MTS Robin Hanson on Monoculture, Dating App Incentives, and Civilization's Future | MTS Live
May 11, 2026
Robin Hanson, economics professor and social theorist behind Overcoming Bias, tackles cultural evolution, fertility decline, and civilization's future. He debates dating-app incentives and matchmaking contracts. He maps how cultural drift, monoculture, and faster change erode adaptation. He warns that AI will likely inherit our culture and its failure modes.
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Betting On Relationship Longevity As A Metric
- Hanson recounts a prediction-market idea to bet on whether two people would date and how long relationships last.
- He uses this as an example of measuring durable relationship outcomes instead of short-term engagement.
Pay Matchmakers For Lasting Relationships
- Align dating platforms' incentives to users' long-term goals by paying matchmakers based on durable relationship outcomes.
- Hanson suggests quadratic or escalating payouts for weeks together and notes niche services like Keeper already use such incentives.
Require Criminal Liability Insurance For Parole
- Use criminal liability insurance to replace or reduce incarceration costs by making insurers vouch for parolees.
- Hanson proposes parolees secure insurers who will pay for crimes committed while on parole, aligning monitoring incentives.
