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The data here falls in line with the infamous OKcupid study (which got cancelled and taken down because men and women are identical, donchaknow?) The takeaway

The data here falls in line with the infamous OKcupid study (which got cancelled and taken down because men and women are identical, donchaknow?) The takeaway is that humans best date by meeting people in person through mutual acquaintances. Without the forced direct social interaction, women are only interested in the top 10% of guys, and guys are just aimlessly running at anything that moves regardless of their actual interest (i.e. liking and seeking sex from women they have no real interest in dating). Guys end up with no likes and no dates and women end up with mountains of disingenuous likes and dates with disingenuous men.

brazzy 2y ago
Men are dying of thirst in the desert and women are dying of thirst in the ocean. (not my analogy, but IMO very succinct)
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  More like dying of thirst in lake Baikal, if the analogy meant abundance of choice. Desert and ocean both contain no drinkable water.
  - nemomarx 2y ago
    the implication is that they have a lot of water but it's unpalatable or toxic most of the time and needs filtering I think - easy matches but most of them bad?
    - lifestyleguru 2y ago
      Most men are insane from frustration, not unpalatable or toxic.
      - saagarjha 2y ago
        People generally do not want to have an insane, frustrated partner.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        lifestyleguru 2y ago
        It's literally enough to sip the surrounding water, it's that easy. Truly toxic frustrated people never have problem with finding sexual partners.
      - dragonwriter 2y ago
        If the first part of your description is true, then the second needs corrected by replacing the "not...or..." with "therefore...and...". "Insane from frustration" explains, rather than contradicts, "unpalatable" and "toxic".
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    The one I heard was "dying of thirst in the swamp." Lots and lots of water, but nothing you can stomach.
Thoreandan 2y ago
> the infamous OKcupid study Not sure which of these you meant, but here's links for those who haven't read them: The one blog post that got removed when match-dot-com (InterActiveCorp) bought OKC in 2011-Feb: https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/whyyoushouldneverpayforonlinedating.html https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/whyyoushouldneverpa... The other OKC data analysis posts (archive link to 2011-Jan): https://web.archive.org/web/20110126012317/http://blog.okcupid.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110126012317/http://blog.okcup...
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
It does imply a potentially interesting algorithm though: Show all of the women to all of the men. From this you get numbers on which women are the most highly rated. Then, show women a) men who are at the same percentile as them or below and b) the smaller number of men who have already liked them. The result is that 60th percentile women end up primarily liking 60th percentile men and so on, because they're the highest rated men they're typically shown, and they're going to pick the top 5% of whatever distribution you show them. Then you end up with good matches, instead of having all the women match only with the 95th percentile players who don't want a serious relationship.
- nemomarx 2y ago
  how do you get the percentile ranking for the men to do the matching with?
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Being shown to people who don't like you causes you to move down. Being liked causes you to move up. Apply the relevant statistical math to apply a slightly stronger signal when the like is from someone who themselves is higher rated.
- naijaboiler 2y ago
  won't work. many women won't end up liking anyone. And like he said, the most expensive thing to acquire is women. You have to be able to give women their "dream man" to retain them. And in apps, much much much more so than in real life, they will mostly all choose the same dream man. showing a 60 percentile woman, men that around 60 percentile is a sure way to drive women away from your app
  - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
    > You have to be able to give women their "dream man" to retain them Same strategy as attracting men: fake profiles and spambots.
  - 2y ago
pcthrowaway 2y ago
The okcupid labs reports are still available through archive if you're interested. I don't have the links handy at the moment (they're on an old laptop I think), but if you know what you're looking for, you can probably find it by searching with site:reddit.com/r/okupid or "OKCupid study" site:reddit.com , grabbing the URL, then plugging into archive.org
xutopia 2y ago
The blog post wasn't taken down because of DEI reasons like you imply. Match group acquired the company and the blog post which can be still be found online said that you shouldn't pay for a dating site because of how ineffective they are.
thomastjeffery 2y ago
One thing that lead to this problem is that pretending every relationship goal must be bundled together with every other relationship goal. There is nothing invalid about wanting casual sex. The problem is failing to communicate that that is what you want. The result of that problem is "players" of "the game" devolving the entire situation into something that is fundamentally intractable for everyone involved. It turns out that a significant percentage of women do want casual sex. The overwhelming majority of those women also don't want to be exclusively objectified and used, because that leads to poor quality sex, and a general lack of post-sex aftercare (which is important groundwork for good next-time sex). This situation is nearly always expressed by women with the same overgeneralized story that paints every man who has ever interacted with her as an abusive narcissist. The problem is that a woman's desire for casual sex is overwhelmingly catered to by men who ignore this story, and most of those men do so by behaving (intentionally or not) as abusive narcissists. Why? Because the men who do listen to this story are left with no meaningful room to make a move. We have too much narrative focus on women telling men "don't". Obviously that's an important discussion to have, it just needs to be accompanied by women telling men what to "do", and "how". Most men really need to hear everything a woman is concerned about, good and bad. Dating apps have involved themselves in this problem by replacing dating itself with advertising. If a woman has a real conversation with a man, then there is real room for her to lay out positive interest. On the other hand, if a woman advertises her positive interests, then she is effectively asking for both constructive and harmful interaction. So very few women actually communicate (on a dating app) any interest other than a desire for committed romance. Those who do are overwhelmed with men who finally found what they are looking for. Those who don't are overwhelmed with men who just want to check behind the curtain. If a man wants to advertise himself as a thoughtful listener, there is no meaningful way for him to prove he is genuine. If a man wants to advertise himself as the best compromise (who will give you lazy sex, but be hot enough to make up the difference), then he must compete with the rest on a scale of immediate attractiveness and nothing more. --- Like most of our social problems, the advertising model sits right at the heart of it. My answer to that is to do something about its foundation: eliminate (or significantly redesign) copyright.

brazzy 2y ago

Men are dying of thirst in the desert and women are dying of thirst in the ocean. (not my analogy, but IMO very succinct)

lifestyleguru 2y ago
More like dying of thirst in lake Baikal, if the analogy meant abundance of choice. Desert and ocean both contain no drinkable water.
- nemomarx 2y ago
  the implication is that they have a lot of water but it's unpalatable or toxic most of the time and needs filtering I think - easy matches but most of them bad?
  - lifestyleguru 2y ago
    Most men are insane from frustration, not unpalatable or toxic.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      People generally do not want to have an insane, frustrated partner.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - lifestyleguru 2y ago
        It's literally enough to sip the surrounding water, it's that easy. Truly toxic frustrated people never have problem with finding sexual partners.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      If the first part of your description is true, then the second needs corrected by replacing the "not...or..." with "therefore...and...". "Insane from frustration" explains, rather than contradicts, "unpalatable" and "toxic".
- ryandrake 2y ago
  The one I heard was "dying of thirst in the swamp." Lots and lots of water, but nothing you can stomach.

Thoreandan 2y ago

> the infamous OKcupid study Not sure which of these you meant, but here's links for those who haven't read them: The one blog post that got removed when match-dot-com (InterActiveCorp) bought OKC in 2011-Feb: https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/whyyoushouldneverpayforonlinedating.html https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/whyyoushouldneverpa... The other OKC data analysis posts (archive link to 2011-Jan): https://web.archive.org/web/20110126012317/http://blog.okcupid.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110126012317/http://blog.okcup...

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

It does imply a potentially interesting algorithm though: Show all of the women to all of the men. From this you get numbers on which women are the most highly rated. Then, show women a) men who are at the same percentile as them or below and b) the smaller number of men who have already liked them. The result is that 60th percentile women end up primarily liking 60th percentile men and so on, because they're the highest rated men they're typically shown, and they're going to pick the top 5% of whatever distribution you show them. Then you end up with good matches, instead of having all the women match only with the 95th percentile players who don't want a serious relationship.

nemomarx 2y ago
how do you get the percentile ranking for the men to do the matching with?
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Being shown to people who don't like you causes you to move down. Being liked causes you to move up. Apply the relevant statistical math to apply a slightly stronger signal when the like is from someone who themselves is higher rated.
naijaboiler 2y ago
won't work. many women won't end up liking anyone. And like he said, the most expensive thing to acquire is women. You have to be able to give women their "dream man" to retain them. And in apps, much much much more so than in real life, they will mostly all choose the same dream man. showing a 60 percentile woman, men that around 60 percentile is a sure way to drive women away from your app
- BeFlatXIII 2y ago
  > You have to be able to give women their "dream man" to retain them Same strategy as attracting men: fake profiles and spambots.
- 2y ago

pcthrowaway 2y ago

The okcupid labs reports are still available through archive if you're interested. I don't have the links handy at the moment (they're on an old laptop I think), but if you know what you're looking for, you can probably find it by searching with site:reddit.com/r/okupid or "OKCupid study" site:reddit.com , grabbing the URL, then plugging into archive.org

xutopia 2y ago

The blog post wasn't taken down because of DEI reasons like you imply. Match group acquired the company and the blog post which can be still be found online said that you shouldn't pay for a dating site because of how ineffective they are.

thomastjeffery 2y ago

One thing that lead to this problem is that pretending every relationship goal must be bundled together with every other relationship goal. There is nothing invalid about wanting casual sex. The problem is failing to communicate that that is what you want. The result of that problem is "players" of "the game" devolving the entire situation into something that is fundamentally intractable for everyone involved. It turns out that a significant percentage of women do want casual sex. The overwhelming majority of those women also don't want to be exclusively objectified and used, because that leads to poor quality sex, and a general lack of post-sex aftercare (which is important groundwork for good next-time sex). This situation is nearly always expressed by women with the same overgeneralized story that paints every man who has ever interacted with her as an abusive narcissist. The problem is that a woman's desire for casual sex is overwhelmingly catered to by men who ignore this story, and most of those men do so by behaving (intentionally or not) as abusive narcissists. Why? Because the men who do listen to this story are left with no meaningful room to make a move. We have too much narrative focus on women telling men "don't". Obviously that's an important discussion to have, it just needs to be accompanied by women telling men what to "do", and "how". Most men really need to hear everything a woman is concerned about, good and bad. Dating apps have involved themselves in this problem by replacing dating itself with advertising. If a woman has a real conversation with a man, then there is real room for her to lay out positive interest. On the other hand, if a woman advertises her positive interests, then she is effectively asking for both constructive and harmful interaction. So very few women actually communicate (on a dating app) any interest other than a desire for committed romance. Those who do are overwhelmed with men who finally found what they are looking for. Those who don't are overwhelmed with men who just want to check behind the curtain. If a man wants to advertise himself as a thoughtful listener, there is no meaningful way for him to prove he is genuine. If a man wants to advertise himself as the best compromise (who will give you lazy sex, but be hot enough to make up the difference), then he must compete with the rest on a scale of immediate attractiveness and nothing more. --- Like most of our social problems, the advertising model sits right at the heart of it. My answer to that is to do something about its foundation: eliminate (or significantly redesign) copyright.