unaffordable and that dating another average earner is insane and a horrible financial decision. Same thing with status, women are highly educated and believe this grants them some form of status, to the point that I've seen a college grad earning $45k as a lab technician outright state that a man earning 6 figures with his own small business is beneath her, despite earning over double her salary, just because he didn't have a college degree.

People's perceptions, valuations and expectations are highly flawed and misaligned, causing most of the issues with the dating market today.

boom-wham-slam · 2023-12-31T18:05:27+00:00

You mistake intelligence for wisdom, skill, character, and other factors. Intelligence was never a characteristic that was important and likely will never be.

You say "rather than security"...

Security, wealth, power is not about intelligence. So sorry math nerds, your intelligence in raw format is generally useless in the dating arena, short of how it can be used to gain wealth status power etc.

Ok-Excitement-6643 · 2023-12-31T18:58:14+00:00

Intelligence has become less valuable because we see how attractive someone is and we think their look is their character, when in fact it's just a mask. It's not just women, it's men too. Men aren't picking solely on intelligence.

wtknight · 2023-12-31T23:19:59+00:00

A man being a witty and interesting conversationalist is partly intelligence, and I think many women do value this. So no, I don't think that it's less valuable. It's just the boring type of intelligence that many women don't really like.

SecondEldenLord · 2023-12-31T18:58:22+00:00

Yes, it has, especially in dating. Humans, and women especially, are extremly visual creatures, women don't give a flying fuck about a man's intelligence, they give a fuck about his money and looks only, that's about it.

friendlystranger4u · 2023-12-31T19:31:40+00:00

The higher the IQ a man has, the more likely he is to be a virgin. Intelligence has never been an attractive trait for most women, otherwise we'd all have ashkenazi/singapore IQ's by now. To their lizard brain/hormones, being a tall/chiseled/perfect hairline Chad is a far better prospect than a weedy/short, 145 IQ software engineer even in 2024. Our primal attraction priorities are still in stone age settings, trying to make it till the next sunrise. Very few women get wet because you can talk all night about differential equations.

AceOfSpadesGymBro3 · 2023-12-31T18:14:22+00:00

I'm old. Older than most of you. I'm high school all the dumb jocks had no trouble getting laid. It was the Uber intelligent nerds who never got any.

Bandit174 · 2023-12-31T18:05:26+00:00

I don't think intelligence has ever mattered for casual sex. What's changed is that since we marry later there's now a longer casual dating phase before people pair off. So it takes longer before intelligence matters and really intelligence only benefits you in long-term dating to the extent it has made you financially stable. If you're MENSA but haven't done fuckall with it and have an average job it's not going to do you any favors for long-term dating either.

mobjack · 2023-12-31T18:52:16+00:00

College educated women strongly prefer college educated men for long term relationships.

A degree and white collar job brings you social status beyond money.

eye_of_gnon · 2023-12-31T20:19:16+00:00

Women have always wanted fun over the "secure option", that's nothing new lol.

Smart guys with good jobs are often quite boring. Smart guys who are exciting usually share interests with the woman, and often it's something dorky that many women don't like.

AloneOnTheStrange · 2024-01-01T03:24:20+00:00

Has it ever been valuable? Have you ever heard girls talking about how good a guy's grades are while swooning?

Despite being a species that thrived on intelligence, attraction is almost entirely built on hunter gatherer traits. Leadership, physical prowess, height.

Somehow, attraction to intelligence never evolved. Or worse, intelligence can be a turn off. I can only speculate as to why.

Maybe it was considered a sign of weakness. "Eww, Grug need shiney rock on spear. That mean Grug bad hunter."

Maybe the intelligent were distrusted and outcast, by leaders that feared being usurped by cunning.

Or, it could have little to do with evolution, and more of a social construct. In most of civilised history, intelligence meant education, which was only afforded to the wealthy. It was appreciated as far as it was a status symbol.

Today intelligence is not seen as much different. Having a degree is more important than how knowledgeable you are in that field. With the cost of living and life stresses being as it is, it favours those who are able to be supported through their studies.

Of course I have to mention social media and technology. Technology designed to distract us with continuous doses of dopamine. Making us impatient, and easily bored with anything that takes the time to be substantial.

TermAggravating8043 · 2023-12-31T18:13:04+00:00

Being educated does not mean you are intelligent, someone can be awful at school but flourish when they reach the job market, likewise a doctor can be the top his career yet struggle to make basic conversation, it just depends on the person

Traditionally, if you were highly educated, you were respected unconditionally, regardless of anything else. Nowadays, perhaps due to the power of the internet and social media, being highly educated comes across as arrogant, snobbish and unkind

januaryphilosopher · 2023-12-31T18:08:56+00:00

It doesn't seem to have really changed much. Generally people want to date others of similar intelligence so they don't feel belittled, frustrated or bored. I know a significant amount of very smart men and women and having an intelligent partner is usually a top trait for them, but if they aren't snobbish they'll usually recognise that doesn't require a million degrees.

kkkan2020 · 2023-12-31T18:34:39+00:00

Intelligence is but one component of the overall puzzle.

Waschbar-krahe · 2023-12-31T18:51:14+00:00

I think rather than becoming overall less valued, western society has splintered into sects that value different things. personally? I think intelligence is one of the most important things someone can have, especially emotional intelligence.

macone235 · 2023-12-31T19:18:34+00:00

In a way, yes. Not just today's society, but since the Neolithic resolution we've seen a decrease in selection for intelligence that has caused our brains to shrink. Social dominance is much more valuable now, because of abundance. Why date a nerd when you can date the guy that dominates the nerd and take his resources?

Still, intelligence isn't just one person's brain, but the collective intelligence of ourselves, others, and our ancestors, which means we've still been able evolve to become more intelligent and that's important to society (if not so much mating) to ensure progress continues and our lives become better.

WilliamWyattD · 2023-12-31T20:59:29+00:00

There's always going to be diminishing returns on these things, so 1SD above average IQ makes you more attractive than the next Standard Deviation will, and so on.

Moreover, past a point, being very intelligent naturally seems to make it more difficult to really connect with average people. This will cost someone in attractiveness with said average people.

Creation_Soul · 2023-12-31T18:06:19+00:00

intelligence in its raw form (just knowing lots of stuff) is just not fun. Intelligence filtered through other social skills will get you lots of bonus points.

spanglesandbambi · 2023-12-31T17:58:40+00:00

Education means different things to different people. I have never dated alone for more than 2 days. If I don't feel they are as educated or more educated than me, I have a Master's for context. However, this doesn't mean they need a degree higher or equal to mine but need to be able to maintain an interesting conversation.

I wouldn't think it's less valued, but it is far more common, at least in England, for someone to have a degree, so it's almost expected.

Life-Illustrator-217 · 2023-12-31T18:14:38+00:00

The problem is most intelligent guys are kinda pussies. Like you get to know some of these more awkward characters and sometimes they end up being really witty and funny once you get to know them. But they are too scared to take the social risk of making some witty comment.

Or like I would say if you can always think of fun plans or solutions to problems, stuff to do for cheap, that's probably attractive to women. The problem is a lot of intelligent dudes are overly anxious so instead of doing stuff like that they scrupulate over all the problems and things that can go wrong with other people ideas. I remember going on a hike with a group, and this nature park was split into two zones. We only had a pass on the car for one zone. We accidently walked to the second zone and nobody noticed but this one guy who started freaking out about how we didn't pay and how the park rangers would find us and give us tickets. Which everyone was annoyed by. Ironically if he would have initially proposed "hey guys, why don't we park in park A then we can get out of paying anymore if we just walk to park B" everyone would have thought he was cool.

If you win some math competition but can't look a woman in the eyes you aren't gonna be some slayer.

Valuable-Marzipan761 · 2023-12-31T18:39:25+00:00

There's never been a time that education is the only way to achieve success. Why is that a bad thing? Would it be better if dating success was based on academic qualifications?

Sharp_Engineering379 · 2023-12-31T18:41:46+00:00

Are you referring to SAT scores, emotional intelligence, or the total package? Because someone with a perfect SAT doesn’t read as “intelligent” if he’s peculiar or can’t manage casual conversation.

SDW137 · 2023-12-31T19:31:10+00:00

I would say yes, as you can't really measure intelligence on dating apps, and dating apps have taken over dating. Looks are the first thing you see on there.

captainhowdy82 · 2023-12-31T19:59:52+00:00

Why would women need to date for security when they can take care of themselves now? Also, intelligence and security are not the same thing.

MikeArrow · 2023-12-31T20:36:48+00:00

Everyone's 'intelligent' in their own way. You know what's harder than reading a book? Getting washboard abs.

LeggyProgressivist · 2023-12-31T21:24:26+00:00

Intelligence is incredibly subjective. There’s no singular agreed upon definition for what constitutes it. You can struggle in some situations and excel in others purely based on natural talent. Influencers tend to rank high in social skills, media awareness and marketing. They thrive in situations that allow them to promote themselves as a brand. As such, they tend to choose partners that can propel them forward in their respective industry. People tend to date within their social networks, so it makes sense that an influencer would probably not date a guy who’s a white collar data scientist with no social media presence.

In the same vein, people who value other forms of intelligence will prefer to date others who share a similar view of the world. Doctors date doctors/nurses. Lawyers prefer people with a similar educational background. You’re not likely to see people dating purely based on looks like social media makes it seem. Do people to prefer to be partnered with people they find physically appealing? Of course. But people tend to laser focus on the looks aspect because it’s the most glaring indicator of attractiveness. TRP tends to ignore other aspects of compatibility because it doesn’t fit neatly into their hierarchical framework of society. I don’t put so much emphasis on looks because it’s superficial and offers nothing of substance in terms of a long lasting relationship.

FebruaryEightyNine · 2023-12-31T21:42:42+00:00

From what I’ve noticed way too many people nowadays can make success in other means beyond education in which was what primarily required education to flourish.

Loool what the fuck does this even mean???

My plumber, HVAC, electrician and mechanic probably don't have much in the way of a formal/university education either....but I sure as fuck wouldn't want to live in a world without drainage, heating, AC power or a car.

It's also pretty well known that many of those on the forefront of such inventions were often independent hobbyists rather than strictly those with extensive academic rigour.

If anything I think the opposite. I actually think a decent portion of the men struggling today aren't just the economically disadvantaged but also the overeducated white collar class. I don't thunk they suffer as badly as the working class incels, but theyre largely Redditor types who may not be completely devoid of pussy but they, for the most part, don't court the attention of the anyone but the bottom 20% of women because they erroneously believe their pointless knowledge of "nerdy" facts and nice guy persona somehow makes them deserving of female attention.

kochIndustriesRussia · 2023-12-31T21:44:52+00:00

Yes and no. If you're an illiterate and/or totally ignorant of anything going on in the world...a more intelligent person will likely struggle to find you attractive...even if you've got money and status.

Likewise....if you're a MENSA alum... but you're broke and live in a ghetto....no non-ghetto peeps are gonna pay you any attention.

Purple_Kangaroo8549 · 2024-01-01T04:50:47+00:00

Yes, because women no longer factor in economic success or contribution as much which is often correlated with intelligence they can use other metrics resulting in a disastrous outcome.

Gundam_net · 2024-01-01T12:15:32+00:00

Honest answer is yes. People today care more about money and income than abiut intelligence. People who claim to want educated men just want a man with a job that requires a degree and has a salary over $65,000/year.

That's it. Education is euated to income. That's the result of a public school system, as the purpose of education has never had anything to do with income and it is possible to be educated and low income but the public school system specifically has always been about income and economics. The motto of public schools has always been something like "we need workers not thinkers."

It is also possible to be intelligent and low income. In fact, intelligence has two tails. On both extremes, high and low intelligence, people tend to have lower incomes than the middle 98% (two standard deviations from the mean).

For high incomes, being in the second standard deviation from the mean yields the greatest incomes. These people are typically your average doctor, lawyer and engineer. They are what women want, typically, when they say they like education. They don't normally want the philosophy lecturer or grad student, or the physics professor.

So I think you're right. A youtube star, as an example, should hace no issues dating as their income is sufficently high.

Mentathiel · 2024-01-01T14:10:00+00:00

I think we assortatively mate for intelligence pretty hc cross-culturally, I don't think it's going away. Both genders want to date someone close to their intelligence level. It may not apply to more casual hookups and those kinds of situations as much as it does to looking for LTR.

SleepingInAt11 · 2024-01-01T09:01:53+00:00

ABSOLUTELY, I speak 2 languages, code 3 languages, and sign language, and Morse code. I'm still not good enough because I'm not 6 ft.

Negus808 · 2023-12-31T19:17:37+00:00

intelligence never was important as long as people liked the experience with their partner

Gold_Supermarket1956 · 2023-12-31T19:24:10+00:00

People only care about tangible benefits now days and intelligence isn't tangible, has value but not in the short term

DarayRaven · 2023-12-31T18:05:56+00:00

There's no selection pressure for women to choose for survival traits such as intelligence

Tripp_583 · 2023-12-31T20:14:33+00:00

Have you seen Tik tok? Of course it has!

giveuporfindaway · 2023-12-31T22:06:42+00:00

Not important. Women are selecting for an idiocracy. There's evidence that world IQ has already gone down. Girls just want to have fun.

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Just_Natural_9027 · 2023-12-31T17:59:18+00:00

No the complete opposite more education has a significant correlation with romantic success.

szclimber · 2023-12-31T18:41:43+00:00

Yes. There are different types of intelligence though and some have become more valuable. Social, entertainment and attention intelligence are more valuable now than ever before. Math and science intelligence are less valuable.

Bikerbats · 2023-12-31T19:13:58+00:00

Which is it op? Your title says society, the body of text focuses on dating. Intelligence is extremely important for the first, but not the second. Emotional intelligence is far more important for dating.

Hoopy223 · 2023-12-31T20:33:22+00:00

In America? 100% yes lol and it’s way beyond dating or financial success

Literacy rates are low - a school with 65% literacy in America is considered “good”

Comic book movies for adults make billions of dollars, garbage electronically generated rap music, the wet pussy song whatever - the vast majority of art our society produces is worthless and will not be remembered

Obesity in America - most people are too fat, some people eat to the point they cannot move under their own power or fit into a regular chair, fat models/influencers glorify their piggish lifestyle etc

Most people have no idea how our government or monetary policy works so everyone is sitting around wondering why everything costs so much and wages are so low while simultaneously voting for the same people who screwed them to keep on screwing them

We are probably ~30 years from Idiocracy or complete Totalitarianism

Konoha_Shinobee · 2024-01-01T00:55:28+00:00

I don't know that intelligence was ever valued in dating. You've made the assumption that the intelligent people are the ones with the most resources, and that isn't true.

The people with the most resources are the people whose parents had the most resources. That's the way it is, that's the way it was, that's the way it will be.

caboosenoob · 2024-01-01T08:26:57+00:00

> From what I’ve noticed way too many people nowadays can make success in other means beyond education in which was what primarily required education to flourish.

That's an interesting position to take, because it's the opposite from my POV. As a man without education today your options to get paid well* are either the trades (which will only give you moderate success as a W2 worker at best) or opening a business (risky, and pretty dependent on your intelligence). You might also have a decent career in sales or something similar, but the outcomes there are very uneven.

Every other high or well-paying option is gated behind a degree or some type of intelligence. Engineers, doctors, lawyers, finance bros, tech bros. And hell, even in these fields you typically don't get the real big bucks without being near the top. For example, most lawyers don't even crack 200k a year; if you aren't in big law you don't have the kind of money people respect lawyers for. You need to be pretty intelligent for that since you typically need to go to a top law school.

And this is just the money factor, nothing to speak of regarding status. I don't think people value intelligence directly but it does give you some benefits indirectly even if it's not perfectly correlated. How much it's valued does absolutely depend on where you're looking, though.

*This is discounting any ultra-rare options like being an influencer which are uncommon enough that it's not worth talking much about.

Cethlinnstooth · 2024-01-01T08:59:31+00:00

Intelligence has parted company with wisdom for a great number of men. A fool who can code is still a fool. He's a fool with a boring sedentary job and bad posture from hunching all day.

AidsVictim · 2024-01-01T10:47:44+00:00

It depends on your class and social circle. Is your social circle primarily grad students, higher level corporate types, or simply wealth high achievers? Then it's quite important. Are you working class making average wages, muddled through a bachelors with a make work white collar job, or making money through marginal/black/grey market work? Then it's maybe (high achieving blue collar types for instance typically are still higher IQ) less important.

Overall intelligence is maybe more important than ever. However due to fertility crash among the middle and UMC the effect is dysgenic as IQ falls for the general populace. The argument can be made that since women place less importance on money and more on "fun" that possibly has a negative IQ association as well.

one_time_animal · 2024-01-01T11:13:17+00:00

It's probably less important in having many sex partners than we'd hope but not really. The average married man at 45 makes 85 k and the average unmarried man makes 50k I believe. That's an enormous difference along the bell curve.

I find a lot of blue collar people are full of shit about how much money they make, and a lot of the times something is paying out great it's temporary, whereas if you have a 5 years as a doctor or lawyer or an engineer you'll be making good money forever as long as you want to stay in those careers.

Sales guys will round up their best month ever and pretend that, oh I'm making 12X that for the year all the time when really the market for whatever they were selling was just really hot for a short period of time.

Sales and plumbing and welding are really just memes that the 2/3rds of people that didn't get a college degree hold onto to pretend they're just as good. To be fair to them degrees are cheapening as more and more institutions look to make money by conferring them, and the worse the major the more uselss they are. 100% of political science degrees from HArvard might be worth something, but only the top 10% from I don't know, Midwestern State University or Eastern Mennonite University or CUNY Hunter College are worth anything. And the kids that go and get those degrees are lying to themselves and have igorned all evidence. They ignored that their high schools were not ranked well, that they did not perform well in their high schools, that their SAT scores were not good. And yet they went and spent 10s of thousands to get a degree everyone knows is easy.

Essentially all that means that intelligence isn't as strongly correlative to a single factor of degree, but if you look at degree, school, major then the correlation is a lot stronger.

And a lot of the people that find and can work in non-degree niche jobs that make good money are intelligetn people taht didn't go to school. So

Nihi1986 · 2024-01-01T14:37:10+00:00

Intelligence, depending on how it manifests (speech, culture, navigating through life, money, status...) can be more or less valuable though it's certainly less valuable nowadays for relationships.

MidoriEgg · 2024-01-01T15:02:25+00:00

This is a weird one, I know it isn’t directly related to intelligence, but since you mentioned education; it wasn’t usual for people of my parents generation (like born in the 60s/70s) to pursue higher education, and was seen as something for the upper class.

banalredditing · 2024-01-01T17:11:26+00:00

The term intelligence has joined autism and gluten intolerance, where they have expanded their definition to the point where it's meaningless.

Most intelligent guys aren't intelligent, they are average, socially awkward and have nerd hobbies.

CraftyCooler · 2024-01-01T20:04:30+00:00

People tend to expect similar level of intellectual capabilities from their partners - there is a ton of research on that. Since we have growing percentage of educated people, especially women - then 'intelligence' becomes more important in dating world. There is also way harder to climb the social ladder without education - since most middle class jobs is either in corporate world or requires highly specialized skills(like doctors, lawyers etc.). We are many years past the era of small retailers, tiny workshops, little factories and other things that could give you decent income without any education in the past. Education premium is growing - especially for graduates of top universities.

pizzapizzaisbad · 2024-01-02T04:13:25+00:00

If you're not a comedian and an actor in looks like Ryan Reynolds, most women would not even consider your existence. For them, you are just background noise.

EugeneCezanne · 2024-01-02T06:21:19+00:00

Education isn't intelligence. Moreover, it's not as though you can walk around with your IQ printed on a nametag and expect to generate interest. In order for intelligence to be helpful in dating, you have to be able to demonstrate it socially, which is an entirely different skill.

If you are intelligent AND socially skilled enough to convey it in a charming way, it will indeed help you get women.

Mr_Chad_Thunderpenis · 2024-01-02T12:40:54+00:00

Recent study I remember psyhacks has quoted a few times, called "What attractive women want" or something along those lines, found out that when it comes to what traits a woman wants in a man the top traits were first "sexy"(basically physically attractive), followed by "successful"(money/status basically), followed by "honest" iirc. "Loyal" wasn't in the top traits. And the two traits at the bottom of the list? "Kind" and "intelligent". Funny how that works out especially when they are very vocal about wanting kind and intelligent men.

safestuff987 · 2024-01-02T16:48:17+00:00

Intelligence is still very much valued, it's just that there's more than one way to be intelligent. Two examples are "book smart" and "people smart". Book smarts are valued, but people smarts are what give you the actual skills to be successful in dating and relationships.

People who are very book smart often aren't very people smart, and as such tend to struggle with dating. This is what gives the impression that intelligence isn't valued, when really these people just lack the interpersonal skills to not struggle with dating.

politburobro · 2024-01-03T04:01:38+00:00

Yes.

Genetic looks are worshipped

Title	Has intelligence become less valuable in todays dating society?
Author	MajesticRate1818
Upvotes	38
Comments	167
Date	December 31, 2023 5:54 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/18vd43g/has_intelligence_become_less_valuable_in_todays/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/has-intelligence-become-less-valuable-in-todays.1241963 https://theredarchive.com/post/1241963

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