Based Camp - Why Women Can't Find Men in China (Yes You Read That Right)

00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing

00:00:04.000 marriage in China, which has a very interesting phenomenon in which women, now everybody knows 0.98

00:00:12.400 for a long time, you know, that China, because of the one child policy, people didn't want girls

00:00:17.820 because they couldn't carry on the family name. They couldn't, you know, take care of you as

00:00:21.460 easily when they're older, et cetera. And so they would find ways to have boys, which meant there

00:00:27.280 was a huge extra amount of boys in China. Right. So you would think the demographic that is having

00:00:34.780 trouble finding a partner is boys, right? That would be my assumption. Right. So I'll go over

00:00:43.920 how bad things actually are in the opposite direction. We will then get into the common

00:00:49.580 explanations people have, why I don't think they're good, and what a good explanation is.

00:00:54.780 Ooh. So at an event in 2025, this was a Shanghai matchmaking event. A mass matchmaking event in

00:01:01.660 Shanghai had nearly 1,000 women who paid a 601 entry fee to attend, but fewer than 50 men showed up.

00:01:11.740 Ouch. 600 women to 50 men. This just seems like a bad marketing thing though, don't you think?

00:01:17.780 No? No, because you'll see that this happens a lot. Organizers noted that when a single man did appear,

00:01:22.860 he was swarmed like a minor celebrity, with women rushing to compete for his attention.

00:01:28.320 In some cities, similar events have reported zero male attendees, despite hundreds of women waiting.

00:01:34.160 Gosh. In Shanghai, there are plenty of unmarried women coming to my matchmaking events, 1.00

00:01:39.100 but hardly any unmarried men. Nowadays, it seems that for every one Shanghai man,

00:01:43.880 there are several, or even over a dozen, women competing. And the women are really desperate. 1.00

00:01:48.620 It's not that they don't want a partner. If there are no men, how can they find one?

00:01:53.300 So now, whenever one man shows up, everyone rushes for him. This has been going on for a long time.

00:01:59.440 A few months ago, Shanghai held a rather special matchmaking event with an interesting rule.

00:02:04.600 Every woman had to pay 600 yuan, while men could attend for free. The women expected a flood of male 1.00

00:02:10.500 participants, but to everyone's surprise, nearly 1,000 women showed up, while fewer than 50 men participated.

00:02:16.440 The Gongzong Singles Fair in 2024, a government-sponsored single fair in Gongzho,

00:02:22.780 had over 800 women registered, but only 40 men attend, resulting to a 20 to 1 female to male ratio.

00:02:30.520 What is going on, especially considering the population skew?

00:02:36.300 The 20 to 25 saw women lining up to meet the few men present, with organizers noting that the men 0.75

00:02:42.460 were quote-unquote overwhelmed, and left due to the intense attention.

00:02:46.460 I can't take all these women! 1.00

00:02:48.340 No! 0.84

00:02:48.760 Do any women! 1.00

00:02:49.800 Get away! 1.00

00:02:52.440 My God.

00:02:54.220 It's raiding women. 1.00

00:02:56.440 In the Changjoo blind date market, this was in 2023, in Changjoo, a park-based matchmaking

00:03:02.340 event organized by parents saw a significant gender imbalance.

00:03:05.860 Of the 158 profiles posted, 70% were for women.

00:03:11.100 My Lord.

00:03:12.500 In Beijing's Valentine's Day event in 2024, a Valentine's Day matchmaking event in Beijing

00:03:16.840 organized by a local marriage agency drew 600 women but 25 men, making it a 24 to 1 ratio.

00:03:24.100 Now, here you might be saying, well, it's because men don't want to get married anymore in China.

00:03:31.500 All right?

00:03:32.000 So we're going to go over two polls, right?

00:03:33.960 Okay.

00:03:34.220 One poll done by the 2021 Communist Youth League survey found that 44% of Chinese women do not

00:03:41.020 plan to marry, but only 25% of men plan to not marry.

00:03:44.120 So actually, men want to get married at almost double the rate of women.

00:03:47.260 And another poll showed that around 75 to 80% of urban women under 30, oh, this one showed

00:03:55.080 women slightly higher, plan to get married compared to 60 to 70% of men.

00:03:57.900 So in some polls, you see it, but it seems that it's either around the same or men dramatically

00:04:03.580 more than women want to get married. 1.00

00:04:06.020 Sure.

00:04:06.400 So what the F is going on here, right?

00:04:09.220 Yeah.

00:04:09.920 And to give you an idea of how important this is, demographically speaking, because people

00:04:13.620 don't realize how modern this phenomenon is and how quickly things are dropping.

00:04:17.140 So in 2024, the number of registered marriages in China hit a record low since records began

00:04:22.700 in 1980, falling to 6.1 million couples, a 20% drop from 2023.

00:04:29.380 So 2023 to 2024 is a 20.5% drop.

00:04:33.580 And it's already in 2024 at less than half the number of marriages that there were in

00:04:39.280 2013.

00:04:40.600 What is happening?

00:04:41.880 And if we go sort of year by year to show how quickly this is dropping, between 2023

00:04:48.560 and 2024, you had a 20.5% drop.

00:04:51.420 Then by, what was it, H1, 2024, the first half, you had another 12.7% drop.

00:04:57.560 And in the second half, you had-

00:04:58.320 There's an acceleration taking place.

00:05:00.160 Because I just figured everyone is thinking this too.

00:05:02.660 So I'm just going to say it.

00:05:03.660 Oh, well, because for men in China, it's too expensive to get married.

00:05:07.740 But no, something new is happening.

00:05:10.140 This is new and accelerated.

00:05:10.900 Yeah, that doesn't really explain it.

00:05:12.240 So yeah, I can go and we'll read into some of the explanations.

00:05:16.080 But the first thing that everyone always says is, well, in China, there's this huge stigma

00:05:21.240 against women who are too old, right? 1.00

00:05:23.960 Or women who are, you know, women are supposed to get married young. 1.00

00:05:27.300 Yeah, what do they call leftover women? 1.00

00:05:28.600 There's supposed to be free-oriented.

00:05:29.380 Yeah.

00:05:29.680 Yes, it's a leftover woman trope. 1.00

00:05:31.060 And it's like, even if this stigma were true, okay, the high-valued men would secure, because

00:05:38.560 like, sleeping around culture in China and stuff like that, like the problems we have

00:05:42.140 in the US, this isn't really that common in China.

00:05:44.320 To give you an idea of what I mean when I say it's rare for women in China to sleep around, 1.00

00:05:48.240 one study showed that in China, for women ages 20 to 44, only 6.5% reported two or more

00:05:58.540 lifetime partners, sexual partners, that is.

00:06:01.760 Right?

00:06:02.360 Like, it's not common to just like date around and sleep around and, you know, the Chad

00:06:07.820 roller coaster, whatever thing, right?

00:06:09.880 With the Chad carousel.

00:06:11.560 The cock carousel. 0.97

00:06:13.080 Yeah, the cock carousel. 0.95

00:06:14.020 That's not what's happening in China. 0.88

00:06:16.040 So what would happen, right, if the problem was, is that men just had a preference for,

00:06:20.280 you know, younger women, is the men who were able to secure the younger woman, like the 0.99

00:06:24.540 women who are actually sane enough to secure their partner while they were still young,

00:06:27.740 would be securing these women.

00:06:29.180 But then the other men, it's not like they disappear.

00:06:32.480 For every woman not marrying, more than one man isn't marrying because there's more men

00:06:36.080 than women in China due to the reasons we talked about before. 1.00

00:06:38.980 So the men who were left over would still sort of trickle sort to these lower value older women 1.00

00:06:45.920 rather than be alone.

00:06:47.180 But they are choosing to be alone.

00:06:49.160 And then people can be like, oh, well, it's that.

00:06:51.640 And we'll talk about this because economics does play a role.

00:06:53.640 There's like, there's a lot of economic expectations on men to get married in China,

00:06:57.780 like having a house, paying the bride price, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:07:01.120 Yeah.

00:07:01.500 And it's like, yeah.

00:07:04.120 Except the problem isn't that women are being too snooty around these men, right? 0.63

00:07:10.380 It's not if they're swarming them at these men.

00:07:12.920 Yeah, it's that the men aren't showing up in the first place.

00:07:16.220 Oh, they're going hikikomori?

00:07:18.320 Well, no, I mean, they're just not showing up to the dating events at least, right?

00:07:21.340 Okay, yeah.

00:07:22.220 But like in general too?

00:07:23.580 If they were there, like even if they were a lower valued man,

00:07:26.320 presumably they'd have an arbitrage opportunity.

00:07:28.200 Yeah.

00:07:29.680 Totally.

00:07:30.040 So to continue here.

00:07:34.420 So into the surplus of men, they have about 30 to 35 million extra men of marrying age.

00:07:41.580 So what?

00:07:42.240 Whoa.

00:07:42.820 What is going on?

00:07:43.700 Let's go over some wrong theories, but that I think are interesting and worth throwing out there and talking through.

00:07:48.120 All right.

00:07:48.720 Chinese marriage follows strict hypergamy, marrying up in status, but it's asymmetric.

00:07:52.980 Women are expected to marry up in income and education, while men avoid marrying down to women who out-earn or out-educate them. 0.92

00:08:00.700 Urban women empowered by education and careers now demand partners who match or exceed their status, 0.57

00:08:05.100 e.g. college-educated women want a man with a house, car, and stable job. 1.00

00:08:09.100 But urban men often reject these quote-unquote strong women as unfeminine or threatening to traditional roles,

00:08:14.420 preferring younger, less ambitious partners.

00:08:16.560 A 2019 study, Journal of Comparative Economics, modeled this as equilibrium crowding out high-status women's pickiness, 1.00

00:08:24.580 plus men's aversion to status, equals leads to 20 to 30% lower marriage rates for college grads versus less-educated women in surveys. 0.79

00:08:33.000 70% of urban women said they prefer a wife earning less than them versus only 40% of women okay with earning less. 0.99

00:08:39.280 Basically, what you're getting here is just pointing out that men prefer a woman who earns less than them, right?

00:08:43.800 Yeah, which is also common in Western countries.

00:08:47.140 In Western countries, and you're not seeing the same phenomenon as exaggerated in Western countries.

00:08:51.500 So, one, it doesn't really explain it.

00:08:54.860 And two, even if this was a phenomenon, it would be that the men were showing up to these events and then getting turned down.

00:09:01.760 But that's not what we're seeing, right?

00:09:03.340 The men aren't showing up at all, right?

00:09:06.000 And when they are showing up, they're being swarmed.

00:09:08.160 So that doesn't really make sense with this theory.

00:09:10.820 Yeah.

00:09:11.120 Next, the skyrocketing economic barriers theory.

00:09:15.020 Urban marriage requires men to front massive costs.

00:09:18.200 We've talked about this before.

00:09:19.580 With buy prices averaging around $14,000 to $28,000.

00:09:23.900 And keep in mind what you earn per year in China.

00:09:25.580 So that's huge.

00:09:26.520 Plus wedding expenses.

00:09:28.220 Right.

00:09:28.520 With urban property prices up 300% since 2010 and use and employment at 15% to 20%.

00:09:33.900 Many men, especially non-elite ones, can't afford, with many women thinking you need a house in Chinese customs, to buy one and then be eligible.

00:09:42.820 Women holding 40% of urban savings but often transferring it to in-laws upon marriage amplify this by demanding financial proof of stability. 1.00

00:09:50.720 So when they get married, they send all their money to their family.

00:09:53.380 So they're like, I need you to have financial stability.

00:09:55.580 It doesn't matter for me.

00:09:56.220 Okay, yeah, this does make sense.

00:09:59.520 Yeah.

00:09:59.640 And it is true that marriage rates in China correlate inversely with housing costs where Beijing and Shanghai, only 50% of men under 30 own a property versus 80% needed for eligibility.

00:10:11.380 But anyway, people are like, okay, so why show up if they're not even going to date you?

00:10:16.840 This might make sense.

00:10:18.020 But are the women really being that picky at the events? 1.00

00:10:21.020 We'll get into this in just a second because the answer, a bit of a spoiler, it's yes, they are.

00:10:26.280 Even though you get these scenes of men lining up, like women lining up to men, you don't know what they're asking them in those lines.

00:10:33.540 And that's going to be the big reveal here, by the way.

00:10:37.140 And then the final one is the migration theory, right?

00:10:40.040 This is the gender surplus is geographic.

00:10:43.380 Rural areas have 20 to 30% more men due to women's outmigration for education slash jobs, while cities have a subtle female surplus among elites, with women being 55% of college grads in China.

00:10:54.700 But a 5% difference doesn't explain the marriage rate thing that we're seeing here.

00:10:59.480 Right.

00:10:59.960 Interesting here.

00:11:01.000 Okay, so any thoughts before I go further, Simone?

00:11:04.080 I'm just trying to see what it actually is.

00:11:06.300 Because it's, I mean, those other things are definitely a factor.

00:11:10.500 Yeah.

00:11:11.440 Also, they've been factors for a very long time.

00:11:15.620 They cannot explain this acceleration.

00:11:18.880 Exactly.

00:11:19.300 Something has changed.

00:11:20.540 So what has changed is what is happening within these marriage marketplaces, right?

00:11:28.320 Like, and it should be obvious.

00:11:29.680 Okay, the men don't want to go on dates.

00:11:32.100 They don't want to go to dating events.

00:11:34.320 Right.

00:11:34.500 It must be something that is happening in these environments that makes men not want to go, right?

00:11:40.840 So let's look at what the men are saying about their experiences.

00:11:46.080 Yes, please.

00:11:46.380 So in one viral Weibo post, a man likened it to a cattle auction, where he said,

00:11:52.740 the women asked about my salary, my house, and my car before they even asked my name. 1.00

00:11:57.120 I'm done.

00:11:57.920 At a Shandong matchmaking event, where there is 4,000 singles reported in South China Morning Post,

00:12:04.940 Wang John, a 27-year-old office worker, specified he wanted a partner without younger brothers.

00:12:10.060 He explained to organizers that he feared marrying into a family where he'd be expected

00:12:13.720 to support a male sibling financially, a common cultural expectation impactable in China.

00:12:19.020 I can barely afford my own life, he said.

00:12:21.320 How can I take on someone else's family?

00:12:24.100 Fair.

00:12:24.360 Can you imagine that, having to support your wife's younger brother?

00:12:28.100 Yeah, no thanks.

00:12:29.560 Are they all passport-broing? 1.00

00:12:32.080 A lot of them are, which we'll talk about in a second, but not as much.

00:12:34.880 More women actually leave China. 1.00

00:12:36.520 Like, it's one of the countries.

00:12:37.360 Remember when we did our episode on, like, how the incels are stealing all the women from other countries? 1.00

00:12:40.680 Yeah.

00:12:40.900 China is one of the countries where, if you look at migrants out of China,

00:12:44.620 more of them are women than men, which likely means passport-broing is a large thing that's 0.93

00:12:49.100 happening, but in the opposite direction.

00:12:50.660 Finally, let's take a look at a high-quality unmarried man from Shanghai and why he still 0.77

00:12:55.440 hasn't found his other half.

00:12:59.380 Do you see that man?

00:13:02.440 He's been on over 30 blind dates, and every single one has ended in failure.

00:13:06.980 Some netizens found it strange, saying,

00:13:08.820 He's quite handsome. What kind of economic condition must he have for him to be unable

00:13:12.820 to find a partner?

00:13:14.160 A representative from the marriage agency explained,

00:13:16.700 That's not the case at all. He's a local Shanghainese, born in 1992, employed in a state-owned

00:13:21.860 enterprise, and earns over 300,000 yuan a year. He's about 1.75 meters tall, pretty average,

00:13:28.400 and even has some savings.

00:13:30.400 She went on to say,

00:13:31.380 Many girls actually liked him, but the man had his own ideas. He has 10 types of qualities he

00:13:36.440 won't accept. He said,

00:13:38.140 If you can meet my requirements, then I can seriously start a relationship with you with

00:13:41.780 the aim of marriage. But if you don't, I'm sorry. Dating is fine, but marriage is out of the

00:13:46.360 question. Netizens then asked,

00:13:48.600 What are his requirements?

00:13:49.560 1. He doesn't want a girl who smokes, drinks, gambles, has tattoos, or wears heavy makeup. 1.00

00:13:56.140 2. He doesn't want someone who dresses in a bizarre manner. For example, a girl who in 0.99

00:14:01.000 broad daylight wanders around in cosplay. 3. He doesn't want someone who values pet rights

00:14:06.260 over human rights. 4. He doesn't want someone who excessively posts beautified photos or selfies

00:14:11.720 with heavy filters on social media. 5. He doesn't want someone who lives paycheck to paycheck.

00:14:17.060 6. He doesn't want someone who is overly competitive or overly concerned with comparisons.

00:14:22.980 7. He doesn't want a girl who goes clubbing, especially those wearing see-through outfits 1.00

00:14:27.640 and still shaking it at bars 3 or 4 in the morning. 8. He doesn't want someone who lacks a sense of

00:14:32.940 boundaries. For instance, being overly familiar with men who are already in relationships or having

00:14:38.000 male best friends. 9. He doesn't want someone who is not filial to her parents. 10. He doesn't want

00:14:44.380 someone who expects the man to do everything while contributing nothing herself. Netizens

00:14:48.620 responded,

00:14:49.100 10. These 10 requirements are very normal. I thought they'd be something else.

00:14:53.480 The matchmaker added,

00:14:54.680 Believe it or not, when he presented these 10 requirements at the matchmaking corner,

00:14:58.620 he ended up being surrounded by girls hurling insults at him. They called him an average guy

00:15:03.140 with overblown confidence and told him to look in the mirror. I was really puzzled because it seemed

00:15:08.000 like plenty of girls there actually met those 10 requirements. 0.86

00:15:11.300 Okay.

00:15:11.740 So, at a Shanghai matchmaking event, a 27-year-old male attendee, Cheng Wei, described the experience.

00:15:19.260 He approached several women only to be asked immediately about his income, car ownership,

00:15:22.960 and whether he had a Shanghai hokoi. I guess that means like home.

00:15:29.040 One woman, a 29-year-old marketing manager, reportedly dismissed him after learning he rented

00:15:33.860 rather than owned his apartment, saying, quote,

00:15:36.120 Why are you here if you can't afford a home? End quote.

00:15:39.680 Cheng felt humiliated and stopped attending these events. He said,

00:15:43.780 These women act like they're shopping for a car, not a husband. 1.00

00:15:47.000 Yeah, no kidding. This is horrible.

00:15:49.240 A lot of this may actually come downstream of how few sexual partners Chinese women have. 1.00

00:15:55.780 When you have only 6.5% of the population having slept with somebody else,

00:15:59.600 you have a population that is extremely guarded in who they sleep with and how they date,

00:16:04.720 looking for an extremely high-value male.

00:16:08.020 And essentially what you're seeing here is what happens when you have what I think

00:16:13.320 what a lot of Western men wish we had, which was overly guarded females about who they sleep with. 1.00

00:16:19.500 When women become overly guarded and that becomes a norm within a culture, 1.00

00:16:22.840 you get a cultural norm everywhere around being incredibly prudish,

00:16:27.900 even in terms of who you might marry.

00:16:30.000 Right. At a Beijing's single fair, this is 2024, the straight time.

00:16:34.800 So keep in mind, this is all like really modern that this is happening and concurrent with all of this stuff.

00:16:38.280 Yeah.

00:16:38.660 During a government-sponsored dating event, one 30-year-old engineer,

00:16:41.860 so like a good guy who you should want, right?

00:16:44.740 He spoke to a 28-year-old lawyer who listed her requirements within three minutes.

00:16:48.300 A man earning at least $30,000 a month, or $4,200, owning a car, willing to support her and her parents financially.

00:16:56.300 Ah!

00:16:58.100 When he admitted he only earned half that $2,100 a month, which is still a very decent salary,

00:17:04.360 she walked away mid-conversation saying, 1.00

00:17:06.640 sorry, I don't have time to waste.

00:17:08.380 Well, I don't care. I would have walked away if I were him because I'm not supporting anyone.

00:17:11.880 No, she walked away. 0.99

00:17:13.280 I know she walked away.

00:17:14.220 I would have walked away if I were him. I would have been glad she walked away if I couldn't, 0.94

00:17:18.620 I didn't have the energy from being so shocked by her demands.

00:17:21.180 He says, women are, we're unreasonably picky, expecting millionaires only. 1.00

00:17:25.240 You know, I feel like to an extent we get this in the United States,

00:17:27.720 it's just that women aren't as transparent or as fast to voice what they're really looking for. 1.00

00:17:32.240 And so you get a little too much pussing around before they're like,

00:17:35.240 actually, I'm only interested in millionaires.

00:17:37.380 I suppose. I just, it would seem then that women and men are

00:17:43.900 culturally unable to marry in China if they are adhering to normative cultural standards.

00:17:52.560 That this is a culture that has rendered itself, sterilized itself completely non-viable

00:18:01.220 from a marriage market standpoint. That is insane.

00:18:05.960 Yeah.

00:18:06.480 What are they going to do? I mean, can the, can the government intervene?

00:18:13.800 Can the government say, sorry, we're not doing this anymore.

00:18:16.640 Like your family is, cannot expect to be supported by your daughter's husband.

00:18:23.600 This isn't happening anymore.

00:18:26.860 Yeah.

00:18:27.980 I mean, but they're still going to expect it.

00:18:30.540 What would you do? What would you do if you were Xi Jinping?

00:18:34.160 Let's keep going here, by the way.

00:18:35.720 Okay.

00:18:37.080 Tantan dating app encounter. So let's say, okay, not just the marriage markets,

00:18:40.680 you got dating apps as well.

00:18:41.860 Yeah.

00:18:42.320 A 32-year-old delivery driver, Zhang Bo, shared his experience on the dating app Tantan

00:18:47.360 with Channel News Asia. He matched with a 27-year-old office worker and after a brief chat,

00:18:52.540 asked for his WeChat to see his quote-unquote moments, social media posts to gauge his lifestyle.

00:18:57.400 When Wang Zhou shared photos of his modest apartment, she responded, quote,

00:19:01.320 you live like that? I need someone with ambition, end quote.

00:19:04.700 Zhang felt her tone was, quote-unquote, condescending and stopped messaging her.

00:19:08.580 He noted that many women on apps, quote, act superior, focusing only on wealth or status, 0.99

00:19:13.420 which made him feel like a failure and quit online dating.

00:19:17.020 Yeah, I would too. It's horrible. That's horrible.

00:19:20.540 I absolutely refuse leftover women over 30. This one's already 32. 1.00

00:19:26.860 Why on earth would I marry her?

00:19:29.760 A reporter asks, but aren't you 35? She's three years younger than you, 0.87

00:19:33.960 and I've seen that her job is very stable. The man replied,

00:19:37.680 I haven't been unfamiliar with leftover women in my life. Let me tell you,

00:19:41.500 leftover women over 30 all share six common flaws.

00:19:45.140 The reporter asked him to elaborate. The young man explained,

00:19:48.180 First, having seen the world when they were young, they develop sky-high standards and feel that no

00:19:56.660 one is good enough for them. Second, even though their looks have already started to decline,

00:20:01.420 they still live in the glory of their youth, casually dismissing any man as ugly or unattractive.

00:20:07.280 Third, their fertility is on the downturn, so having children in the future may be difficult.

00:20:12.120 Fourth, their personalities are generally hard to get along with. If they were more amiable,

00:20:17.400 someone would have already swept them off their feet. Fifth, it's not about love at all. It's all

00:20:22.260 a transaction. They immediately start negotiating conditions with you, asking about your car,

00:20:27.620 house, salary, and even whether your parents have a pension. It's all calculated.

00:20:32.880 Six, if they once had a decent boyfriend, they use the standards they set for their ex

00:20:37.120 when choosing the next one, insisting that the new guy must be even better.

00:20:42.060 Have they ever thought that if their ex was so good to them, why didn't they marry him?

00:20:46.360 The reporter then commented that the young man's views were too absolute, saying,

00:20:51.180 So you think that all unmarried women over 30 have problems? But you're 35 and still single.

00:20:56.100 Doesn't that suggest you might have problems too? The young man answered,

00:20:59.760 If I have problems, I dare to admit them. But would she dare to admit hers?

00:21:03.440 Another dating event that had 800 women and 40 men, a 29-year-old salesman. So this is one of the

00:21:09.780 good ones, right? Talked about the encounter and said it made him bitter. A 30-year-old accountant

00:21:15.000 asked him to list his assets within the first five minutes of talking. When he mentioned he was still

00:21:20.580 saving for a home, she laughed and said, Good luck finding someone with those prospects before moving

00:21:25.720 to another man. So this is at an event where this woman realized there are 40 men and 800 women.

00:21:36.660 She goes to one of the 40 men in one of these lines and her first thing is list your assets. And then

00:21:43.180 she laughs at him.

00:21:47.460 Yeah, the level of insanity. When you're in a beggar, you're in the beggar position. You know, 0.86

00:21:57.020 beggars can't be choosers. I can't understand this. Are men and women, do you think, super culturally

00:22:03.620 isolated where they cannot understand how insane they sound? Because I feel like most people should

00:22:12.300 understand this, right?

00:22:13.340 Well, so keep in mind, in China, most of your friends are going to be of your family network

00:22:18.660 because you have much more, like, closer family ties. And so they may not be as, like, and then in

00:22:25.320 social settings, because, you know, it's easy to gender segregate, they really may just not have

00:22:31.420 many male friends outside their families who can correct their expectations. And family members,

00:22:36.400 because they want to be supported, right? They're going to be pushing it.

00:22:39.340 They're like, yeah, get your bag, girl.

00:22:41.080 Get your bag, girl, right? You know, that's, that's...

00:22:44.200 That makes sense. Yeah. If you're only friends or your brother who also would love the idea of

00:22:49.780 you marrying someone who pays for his video game Hikikomori lifestyle.

00:22:55.040 Yeah. Of course he's going to be like, hey, yeah, no, of course this is the right thing to do.

00:22:58.740 Yeah. He would be dumb to not. Yeah. He is, he is, he doesn't lose anything for her not marrying 1.00

00:23:03.420 and he has a lot to gain for her marrying someone who does that, who signs up for that scam.

00:23:09.540 Is they're not making a mistake? Like they're actually being really shrewd in their dating

00:23:13.620 in terms of listing what they expect from a partner and then quickly moving on when a partner

00:23:19.200 doesn't have that, right? Like that's really important. That's what I did when I'm dating.

00:23:23.340 That's what I always recommend that people do when dating. Go out, tell people what you're looking for.

00:23:26.880 Yeah. But also the, the, the, the, the secondary part here is you need to adjust

00:23:31.360 your expectations based on the market dynamics.

00:23:35.160 Yeah. They, they don't seem to be responding to feedback. Maybe they don't have a shot at

00:23:43.380 feedback considering how few men are even.

00:23:45.920 I just don't like before I go first, I just don't see how you could be in an event with 800 women, 1.00

00:23:50.700 40 men look around, like be in a line to talk to one of these men, see all of these women

00:23:58.060 clamoring over these men. Right. Yeah. And then not be like, I am the one on the back foot here.

00:24:07.180 It's, it's, it's, it's women have, have become a way in this country where nobody wants us, 1.00

00:24:12.760 right? Like more broadly, it's her wider category of human that is uninteresting to these men.

00:24:21.380 The rest of this matchmaking scene turned into a textbook example.

00:24:24.860 Today, a couple came into our agency for a blind date. After they sat down, the man immediately

00:24:33.260 asked a woman, how much do you earn per month? She said, a bit over 8,000 yuan. Then the man said,

00:24:39.200 your family must be quite well off, right? The woman replied, just average. My parents are ordinary. 0.96

00:24:44.660 The man then asked, have you bought a house? She answered no. After hearing that, the man said,

00:24:49.460 then let's not talk any further. I've got something to do. The young woman was a bit baffled and said,

00:24:54.300 you start by asking about my income. Are you really here for a blind date? The man responded,

00:24:59.700 it's not like that. I just think we're not a good match. So let's not waste our time.

00:25:03.860 Then the woman asked, what exactly is wrong with us? The man replied, if you really want to know,

00:25:09.100 I'll tell you. As soon as I walked in, I noticed your bag costs tens of thousands of yuan,

00:25:13.720 yet your salary is only about 8,000. Moreover, you're renting a shared apartment, perhaps,

00:25:18.900 where the rent is about 1,000, food costs about 1,500, and utilities plus other

00:25:24.020 expenses add up to roughly 1,000. And on top of that, you still have to buy clothes. Honestly,

00:25:29.440 your clothes aren't cheap either. So can you really manage to save 1,000 yuan a month? I'd say

00:25:34.140 even 1,000 yuan is too much for you to save. Given all that, the only possible explanations for you

00:25:39.100 having a bag worth tens of thousands of yuan are these. Either someone gifted it to you, in which

00:25:44.100 case, why would they give you such an expensive bag? Or you bought it on credit. Am I supposed to

00:25:49.080 help you pay it off? Or third, the bag is fake. If you can't afford the real thing,

00:25:53.460 then there's no need for you to buy one. But insisting on buying a fake just doesn't sit

00:25:57.460 right with me. The young woman, clearly indignant, said, can't I just save up for a year or two and

00:26:02.660 buy a bag I really like? The man replied, if you're scrimping every month just to buy that bag,

00:26:07.500 then we're even less compatible. And then the young woman almost burst into tears from anger. 1.00

00:26:11.780 By the way, I gotta say, I agree with the man's shrewdness in this particular story.

00:26:16.280 I think that this was the right approach. People who like luxury items can make your life miserable

00:26:23.960 really, really quickly. And who will, because if she is going through periods of austerity to get a

00:26:34.260 luxury item like this, she's going to demand that you do the same because she has a taste for this

00:26:40.420 sort of stuff. Whereas a sane person is just like, it's just a bag. Like, why would I want that

00:26:45.540 except to signal to other people or to myself that I am X type of person? And if you need to signal

00:26:51.960 that to yourself, you're going to need to do that throughout your entire life. And you're going to

00:26:55.540 need more and more to do that. If you want to go through some other theories here, which I think

00:27:00.420 are closer to accurate, we have the lying flat theory. Urban men are increasingly rejecting marriage

00:27:06.660 itself, not just events due to changing values. The rise of lying flat and anti-consumerist movements

00:27:13.020 among youth reflects disillusionment with traditional milestones like marriage, which is seen as a

00:27:18.200 financial and emotional burden. Women, despite embracing independence, 44% don't plan to marry,

00:27:23.900 still face stronger social pressure to wed, driving them to events. And that might be another thing that 0.80

00:27:29.920 we're seeing at these events. Oh, they don't actually want to get married. They don't actually want to or

00:27:33.920 plan to get married. They're sort of forced to be there. And so they don't mind walking around and

00:27:37.560 insulting men at these events. Oh, that could explain these insane demands.

00:27:45.260 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they make more sense as insane demands of someone who

00:27:49.900 would be happy to live alone anyway. But sure, if someone's going to pay for this and that and the

00:27:56.420 other thing, I guess I'll get married. But then if not, yeah, no interest. That totally makes sense.

00:28:03.920 Event accessibility and design. So this is another problem that they don't often talk about in these

00:28:08.980 articles where they complain about these events. Matchmaking events are often structured in ways

00:28:13.260 that determine men. For example, high entry fees like 600-1 in Shenzhen, strict screening,

00:28:19.780 e.g. income and education. So you can't even get any of your looking uses as an arbitrage opportunity.

00:28:24.120 Wow. Or public formats, e.g. parents posting profiles, which favor women who are more

00:28:28.720 willing to pay slash invest due to social stigma. Men, especially non-elites, see these as elitist

00:28:35.100 or rigged status competitions. Yeah. Well, and I could imagine someone thinking in principle when

00:28:41.680 setting these events up, well, we have men must be more desperate because there are many more men

00:28:47.960 than women. Therefore, we will charge them more. And not really understanding, not reading the room 1.00

00:28:53.340 and then charging them a lot more. Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, you can continue to charge if women 1.00

00:28:59.520 fail to see that they are the problem. Right? Like, and this is civilization ending for China with their 1.00

00:29:08.060 current fertility rate. Right? Like, this is astronomically bad. It appears that where you're

00:29:14.260 only getting strong marriage rates is in rural regions where you have the less technologically

00:29:18.080 and economically productive populations of China, which is going to eventually bring China back to 0.97

00:29:22.900 its previous poverty. Right? If those are the only cultures within China that continue to breed. 1.00

00:29:27.580 Especially if everyone was in these rural environments who gets educated, moves to cities,

00:29:32.020 which then act as fertility grinders, which creates a dysgenic, i.e. it rewards and well, I'll put it the

00:29:39.360 other way. It punishes the genes that lead to higher educational attainment and higher income attainment.

00:29:45.100 And ambition and risk-taking a lot of the things that help countries become wealthy. Yes.

00:29:50.540 Yeah. How would I fix this in China? I mean, I think one thing that could easily be done to fix this

00:29:56.760 and would be cohesive with China's ancestral culture is to move to a polygynous marriage style 1.00

00:30:05.220 where wealthy Chinese men marry multiple women. If women just aren't going to consider men who aren't

00:30:12.060 wealthier than them, then what you should do is have, you know, two to three women for every one 1.00

00:30:17.480 of these wealthy men and they'll be able to support the additional kids anyway. So they're likely to

00:30:21.340 have even more kids. Outside of emperors having lots of courtesans, was that common with other 0.99

00:30:25.940 wealthy Chinese men historically? I can try to check in a post. Here is what Grok has to say.

00:30:32.000 Polygamy is particularly a man having multiple wives was common in Chinese history,

00:30:36.360 especially among the elite. In ancient China, from the Shang to the Zhao, this was 1600 to B.C.E.,

00:30:45.840 to 256 B.C.E. dynasties, kings and nobles often had multiple wives and concubines to secure alliances,

00:30:52.280 produce heirs, and display wealth. The practice was codified in Confucian texts, which emphasized

00:30:57.040 family hierarchy and male authority. For example, the Book of Rights outlined rules for men of different

00:31:02.820 ranks to have a primary wife, Qi, and a secondary wife for concubines, Kuei. During the Han and Tang

00:31:10.940 dynasties, polygamy remained widespread among emperors, aristocrats, and wealthy merchants.

00:31:16.180 Emperors maintained large harems, sometimes in the thousands of concubines. The Song and Ming 0.99

00:31:22.460 dynasty, so we've gone from 206 B.C.E. now to 1644 B.C.E., they saw stricter social norms, but

00:31:30.540 polygamy persisted among the gentry. A man could take any additional wife or concubine for reasons like 0.93

00:31:36.600 producing male heirs or enhancing status. By the 19th to 20th centuries, Western influence had reduced

00:31:43.100 this.

00:31:44.580 Yeah, I mean, you know, in like the dramas, of course, it only shows up like within the walls of

00:31:48.880 the Forbidden Palace. So, I don't know.

00:31:52.540 But that could be an option and would be cohesive potentially with Chinese sort of ancestral ethics.

00:32:01.180 Not what I would prefer for my kids, not what I would opt for my family, but, you know, I'm going

00:32:06.700 to be honest, it seems more realistic adopting to a culture where males take multiple wives than

00:32:12.140 adopting to a culture where women expect less of men. Because that's hard to do, right? And the other

00:32:17.880 positive thing about moving to this system is it would have positive genetic effects instead of

00:32:21.680 dysgenic effects.

00:32:22.800 Yeah.

00:32:23.860 Because the men was the strongest gene, like more men would wash out of the gene pool, which would cause 0.99

00:32:29.080 social disharmony, which isn't great, but you already have that degree of social disharmony.

00:32:34.400 And social disharmony matters less if it's coming from the least economically relevant players in

00:32:40.640 society. Social disharmony matters more when it's coming from larger economically relevant players.

00:32:46.280 Right. Because that's where the state's going to feel the hit.

00:32:49.820 It's all about what's happening with the money bags.

00:32:53.720 The other option is, very obvious option is ban. You could create a government regulations that make

00:33:02.380 it harder to move up and stuff like that if you're not married, just putting higher pressure on

00:33:06.000 marriage, right? Or heavy taxes if you're unmarried after a certain age or something like that, 0.67

00:33:12.480 which really forces the question.

00:33:14.320 The next is to change cultural expectations about what happens within married, i.e. 0.90

00:33:18.960 governments banning bride prices and taking care of the elderly.

00:33:22.320 Yeah, that's what I was thinking. But then again, they kind of need someone to take care of the

00:33:25.440 elderly, considering that they're not going to be able to.

00:33:28.180 Well, the government does have its murder van for people who break the law that they did that

00:33:32.340 ad for that we've shown in a previous video where they drive around and they're like,

00:33:35.380 if you break the law, we'll come to your house and we'll just euthanize you in a van.

00:33:39.340 Yeah, maybe they can do what Canada did with their euthanasia program, just with their mobile vans.

00:33:45.520 Do it for the elderly, right? 1.00

00:33:47.260 Get up a notch.

00:33:48.700 Yeah. The moment you run out of money as an elderly individual, the murder van comes to 1.00

00:33:53.460 your house. That's what China can do. And that's not out of feasibility for China.

00:33:58.040 When I was living in China for 10 years, I mean, I knew that there were death vans in China,

00:34:03.160 but it was always one of those dark things that lived in conversation, not necessarily in real

00:34:09.600 life. But China's death vans or execution vans, these cars that just show up and execute you 0.96

00:34:17.220 for stuff that I'll explain to you later, and they take you away forever. They're real.

00:34:22.780 They're very, very real. The crazy thing is that they want their citizens to know about the vans

00:34:31.260 and they really, really want them to feel scared. I'm not kidding. Not only does this death van pull

00:34:37.220 up and take your life, it's being promoted. They probably do it in some more discreet way or say

00:34:42.460 that like you're doing your civic duty or something. The other thing that they could do is ask women to 1.00

00:34:47.960 be less picky and find a way of socially punishing women who act like this at events or who think like 0.90

00:34:55.520 this, right? Like women should feel embarrassed to have these types of expectations in the way that

00:35:02.040 in the United States, there has been a big campaign basically to make women embarrassed about having

00:35:06.420 these expectations through, you know, huge amounts of YouTube videos that go into this and stuff like

00:35:11.040 that. I mean, you've seen this, right? Like you would know in the U S because even as a woman,

00:35:15.040 you're going to be exposed to some amount of like red pill, MGTOW content. And you're going to be

00:35:18.840 like, Oh, I don't want to be like one of those idiot women who they like interview outside of a club 1.00

00:35:23.420 who, you know, have completely insane financial expectations and all want a guy who's six foot 1.00

00:35:28.660 or whatever. But anyway, thoughts. I think all those are feasible. I do think that if, if someone tried

00:35:35.100 to regulate things like bride prices and expectations around paying off family members, people would just 0.93

00:35:41.420 circumvent that, you know, I feel like there's, there's some stuff you can't really outlaw people

00:35:47.040 will do it anyway. You, we might just need to skip a step and have China just start to make children 1.00

00:35:55.120 of the state in a way it's, it's, they're better off for it because they're 100% their kids, they can

00:36:04.040 raise them fully indoctrinated. They already have experience building infrastructure where they own

00:36:10.320 people and educate them in camps with the Uyghurs, for example, they would just do this and

00:36:18.140 presumably be a little nicer, but maybe they don't feel like they have to be. But I feel like given

00:36:24.040 this additional information, I thought China might wait a while to do that. But now I feel like it's

00:36:30.000 getting to a point where it may make sense for them to just offer women, you know, gestational

00:36:38.560 surrogacy payment and then just take the babies and raise them as a state, as a state. Yeah.

00:36:47.380 Yeah. And then you could better, they have dormitories, they have schools, they train them

00:36:50.920 for whatever jobs. I mean, because then as the state, you will be able to shift your education

00:36:55.760 system on a dime for, for your state children to educate them for whatever it is you need as the

00:37:03.760 global economy shifts. So if suddenly you need more people who are really good with energy

00:37:07.760 infrastructure, immediately you are shifting all the schooling.

00:37:12.920 Yeah. They grew up energy is everything. You know, they, they, you grew up being trained to be an

00:37:17.700 engineer from a young age, right? Like, yeah, you just have so much more control. And I think

00:37:21.260 ultimately China wants that level of control over its citizens. Why not just, I mean, this,

00:37:28.620 this kills several birds with one stone. Uh, and I feel like that could, your dystopian solutions.

00:37:34.860 I love it. Well, I'm just thinking about what would actually work to maintain stability in the

00:37:40.520 country. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think one of the things is, is for generations across almost every

00:37:47.680 human society, women have done a service for the state for free, which is having and raising kids. 0.51

00:37:55.300 Yeah. And I mean, this would just be making it fair, you know, we're, we will pay you

00:37:59.940 to be a gestational carrier and then to give your child to the state and we will give your child. 0.92

00:38:06.820 But the point I'm making here is that I think that people haven't realized how twisted it is for the

00:38:12.660 state to expect individuals within a country to bear the cost of both risking your life to have the

00:38:21.820 next generation of taxpayers. And then you investing and raising the next generation of

00:38:26.700 taxpayers when they expect to reap the rewards of that. Yeah. It, it, it makes sense for the family

00:38:35.860 to take on the burden when the family reaps most of the reward at this point. And this is an

00:38:42.140 interesting thing. I haven't really thought about this way before, but you pointed out something

00:38:46.680 really big. What has also shifted after the industrial revolution and especially with the

00:38:51.800 rise of social services and like the, a largely socialized state is that now the government reaps

00:39:01.340 the vast majority of the benefit from new people being created. That's crazy. Yeah. Because what do

00:39:10.360 parents get in the United States? You don't get old age care. You don't get workers. You get the,

00:39:16.280 you get the satisfaction of watching your children flourish, which now is happening at lower and lower

00:39:21.240 rates because youth is struggling. So I know as a parent, you usually get workers for the farm.

00:39:27.800 You used to get a little person you could send to a factory who'd work for you. And then you had old age

00:39:31.880 care and you had old age care, right? None of that exists anymore. And the main benefit of having kids is

00:39:38.240 the state, the main beneficiary. Yeah. I didn't consider that, but you're absolutely right. Yeah.

00:39:41.660 My God. Yeah. So then China is going to have to just create it. I mean, when, when the primary 0.87

00:39:48.280 beneficiary, yeah, I guess in the end, in, in most economies, it has to be the person who wants the

00:39:55.300 product pays for the product. And we see an economic failure here when the thing that wants the product

00:40:02.520 is unwilling to pay for it. And, and obviously now the product is, is, is going out of stock.

00:40:10.880 No one's making it anymore because you know, no one's willing to pay for it, I guess.

00:40:16.560 That's huh. Wow. Well, that changes the way I look at things, but yeah, that's, that's what I would

00:40:21.940 do. If I were Xi Jinping, I would already be looking to where I'm going to set up the dormitories,

00:40:27.520 the schools, the infrastructure, it's all there. I mean, I'm sure there are regions that you think

00:40:32.460 like Xi Jinping and you go at this, like a, an autistic woman where it's like, if I was Xi

00:40:39.220 Jinping, well, I just demand that I have to impregnate every woman in the country who doesn't 1.00

00:40:43.740 get married. I'd go the Elon strategy, right? I don't know. I don't know where the state would

00:40:48.680 source sperm. I imagine they would just choose like whatever, by whatever measure, like really

00:40:55.960 high performing men. They wouldn't even need necessarily to pay them for it. Cause I think

00:41:02.020 men would just be like, this is great. They need to pay the women, but yeah, we don't need 1.00

00:41:08.560 to wait for artificial wombs for this to be something that especially the Chinese state 0.99

00:41:13.160 would do at scale. You could just take a region that's rapidly depopulating, take over its

00:41:20.020 entire hospital, make the entire thing for maternity. Yeah. Anyway.

00:41:27.380 All right. Happy spectacular day, Simone.

00:41:30.360 I love you, Malcolm. Oh my gosh, China. 1.00

00:41:33.960 China is effed. Is like genuinely effed. 0.99

00:41:37.040 It's terrifying.

00:41:39.180 Congratulations on RFAB.

00:41:41.420 Yeah, RFAB.ai. If anybody wants to check it out now, it used to be like a terrible site

00:41:45.340 in terms of what we were putting together.

00:41:47.300 Well, come on.

00:41:48.140 And then I got...

00:41:50.020 But no, it was not like fun to play around with. Like a bunch of things are broken.

00:41:54.640 Now I got... I was like, you know what? I'm going to try to learn to vibe code. I'm going

00:41:58.800 to try to push this project forward as fast as I can. After like two weeks of working on

00:42:03.180 it, you'd say, Simone, while I was traveling, while we were shooting with HBO, I was able

00:42:08.820 to, it was a huge help from Bruno, get a really, I think, sort of high quality AI chat adventure

00:42:14.200 thing out. So if people want to check that out now, it'll get better every week.

00:42:17.740 And it's a lot better, I would just say than any of the other mainstream AI chat apps you'd

00:42:25.660 had me try. So I'm impressed. Even at this early stage, if you want a better one, just

00:42:32.960 go try this out.

00:42:34.940 The two sections that are really working well are the adventure mode and the not safe for

00:42:37.860 work mode. So try that out. The adventure mode is the one that we've put the most time

00:42:41.680 into. So try it out. Anyway. But so really, like when you checked it out, did you check

00:42:49.760 out like the narrative engine maker and stuff like that yet?

00:42:51.940 I haven't tried that. I only, I only tried the, the like pre-made.

00:42:56.580 It basically allows you to create like complicated multi-pass AI engines for more complicated types

00:43:02.460 of scenarios that you wanted to make yourself.

00:43:04.100 That is delightful.

00:43:04.860 Which I think is really fun as a, as sort of a, a concept for people to play around

00:43:09.660 with.

00:43:10.520 Yeah, no, it is, it is objectively fantastic. I love it.

00:43:15.660 Actually, I just had an idea for a feature. I want to add pair engine with scenario for

00:43:26.220 more complicated scenarios.

00:43:27.560 I plan to make one for like battles and stuff like that, which I'll put together and one

00:43:33.260 for like city management so we can have different types of AIs running on it, which I'm quite

00:43:36.360 excited about. But yeah, things move so fast when I'm the one being in the grunt work, right?

00:43:42.900 It's pretty freaking great.

00:43:44.840 Well, yeah, I, I love that I have a new skill. I can code now. That's awesome.

00:43:49.460 Anyway.

00:43:52.280 Torsten, did you just say, come down and try to hurt daddy?

00:43:54.920 Why do you want to hurt daddy? 0.72

00:43:58.780 Because it's funny.

00:44:01.400 Do you know that people think that I hurt you, Toasty? People think daddy hurts you?

00:44:08.100 Why do you think they think that?

00:44:10.120 Because you want to hurt me, because it's so funny.

00:44:17.120 And you hurt me, so I'm hurting you and it's so funny.

00:44:21.740 Okay. And you're going to try to hurt me too, Titan, now?

00:44:24.160 What are you doing? You really, ow! 0.58

00:44:32.340 That's hard, ah!

00:44:36.260 No, wait, Titan, we're just trying to have a conversation here.

00:44:40.540 Ow, my God!

00:44:43.600 Torsten, why?

00:44:46.080 E2, Torsten?

00:44:50.480 Ow! 1.00

00:44:51.880 Ow, my God!

00:44:52.980 Why do you want to hurt me, Titan?

00:44:57.900 Ow! 1.00

00:44:58.560 You hurt me too.

00:44:59.820 Ow! 1.00

00:45:00.900 Oh, my God, that hurts! 1.00

00:45:04.760 You're a maniac! 1.00

00:45:08.040 Everybody, oh, my God, ow! 1.00

00:45:13.080 Who taught you that?

00:45:14.480 Titan, what are you doing? 1.00

00:45:23.800 You maniac! 1.00

00:45:24.320 You're going to try to hurt me too. 1.00

00:45:29.000 All right, oh!

00:45:33.480 Titan!

00:45:35.320 Wah! 0.94

00:45:36.260 Wah! 0.94

00:45:40.400 Oh, beaten you up, Titan!

00:45:42.860 Oh, my gosh, that hurts so bad, Tessie.

00:45:57.300 No!

00:45:58.780 You can't jump from there, you will certainly die!

00:46:00.980 No!

00:46:01.340 Thank you.

Based Camp - September 15, 2025

Why Women Can't Find Men in China (Yes You Read That Right)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript