Scott Alexander's latest blog post includes a nice paragraph of introductory redpill theory:

On a related note: a lot of intelligent, responsible, basically decent young men complain of romantic failure. Although the media has tried hard to make this look like some kind of horrifying desire to rape everybody because they believe are entitled to whatever and whoever they want, the basic complaint is more prosaic: “I try to be a nice guy who contributes to society and respects others; how come I’m a miserable 25-year-old virgin, whereas every bully and jerk and frat bro I know is able to get a semi-infinite supply of sex partners whom they seduce, abuse, and dump?” This complaint isn’t imaginary; studies have shown that criminals are more likely to have lost their virginity earlier, that boys with more aggressive and dishonest behaviors have earlier age of first sexual intercourse, and that women find men with dark triad traits more attractive. I used to work in a psychiatric hospital that served primarily adolescents with a history of violence or legal issues; most of them had had multiple sexual encounters by age fifteen; only half of MIT students in their late teens and early 20s have had sex at all.

He then ruins it by propagating the blue pill lie that this is fine because the MIT graduates are pursuing a delayed gratification strategy and that they will have the last laugh when their ability as providers gets them a good wife in the end. This used to work back when women's sexual choices were controlled by their fathers and the government wasn't bending over backwards to make women financially independent through welfare, anti-discrimination laws, affirmative action, and pointless make-work, but not anymore. Now women would rather support themselves through their twenties while getting pumped and dumped by Chad Thundercock, and maybe at the end after they have become single mothers and hit the wall they use the last of their beauty and fertility to settle down with a beta provider if they can stomach it.

Commenter Michael Watts sets the record straight:

I’ve had a lot of Chinese people ask me why I seem to have such an attraction to China, and what I’ve got against my native land (the US) that would make me hate it so much.

I’ve always perceived, embedded deeply within American culture, the twin ideas that the only valid reason to marry someone is because you’re infatuated, and in particular that it is a grave mistake, a modern-day cardinal sin, to marry someone for money (“their obvious ability to provide for the children”). It’s hard not to take this as an egregious personal attack on the only strategy I’d hope to have any chance of success with. Engineers want to marry too. Do we really need to train women out of being willing to do it?

My mother once told me about a patient of hers who had felt herself aging out of the marriage market and married a long-term friend. The patient said this man was a loving husband and father, earning well and taking good care of the children. But… he wasn’t “exciting”. She wanted to leave him. (And note! She wanted to leave the father of multiple children for not being “exciting”.)

In contrast, I taught in an English-immersion school in Shanghai for a year, and every American teacher noticed that the boy earning top grades in each grade was dating the girl doing the same.

A Chinese college student told me that her favorite color was green. I asked why green, and she responded that a boy she’d liked in elementary school had liked green. I asked what it had been about that boy, and her response?

“He was such a good student.”

Meanwhile, back in America, you get preemptively demonized for trying to attract women with the promise of being able to have a comfortable life.

vV_Vv adds:

It’s not that women stopped marrying for money because the cultural norms changed; the cultural norms changed because women stopped marrying for money, which happened because women started entering the workforce in greater numbers and being able to provide for themselves so they wouldn’t need to marry for money anymore.

And those who don’t enter the workforce can always live on child support and welfare checks.

If the future holds high unemployment and UBI, the situation will be even more extreme: marriage will be rare, and only the top ~10-20% most attractive men will father children, the other men will be pressured to become de facto asexual or even be castrated (did anybody say puberty blockers?). Looks similar to how we breed livestock.