That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!

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Well I guess it also depends on how much one hates working.

It’s not just that work and commutes are terrible; it’s also that jobs are really hard to get and keep. So you sacrifice all sorts of things to get one, like time and money and relationships and quality of life, and in the end you are always worried and anxious that you are going to lose it anyways. At least some of this is a direct result of technological advancement; in our hyper-efficient economy, the level of competence you need to avoid simply slowing down an employer’s operation is absolutely brutal. See gwern and The Last Psychiatrist.

And of course there’s the possibility of many wives for many premodern monarchs and nobles, though one could also just be a Mormon.

Do you realize how many men today would kill for the prospect of having even one wife? As the king of a country you are virtually guaranteed a young, beautiful, and virginal wife, and as many mistresses, prostitutes, and flings as you want.

To some people, being the center of attention like this might seem better than TV, AC, cell phones, etc., but as soon as you got a toothache or a bacterial infection or needed surgery of any kind I’d bet you’d be longing for your 21st c. life.

Humans are social animals whose lives are about status. Women in poor countries risk their children’s lives rather than risk looking poor. I think you are seriously underestimating how appealing being the leader of a country would be for most men (and how appealing being married to the leader of a country would be for most women).

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Either way, though, something about the van scene makes me think it was directly transposed from present-day events in a client dictatorship of the US or UK. Perhaps the point of the scene was to show the difference between how the state treats in-group dissenters (neo-anti-vaxxers, basically) and out-group terrorists (AQ/deep green anti-industry mashup, forget the name).

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The one important zero-sum game is mate selection

I’m not even sure that one is zero sum — there are plenty of people who are single because none of their potential partners find them desirable enough, so maybe making everyone a more desirable mate would result in fewer people being single.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leilani_Muir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Buck

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