💘 Is Modern Dating about Love? Status? or Desire?

Why we picked it

Jiang's "The Dating Game" Philosophy + Social Theory Night - watch/read beforehand) Check out the links/Videos at the bottom of the page for more info on the topic. We live in a culture that pretends desire is personal. Your type. Your standards. Your chemistry. Your choice. But look a little closer and it starts to feel less private than that. Taste gets socialized. Attraction gets ranked. Profiles become brands. People talk like they're "just following what they want" while quietly responding to status, scarcity, image, and comparison. In the first class of his Game Theory course, Jiang makes a blunt argument: modern dating is not mainly about romance. It's a game of players, rules, and incentives. And once status becomes the main incentive, the system stops rewarding cooperation and starts rewarding display. His claim doesn't stop at dating apps or hookup culture. He pushes it all the way to falling birth rates, demographic aging, and civilizational decline. That's the argument we