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Notes -
Somewhat Contra Scott Alexander on Dating
Astral Codex Ten: "In Defense Of Describable Dating Preferences"
I say "somewhat contra" because there is a bit of a disguised Motte and Bailey here. The Motte is that describable preferences like age, race, culture, politics, relationship style, and desire for children have strong predictive and filtering power. This is obviously true. The implied Bailey is that modern dating apps suck, long-form dating profiles like old OKCupid and "Date-me" docs are much better, and the nerdy rationalist coke-bottle glasses waifu you've always dreamed about is just around the corner. This is false.
In the old days, dating sites were based around writing a profile and answering questions about yourself. In current year, online dating programs have converged around the "swipe" model. Why? One common theory I see is that users (customers) finding high-quality long-term relationships is bad for the app, because it causes users to leave and decreases the userbase. This sounds plausible, but if it were true we would expect to see a "two models" system. One mass-commercialized model where people looking for casual fun can swipe to find hookups, and a second non-profit or premium model where people can write long-form profiles to find high-quality partners. What we observe instead is convergence around the "swipe" model. Some would blame Match Group for buying OKCupid and monopolizing the market:
But Match Group isn't a monopoly anymore. In fact, their main competitor, Bumble, is also a swipe app. Sounds more like revealed preferences than evil capitalism to me.
Suppose OKCupid, being an early iteration of online dating, was an inefficient market. Whom would we expect this market inefficiency to benefit? People who are good at writing long-form engaging content for their profile of course. Who are the people currently telling you OKCupid was the greatest thing since sliced bread? Really makes you go "hmmm".
You already know.
Yes, age, race, culture, politics, relationship style, and desire for children are all vital filtering tools. The dirty little secret is that you can tell all of this quite reliably from only a few photographs. A picture is worth a thousand words. Photos are also harder to fake, thus making them a more credible signal of social information. If any doubt remains, it takes literally two seconds to scroll down and see her info.
Far from being the cause of our modern romanceless society, Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are simply lenses into the inherent nature of the sexual market at the margins. Those who are both in demand and willing to partner up are long since unavailable. There is no law of nature, nor any other reason to believe that every person has a "soulmate". Some people just suck.
What has changed in the modern world is the quality of single life. In the past, before internet porn, before women could reliably hold down careers, people had to pair up. It was socially demanded, it was the only way to obtain sexual gratification if you were a man, and it was the only way to provide for yourself economically if you were a woman. The positive externality of these "sad" marriages was that they generally produced children.
I do want to point out that their are premium dating services and match makers out there. So it is a bi-modal market. Those match making services are not cheap though.
And I think the expensiveness serves a purpose: It keeps out the unserious.
The problem with the okcupid model of serious matchmaking is that people who just want casual flings can easily infiltrate a free service. They can string partners along for sex, and then leave for other opportunities.
So people who just want sex can use the swipe model or the okcupid model. But people that want serious relationships can't easily use both models.
There is also a coordination problem going on. Why is your match on this dating website? Are they interested in the same thing as you? It's not good for either party to waste time and energy on someone looking for something different.
I was using okcupid back when Tinder was just starting to be a thing. I remember realizing at some point that my usage of the website had painted me into a corner of only finding people for hookups. The few times I found relationship material they had created their profiles on a lark or at their friends request.
Okcupid was dying and would have been tenderized either way. They needed a more significant barrier to entry to prevent people from just looking for sex and hookups.
I was on one of these match maker services for free as a guy who got set up with women who were paying $50k+ per year for the privilege. The women might have been serious, but I certainly was not. Any of them could've found me and tried to fuck me for free on bumble.
On these services there are also women on there for free that the paypig men are getting set up with. I think they can't match the paypig women with the paypig men because the paypig women (30+, career successful, not necessarily hot or mother-of-your-kids material) aren't what the men are looking for.
Congratulations on being born on second or third base and running home! Let me guess: you put yourself through Harvard by working as a male model?
I understand that there are a decent number of obese, even morbidly obese, individuals in high powered careers, if doctors at a teaching hospital in the Northeast US are anything to go by. That being said...what exactly do you mean by "not being mother-of-your-kids material"? The only thing I can think of that would be disqualifying is functioning alcoholism, maybe stimulant use. Most of the other things I can think of - like serious mental illness or drug addiction - seem like they'd rapidly get people booted out of those high-powered careers. I suppose some might also be raging assholes, too...I don't know.
Some women just seem like, although capable in other ways, they would be extremely bad mothers.
Given the choice between marrying a randomly selected kindergarten teacher or hedge fund quant, both the same age and race and height/weight and the like, I’m picking the kindergarten teacher. And I suspect most men would be the same. Yes, I know the hedge fund quant is probably smarter and more generally capable. But she also seems like she would be mean to her kids on the occasions she pays attention to them at all. Maybe that’s just a stereotype. But I suspect lots of men have the premise that hasn’t worried about having kids before her biological alarm clock went off translates as ‘will be a shitty mother who resents having to do the work and makes up for it through neuroticism and misplaced high expectations’.
I don't know. I'm going to be a medical doctor. Once I'm an attending? Can I work just enough to keep my medical license and be a stay at home dad? I'd prefer the quant. She seems pretty intense and like she'd pass that on to the kids. Also like she would be blunt as fuck.
My bar for "extremely bad" is set a bit lower than "kind of a workaholic asshole"... that's bad, yes, but not on the order of "beats the kids", "denies them dental care when their teeth are rotting", "is an alcoholic and can't hold down a job", and other delightful things. This is bad, but not quite that terrible. Haven't met many quants. If they are anything like the female MIT students and radiologists and neurologists I met... sounds good. Maybe I'd think differently if they were surgeons just bc surgeons are often assholes.
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