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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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Wouldn’t this be like saying the incentives for a physical therapist is to keep you injured and thus coming back for treatment? Doesn’t make sense to me, and I think the incentives for online dating is to dominate the dating landscape to the point where it’s the de facto way people meet. Successfully pairing up couples who then speak highly of online dating lines up with that incentive.

Wouldn’t this be like saying the incentives for a physical therapist is to keep you injured and thus coming back for treatment?

This is a perennial accusation against chiropractors.

The difference is chiropractors can't cure you, so they can't produce evidence that they're trying to help.

Whereas real doctors generally do cure people when physically possible.

It would also be like saying that the incentives for drug dealers is to keep you addicted and thus coming back for more, even if it's damaging you.

It's important to remember societal expectation (and a certain degree of legal heft). I think if definitive proof emerged that dating apps were deliberately trying to promote a kind of shallow hook up culture at the expense of longer lasting relationships, people would be far less bothered than if it turned out there was a conspiracy among a large body of physios to keep their patients injured.

Wouldn’t this be like saying the incentives for a physical therapist is to keep you injured and thus coming back for treatment?

If they could get away with that, some of them would. But there are incentives the other way, like the insurance company not paying them for long, or the injured person noticing and quitting.

With dating, that doesn't work. People know online dating apps are hellscapes, but the alternative is Netflix and no chill, so they use them anyway.