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As an average-looking man from an average family, if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful. The more successful I become, the higher quality of woma

As an average-looking man from an average family, if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful. The more successful I become, the higher quality of woman I can get. For a woman, extra career success will not boost her attractiveness in the same way it will for me. This is a huge incentive. If women don't have the same incentives to work hard as men, how can they achieve the same level of success?

beachstartup 10y ago
> As an average-looking man from an average family, if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful. The more successful I become, the higher quality of woman I can get. be careful with this line of thinking. if all you're looking to do is attract a mate with all that money, you're better off investing that time into acting lessons, music lessons, and athletic training. or you might find out the hard way that being a charismatic, guitar-playing tri-athlete is going to land you a higher quality and more loyal mate than $10 million in the bank ever will.
- CptJamesCook 10y ago
  I think it's important to improve oneself in every way, including fitness, demonstrable skills like guitar, and interpersonal skills (charisma). I wasn't stating that only success matters, just that it is an additional factor and this is motivational.
paulcole 10y ago
This is all insane. So much so that I'm not sure it is serious. An "average family"? Do you live in The Great Gatsby? If this is a serious comment, you really need to reexamine how you interact with and feel about women.
- CptJamesCook 10y ago
  I've spent much of my life examining this, and I happen to believe this is the world we live in. Are you suggesting that women are not in any way attracted to success?
  - paulcole 10y ago
    >if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful fundamentally false
    - CptJamesCook 10y ago
      Have you seen any homeless men or janitors with high value women lately? Did you know that women find 80% of men to be unattractive? https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0... From the article: "As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh."
      - bitkrieg 10y ago
        Huh? The article also states that women don't care much about looks. Much less than men.
        Sacho 10y ago
        Isn't that his point? That you need money, success, etc, not looks.
      - RileyKyeden 10y ago
        I suspect your desire to rank humans--high value? seriously?--affects your dating life more than your income.
- sheepmullet 10y ago
  > This is all insane. So much so that I'm not sure it is serious. The parents post is essentially arguing that women tend to find a different set of characteristics attractive than men do. In particular monetary success in a partner matters more to women. Can you post a serious counter-argument? If you have research showing that women date down the income quartiles more often than men you could really add to the discussion. Resorting to saying the parent has issues with women is not an acceptable level of discourse for HN.
- projektir 10y ago
  While I find such a view fairly gross, this is not very charitable. What is particularly insane about it? Troublesome, even wrong, doesn't make something insane. I've seen such a view stated many times. I hope we can do better than moralize, it just drives people with views like this further to the fringe.
dang 10y ago
This amounts to trolling whether you meant it that way or not. Please don't start flamewars on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Also, it looks you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments (at least recently). That's not what we want here, and worse, it's actively destructive of what we do want—thoughtful discussions and intellectual curiosity. So please don't use HN like this.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- DrDimension 10y ago
  >> Also, it looks you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments (at least recently). We're all pretty sick of your badgering everyone with differing opinions, dang. If you want a safe space insulated from intellectual diversity, try NeoGaf.
- CptJamesCook 10y ago
  The idea that the gender pay gap could be caused by different incentive structures motivating men and women seems rather new, which is the rule for discussing flame-war causing topics. Nevertheless, I will try to be more thoughtful with my comments.
swalsh 10y ago
You're not a father clearly, you clearly don't understand how a 2 working parents relationship work. I'd urge you to listen instead of trying to internalize the issue, and discounting the reporting on it. In the real world daycare works on banker hours. Usually you have to get there when other people are starting work, and you have to get there usually when people are leaving work. If you're late, you'll be charged a not insignificant amount of money PER MINUTE. This matters a lot when you realize how much day care is (it costs literally more than my mortgage...). Think of the impact on having on average an hour less "working hours" than your coworkers per day.... By the way, you're not going to be able to just make up the time when you get home.... you have a child to take care of when you get home. This is not an incentives problem, this is a logistics issue.
- sheepmullet 10y ago
  Is it solely or even mostly a logistics issue? IMO, the software industry is one of the most flexible industries. I've had flexible hours ever since changing into IT more than a decade ago. And yet we have a large gender imbalance.

beachstartup 10y ago

> As an average-looking man from an average family, if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful. The more successful I become, the higher quality of woman I can get. be careful with this line of thinking. if all you're looking to do is attract a mate with all that money, you're better off investing that time into acting lessons, music lessons, and athletic training. or you might find out the hard way that being a charismatic, guitar-playing tri-athlete is going to land you a higher quality and more loyal mate than $10 million in the bank ever will.

CptJamesCook 10y ago
I think it's important to improve oneself in every way, including fitness, demonstrable skills like guitar, and interpersonal skills (charisma). I wasn't stating that only success matters, just that it is an additional factor and this is motivational.

paulcole 10y ago

This is all insane. So much so that I'm not sure it is serious. An "average family"? Do you live in The Great Gatsby? If this is a serious comment, you really need to reexamine how you interact with and feel about women.

CptJamesCook 10y ago
I've spent much of my life examining this, and I happen to believe this is the world we live in. Are you suggesting that women are not in any way attracted to success?
- paulcole 10y ago
  >if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful fundamentally false
  - CptJamesCook 10y ago
    Have you seen any homeless men or janitors with high value women lately? Did you know that women find 80% of men to be unattractive? https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0... From the article: "As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh."
    - bitkrieg 10y ago
      Huh? The article also states that women don't care much about looks. Much less than men.
      - Sacho 10y ago
        Isn't that his point? That you need money, success, etc, not looks.
    - RileyKyeden 10y ago
      I suspect your desire to rank humans--high value? seriously?--affects your dating life more than your income.
sheepmullet 10y ago
> This is all insane. So much so that I'm not sure it is serious. The parents post is essentially arguing that women tend to find a different set of characteristics attractive than men do. In particular monetary success in a partner matters more to women. Can you post a serious counter-argument? If you have research showing that women date down the income quartiles more often than men you could really add to the discussion. Resorting to saying the parent has issues with women is not an acceptable level of discourse for HN.
projektir 10y ago
While I find such a view fairly gross, this is not very charitable. What is particularly insane about it? Troublesome, even wrong, doesn't make something insane. I've seen such a view stated many times. I hope we can do better than moralize, it just drives people with views like this further to the fringe.

dang 10y ago

This amounts to trolling whether you meant it that way or not. Please don't start flamewars on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Also, it looks you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments (at least recently). That's not what we want here, and worse, it's actively destructive of what we do want—thoughtful discussions and intellectual curiosity. So please don't use HN like this.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
DrDimension 10y ago
>> Also, it looks you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments (at least recently). We're all pretty sick of your badgering everyone with differing opinions, dang. If you want a safe space insulated from intellectual diversity, try NeoGaf.
CptJamesCook 10y ago
The idea that the gender pay gap could be caused by different incentive structures motivating men and women seems rather new, which is the rule for discussing flame-war causing topics. Nevertheless, I will try to be more thoughtful with my comments.

swalsh 10y ago

You're not a father clearly, you clearly don't understand how a 2 working parents relationship work. I'd urge you to listen instead of trying to internalize the issue, and discounting the reporting on it. In the real world daycare works on banker hours. Usually you have to get there when other people are starting work, and you have to get there usually when people are leaving work. If you're late, you'll be charged a not insignificant amount of money PER MINUTE. This matters a lot when you realize how much day care is (it costs literally more than my mortgage...). Think of the impact on having on average an hour less "working hours" than your coworkers per day.... By the way, you're not going to be able to just make up the time when you get home.... you have a child to take care of when you get home. This is not an incentives problem, this is a logistics issue.

sheepmullet 10y ago
Is it solely or even mostly a logistics issue? IMO, the software industry is one of the most flexible industries. I've had flexible hours ever since changing into IT more than a decade ago. And yet we have a large gender imbalance.