Podbit · Freakonomics Radio
Remington Davenport didn't set out to build a movement. She just wanted somewhere to play. She started hosting weekly events in 2023 with 10 friends; by season four of her league, 235 people were competing. She cried after her first 50-person event because she didn't even know 50 people in New York.
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At 53:20 · chapter starts 51:05
The modern backgammon story has a striking new investor: Travis Kalanick, former Uber CEO and avowed backgammon obsessive, purchased ExtremeGammon in 2024 and is expected to invest heavily in bringing modern machine learning to the platform. Meanwhile, Backgammon Galaxy continues to grow its user base, and Olsson observes two distinct and complementary trends: the rise of online play via apps and platforms, and the explosion of social backgammon clubs across the United States. These are not competing phenomena — they feed each other, with online players seeking in-person connection and tournament players learning online. Olsson singles out New York City as the epicenter of the club movement, pointing specifically to Remington Davenport's work.
ExtremeGammon, the gold-standard backgammon analysis software released in 2009, was bought by Travis Kalanick — founder and former CEO of Uber — with plans for significant modern AI investment. It's a concrete signal of the backgammon renaissance reaching serious money.
ExtremeGammon (XG), the leading backgammon analysis software released in 2009, was purchased by Travis Kalanick, founder and former CEO of Uber, with plans for significant AI investment.
Social media feeds men and women the absolute worst caricatures of each other while stripping away the everyday, imperfect relationships that would calibrate their expectations. Combine that with smaller families and fewer cross-sex friendships, and you get a generation that talks about the opposite sex constantly but almost never to them.
The 'would you rather be alone with a man or a bear' debate went viral not because men are objectively more dangerous than ever, but because an entire fear industrial complex of influencers and safety products had already primed women to feel that way. Once the algorithm identifies you as worried about personal safety, the content and the scrunchie drink-covers never stop.
Women feel less safe not because danger has increased, but because trust in institutions — police, churches, schools — that used to enforce safety norms has collapsed. Young women are far less likely than older women to believe those institutions will handle sexual assault responsibly, leaving them with only individual self-protection as a fallback.
Even self-identified feminist women consistently told Daniel Cox in interviews and surveys that they want men to open doors, pay for dates, and show demonstrable care. The internet noise around 'benevolent sexism' drowns out this widespread, quietly held preference.
In focus groups in Philadelphia and Raleigh, every single hand went up when participants were asked if parents discussed financial stability and education. Zero hands went up for marriage or parenthood. Parents are shaping their children's ambitions with total silence on the experiences that matter most.
American families are smaller than ever, with roughly 1 in 5 children now growing up as only children. Without the daily friction of siblings — shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms, resolving disagreements — young people enter adult relationships without the negotiation muscles relationships require.
Online dating optimises for your existing preferences rather than expanding your horizons. People who meet online give bad first dates almost no second chances; people who meet through mutual friends are far more forgiving. The disembodied, checklist-driven nature of apps removes all the social cues that actually reveal character.
A split-sample survey found that men judge male and female cheating identically harshly, and women judge male cheating the same way men do. The outlier: young women are dramatically less likely to call female infidelity morally wrong, suggesting shared-fate thinking and personal experience of being cheated on are reshaping the moral calculus.
The monk mode trend encourages men to withdraw from social life to work on themselves — but this is precisely backwards. The research is clear: close friendships are the single most powerful predictor of whether a man dates, commits, and becomes his best self. Self-improvement without social reintegration is just sophisticated avoidance.
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