Are you a genius? A super smart person working in tech? Here’s a new lifehack for you: You can optimize your life for superior efficiency by getting married! That’s right, some Substack writer just proposed the idea that people use marriage as a “cheat code” for life, and tech bros are eating the concept up.
The new, radical inventions of “monogamy” and “the institution of marriage” came from writer Erik Hoel, who made the argument in his subscriber-only post “Choose two of the three: career, family, community.” In his blog, Hoel implied that marriage is the opportunity to provide the social, familial, and career optimization you never could have thought of!
“I know people with great careers, who jet-set across the world having experiences and seeing their friends, but struggle to start a family,” Hoel’s post said. “Others are inhumanely fertile, and also busily socially involved with their friends and extended relatives, but make little money. From one perspective, the best benefit of marriage and partnership is to act as a cheat code, since two people can optimize in different directions (majorly or minorly) and so create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.”
Here’s why you should never “optimize” your marriage LOL
So, what does it mean to Hoel to “optimize in different directions?” Does that mean the man in the marriage gets to have community and a career, while the wife gets to raise a family all by herself? Hm? Curious. Ironically enough, Hoel never would have faced scrutiny for his paywalled post, except a tech worker on Twitter commended the idea publicly, praising “marriage as a cheatcode [sic] for getting more out of life.”
Tech bros initially gave praise to the idea. But luckily, other Twitter users weren’t buying this strange, repackaged marketing for “optimizing” the institution of marriage. “OK hear me out,” reporter Gaby Del Valle tweeted, “what about getting married because you are in love. Tech brain is a disease! Have you people ever experienced joy!”
Indeed, the idea of “min-maxing” marriage, as another critic put it, is incredibly awful. Sure, marriage opens up new social and career opportunities for newlyweds. In fact, our society practically incentives marriage, encouraging people to have kids and remain monogamous in doing so. Seriously, have you seen the levels of discrimination that polyamorous people face?
But min-maxing marriage like it’s some sort of lifehack is a fantastic way to end up in a terrible, awful, loveless marriage with little affection and connection. Keep in mind that marriage in and of itself isn’t an easy venture; Forbes reports reports that half of all first marriages end in divorce, with even higher divorce rates for remarriages. No offense, but I wouldn’t seek to further “optimize” (read: strain) something that statistically tends to fail.
Forgive me for my pessimism, but I expect your average straight man’s marriage “optimization” would involve a power imbalance: the wife forced into traditional domestic care while the husband runs off to build his career, find community, and explore the world. So yeah, don’t take Hoel’s advice here. Get married because you like somebody and because they’re a good fit for you and your values. Not because you think marriage will turn on God Mode or whatever.
(feature image: PeopleImages/Getty Images)
