—.Jack, do you see that pile of crap?
—.Yes, Tom.
—.Do you want me to give you 100 dollars if you eat it?
—.It’s a deal!
—.And now you’re Tom, do you see that pile of crap?
—.Yes, Jack.
—.Do you want me to give you 100 dollars too, and you can eat it as well?—.No problem!
—.Jack, don’t you think we’ve gotten ourselves into a load of crap for nothing?
When people decide to get married, they look for some benefit in the partner they have chosen. If we take something in order to gain a benefit, we plan to exploit it. Marriage is the intention to exploit a partner, and the entire married life is a mutual exploitation. When we enter into marriage, we always expect to receive more than we give. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called exploitation or, in more neutral terms, gaining a benefit.
Marriages in which one partner is able to exploit the other more than the other can exploit the first are short-lived. No one will tolerate exploitation and will take action to end the relationship. Balanced marriages are extremely unlikely and practically impossible. Moreover, a balanced marriage lacks meaning for both partners, as the dynamics within it closely resemble the relationships of the cowboys in the anecdote mentioned in the epigraph.
Life is filled with marriages of moderate unhappiness, where the exploited partner does not dissolve the marriage simply because they are not ready to face the costs of leaving and are willing to endure the monopoly. A marriage will be dissolved when the direct and indirect costs for the exploited partner associated with the divorce become comparable, from an investment perspective, to the losses they incur from being in the marriage daily. In other words, if one partner’s “balance sheet” results in losses of 10 arbitrary units per year, then they can consider divorce if it costs less than, say, 100 units—this depends on the feelings of the person making the decision to divorce: how far they can look into the future, how much more they are willing to endure, and so on. Accordingly, the exploiting partner adjusts their behavior so that it is not advantageous for the exploited partner to break off the relationship.
If the partner being exploited lives “for the day,” meaning they are mentally limited, then one can really take advantage of them. Such a partner compares the costs of divorce not with the expenses of being in the marriage, but with the costs of today specifically. After all, if you don’t look to the future, losing 10 units is better than losing 100 – so it seems beneficial to endure.
Marrying an unintelligent partner can be a good prospect in terms of ensuring the stability of the marriage. Moreover, the level of mutual exploitation is usually not constant. It can increase over time, for example, if one partner starts to take less from the marriage while giving more. A husband who is advancing in his career and becoming a better father and provider will contribute more to the marriage over time than a wife who may lose her physical attractiveness and fertility. Similarly, a wife who invests her energy, soul, and culture into raising children will be a more valuable resource for the family than an unemployed or alcoholic husband.
The only thing that stops people from choosing “simple but reliable guys” or “dumb but busty blondes” as partners is the culture that, due to its characteristics, needs to be passed on to the next generation just like genes. Each partner, in one way or another, expects the other to invest their culture into their shared children. If one partner is noticeably less cultured, then there’s really nothing to pass on. The meaning of marriage disappears before it even has a chance to emerge. Additionally, natural selection in humans has taken a path where not only culture but also the intelligence of a partner are clear sexual advantages. If people didn’t value their partner’s intelligence when choosing one, they would never have become a species capable of reason. Intelligence provides a clear survival advantage, making it an important factor in partner selection.
It turns out that a reliable partner is some sort of compromise between the desired high level of intelligence and culture and, at the same time, the desired limitations and inability to plan for the future beyond New Year’s. Overly intelligent people may come across as unattractive—obvious know-it-alls who are hard to deceive. On the other hand, those who are completely clueless may struggle to raise children or even to remain financially secure and healthy in the modern world. As a result, we see crowds in supermarkets on December 30, consisting of people frantically buying groceries, who can’t think beyond New Year’s and subconsciously consider it “the very last day,” yet are happy in their family lives. This group makes up the overwhelming majority. Nature and simple economic-investment logic in partner selection have ensured that people don’t become too smart or too dumb, as that could hinder their ability to reproduce.The text for translation: [1].Текст для перевода: ..
Entering into marriage, we begin a cruel and merciless game of mutual exploitation. The stakes are high – our entire lives. Attempts to guess “who’s in charge” start right at the wedding ceremony – one superstition is that whoever steps on the towel first becomes the master of the house. People are often unaware of the magnitude of the stakes and continue to play. However, if we were to ask anyone if they would be willing to gamble their entire fortune on a coin toss – heads, lose everything or tails, double it – in most cases, we would hear a refusal. People value security and instinctively avoid risks. It’s better to stay “even” than to engage in such a risky game. Moreover, unlike a coin toss, marriage is indeed mutual exploitation, and there are, in essence, no winners. You cannot maintain a marriage without contributing something from your side, and even the exploited partner forces the exploiter to put in effort so that the “net loss” does not exceed the threshold for deciding to divorce. Will it comfort a slave in the quarries to know that his overseer, also a slave, is just breaking stones in a different shift, but slightly more?
But it is not reason that leads us to marriage, but instincts. The built-in reward system within us is designed for simple communication, much like the trainer who wants to make a seal clap its flippers “in applause,” standing on a pedestal while balancing a ball on its nose. Our genes, guiding us along the path of reproduction, just like the trainer, reward us with a little treat for good behavior and whip us for bad behavior that is disadvantageous to them. Genes cannot communicate in high abstractions, so they stimulate us to follow a standard path that reliably ensures the transmission of genetic information to the next generation. Step by step: first, we are rewarded for climbing onto the pedestal. Then we are rewarded for keeping the ball on our nose, and finally – for clapping with our flippers.
The application of motivation in business should also involve rewarding not only the final results but also the intermediate steps. There’s no point in rewarding a salesperson with a larger prize than their commission for making a sale. This approach does not regulate the salesperson’s behavior or encourage them to engage in the right activities. It doesn’t help the salesperson reach a sale. Effective incentive measures should take into account the number of calls made to clients (either as a requirement or as a reward), the number of meetings held, and the number of commercial proposals sent. In sales, there is a term called “sales funnel,” which generally means that by making a certain number of calls, one can achieve a deal through several steps. The more calls made, the more meetings will be scheduled despite rejections, and consequently, the more deals will be closed. The philosophy of tracking intermediate results is also present in the BSC – Balanced Scorecard approach, which states that in addition to specific financial indicators like sales volume or profit, one should monitor clients – their quantity, quality, and satisfaction. To ensure client satisfaction, it is essential to oversee the processes, and those processes are carried out by people. Thus, a proper personnel policy can effectively lead to good sales almost automatically. Moreover, it is impossible to manage a business solely by looking at the end results – sales volume and profit. According to the BSC approach, employees are given key performance indicators in such a way that they receive bonuses for factors that directly and indirectly influence sales volume (clients, processes, personnel), rather than for the sales themselves.
The built-in reward system within us works in a similar way. There is a “standard scenario” — find a partner, engage in marriage, receive parental investments from them, and raise the next generation that will carry our genetic material. When a girl enjoys being close to a guy, her genes reward her for it — well done, good seal. The girl feels comfortable. She wants to take the next step — a kiss. For that kiss, she will also receive a little reward, and it will feel nice and cozy. Just as she will feel comfortable if she can find dry shelter during a storm — she will be rewarded for her search activity, which gives her a better chance of survival and, consequently, reproduction. The pleasure she derives from a crevice in the rock will be directly related to the level of danger posed by the storm raging outside. On a calm day, the girl will not derive any satisfaction from visiting such gloomy shelters at all. The guy will enjoy giving gifts to the girl. He will genuinely take pleasure in doing so, although, in reality, his young body is simply executing the next step that leads him to reproduction.
Over time, the trainer stops giving the seal a treat for every step it takes. The treat is given at the end of the trick if that trick needs to be repeated later. But the seal continues to perform a series of actions, driven by the hope of receiving a treat. In reality, it is not the reward itself that compels the seal to do something unusual, but the promise of that reward. The promise of a reward, rather than the reward itself, is what leads us to engage in relationships with the opposite sex, even though we receive no tangible reward. Instead, we receive an even greater promise of an even greater reward. Our genes play a game with us like a financial pyramid—offering us nothing in return while making us suffer more and more with each step we take toward happiness. Happiness? We strive to fulfill our desires, often without realizing that a person who has nothing left to wish for is much like someone who no longer wants anything at all. Apathy and depression, rather than reward, are what await us at the end of any path set by the reward system in our brains. Those who are happy are the ones who never fully achieve their goals. They do not reach the point of apathy and depression and remain full of life until the very last moment.
The reward system, like a trainer promising but not delivering a treat, tells us that everything will be fine when we find a partner. Then it assures us that everything will be great when we get married, despite the fact that marriage itself carries a 50% risk of unhappiness. Next, it promises us that having children will bring happiness. Then it asks us to be patient until they grow up. And when they do grow up, it starts demanding grandchildren. But in reality, each subsequent step brings more worries, problems, lack of freedom, and expenses. We are continually encouraged by the little highs that come with a first kiss, a child’s smile, a good grade in school, or our children’s first love. This pursuit of the next goal fills our lives with a sense of meaning that, in truth, doesn’t exist.
From an economic, management, and risk management perspective, it would make more sense to have children without getting married, while outsourcing all the “marital services.” This is increasingly the approach taken by wealthy men who purchase donor eggs, selecting a biological mother from a donor bank, pay for a surrogate mother’s services, and enter into a contractual marriage with a third party. For them, the costs of such arrangements are more acceptable than the risks associated with marrying the mother of their children. However, in most cases, men are not able to give birth themselves, and women are unable to work for some time before and after childbirth, thus often requiring support. At the same time, a wealthy woman, just like a wealthy man, also benefits from giving birth independently, choosing a high-quality male donor or selecting a suitable candidate from a sperm bank.
A man or woman at the top of the social, cultural, or intellectual pyramid, when entering into marriage, is more likely to be the exploited party rather than the exploiter. Their parental investments and level of culture will enable them to give more than they take from the marriage, while their intelligence, capable of thinking ahead, will drive them towards divorce and lead to their unhappiness.
To transition from a model of mutual exploitation to one of mutual benefit, it is essential to turn off desires and instincts and make a sober, thoughtful decision that has no place for words like “love,” “attachment,” or “passion.” The instincts that gradually push us into the debt pit of mutual exploitation are satisfied at the most primitive, transactional level of the deal. A good indicator of a transactional deal is the amount of time we spend contemplating the agreement and the number of emotions involved in its conclusion. The less emotion and the more contemplation there is, the more the deal resembles a consultative or strategic arrangement. A happy marriage, sustained by instincts, is dependent on those very instincts. For instance, couples driven by instincts who do not observe a consistent annual increase in offspring must either part ways or seek adventures outside the family, as the “infertility assessment module” embedded in each of us will begin to prompt spouses to change partners. People have always sought protection against such behavior, starting with purely manipulative techniques like organizing an expensive wedding and extending to legal prohibitions on divorce and adultery. Nowadays, these measures are becoming less relevant. The institution of marriage still exists primarily because it has transformed or is transforming into a purely economic, non-exploitative, but rather mutually beneficial arrangement. A modern marriage is essentially a consumer cooperative, where participants benefit from the shared use of material goods. Thus, in addition to mutual biological exploitation, partners in a marriage begin to receive clear material benefits, spending significantly less money and resources on their lives and daily needs while protecting themselves from temporary disruptions such as illness or job loss.
However, marriage is economically beneficial for partners only as long as they do not have children. The presence of children negates the economic advantages for those in the marriage. Children require resources and time, increase risks, and reduce freedom. There is no economic benefit in feeding a few more mouths, hoping to get a glass of water from them before you die. If there is no economic benefit, yet children still come into the world, it means there is a biological one. Our genes are least concerned with the prosperity of each of us, but most with the prosperity of our offspring. Our genes will try to make us feel unhappy without children if our reproductive program is not turned off for some reason. In this case, marriage can also be viewed as a mutually beneficial arrangement, where the necessary resource costs for raising the next generation are shared between both parents, while both parents fully experience the happiness, or rather the highs, of motherhood and fatherhood.
In essence:
- Marriage is a mutual exploitation. The mutual benefits of marriage can only be realized if there are no plans for children.
- If you belong to the “elite of society” — possessing outstanding “marketable” traits in the sexual marketplace such as wealth, intelligence, culture, and physical appearance — it may be wise for you to avoid marriage, as you are likely to become a victim of exploitation rather than an exploiter.
- The overly intelligent don’t reproduce. They become smarter than their genes.
- Instincts lead us to marriage. However, once we embark on the path laid out by our genes, we are doomed to an eternal search for happiness, but not happiness itself.
- The best approach is to choose a partner with your mind, before you are in love with them. Love will come; it will kick in automatically if you maintain a close and friendly relationship based on mutual support and benefit with someone of the opposite sex for long enough.