So Many Unmarried Men

Dating, Marriage, and Mental Overhead

• Several posters say modern app-driven dating feels like a “second job” or “fast fashion,” with interviews, hookups, and constant novelty that are mentally exhausting.
• Some argue staying single can increase focus and cognitive sharpness, especially in demanding tech careers.
• Others counter that marriage or long-term partnership also brings overhead (childcare, coordination, potential divorce), but can share burdens, deepen perspective, and foster growth.

Career vs Relationships

• A recurring tension: using youth to “grind” on career vs investing in personal life.
• Some regret-heavy warnings: life options narrow faster than expected; focusing solely on career may not look meaningful in retrospect.
• Others jokingly embrace careerism and shareholder value, highlighting the absurdity of that as a life goal.

Experiences of Divorce and Singlehood

• Multiple detailed accounts of divorce: from amicable to devastating, with lasting emotional, financial, and mental impacts.
• Some divorced posters now avoid relationships entirely, citing prior over-responsibility and “servitude.”
• Others emphasize modeling healthy relationships for children and staying open to future partners as part of healing.

Philosophy, Bias, and Life Experience

• Strong disagreement over the article’s premise that many “great” philosophers were unmarried and that this deeply shapes their thought.
• Some see life experience (family, children) as expanding one’s philosophical range; others reject the idea that personal circumstances should heavily determine philosophical validity.
• One view: bias is unavoidable; the problem is claiming a “view from nowhere” while smuggling in one’s own bias.

Midgley and the Article’s Claims

• Skeptics argue the article overstates Midgley’s originality and marginalization; similar points about unmarried philosophers predate her.
• Others reply that her context (postwar British philosophy) was unusually narrow and dismissive of “entangled” everyday concerns.
• Some find specific arguments (e.g., pregnancy vs Cartesian skepticism) philosophically weak.

Gender, Labor, and Feminist Epistemology

• Debate over feminist theories of knowledge: critics see a slide toward valorizing subjectivity; defenders say traditional epistemology ignores many important, hard-to-model facts.
• Sharp dispute over domestic and emotional labor: one side claims women rarely contribute equally; others call that projection, note cultural variance, and stress individual differences over gender generalizations.

Demographics and Birth Rates

• Thread touches on sub-replacement fertility: some see it as neutral stabilization; others warn of demographic “collapse” and intergenerational fiscal strain.
• No consensus on severity or solutions; views range from techno-optimist to “fix the economic Ponzi scheme” to skepticism of alarmism.

Attitudes Toward Philosophy as a Discipline

• Some describe philosophy as life-enriching, akin to religion when tied to action.
• Others see academic philosophy and its practitioners as arrogant or socially inept, though several participants argue that this is a misrepresentation of the field’s best practice.