For Sex or Money

So I read the blog post by Professor Robin Hanson that started the whole "redistribute sex" hullabaloo, and I think I agree with his point (way down at the end) that most of what people are reacting to is their reflexive disgust at the "incel" movement.

And I suspect that this is something that people should tune into a bit more. The ire that Professor Hanson has brought down upon his head is mostly, I suspect, driven by the idea that "If a person cannot find a partner who is willing to sleep with them, then they should become used to the idea of celibacy." And people who find that unpalatable are "stupid rude obnoxious arrogant clueless smelly people" of little "moral or personal worth." Okay fair enough. But, and this is what the Professor is asking, why is "If a person cannot find an employer who is willing to pay them well for their labor, then they should become used to the idea of poverty," considered heartless by so many?

If it's legitimate for those of us who are satisfied with the amount of sex we have in our lives to be completely unsympathetic to the plight of those who don't, why should there be anything wrong with those who are satisfied with the amount of money they possess being similarly unsympathetic to the poor?

I'm going to hazard a guess that a lot of it has to do with general public attitudes towards sex, and the relative ease of obtaining it. People understand that one can be effectively locked out of the world of a well-paying job through no fault of one's own, but if one is effective locked out of romantic love and sex, it must be through a direct personal flaw, and one that's easily correctable at that. An acceptable sex life then, is infinitely easier to obtain than an acceptable financial life.

And as I understand it, Professor Hanson's point is that this distinction is fundamentally arbitrary. It's a social convention that most of us never give any thought to. People understand how capricious societal standards of attractiveness can be; there are even people who see the shunning that not living up to those standards can produce as harmful. But our sympathies end when someone goes from being desperately lonely to violently angry, even if we tolerate violent anger in other contexts. This isn't something that we have any real need to change. It is, however, worth understanding.