4 ms·

TLDR: He's looking for someone who's two standard deviations above the median in beauty, one standard deviation above the median in intelligence, and is trying

by whack 10y ago

TLDR: He's looking for someone who's two standard deviations above the median in beauty, one standard deviation above the median in intelligence, and is trying to find this mythical unicorn by going on one blind date every week. That makes about as much sense as Google trying to find its next CEO by interviewing every single applicant it gets, without any filter, at a rate of 1-interview-per-week.

jorgemf 10y ago
You forgot to say he is also average.
- nailer 10y ago
  We also don't know socially valuable he is, only that his looks are average - he's heterosexual so looks likely aren't as important to his mate as they are to him. Is Tristan Miller well known? Is he a leader in his field? Is he wealthy or otherwise successful?
- Humdeee 10y ago
  Yes, and the first 2 universal rules of getting a girlfriend always apply.
- fspear 10y ago
  To women almost every man is average or below average in looks nowadays. Women's standards keep rising and rising. http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-on-tinder-do-smash-a-lot http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-on-...
  - jorgemf 10y ago
    Or attracting men are lowering standards. Any of them lead to the same results.
duncan-donuts 10y ago
And all that time he spent calculating his chances of finding a girlfriend, he probably could have snuck in a couple more dates.
parsnipsumthing 10y ago
Thank you! Honestly, comparing this to a job screening is a great move because it reveals his analysis to be pretty silly. This guy is looking for "intelligence" and "beauty" as universally agreed traits whereas even businesses who are screening for "intelligence" are able to forced to search for specific and industry-relevant information. It would be like hiring a CEO with only an IQ test. It's also the same with "beauty". Even industries that hire primarily based on beauty (modeling, acting etc) have widely differing criteria based on their own niche in the marketplace. American models are quite different to British models, for e.g. The French magazines require a different look to, say, German magazines. Catalogue models vs editorial models. Throughout Europe, various markets require different heights, different looks and different personas. That doesn't even take into account racial differences across the world.
- Aaargh20318 10y ago
  > This guy is looking for "intelligence" and "beauty" as universally agreed traits No, he's not. From the article: "beauty is a purely subjective trait whose interpretation may vary from person to person. Luckily it is not necessary for me to define beauty in this essay except to state that for any given beholder, it will probably be normally distributed amongst the population." He's assuming a normal distribution but he's not assuming a universal agreed standard of beauty.
bryanlarsen 10y ago
Finding above average beauty and intelligence isn't as hard as it sounds. As they say, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Some like women curvy, some like them slim. Some people prefer Roman noses, others prefer snub noses. My wife is beautiful; some might disagree but their opinion doesn't matter. Above average intelligence is even easier to find. That's partly because many men are intimidated by smart women, and partly because "above average intelligence" often just means "common interests". You want to find a woman who can hold an interesting conversation with you on topics you care about.
- projektir 10y ago
  Using standard deviations sounds like he's using an objective standards, though. How do you define standard deviations for something that is a distribution only you can decide?
- whack 10y ago
  If the goal is simply to find "above average" beauty, I agree. After all, even 51st percentile is above average. The problem is that this guy is looking 2 standard deviations above the average, which eliminates something like 97% of the girls out there. And of the remaining 3%, he's eliminating another two-thirds based on his intelligence criteria. It's true that people's aesthetic tastes may differ in some ways, but they do converge in most ways. There's a reason why supermodels are almost universally considered attractive. So not only is this guy ruling out 99% of the girls out there, he's competing with almost everyone for the remaining 1%. But that's not even the main point of my comment. Even if he was only willing to date girls in the "top 1 percent", that might still be achievable if he used a filtering process that can semi-reliably identify girls in that group who are single and potentially interested in him. But that's not what he's doing. He's going on a blind date with a completely random girl, once per week. If you're extremely selective in what you're looking for, but are relying on a low-frequency completely-random-sampling strategy, of course that's never going to work. That said, me analyzing the heck out of what is obviously a humorous post, is probably not helping me achieve any of my life goals either.

by whack 10y ago

jorgemf 10y ago

You forgot to say he is also average.

nailer 10y ago
We also don't know socially valuable he is, only that his looks are average - he's heterosexual so looks likely aren't as important to his mate as they are to him. Is Tristan Miller well known? Is he a leader in his field? Is he wealthy or otherwise successful?
Humdeee 10y ago
Yes, and the first 2 universal rules of getting a girlfriend always apply.
fspear 10y ago
To women almost every man is average or below average in looks nowadays. Women's standards keep rising and rising. http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-on-tinder-do-smash-a-lot http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/a22977-girls-on-...
- jorgemf 10y ago
  Or attracting men are lowering standards. Any of them lead to the same results.

duncan-donuts 10y ago

And all that time he spent calculating his chances of finding a girlfriend, he probably could have snuck in a couple more dates.

parsnipsumthing 10y ago

Thank you! Honestly, comparing this to a job screening is a great move because it reveals his analysis to be pretty silly. This guy is looking for "intelligence" and "beauty" as universally agreed traits whereas even businesses who are screening for "intelligence" are able to forced to search for specific and industry-relevant information. It would be like hiring a CEO with only an IQ test. It's also the same with "beauty". Even industries that hire primarily based on beauty (modeling, acting etc) have widely differing criteria based on their own niche in the marketplace. American models are quite different to British models, for e.g. The French magazines require a different look to, say, German magazines. Catalogue models vs editorial models. Throughout Europe, various markets require different heights, different looks and different personas. That doesn't even take into account racial differences across the world.

Aaargh20318 10y ago
> This guy is looking for "intelligence" and "beauty" as universally agreed traits No, he's not. From the article: "beauty is a purely subjective trait whose interpretation may vary from person to person. Luckily it is not necessary for me to define beauty in this essay except to state that for any given beholder, it will probably be normally distributed amongst the population." He's assuming a normal distribution but he's not assuming a universal agreed standard of beauty.

bryanlarsen 10y ago

Finding above average beauty and intelligence isn't as hard as it sounds. As they say, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Some like women curvy, some like them slim. Some people prefer Roman noses, others prefer snub noses. My wife is beautiful; some might disagree but their opinion doesn't matter. Above average intelligence is even easier to find. That's partly because many men are intimidated by smart women, and partly because "above average intelligence" often just means "common interests". You want to find a woman who can hold an interesting conversation with you on topics you care about.

projektir 10y ago
Using standard deviations sounds like he's using an objective standards, though. How do you define standard deviations for something that is a distribution only you can decide?
whack 10y ago
If the goal is simply to find "above average" beauty, I agree. After all, even 51st percentile is above average. The problem is that this guy is looking 2 standard deviations above the average, which eliminates something like 97% of the girls out there. And of the remaining 3%, he's eliminating another two-thirds based on his intelligence criteria. It's true that people's aesthetic tastes may differ in some ways, but they do converge in most ways. There's a reason why supermodels are almost universally considered attractive. So not only is this guy ruling out 99% of the girls out there, he's competing with almost everyone for the remaining 1%. But that's not even the main point of my comment. Even if he was only willing to date girls in the "top 1 percent", that might still be achievable if he used a filtering process that can semi-reliably identify girls in that group who are single and potentially interested in him. But that's not what he's doing. He's going on a blind date with a completely random girl, once per week. If you're extremely selective in what you're looking for, but are relying on a low-frequency completely-random-sampling strategy, of course that's never going to work. That said, me analyzing the heck out of what is obviously a humorous post, is probably not helping me achieve any of my life goals either.