Good morning, everyone. Let's start with the word of prayer. Thank you. Thank you, Father God, for this new day, Lord. We submit ourselves unto your loving hands, Father God. We thank you that you have given us the knowledge and understanding how to live our lives through your word, Lord. Help us to use it and be an overcomer, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Thank you so much. We are now in chapter 9 where we talk about an overcomer's lifestyle. So we've understood so far that we have authority in Christ Jesus and we must use the authority. We've also understood how the enemy works, his strategies, his tactics. So what kind of a lifestyle should a believer have such that the enemy cannot touch us? So that's what we will discuss. So the first thing is to understand where we are right now. So us being in Christ is already a place of immunity for us. Immunity meaning Satan cannot touch us. So could somebody read for us Colossians chapter 3 and verse 1. So one person may please read that verse and another person. 1 John 5 verses 18 and 19. Colossians chapter 3 verse 1. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Okay. Fine. So can you just come again? The same verse. For I want you Colossians 3 chapter 3 verse 1. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Okay. Fine. All right. Please go ahead. 1 John 5 verse 18 and 19. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God needs himself, keeps himself and the wicked one does not touch him. We know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sword of the big one. Okay. All right. Thank you. So Colossians 3 verse 1 says if you were raised with Christ. Okay. So basically it's just talking about the fact that spiritually we now have a new life. Okay. With Christ. Christ is seated in the heavenly places and we also talked about how we are now positionally seated with Christ in the heavenly places. So our position or positional reality is we are in Christ. Okay. There are two things but that we must consider when we say that we are in Christ. One is of course the position. The second one is what you know we read from 1 John chapter 5 that when we walk right with our relationship right with the Lord then the enemy cannot touch us. So positionally are we righteous? Yes. But in practice or in actuality when we are living our lives in that manner also in righteousness what happens the verse says that the enemy cannot touch us. Okay. So both are necessary. Both are necessary and both talk about how we are really in Christ spiritually and our life as we live it out we are still in Christ and that way Satan does not have access to us. So that's very important. The second thing for us to understand okay we've understood that the positional reality is important and our walk with the Lord is important that will prevent us from you know the enemy sort of making an entry into our lives. The second important thing for a believer to stay protected is intimacy with God. Okay. So when we say intimacy intimacy is a relationship which is very strong which is very close. So a close relationship with God we all know Psalm 91. So what does Psalm 91 say He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. So it gives us a picture that somebody is staying in a close relationship with God. Isn't it? He who dwells in the secret place. Secret place is a hidden away place. Right. A quiet place where we are spending time with the Lord. So for a believer a place like that what does the passage say? It says it's the shelter. Isn't it? If you dwell in the secret place of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty in the shelter of the Almighty. So shadow, shelter all this talks about protection. First of all we are in Christ that is our place of protection. We are walking with Christ that is our place of protection. Now intimacy is intimacy something that all believers walk in? No. It's a choice. Automatically a close relationship doesn't happen. One really needs to go after it or make a choice. So as a believer if I make a choice for intimacy the Bible says we will be protected.  Now another time in the Bible where we notice a close relationship that man had with God without the entrance of sin is the Garden of Eden. Isn't it? So in the Garden of Eden we know that God came. He communed with man. He fellowshiped with man. So there are certain qualities of that first fellowship. When we look at that we recognize that it was a safe place actually for man. So what are the features of that initial communion of man and God in the Garden? Now we see that God had a relationship and man acknowledged the relationship. So even today when we recognize that we have a relationship with God, we pursue that relationship it's good. That talks of intimacy. Then what else was there in the Garden? One of course was relationship. But the other thing we notice is there was submission before Adam and Eve disobeyed. There was submission. So whatever God was saying Eve were walking in obedience to that. So that also it was protection for them because sin never entered as long as they were obedient to God. So relationship is one but submission is the other thing that kept them safe. And continuing to look at what happened then was also responsibility. Responsibility is God gave them things to do so he told them okay Adam Eve you take care of the garden tend the garden. So the first job if you want to call it that mankind ever had is gardening.  So there was a responsibility which was given to them and not just to tend the plants but he also said protect the garden. So it was actually their responsibility to protect it from intruders but what happened they couldn't manage that role. Satan came he deceived and they let it happen. So we notice that as long as they were in a close relationship with God and they were simply doing what God told them to do. So applied to us today. So we are in a strong relationship with God. We are walking in obedience to God. Okay God called me to be in this season of life a student. God called me to be a parent. God called me to be a spouse whatever and doing what I am supposed to do automatically there is protection. Satan can't mess with you. If you are just walking in these normal things. Isn't it? So that itself is showing us that you know you have to just walk aligned to whatever God is calling you to do and that will protect you from the attack of the enemy and one more important thing which was in the garden was God gave them dominion. So they held dominion in the garden. Dominion authority. So they could exercise authority.  God gave them. It's your responsibility. You lead, you call and then he gives everyone name. So he is using his dominion he is using his authority in that manner and things are going on very well. So the same thing lies for us today. What does God call you to do? If you just position yourself there. Position yourself in a close relationship with God. Submit to God. Do what God is calling you to do. Use your dominion. You'll be safe. Okay and that's the lesson that we read. So automatically you could say that even when there was no so called weapon to protect themselves. Did God give them any guns or swords and say okay protect yourself? He didn't because it was not needed. So before there were weapons. These are the weapons that they had. Just fulfill your role and it's only later that we see in scripture that you know we talk about the name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus and all. So weapons came for protection later on. But when we are in that place of intimacy, obedience, submission, recognizing our dominion taking up our responsibility. Satan cannot even touch us. That's what we read. So it's very simple for us to stay protected from the enemy. If we are able to do just these basic things. Of course we'll come to other things that one can do to be protected from the devil. So okay fine. We understood by virtue of the fact that we are positioned in Christ. We are walking with Christ. We are in intimacy with God. We recognize our role and responsibility we are protected. The next important thing is to be consecrated. Okay. Consecrated. Again consecration has to do with submission. And again and again we dealt with James chapter 4 and verse 7 which says submit to God. So it simply means that everything which is a part of us, we surrender to God. For example our thoughts okay. And we say God I give my thoughts to you. I dedicate my thoughts to you. So then what do we do? We make sure that every thought we think is a pleasing thought to God. Okay. So then what happens? My thought life is consecrated. It is dedicated to the Lord. So if my thought life is consecrated everything moves from the thoughts. So thoughts then become my actions. My actions you know reflective of my behavior. My behavior repeated becomes my lifestyle. Isn't it? So everything is starting from here. But I have dedicated my thoughts to the Lord. And that is again submission. So I submit to God. And then I resist the devil. So when I am submitted the enemy cannot find a loophole. So whenever we dedicate or we say okay I dedicate my resources. I dedicate my time. So everything that we have we can actually dedicate it to the Lord. That's what we see in scripture. So and we said this earlier when we talked about spiritual influence. Anything which is dedicated becomes an expression of that spirit. Remember even when people sacrifice they do dedications other gods. What happens that object becomes an expression of that God or that person you find right? We see that manifestation of demon spirit. So many things happen. Why? Because they dedicated that individual. Same way we are doing the opposite. I am dedicating myself, my resources, my body to God. And that way Satan cannot touch us. Now what are the things that can protect me and help me be an overcomer? I must also put on the weapon. Now what's happening in the world? We have an active enemy known as Satan. He's the adversary. He wants to attack everyone. So to protect myself I need some weapons now.  He God knows that we need some weapons. So in Ephesians chapter 6 we talk about the armor of God. So what are the parts of the armor of God? They have been listed and for a believer we have to put on all the parts of the armor. So it says put on. Which simply means that just because I am a believer I am not automatically protected. You know as I step out. But it's only when I put on the armor that I can walk protected. So that means not all believers are protected isn't it? We may come under the attack of the devil. So what are the parts of the armor? The helmet of salvation. Helmet of salvation the meaning is in my mind I understand that I am saved and what is it to be saved isn't it? So to be saved means I am in the kingdom of God. To be saved means that every blessing of the cross is mine. So all that I understand so when I understand that any believer who understands these things can the enemy fool them easily cannot. So that's what helmet of salvation means. So my mind is aware. I walk with a renewed mind. Then breastplate of righteousness. Breastplate of righteousness is protecting some very important parts of our body that help us function for example breathing so important. Heart beating so important. So my chest is that area is very important. So in warfare what would the enemy want to do? Attack chest because there are some really important organs there. But God says let's protect the important parts of who you are your heart with the breastplate of righteousness. What is the meaning? The meaning simply is I understand that Christ became sin for me so that I can become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So when I have that understanding my heart is protected. Satan cannot keep accusing. I'll be like enough. I already know who I am. Satan you can't do this to me. So that is breastplate of righteousness. And breastplate of righteousness is also walking in a right relationship with God. So when I'm doing the right thing is it easy for Satan to accuse me? Of course not. That is also for my own protection. So I am protected. Helmet is there breastplate is there. Belt of truth. Belt of truth. What is that? You see when the Roman and we are talking about the Roman armour. So you must you can look it up. I'm sorry I'm not projecting a picture here for you but you can Google it and you can see how the armour actually looks. They had a belt to hold everything in place. Okay. So today there is something that holds everything in place in our lives. What is that? The truth of God's word. So if I have the truth of God's word again any believer who knows the word of God. He knows right from wrong. He has a you know discernment that he has gained by studying the word of God. Can Satan prick them easily? Cannot okay. So that is my protection. I know the word and I'm living by the word. Satan cannot easily attack us. Shoes of the gospel. Shoes of the gospel means to again have the knowledge of salvation but be able to take it to others and share it with others. Okay. So we tell others about Jesus. We bring others to the knowledge of the Lord. That is also our protection because you see we have understood, we have tasted and seen but now we have come to a place where you know we are excited about the message. What will happen if a believer is not excited? An unexcited believer can the enemy do something? He can and in fact he likes if we are discouraged, if we are bored, if we are lazy right? He likes such believers because a part of the weapon is missing over there. Right? But when we are excited about the truth excited to share about Jesus. He knows I cannot do anything to this person. They are very well aware of what Jesus has done and they also want to share it. So the gospel of peace when we have shoes of the gospel of peace that also protects us and you have something known as the shield of faith shield is you hold it in your hand and if you look at the Roman armor you will see a round you know shield which they kind of grasp it like this. Yeah and when they hold it in front what happens? If there are arrows generally yeah it's a defense. So if there are arrows they come hit it either the arrow will get damaged or it will be redirected away from the person. So what is God saying? You know one of the important things for a believer is faith. When we lose faith Satan can come in. Faith is so important imagine if Abraham, if he somewhere along his journey he stopped believing.  What if he stopped believing he is the father of faith right? We learn faith from him. He did not believe he would have never seen the birth of Isaac and many other promises would be unfulfilled but thank God he had a weapon and that weapon is faith. Never stop believing. Never stop believing in the word of God and then the enemy cannot attack us but the moment we bring down our faith again you see the chest area or anywhere that Satan may attack that is keeping him away the shield. A believer who believes right? I think that's what they call as believer right? Because that's a job description we are supposed to believe in who God is what he is saying. Satan cannot attack. You are holding your faith everywhere and the arrows can't touch us. So having a heart of faith always build up your faith in God and you will be protected. So till now we read about the defensive weapons or yeah defensive weapons or defensive part of the armor. Now there is one offensive weapon defensive means I protect myself but offensive means I go after the devil. I go after the enemy.  Which is the part that I have not talked about? The sword of the spirit which is the word of God. So if I want to chase the devil I want to run after the devil what should I do? I need the word. That is the sword of the spirit. I take the word and I attack the devil right? So whenever I use the word you can imagine the lie of the devil just gets crushed. It's gone. It disappears so that is the power of the word of God which is why God is saying do you want to fight the devil be immune against the devil overcome the devil keep the word in your heart.  So powerful. So protect yourself yes but also we should know how to chase the devil and destroy him and that is through the word of God. So Paul used all these parts to help us understand how a Christian walk should be. We are very aware Christian aware of what salvation is aware of the word of God and that way we will overcome the enemy. The next part here that will help us stay strong against the enemy's attack is faith. We also talked about it as a shield but it's so so important that without faith we will not be able to do exploits in the kingdom of God. You remember Jesus he said if you have faith as a mustard seed what can you do move the mountain. So if I want to be an overcomer I've got to be a believer but a believer whose heart has faith. So with faith the enemy can bring a mountain but I can uproot the mountain isn't it? So faith is very important and it will protect us it will help us move forward with God and you know that is something that we can never compromise on. So faith is we saw how in the armor it's a defensive weapon but it is also an offensive weapon because as I'm telling you if you use your faith you are destroying the works of the evil one and always build our hearts with the faith that comes by hearing the word of God. So how do you build faith? Okay faith is good we all know faith is good how can I get this faith exercise meaning what go out and exercise in the sun which exercise do we want okay I think what Prince is saying is you use your faith each time right then you get stronger okay that makes sense okay so a lot of people hear the word again and again and again but still they lack faith correct that is the answer which will give you the points hearing hearing by the word of God that is the exact answer but I'm saying we must understand what it means okay hearing the word is yes we know the word but you gotta really receive the word yet believe the word isn't it meditate the word you remember the parable Jesus said you gotta understand the word is the seed but if the person who is listening does not understand then it doesn't benefit that person so it's not just hearing you know sometimes we think ha just hear hundred times here here here nothing goes inside then there's no faith no nothing is being built but if I want faith take the word think about the word understand the word isn't it digest it's like sugarcane anybody eaten sugarcane how do you eat it they're showing the action how they eat it yeah you chew it up but how do you eat it till the end or mango like you just relish it right till all the juices everything nothing is left there are people who even like licking their hands sometimes because they don't want anything left of the fruit so hearing hearing by the word of God is like that where we take the word understand it no receive what the word is releasing okay strengthen our hearts fully put our hope in the word so that way what happens that's when faith is being built up there are other things also we can do with the word you listen to the word understand it and all but then you could pray the word isn't it we can pray the word like just tell me any prayer that you pray from the word of God okay for example paul you know when he prayed for the churches he prayed something like may you have the spirit of revelation may you be enlightened so we see that in the word so when I'm trying to hear that word and faith is coming into my heart like okay there is enlightenment revelation available God give me that revelation so when I start praying that word that word works for me so that's how you use the word to build faith I must hear it I must understand it I must desire it I must pray it then what else we can memorize it isn't it we can speak it we can confess it where for example my God shall supply all my needs according to his riches and glory that is the word what does it say it says God will provide so when I'm thinking to myself about my lack about not having enough or going through financial crisis I say I declare God is my provider God has a covenant of provision for me isn't it he said that according to his riches in glory so I will have an abundance what's happening word got into me now what is coming out of me okay that's when I'm really moving in faith now I have built faith in that area by meditating on the word so that's how this faith is developed so faith is both a defense Satan can't get us easily if you have faith in your heart but it's also an offense so when he sees a believer oh look at the way he's confessing declaring oh no let's run away from here so faith becomes a weapon that you face the enemy with so build faith build faith about you know what God has promised for your future build faith about your family build faith about your identity so in our apc app I don't know how many people have seen it but we have an app you can download it from the play store and then in that if you go there is something known as A to Z declarations okay so that is something that like even I am practicing to use during my prayer time so from there I read those declarations that you know I'm healed by the stripes of Jesus so what am I doing I'm releasing my faith with my words so what's happening that's an overcomers lifestyle because it's word is going into me and now the word is coming out from a place of faith so when we live with that it becomes very difficult for the enemy to touch us is it making sense everyone is it helping should I explain or should I just go quickly alright that's good fine so how is the online batch doing here okay alright so some answers have come in I hope you can all hear me now Kennedy I see your message there but I'm assuming by now you can hear me properly some comments meditate God's word and pray sincerely to overcome that's true okay can we can hear and Kennedy you're saying pray for the right things and believe that they will come true and cast out all doubts out of your mind when it comes to faith this is a way we can exercise our faith oh of course coming to the exercise okay thank you Viku you can also hear us so exercise what Prince said is faith often you put it into practice so any muscle that you exercise what happens it becomes strong okay that all of us know great so let's exercise our faith muscle also now what else is going to make us strong against the enemy prayer prayer at intercession so do you remember there was a time when Peter came he was talking to Jesus and Jesus told him about the mistake he would make in the future that you know he would fall he would deny Jesus but Jesus said I have prayed for you right because Jesus knew that Satan is trying to create an issue which will come up later but that should not destroy Peter's faith that's what Jesus wanted so which weapon did Jesus use he said I have prayed for you Peter I have prayed for you so when we pray what is happening protection isn't it so we are praying about our life our ministry can challenges come they can come but we are still protected because prayer what does it do we have talked about it you know it foils the attacks of the devil it destroys the attacks of the devil sometimes when we pray we can also prophetically know what Satan is doing you know especially when we you know there are times when we sense isn't it maybe about our family member or somebody we just sense and we pray for them but that might be the exact time when they are going through something what is God doing God is helping us bring that protection on their lives in the same way over our own lives when we pray you pray for yourself you overcome the devil you can even demolish the attacks which Satan creates see when we think about Satan know it's like this in Bible times they would forge weapons they would make weapons like you can imagine somebody is taking a piece of metal and you know they are heating it up and they are bending it they are polishing it and they are making it into a sword just think about it like that so when the enemy is forging a weapon he is getting ready he has a plan in his mind this is what I am going to do so and so so he is making a weapon you see when I am praying what happens what he is making also can be destroyed you understand so that's how it works and that's why prayer is so important when we are praying we can destroy before he forms it or let's say he forms something there is a strong hold some demonic spirits are already at work but when I pray I can also go and destroy what is formed alright so this helps me overcome the devil so be a person of prayer and Satan cannot attack or we will rather overcome fasting fasting is also very important it helps us today many of you are fasting so I just want to encourage you fasting also brings protection on our lives against the devil and we overcome Satan through prayer and fasting so we know that in Daniel chapter 10 Daniel was fasting and at that time what happened there was an answer to prayer which needed to come to Daniel but there was war in the heavenlies isn't it the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece they were stopping the answer to come to Daniel but when this happened how is it that Daniel could overcome he is in devotion in prayer and fasting so when he was in prayer and fasting what happened it's amazing we are here praying and fasting but through our prayer and fasting God is moving things in the heavenlies so an angel was sent so an angel goes fights these principalities and the answer comes through so these are all weapons actually God is given the weapon of faith the weapon of prayer the weapon of fasting so when a believer develops these things in their life what happens you know Satan is no match like Satan is no match to what God is doing so we must remember and practice these things in our daily lives and it will really help us overcome the enemy so yeah there are other things about fasting which I mentioned here which we dealt with earlier in prayer and intercession what are the other benefits of fasting fasting will help us deepen our hunger for God so that is the result which it gives so when I fast in the natural my spiritual hunger or passion or focus for God will increase and fasting also helps me overcome my flesh I gain more strength or power over my flesh so my will is strengthened to do what God wants me to do and fasting also helps eliminate doubt and unbelief so let's remember that a right relationship with God knowing who we are in Christ having an intimate relationship with God just taking up the responsibility which God has told us to do you remember the time when David he was supposed to go to war but he was not at war right he was in his house and that led him to sin isn't it so being at the wrong place when God wants you to be in your responsibilities also like an open door they're giving the enemy a chance so just take on the responsibility which God has given a walk with it put on the weapons and live a life which has faith prayer fasting all this automatically will keep us safe from the enemy so if there are no questions we can pray and close for today if there are questions yes of course we can take it up alright so let's pray then and I just want to request one of you to please pray Father we thank you for this time Lord and we come before you again in the name of Jesus Lord and I surrender each one of you in your hand Father what we learned today says in Lord help us give us knowledge understanding your word Father and we can understand your word Father Jesus thank you for everything Lord Jesus in Jesus name I pray amen amen amen thank you everyone please work on your assignments and I'll see you in the next class God bless yeah but you can work on it now also no no no no no extension the last date is the given date


Yeah, it's 30 seconds past, so I'm going to get started. Welcome to the first group conversation for the configure team. We are under the ops teams at GitLab. We work on all of the features related to the configure stage in the DevOps life cycle. So who are we? There is currently seven of us, according to this, and we have four open positions. So something you can totally help out with is referrals for back-end engineers at GitLab. There are a lot of open positions and our team has, yeah, most of them, no, not most of them, a lot of them. What we work on is most of the Kubernetes integration stuff and auto DevOps. We're also working on some cool new features around serverless and runbooks. And there's the product vision page where we have a lot of really exciting stuff we potentially are going to work on in 2019. A lot of this stuff is built around Kubernetes integration as kind of at the heart of how all of this stuff fits together. So our accomplishments, since we became a team, which was only maybe four or five months ago, we shipped Protected Environments, which is a feature of GitLab that can allow operators to protect deployment to certain environments, production environment, and only allow certain people to trigger those types of jobs, et cetera. Something that's been really demanded is RBAC support. And this is like a lot of companies wanting to use GitLab, wanting to adopt GitLab in Kubernetes integration have been skeptical of the fact we didn't support RBAC. That's something we've been working on, we managed to ship autodevils support for that, too. And some other autodevils improvement there, database migration was one that came up at the summit as was something that Sid brought up as DZ mentioned that he couldn't use autodevils because of database migration, so we ticked off one more of the things. We're currently working on HTTPS support, which was another thing that was brought up at the summit. And we also onboarded the new team member, Tong. He is in New Zealand, was actually the first hire in New Zealand for GitLab as well, which is quite cool. And we've onboarded him to the team, and he's now contributing a lot to the team and delivering a lot of these things we're talking about as well as a backend engineer. We also have, this is a pretty important achievement, was we've had autodevils for ages, but had basically no documentation on how to actually set up a local development environment and use autodevils. So now we have that. It's extensive and still not trivial to do, but we have documentation. We are working on focusing on matching users' expectations for Kubernetes and autodevils. So much like I said about DZ, not being able to use autodevils we had. We're adding HTTPS support. We're adding the ability to set environment variables for your running application. Group level clusters was something our Samsung customers brought up at the summit saying they needed that. Instance level clusters is also something that on-premise customers will wanna be able to use. So we're working on those. And another common theme of what we've built because Kubernetes seems to be at the heart of just about every piece of software people wanna deliver these days. We have a lot of startups wanting to work with GitLab and build on top of what we've got in terms of our Kubernetes integration. TriggerMesh wants to build serverless support based on their ideas. Nurch is this really interesting idea called executable run books. They're working with us. Netlify wants to build a static site generator or a dynamic static site generator on top of our Kubernetes integration and DigitalOcean wants to ship the ability to create clusters on DigitalOcean through GitLab's interface. So those are the slides. Let me open the chat and see where we were at with that. Okay, Dan, do you wanna jump in or do you want me to just read the question? Let's see, any plans to make AutoDevOps work with Kubernetes? Sorry, different Dan, I meant. Sorry. Dan asked the question. Sorry, yeah, that was me. Yeah, I'm just wondering if there's any plans to work on making AWS integration of AutoDevOps as smooth with EKS with Amazon's communities as it is with Google's. Daniel, you can answer that. Thanks for the question, Dan. Yes, I think that one of our long-term plans is to provide that experience for all major cloud providers. So while we couldn't give you a hard timeline right now, it is something that we have planned long-term. So I would love to see the same experience in Azure and in AWS. And I think that as we ramp up our team and as we are able to add more people to take on more things and have more capacity, we'll see more of those things happening. And of course, if anybody has any contacts at AWS, they are more than welcome to contribute this as the digital ocean team is doing. So just to know there. Kind of related an interesting topic because digital oceans wanting to do the same thing, Google's done in terms of being able to provision a cluster throughout UI. We kind of started to have these conversations around what would we need in order to get an extensible API setup so that anybody could do this and EKS could do this as well. It turns out we're basically most of the way there, we're already starting to build out an API so that anybody can create a cluster in GitLab. So couple that with OAuth support, we might be able to have a fairly minimal implementation where any external cloud provider could provision manage Kubernetes clusters in GitLab. And that's a possible way we have going forward to kind of keep up with the demand of other cloud providers wanting to piggyback off of our success. More questions we had. No more questions in the chat. We have lots of people talking about IWS. So I'll add on then. So you mentioned that the API for that, does that include the configurations that happen as part of AutoDevOps? So it's not just creating the cluster, right? It's also configuring again the Ingress setup and all that because I know that with AWS that's a bit rocky. And so being able to say we have that level of easy integration I think is more than just creating the cluster, right? So is the API you're working on, talk, you're gonna cover that as well? Yeah, it was funny that I was just thinking about that as you're talking about EKS, the problem at the moment is it has a different Ingress behavior than Google and that's the main reason the integration doesn't work as well. But yeah, it does lead me to think that we could think about building an API so that people can create an Ingress through our API. So rather than us having to understand the Ingress implementation that every provider uses if they are already integrating with our API to create the cluster, then all we really need to do is get, create another endpoint for them to create an Ingress on our end as a possible option there. But that's not part of the API issue we have now but that's a good suggestion and something we should think about making that more seamless. It'll be interesting depending on how DigitalOcean implements this, whether or not we need to start thinking about that sooner rather than later as well if their Ingress implementation doesn't work for us. More questions. Gonna be such a quick group conversation. So I can say it out loud if you want. I'm just wondering this because it's something I've encountered in the past and I don't know if we have any, if we don't I'm wondering if customers have asked for it. Do we have any sort of automated user provisioning built into sort of like as part of our back so that customers can manage their users, not through an interface but through an API that can be hooked up to their own user management systems? I'm not aware of any such thing and it's complicated I think is probably, the challenge here is like our back depending on, that's what I understand depending on where the Kubernetes cluster is running the authentication is implemented through an authorization provider like for Google, I guess they have their own authorization provider for users to get access to the cluster and things like that. So yeah, I don't exactly know how that would work but it's probably something worth exploring and I'm not sure if it's come up before. We certainly have integrations with LDAP, SAML and Okta and a few others. I don't know about generic API type of user management. I assume we also have an API for user management as well but we at least do those. No more questions? Okay, we have one more comment in the chat. Not heard of Chef, Puppet and Ansible being mentioned. It's probably what we're doing. I mean, I don't know exactly what Chef and Puppet and Ansible are up to these days. Maybe they're doing a bunch of things beyond what I know them for but what we are doing is different in the sense that we're not trying to build out something that provisions infrastructure for you. We are trying to build out an integration with based on top of Kubernetes so that users can more easily get access to Kubernetes clusters through our UI but the provisioning, et cetera, is still kind of managed and owned by the cloud provider. So Google knows how to provision and run a Kubernetes cluster GitLab dozen. So we just call out to Google's APIs to do it right now. Maybe that's kind of related to your question. One way to look at that might be that we're looking at sort of the cloud native way of doing configuration management and not to throw them under the bus too much but Chef, Puppet and Ansible are sort of legacy, managing of VMs primarily. I'm sure they're all struggling of how to get out of that box but for the most part their sweet spot is in managing virtual machines and standing up instances and configuring those instances to all look exactly the same and we're focused on specifically Kubernetes GlideNator. That's great. That's really helpful. Thank you. Just to put my cards on the table, I've been here for a year now but I was with Chef for I guess three years plus previously so that's sort of my background and not so much now but that was the thinking. But that's really helpful and it will help when we speak to customers. Yeah, I think it's kind of interesting because like we don't wanna become the place where like we don't wanna re-implement the tooling that's needed to provision servers, et cetera like that. So we're really leveraging Kubernetes a lot because it's the leader in terms of containerized infrastructure but yeah, there is a layer on top of that of cloud providers like Google actually running the Kubernetes cluster for you as well that we also don't wanna touch. So for users with their applications we want them to start thinking cloud native and deploying containers and we want them to be doing that on top of our Kubernetes integration and we don't really wanna expose infrastructure configuration to anybody really. Okay, well, I will count down from five if we get no more questions. Five, four, three, two, one. Okay, thanks everybody. Have a great day. Bye bye.


This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network We have got a whole lot of basketball and hockey going on tonight in the NBA and NHL We're here to break things down from a betting perspective over at Fandall sportsbook By talking to Tom Vecchio and getting his favorite bets across tonight in both of those sports This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network and Fandall research My name is Jim Sonnis I am a managing editor of digital media for a Fandall research joined here once again by Tom Vecchio Check him out on Twitter at Tom underscore Vecchio one He of course is a host of primetime Tom and the daily ISO on the number fire daily fantasy podcast V Tom big slates knife both the NBA and NHL. How you doing today? I'm doing good Yeah, really interesting time of the year things are changing across the NBA landscape NHL is moving forward approaching the all-star break In a really good spot for both leagues right now. Yeah, all-star break for the NHL coming up next weekend NBA We got some head coach movement, which we'll discuss later on today Trade deadline is a couple of weeks away now February 8th for that. So not too far down the road So pretty fun time for both we're gonna dig in and see where Tom sees value for tonight and talk about the bucks Decision to hire dock rivers as well But first a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcasts You can find us on Apple podcast Spotify, etc. Etc. Do you like what you hear leave us a five star rating on Apple podcast or Spotify? You can also leave us a thumbs up over on the Fandal YouTube page and check us out over on Fandal TV plus When it comes to the NFL playoffs, you've got to win one game at a time when you bet the NFL playoffs on Fandal One game can mean a lot of wins Fandal America's number one sportsbook has all your favorite bets like the money line and spread And there's all sorts of prop bets like quarterback passing yards or who will score the first touchdown Plus every day there is an NFL playoff game Fandal is giving all customers a no sweat same game parlay That means when you combine your bets for a chance to do bigger payday You'll get bonus bets back if your SGP does not win make every moment more with Fandal an official sportsbook partner of the NFL must be 21 plus and president select states minimum three leg parlay required refund issued is novel trouble bonus bets Which expire seven days after a seat max refund $5 unless otherwise specified Restrictions applies in terms that sportsbook dot Fandal calm Fandal is offering online sports waging in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas star casino LLC Gambling problem call 100 gambler or this fandal calm slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia and Vermont call 100 next step or text next step to 533 for two in Arizona<PHONE_NUMBER> where's the ccpg dot org slash chat in Connecticut 1809 with it in Indiana 105 22 4700 in Wyoming in Kansas or visit KS gambling health commie Kansas 1877 770 stop in Louisiana visit MD gambling health at Oregon, Maryland or go to 1 800 gambler.net in West Virginia Now Tom, let's kick things off here by talking about the box yesterday the news They decided to move on to majoring Griffin hiring Doc Rivers take over here the helm of the box and a lot of times with coaching changes It can be a lot of uncertainty because you don't know what the coach will do here But for Doc Rivers, we know him pretty well So what do you expect with the box with Doc Rivers now at the helm of this team? Yeah, really interesting decision considering how good the box had been I think it's partly due to You know Griffin is a first-year head coach and you know growing pains is gonna happen in any new job for anyone But like they have championship aspirations So they don't have time to mess around and like their roster is not getting any younger So when it comes to Doc Rivers, I think what we'll see Going forward is that we're gonna see like a very tight player rotation Where he's there for a reason this team is there to push to the number one seed if they can challenge the Celtics I mean may or may not happen, but there's no time to mess around. It's time to trust the veterans trust the players that you have Trust those guys, which means That we're gonna see again a condensed rotation of players There's no reason to have 10 12 players out there Which means what we can trust them when it comes to props because their minutes will be high I mean they should have consistent output, you know variation in a you know variants in shooting is gonna happen time and time again But high minutes high usage for 10 to kumpo and Lillard and Chris Milton and Lopez when get these guys Which means we can trust their PRA bets we can trust their point production. Whatever might be So if we look at Doc Rivers coaching we can say okay We have a Titan player pool or Titan player rotational You know what they're gonna be doing on a nightly basis Therefore we can just trust their stars every single night regardless of match up home away high spread low spread doesn't matter And how big of a deviation is that from what they were doing under Griffin? Was it more uncertain there the first half of the year or how are you feeling about them in that initial run with him? Well, in the beginning Lillard was very variable just because you know There's take some time if he's a he was a massive usage player in Portland And now he has to give up a little bit because they have to get him in this one-two game with it And the kubo and then Middleton was on a mince restriction because of a you know Offseason surgery and getting healthy and then he slowly increased his minutes So I think we'll just see it gradually progress where and listen There are times where they blow teams out and then to attend the kumol in place like 28 minutes So that's just gonna happen just because it will but over the course of time I think we'll see a gradual change of 28 minutes 30 32 consistently pushing towards a 36 minute floor on a nightly basis Okay, so maybe bump a player props for the stars on the Bucks and right now if I do a sportsbook Bucks plus 210 to win the Eastern Conference Celtics plus 140 there followed by the Sixers at five to one Sounds like you're not in an either price there. Those are so low In something like he's such a tough road for all of those teams one two three and even taking on like in Miami Get you know getting better.  Yeah, so we're staying away there But more so for player props will potentially sustain value in the short term with the Bucks and at dock rivers I get assuming he officially accepts the job, which is not a hundred percent locked in as of yet Let's talk now about the NBA for tonight Tom a couple of national TV games there We got the Suns taking on the Mavericks right now at Fandals sportsbook The Suns are favored by two and a half total the game is 240 and a half That's followed by the Thunder and the Spurs that game right now at Fandals sportsbook Thunder a point favorites total is 242 there, so let's begin there Tom any bets stand out to you across those two games in the NBA Yeah, I have one for each game. Let's start with Phoenix and let's go to Grayson Allen for the Phoenix Suns over two and a half threes Singing minus 102. He said at least two threes and seven of his last ten games at least three in six of ten Dallas they're sixteenth in the league in terms of threes allowed per game to opponents super average we've a high over under a close spread and Grayson Allen has been like Quietly really consistent this year. He's having a very effective year from the field when he's shooting but you know the 50 40 90 marks that he's hitting and I understand he's not the most popular players at this this I Would say bad history potentially, you know coming from Duke and like all these tripping Incidents whatever might be but he is effective and he plays a very solid role and Ultimately comes down is that like he has a lot of space to shoot because the defense is often worried about Kevin Durant Devin Booker really be on all these players So he's often left open and he could just be shooting these threes when he takes six seven per game And he's hitting them at a very high clip so when we were looking at a high over under and We're seeing a player that's very effective at only two and a half and he's been super consistent with it I love this prop tonight Now we've seen a lot of times zero the Suns haven't had all three of their big three there And they're all healthy right now But have you seen enough from Alan in terms of his usage when they've had all three of those guys healthy to still feel good about The over on this number. Yeah, and he's been there the whole season So he's been effective when it's been two of them one of them all three of them So and and this stretch he's been on everyone's been healthy for the Suns in this recent stretch that he's been shooting So and listen even if someone's not there it just should open a more opportunity for him because he has to be there playing minutes So their rotation would be thinner if one of them would be missing so I'm On board with him at any time. Yeah, Grace and Alan over two and a half threes minus one or two right now I found a sportsbook his past five games. He's had three three nine and four made threes He's shooting hot. So like part of it is that but definitely Still getting looks despite the fact these Suns are healthy right now Other game as mentioned is the thunder and these spurs again thunder pretty big favorites here eight points spread total is 242 what's seen in this one Tom? That would be chat home grin the center for the thunder over seven and a half rebounds at minus one fifteen both teams are on the top ten and leading offensive pace the Spurs are atrocious on defense and despite having won beyond it out there the spurs they're on 16.1 rebounds per game opposing centers. That's the third most in the NBA So while he can be effective at times We have to look at the overall like game environment and no matter how good he theoretically could be at rebounding When there's that many possessions back and forth and they're getting in games that end 130 to 120 There's just so much back and forth that the rebounds are gonna be there Simply because the game environment enables it doesn't matter how good he is like physically at rebounding the ball So they'll have so many rebounds and I think chat home grin is in the spot where because chat home grin is also technically a Rookie he didn't play last year. Yeah, so this is a rookie versus rookie matchup Which could have some implications for the futures market. So I think chat home grin Will push to be like he wants to take the spotlight away Yeah, so and he's he's not like hitting this on an every night basis, but I with a two whatever 40 Whatever over under I love this spot for a lot of production tonight. Yeah home grin seven and a half rebounds over as minus 115 are you team chat team when be do you have a position in this market for the the rookie of the year? No, no, I don't have I only have one NBA future It's on Jason Tatum to win MVP which I have from back at the beginning of the season, which I don't think it's gonna happen at this point But I don't know. I they're both gonna be great I don't like like debating especially young players for a war to think it sets up too much wrong for their career It's it's a really good poor canola's dose situation. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense So the two NBA bets Thomas on for tonight Grayson Alan over two and a half threes minus one or two that is in the Suns versus Mavericks game Chet Holmgren over seven F rebounds minus one fifteen for the Thunder taking on the spurts Let's talk about the NHL tonight Tom And we actually have a couple of national TV games in the NHL side of things as well Beginning with the Hurricanes Bruins followed by Blackhawks and Kraken Blackhawks Continuantly on national TV, which seems like poor planning now that Bedard is banged up, but you know It is what it is. What are you seeing across those two games for tonight? So for Hurricanes Bruins, this is a really interesting matchup really good matchup These two teams have met in the playoffs, you know, handful of times in the past, you know Five six years, whatever it is both teams are somewhat similar Where they can be super solid on defense, especially the Bruins as of late They lead the league for the fewest goals allowed Per 60 minutes in 5v5 situations of the last two weeks the hurricanes like calling card is They are going to just suffocate you on defense and not allow you to take a ton of shots And they're also going to pour in a ton of shots like that is their calling card and has been for multiple years so Everyone might be looking at You know some of the star players in this game I'd like Charlie McAvoy who's the defender on the Bruins their best defender top defensive pairing top power play unit His prop is only one and a half for shots and set minus 130. So when I'm looking at this game What could happen the hurricanes are I think as you would assume are gonna try and take Brad March on Charlie Coyle and David posh knock out of the mix So McAvoy is gonna have the shots from the blue line They're not gonna be high value shots, which we don't care about when I came out him scoring It's just about the Bruins getting anything they can to the net because the hurricanes are gonna be so focused on suppressing everyone else So it's just like hey, he has an open lane. Just take the shot. They have to generate some type of offense against this great defense So it sounds like this is this is a mesh situation where You like the way McAvoy sets up for the way you expect the opposing team to play things here, right? He's a very solid offensive player and he sees any you can look for him an assist prop on most nights Just because he's on the power plane posh not getting a goal in the power plays almost a given it sometimes So his offensive potential has always been there And I think just the defensive matchup will allow him just to take a few extra shots tonight He has to like they have to find some offense if posh turnock Is it gonna be able to take his normal six shots when his lines at kind of four and a half? Whatever it is Poster knock is even money to score a goal in a game with a total of five and a half and the the over at five and a half It's only like minus one. Yeah, it's minus 130. So Absurd with the way that breaks down there. Yeah, five and half is is not a number you often see in today's NHL So there are times when I see a six where I will play the six because You obviously get the push potential, right? And there's just too many games You know a game that ends, you know forward to with an empty net getting that fourth goal It's like, okay, I'll take the push. So sometimes I play the six just based on the overall offensive tendencies of the league right now Okay, so McAvoy over one-half shots minus 130 for hurricanes versus Bruins other game on the TNT for tonight is mentioned is the Blackhawks and the Kraken Kraken understandably pretty big favorites in this game minus 260 in the money line also a five and a half total in this one What are you seeing here? Jared McCann the top-line center for the Kraken another over for Shots two and a half also at minus 130 the this is an extremely easy matchup for the Kraken They've lost a few games were out fully expect them to bounce back Kraken are Very shorthanded right now Madden years Johnny Gord Vince Dunn over Bjork Strand Some of them are out some of the list is day-to-day Some of them missed a few games like their lineups all over the place So McCann being on the top line center and on the first power play In a spot where I think they've lost four in a row at this point They have to bounce back against Chicago Chicago As I've said before they're always at the bottom of the league when it comes to total shot attempts allowed At even I'd fill up in five to five situations per 60 minutes They're always in the bottom five bottom ten of league the last two weeks the year whatever it is So when we put all these things together Shorthanded should open up more shooting especially if Oliver Bjork Strand Is out and Madden years and it's just McCann and the Kraken's time to write the ship No pun intended for the Kraken But write the ship and beat a far inferior team So McCann right now if I do a sports book the shot prop for him two and a half over is minus 130 That's the black cox versus Kraken game What else is he gonna cross the NHL first night top because it's actually a pretty big slate relative to what we typically get for a Wednesday, right? Just want to make one note if you go to the um the awards market for the NHL Uh, about a month and a half ago or so Uh, I spoke about Nathan McKinnon for the heart trophy there at the top Nate McKinnon versus the field I spoke of McKinnon when he was 10 to 1 to win the heart And now he's plus and he's plus 120 now The heart trophy is mvp And there are a lot of players that are very deserving of it last night Akita Kutrov who's one of the favorites right behind Uh there he had a hat trick last night. So Kutrov is very in the mix Mcdavid is like a tiny he could just do his thing and he's gonna be one of the finalists just because he is But I want to say process wise. I was right on McKinnon at least as of now when I said him at 10 to 1 yeah, so Because and I'm like trying to play all these scenarios in my head.  So McKinnon two plus points at minus 132 for the avalanche Going up against the capitals capitals on the second night of a back-to-back with travel going into altitude at colorado Which is one of my favorite spots to To look always on a back-to-back teams are going into altitude Which is one of the worst things you could have so McKinnon two plus points playing the narrative playing All these sorts of things with Kutrov having a massive game last night So as you mentioned, that's in the capitals versus avalanche game McKinnon to have two plus points is minus 132 at fan dual sportsbook We haven't talked a lot about this market. So if people are not as familiar with this one Is that pretty atypical to see a number that short or is it just that McKinnon is so good? He's had such a great year and the team is that good where you can justify laying minus 132 to get multiple points in the game Oh, absolutely for McKinnon for I mean for kutrov You know if I would personally I would play kutrov mckinnon mcdavid poshtronok panarin Some of these players I play them to minus 150 as long as the match enables it, you know not not uh poshtronok going up against Uh carolina tonight, right? But if when they play Montreal when they play autoa when they play buffalo Yeah, sign me up sign me up for all these players on mckinnon putting in like he's going over these stretches We have 10 games. We have like 19 points over 10 games Okay, so nathan mckinnon fights back tonight over to get two plus points is minus 132 That's along with jared mckinnon over to an ash shots minus 130 for the kraken versus black hawks And then charlie mackavoy over one and a half shots minus 130 as the bruins take on the hurricanes That's all we got here for today on covering the spread We'll be back with you once again tomorrow talking about uh the nfl conference championship matchups with dr Ed feng Make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast to get that as it goes live But tom appreciates you as always good luck and enjoy all the basketball and hockey for tonight Thanks for having me fun tom on twitter at tom underscore vekia one I am on twitter at jim sonnis you can find me on threads at jim dot sonnis and follow fan dual research on twitter At fan dual research want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your bets across wednesday We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down the conference championships This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network


Dear colleagues, thank you for having me. Good afternoon. My name is Sam Vaknin, I'm a professor of psychology in Southern Federal University, Vostov-on-Don, Russian Federation, and a professor of finance and a professor of psychology in SIAPS, the Center for International Advanced and Professional Studies, which is the outreach program of the SIAPS construction of universities. Apologies for the long introduction. Thank you for having me again. And today I would like to discuss a very controversial topic. Is the future of monogamy adultery? Will adultery be the new monogamy? To unpack this very, very explosive title, I want to go a bit into the current state of marriage, family, relationships and intimacy more generally and compare it a bit to historical precedence. The ancient institution of monogamous marriage is ill-suited, is wrong to the exigencies of modern western civilization. Today people of both genders live longer, they work longer and this renders sexual exclusivity impracticable honestly. People travel far and away frequently. People are exposed to tempting romantic alternatives via social networking and in various workplace and social settings. As leisure time increases and physical survival is all but effortlessly guaranteed, recreation and leisure take precedence over procreation. According to recent studies, for example by Lisa Wade and others, among people under the age of 25, the only kind of sex is casual sex, emotionless sex and also known as one-night stands, sex on first dates, sex with friends, friends with benefits. Among people between the ages of 25 to 35, casual, meaningless and largely anonymous sex is the dominant, the main type, the hegemonic type of sex. The young are so used to separate sex from love and intimacy that they are not having almost any sex with intimate partners. About 21% of marriages are sexless and the real number is probably three times as high. Sexlessness in committed relationships is the norm, not the exception. Instead, these young people pick up strangers in bars, nightclubs, they pick up acquaintances and friends, they cheat very frequently. Infidelity is at an all-time high and the majority of people under 35, both men and women, now cheat serially and habitually. Majorities, 60% at least. Actually interpersonal relationships among the young are open. Everyone is having open relationships in anything but name. The members of the couple let each other sleep with other people occasionally and this is a general ambient policy of don't ask, don't tell. I call this situation the intimacy cloud. The intimacy cloud, young men and women are sexually and emotionally intimate with multiple people all the time. Even when they're married or in an otherwise supposedly committed monogamous diet, they still have sex, they have emotional affairs, they sleep with classmates, former lovers, besties, old flames, colleagues and so on. The intimacy cloud. And there is not one privileged partner, they all compete usually almost on equal grounds. Approach, avoidance and triangulation, insecurity and jealousy are the main relationship management tools among the young. To make use of such instruments efficaciously, they must remain aloof and calculated, cool, detached. They cannot allow themselves to really love, to desire anyone, to be passionate or to be intimate. Intimacy skills and relationship skills are written all-time law, vanishing actually among certain age groups according to Jean Twenge and others. Dating is down 60%. Flat effect is the rigor as are narcissistic and psychopathic traits and behaviors. Furthermore, there is a stalled revolution. Women identify themselves increasingly more in masculine terms. Women adopt male macho or even male psychopathic behaviors. A unique gender world is emerging. This has not been the case in the past 5000 years. It's a tectonic shift. It's a enormous revolution, the implications of which we are far from comprehending. The families of the not too distant past were orientated along four axes. These axes were not mutually exclusive. Some of them overlapped, all of them enhanced each other. People got married for various reasons. Because of social pressure and social norms, you could call it the social diet. People got married to form a more efficient or synergetic economic unit. The economic diet. People got married in pursuit of psychosexual fulfillment, the psychosexual diet. Or people got married to secure long-term companionship and that was the companionship diet. And so we can talk about the following four axes. Social economic, emotional, utilitarian, rational and private familial. To illustrate how these axes were intertwined, let us consider one of them, the emotional axes. Until very recently, people used to get married because they felt very strongly about living alone. Partly due to a social condemnation of reclusiveness. In some countries, people still subscribe to ideologies which promote the family as a pillar of society. More patriarchal societies, more conservative societies. In these societies, the family is the basic cell, the basic unit of the national organism. A hot house in which to breed children for the army, for the state and so on and so forth. The parents are essentially glorified socialization agents. These collective ideologies call for personal contributions and sacrifices throughout the lifespan. They have a strong emotional dimension and they provide impetus to a host of behavior patterns. But the emotional investment in today's individualistic capitalist ideologies is not smaller than it was in yesterday's nationalistic patriarchal ones. It is true that technological developments had rendered past thinking obsolete and dysfunctional. But they did not quench men's thirst for guidance, worldview and companionship. As technology evolved, it became more and more disruptive to the family. That is true. Increased mobility, a decentralization of information sources, the transfers of the traditional functions of the family to societal and private sector establishments, the increased incidence of interpersonal interactions, safer sex with lesser or no consequences. All these fostered the disintegration of the traditional extended and nuclear family. Consider trends that directly affect women, for instance. I'm talking about women. I'm confining myself to women and not to men. Because men today are not very different psychosocially. They're not very different to men 200 years ago, to men 1,000 years ago and to men 5,000 years ago. Not very different. Men had stagnated in their gender roles. But women underwent an amazing, mind-boggling, unprecedented transformation and considered the trends that had created, affected and engendered this transformation. Number one, the emergence of common marital community property and the laws for its equal distribution in case of divorce. This constituted a shift in legal philosophy in most societies. The result was a major and ongoing redistribution of wealth, transfer of wealth and property from men to women and empowerment of women. Add to this the disparities in life expectancy between the two genders and the magnitude of the transfer of economic resources becomes evident and overwhelming. Women are becoming richer. They get endowments from the state via pension schemes, retirement schemes, social safety networks. They get money from ex-husbands via divorce settlements, alimony payments, child support payments. So women are becoming richer overall. About 40% of households today have a woman. This is a primary breadwinner. Women are integrated in the workforce. The wage gap is closing dramatically. So women also live longer than men. So they inherit men when men die and if they are still in marriage, they become the sole proprietors of the men's property, the common property, community property. They get a share of the marital property when they divorce the men. These endowments are usually more than they had contributed to the couple in money terms. Women still earn less, but overall they end up actually with a majority of assets. Trend number two, an increase in economic opportunities. Social and ethical codes had changed. Technology allows for increased mobility. Wars and economic upheavals led to the forced introduction of women into the labour markets, notably in the Second World War. The results of women's enhanced economic clout is a more egalitarian social and legal system. Women's rights are being legally as well as informally secured in an evolutionary process punctuated by minor legal revolutions most recently and notably against sexual harassment, the Me Too movement. Women had largely achieved equality in educational and economic opportunities, actually superiority in educational opportunities. Women are fighting a winning battle in other domains of life, military, political representation. Actually in some legal respects, the bias is against men. It is rare for a man to complain of sexual harassment or to receive alimony or custody of his children or in many countries to be the beneficiary of social welfare payments. The emergence of socially accepted normative single-parent and non-nuclear families, this helped women to shape their lives as they see fit without men. It's a menless society. Men are really not needed anymore in the majority of cases and they are inferior as far as skills required for the post-modern societies. Most single-parent families are headed by women. Women single-parents are disadvantaged economically. Their median income is very low even when adjusted to reflect transfer payments, but many of them are taking the plunge all the same. So gradually, the shaping of future generations becomes the exclusive domain of women. Women educate our children. Children, almost half of all children spend time in a woman-only family unit or household. There's no men. Even today, one-third of all children in developed countries grow in single-parent families with no male figure around to serve as a role model. This exclusivity has tremendous social and economic implications. Gradually and subtly, the balance of power is shifting and society becomes matriarchal rather than patriarchal. The invention of the pill, other contraceptives, this had liberated women sexually. The resulting sexual revolution affected both sexes, of course, but the main beneficiaries were women whose sexuality was suddenly legitimized. No longer under the cloud of unwanted pregnancy, women felt free to engage in sex with multiple partners, casually to initiate, to pursue, to flirt, to court. In other words, women now feel comfortable to act exactly as men had done for generations.  The existence of a legitimately expressed feminine sexual drive is widely accepted. The family therefore becomes also a sexual joint venture and, honestly, it's not needed anymore as far as sex. Urbanization, communication, transportation, all these multiplied the number of encounters between men and women and the opportunities for economic, sexual and emotional interactions. For the first time in centuries, women were able to judge and to compare their male partners to other males in every conceivable way sexually also. Increasingly, women choose to opt out of relationships which they deemed to be dysfunctional, abusive or inadequate. 75% of all divorces are initiated by women. In the West, women are driving the divorce industry. Women have become aware of their needs, priorities, preferences, wishes. Generally, women are more in tune with their proper emotions. They cast off emotions and thought patterns inculcated in them by patriarchal societies, males, chauvinists and cultures that sustained through peer pressure and reputation-based coercion a specific type of gender role. So women are exiting gender roles and not paying attention to reputation-based coercive mechanisms. The roles and traditional functions of the family were gradually eroded and transferred to other social agents. Even functions such as emotional support, psychosexual interactions and child rearing are often relegated to outside subcontractors, total strangers. Emptied of these functions and devoid of these intergenerational interactions, the nuclear family is reduced to this functional shell, a hub of rudimentary communication between its remaining members, a dilapidated version of its former self. The traditional roles of women and their alleged character, propensities and inclinations are no longer useful in this new environment. Gender roles and sexual scripts are in flux. This led women to search for a new definition to find a new niche. Women were literally driven out of their homes by the disappearance of the functional disappearance of home and gender. In parallel, modern medicine had increased women's life expectancy, had prolonged their child-bearing years, had improved their health dramatically and had preserved their beauty through myriad new-fandom techniques, cosmetics and so on, this gave women a new lease of life, multiple lives, so to speak. In this new world, women are far less likely to die a childbirth or to look decrepit at the age of 30. Women are able to time their decision to bring a child to the world or to refrain from bringing a child to the world, not to have children. They do this passively or actively by having abortions. Until the 1920s, only women were expected to abide by a strict code of sexual exclusivity. Men openly, albeit most of them discreetly, kept mistresses and lovers on the side.  In many cultures, polygamous men maintained harems. As women's lib, feminism, gender equality gradually took over, sexually emancipated and empowered women assumed many hitherto male behaviors, regrettably also psychopathic male behaviors. Alarmed by this turn of events, men suddenly became paragons of virtue akin to women in previous generations. Men now vow to adhere to a single sexual partner. Men are becoming romantic. Men are attempting women to revert to type, to go back in time, to reoccupy traditional gender roles and sexual scripts. It's too late, of course. This abrupt about face wrought mayhem on the monogamous bond because it forcibly equated sexual exclusivity with love and bonding and it regarded cheating as a proof of absence of love and bonding. Contradictory expectations from one's intimate partner are unrealistic. No single person can be a passionate, exciting lover, an empathic patient friend, a stalwart companion, a good father-mother cook, a handy person, an intellectual equal, an adventurer, a stable breadwinner and myriad other functions beside. No one can fulfill all these roles. No single person can do all this. And so there's a need to outsource and this explains the recurrence of emotional and sexual affairs, the disruptive outcomes of overwhelming all-pervasive and weak post-modern existence and the inflated expectations from one's intimate partners.  Monogamy is becoming one alternative, one alternative of many lifestyles and marriage is only one relationship, one type of relationship, one solution among numerous negotiated solutions. It's sometimes not even a privilege or a unique relationship as it competes for time and resources with work, same-sex friends, friends with benefits and opposite-sex friends. We may be heading towards a future of serial monogamy devoid of sexual exclusivity, emotional attachment and bonding within sexually open marriages and sexually open partnerships. The partnerships and marriages will focus on emotions. Sex could be safely outsourced. Whether it's open nature is proclaimed and promulgated, whether it is tacitly accepted and overlooked is immaterial. The reality is that even now, even today most marriages and relationships are actually open because the majority of people engage in extra-marital, extra-diadic sex. The contractual aspects of marriage are more pronounced than ever. Everything is on the table. From extra-marital sex, is it allowed, is it not allowed, is it even encouraged in case of lifestyle, swinging, pre-nuptial agreements, how to raise kids, everything is negotiated.  So sex is robbed of its function as a conduit of specialness or intimacy. It's now mechanical, it's no physiological function akin to, I don't know, scratching your back or drinking water. Child rearing is largely avoided. Natality rates are precipitously plummeting everywhere. When you do have children, you outsource, you outsource their child rearing to others, to strangers, to institutions, daycare centers, what have you. So people have sex outside the relationship. They don't have children and when they do have children, they give them out. They outsource it, give them to caretakers outside the family. So why do you need a family? Why does anyone need a family? Why does anyone need a relationship? The family has lost both its raison d'etre, its reason to exist and its nature as the venue for exclusive sexual and emotional interactions between adults and for child-bearing and rearing. Profest values and prevailing social mores and institutions have yet to catch up to this emerging multifarious reality. The consequences of these discrepancies between values, axiological and reality, the consequences are disastrous. About 40-50% of all first-time marriages end in divorce and the percentage is much higher for second and third attempts at cannobial bliss. Second and third marriages disintegrate which border on 80%, 70%. Open communication about one's sexual needs is tantamount to self-reunification in many cases as one's partner is likely to reflexively initiate a divorce. Dishonesty and cheating are definitely the rational choices in such an unforgiving and punitive environment. In other words, there's a mismatch between our values and how we live. And so this creates guilt, this creates shame, this creates conflict and dissonance and this creates enormous pressure and stress on all relationships leading to the ultimate disintegration. Indeed, more surviving marriages have to do with perpetuating the partner's convenience, their access to commonly owned assets and future streams of income and the welfare of third parties most notably their children. erstwhile sexual exclusivity often degenerates into celibacy or abstinence on the one hand or double parallel lives with multiple sexual and emotional partners on the side, on the other hand. One-night stands for both genders are usually opportunistic.  Infidelity is therefore much less of a threat to the longevity of a dedicated couple than it is made out to be. Most of the damage, most of the damage in adultery, infidelity, most of the damage, cheating, most of the damage is caused by culturally conditioned social, social opprobrium and punitive attitude. The deceived partner is traumatized. So the cheating is deeply and traumatically felt. The reactions to conduct that is almost universally decried as deceitful, dishonest and in breach of vows and promises, it's all true. But the cultural and social component in this reaction is tremendous because rationally there is no threat to the cohesion and longevity of the dyad of the couple.  But the roots of the crumbling alliance between men and women go deeper and further in time. Long before divorce became a social norm, divorce used to be frowned on and even used to be illegal in many countries. Long before it became a social norm, men and women grew apart. They became too disparate, incompatible and worrying subspecies. Traditionalist, conservative, patriarchal, religious societies put in place behavioral safeguards and guardrails against the inevitable wrenching torsion that monogamy entailed. So these societies demanded no premarital sex, virginity even, no multiple intimate partners, no cohabitation prior to tying the knot, no mobility or equal rights for women, no mixing of the genders. These were guardrails because these societies realized that monogamy is an unnatural arrangement when life expectancy is doubling and tripling every century. We know that each of these guardrails, safeguards, firewalls, habits does indeed increase the chances for an ultimate divorce. I mean, each bridge of these guardrails increases the chances for divorce. As Jonathan Franzen elucidates in his literary masterpieces, it boils down to a choice between personal freedoms and the stability of the family. The former decisively preclude the latter, or your free, or your merit. During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, discrete extramarital affairs were an institution of marriage. Sexual gratification and emotional intimacy were outsourced actually while all other domestic functions and property management were shared in a partnership. And this was true for both genders. Women had lovers too. The Industrial Revolution, the Victorian Age, the backlash of the sexual revolution, belligerent radical feminism and the advent of socially atomizing and gender equalizing transportation, information processing, and telecommunication technologies. All these led inexorably to the hollowing out of family and hearth. In a civilization centered on brain power, men have lost the relative edge that brawn used to provide over brain. Muscles are no longer in demand as they used to be. Monogamy is increasingly considered as past its expiry date, a historical aberration that reflects the economic and political realities of by-gun eras. Moreover, the incidence of lifelong singlehood has skyrocketed as people hope for their potential or actual relationship partners to provide for all their sexual, emotional, social, and economic needs and then they get sorely disappointed when they fail to meet these highly unrealistic expectations. So people remain single, many of them lifelong singles. In an age of economic self-sufficiency, electronic entertainment, and self-gratification, the art of compromising relationships is gun. Relationship skills, intimacy skills, emotional intelligence, they are in rapid decline. They are being eradicated according to studies by John Twenge, Kit Campbell, and others. These await. Single motherhood sometimes via IVF with no identifiable partner involved, the sperm donor. Single motherhood has become the norm in many countries.  People don't do things together even when they are ostensibly together. The 20th century was a monument to male fatuity, male idiocy, wars, ideologies that almost decimated the species. And so women were forced to acquire masculine skills and masculine attributes and masculine traits and behave as men did in the past. Women were forced, coerced, pushed inexorably to fill men's shoes to become men in factories, in fields, in the workplace, raising families, or by their own. Women had discovered militant self-autonomy, self-efficacy, and agency. Women found out that men are superfluous, superfluous, not needed. Women had found out the untenability of the male claims to somehow be superior over them in an age of malignant individualism, bordering on narcissism. Men and women alike put themselves, their fantasies, their needs, their careers first. Everything else, family included, be damned. With five decades of uninterrupted prosperity, birth control, and feminism, women's lives, most of the female denizens of the West, at least, have acquired the financial wherewithal to realize their dreams at the expense and to the detriment of collectives they ostensibly belong to, such as the nuclear family. Feminism is a movement focused on negatives, obliterating women's age-old bondage, for example, getting rid of men. Feminism offers few constructive ideas regarding women's new roles, new sexual screens. By casting men as the enemy, feminism also failed to educate men and to convert men into useful allies in this new reality, in this new environment. Owing to the dramatic doubling of life expectancy, modern marriages seem to go through three phases. Infatuation, honeymoon, procreation, accumulation of assets, children and shared experiences, memories, and exhaustion outsourcing, bonding with new emotional and sexual partners for rejuvenation or the fulfillment of long-repress fantasies, needs and wishes. Divorces and breakups occur mostly at the seams between these three phases, the periods of transition between these phases, and especially between the stages of procreation and exhaustion outsourcing. This is where family units break down. With marriage on the decline and infidelity on the rise, the reasonable solution would be, of course, polyamory or swinging, swapping sexual partners, the lifestyle. Household with multiple partners of both genders, all of whom are committed to one another for the long haul, romantically involved, sexually shared and economically united, this may be the future. Alas, while a perfectly rational development of the traditional marriage and one that is best suited to modernity, polyamory, swinging, group sex, and so on, they are emotionally unstable. There are arrangements which are emotionally unstable. There's romantic jealousy.  There's possessiveness. There's fear of loss, abandonment, anxiety. Very few people are emotionally capable of sharing their life partner with others. Time limited, automatically renewable marriages may be another solution. The question is not why there are so many divorces, but why so few divorces. Surely, serial monogamy is far better, far more fair, more humane than adultery. Couples stay together. Couples tolerate straying, cheating, because of inertia, financial emotional dependence, insecurity, lack of self-confidence, low self-esteem, fear of the unknown, the tidium of dating. The dating scene is a cesspool. Some couples persevere, or into religious conviction, or for the sake of appearances. Yet other couples make a smooth transition to an alternative lifestyle, polyamory, swinging, consensual adultery. Indeed, what has changed is not the incidence of adultery. Even among women, I believe, although there's no data to support this, but I believe adultery is the same throughout the generation. There are good grounds to assume that adultery had remained the same throughout human history. The phenomenon, quantitatively and qualitatively, has always been the same, but it had been under-reported. What has changed, what have changed, are the social acceptability of extra-marital sex, both before and during marriage, and the ease of obtaining divorce. People discuss adultery openly, where before it was a taboo topic. Another new development, maybe the rise of selfish affairs.    They decouple sex from intimacy. Selfish affairs are acts of recreational adultery whose sole purpose is to satisfy sexual curiosity, the need for romantic diversity and variety. The emotional component in selfish affairs, in these usually short-term affairs, one-night stands, for example. The emotional component is non-existent or muted. Among women older than age 60, adultery has become the accepted way of seeking emotional connection and intimacy outside the marital bond. These are outsourcing affairs. So, in new arrangements like term-limited marriages, swinging, polyamory, partners would have little incentive to cheat. They could simply wait for the contract to lapse and not renew it. They could introduce third parties in case of swinging. They could have multiple partners in polyamory. So, these are emerging solutions, I believe. Open marriages, open relationships. Until recently, couples formed around promises of emotional exclusivity and sexual fidelity, uniqueness in each other's mind and life, and common until the 1940s, virginity among women, at least. Marriage was also a partnership, economic partnership or related to child rearing or companionship. It was based on the partner's past and background. It was geared towards a shared future. As Betty Friedan noted in her celebrated Tome, The Feminine Mystique, women in the 1950s reverted to traditional gender roles as housewives, undoing most of the educational and vocational accomplishments of their mothers and grandmothers. So, there was a backlash in the 1950s. During the 1920s, 30s and 40s, women became much more liberated, much more educated. They have entered the workforce, especially during the Second World War. But their daughters wanted nothing to do with it. Their daughters reverted to traditional gender roles. It took the rebellion and the consummations disillusionment of the 1960s to emancipate women to think like men and to act like men. The pendulum had swung too far, though. Women now largely emulate and adopt behaviors which were once the preserve of psychopathic or narcissistic men. Women are not emulating good men, nice men. Women are emulating go-getters, fakers, frauds, psychopaths, narcissists, womanizers. These are the role models of women. Nowadays, couples coalesce around the twin undertakings of continuity, I will always be there for you, and availability, I will always be there for you. Issues of exclusivity, uniqueness and virginity have been relegated to the back burner or are no longer issues. It is no longer practical to demand of one's spouse to have nothing to do with the opposite sex, not to spend the bulk of his or her time outside the marriage, not to take separate vacations more generally to be joined at the hip. Affairs, for instance, both emotional and sexual, are said certainties in the life of every couple, no exception. Members of the couple are supposed to make themselves continuously available to each other and to provide emotional sustenance and support in an atmosphere of sharing companionship and friendship. All the traditional functions of the family can now be and often are outsourced, including even sex and emotional intimacy, but contrary to marriage, outsourcing is frequently opposite and unpredictable, dependent as it is on outsiders, on opportunities, and these outsiders are committed, are committed elsewhere as well usually, they are married. And so the relative durability of marriage has to do with this. The alternative is emotionally unstable and very opposite and often risky. So, both the conservative and the less conventional forms of marriage are going to survive, they are going to persist. It is a convenient and highly practicable arrangement. Divorce or other forms of marital break-up are not new phenomena, but their precipitants have undergone a revolutionary shift. In the past, families fell apart. Families fell apart owing to a breach of exclusivity, mainly in the forms of emotional or sexual infidelity, a deficiency of uniqueness and primacy. Primacy, divorce women for instance were considered damaged goods because they used to belong to another man, therefore could offer neither primacy, nor uniqueness, or an egregious violation of the terms of the partnership, for example, sloth, dysfunctional child rearing or infertility, all these were reasons to dissolve the marital bond, to divorce. Nowadays, intimate partners bail out when the continuous availability of their significant others is disrupted, sexually, emotionally, or as friends and companions. Marriages are about the present. Marriages are being put to the test on a daily basis. Parties who are dissatisfied just opt out, team up with other more promising providers. Children are serially reared by multiple parents in multiple households. And still, despite all the fashionable theories of marriage, narratives of the feminist, the reasons to get married largely remain the same. True, there have been role reversals. New stereotypes have cropped up, definitely sexual scripts have been upended. But biological, physiological, emotional, and biochemical facts are less amenable to modern criticism or the specifics of any culture, period, or society. Men are still men, and women are still women in the majority of ways. So men and women marry again to recap.  The economic dyad, the couple is a functioning economic unit within which the economic activities of the members of the dyad and of additional entrants are carried out. The economic unit generates more wealth than it consumes, and the synergy between its members is likely to lead to gains in production and in productivity relative to individual efforts and investments. Then there is the social dyad. The members of the couple bond as a result of implicit or explicit direct or indirect social pressures. Such pressures can manifest themselves in numerous forms. In Judaism, a person cannot hold some religious positions. A rabbi, for example, unless he's married. This is a form of economic pressure in certain communities. In most human societies, avowed bachelors, perpetual, permanent singles, they're considered to be socially deviant and abnormal. Something's wrong with them. Why didn't you get married? People ask that these perpetual singles, these eternal bachelors, they're condemned by society. They're ridiculed, shunned and isolated, effectively excommunicated, even if no one would admit it. As their friends and transition into families begin to raise children, these singles and bachelors find themselves isolated without companionship or friendship. Partly to avoid these sanctions and partly to enjoy the emotional glow that comes with conformity and acceptance, some people get married. Today myriad lifestyles are on offer and every couple is a negotiated contract. Marriage is a contract, an open contract. The old-fashioned nuclear family is just one of an endless array of variants. Children are reared by single parents, by multiple parents. Homosexual couples, same-sex couples, bind and abound. But the pattern is discernible, all the same. Some 95% of the adult population get hitched one way or another, marriages, committed relationships, long-term relationships. They settle into a two-member arrangement, whether formalized and sanctioned religiously or legally or informally. The companionship diet is formed by adults in search of sources of long-term and stable succor, support, emotional warmth, empathy, care, compassion, affection, good advice and intimacy. The members of these couples tend to define themselves as each other's best friends. Four wisdom tells us that the first three diets are actually unstable. The sexual diet, the economic diet and the social diet, they're unstable.  This could lead to the adoption of non-conventional sexual behavior. Behaviors like sexual abstinence, group sex, couple swapping, partner swapping, or it could lead to recurrent marital infidelity. In the economic diet, pecuniary concerns are insufficient grounds for a lasting relationship either. In today's world, both partners are potentially financially independent. This newfound autonomy knows that the roots of traditional patriarchal domineering disciplinary relationships marriage is becoming a more balanced, transactional business-like arrangement with children and the couple's welfare and life standard as its products. So marriage is motivated solely by economic considerations and is likely to unravel as any other joint venture in most businesses at the end unravel above bankrupt. Admittedly, social pressures help to maintain family cohesiveness and stability, but being enforced from the outside, such marriages resemble detention centers rather than a voluntary, joyful collaboration. Moreover, social norms, mores, conventions, peer pressure, social conformity cannot be relied upon to fulfill the roles of stabilizer and shock absorber indefinitely within couples and diets and relationships. Because norms change never more so than in the past 50 years. Peer pressure can backfire. If all my friends are divorced and apparently content, why shouldn't I try too? Only the companionship diet, only the companionship diet, seems to be a durable, durable one, a long-term one. Friendships deepen with time while sex loses its initial biochemical-induced appeal and lustre. Economic motives are reversed, avoided. Social norms are fickle. Companionships, like wine, improve with time. Even when planted on the most desolate land under the most difficult and insidious circumstances, the obdurate seed of companionship sprouts and blossoms. Matchmaking is made in heaven, goes the old Jewish adage. But Jewish matchmakers in centuries past were not averse to lending the divine a helping hand. After closely scrutinizing the background of both candidates, male and female, marriage was pronounced. In other cultures, marriages are still being arranged by prospective or actual fathers without asking for the embryors or the toddler's consent. The surprising fact is that arranged marriages without previous cohabitation last much longer than marriages which are the happy outcomes of romantic love or sexual attraction. Moreover, the longer a couple cohabits or cohabitates prior to marriage, the higher the likelihood of divorce. Yes, you heard me right. The longer a man and a woman or a couple cohabitate, the more likely they are to divorce. Counter-intuitively romantic love and cohabitation getting to know each other better are negative precursors and prognosticators of marital longevity. They are negatively correlated with marital longevity. Companionship grows out of friction and out of interaction within an irreversible formal arrangement. Noiscape closes in many marriages where divorce is not an option legally or due to prohibitive economic or social costs. Companionship grudgingly develops with companionship, contentment, if not happiness. Companionship is the offspring of pity, empathy, compassion, affection. It is based on shared events. It reflects fears and common suffering. It reflects the wish to protect and to shield each other from the hardships of life. Companionship is habit for me. If lustful sex is fire, companionship is old slippers, comfortable, static, useful, warm and secure. Experiments and experience show that people in constant touch get attached to one another very quickly and very thoroughly. This is a reflex that has to do with survival. As infants, we get attached to our mothers and our mothers get attached to us. In the absence of social interaction, we die younger. Men survive longer when they are married. We need to bond. We need to make others depend on us in order to survive. What we are discovering in psychology is the self, ego, the individual. These may be useful metaphors, but they're not real. They're counterfactual. There's not such thing. We are the confluence and the intersection of everyone around us. That is our core identity. Relationships are crucial and essential. These younger generations, under the age of 35, are having serious trouble informing relationships. This has a disastrous, calamitous effect on their mental health and ability to function in a variety of areas of life. We need to help them fix this. Thank you for listening.