Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse” • Hacker News Board

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#191

Post by jazzyk » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 2:55 PM UTC

rndn wrote: post #184

jpatokal wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some human cultures still use that form of reproductive organization. Citation needed. In what culture "all females mate and carry the children of the one leader, all other males don't mate _at all, ever", or anything even close to this? By contrast, there are a lot of cultures (eg. India, the Arab/Muslim world) where marriage is societally more or less obligatory.

> Citation needed. This is still very new research, but not implausible. See for example section 3.6 in this paper [1]. > By contrast, there are a lot of cultures (eg. India, the Arab/Muslim world) where marriage is societally more or less obligatory. An interpretation of that could be that it’s a result of memetics [2], i.e. several successful cultures have invented marriage because it makes them successful. Marriag…

The theory you brought makes no sense for two reasons:

1. If all women mated with the same small group of genetically-gifted men, there would be much less gene-mixing and variation in their offspring. Not good for evolution.

2. Monogamy was invented because it takes a lot of time/effort to bring up human offspring (typically 18-21 years :-)). Mothers need a guarantee that fathers will be around to provide for the children.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#192

Post by a8da6b0c91d » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

normloman wrote: post #187

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> feel like a commodity product that gets evaluated in two seconds Everybody constantly gets evaluated in two seconds. Mates very nearly are commodities. People claiming otherwise are just uggos, or class-ists. Once we get video of some interaction + voice + smell, that's really 99% of the mating game. Nobody really gives a shit about anybody's resume. They may claim to when asked, but in reality we're dealing with s…

This is true when you're just looking for a quick fuck. But as someone in a long term relationship, believe me, superficial qualities matter a lot less. My wife is beautiful, but so were other girls I dated. I stuck with my wife because we make a good team, and she shares my values.

I disagree that the qualities one wants in a long term relationship are not obvious with quite short interaction. It's not mere superficiality. You can suss out a person's character very quickly. Instincts are usually right.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#193

Post by s_baby » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

chronid wrote: post #179

s_baby wrote: post #24

>“For young women the problem in navigating sexuality and relationships is still gender inequality,” says Elizabeth Armstrong, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan who specializes in sexuality and gender. “Young women complain that young men still have the power to decide when something is going to be serious and when something is not—they can go, ‘She’s girlfriend material, she’s hookup material.’…

I fear where that reasoning is going. Should I expect to have no say on how much serious I want a relationship to be in the future? In the name of "gender equality"? Holy crap.

I don't see how anything like that would become a trend. But I think it makes for an interesting double standard in how we talk about these issues. If a sociologist was to describe a scarcity of sex for men as gender inequality she would be informed that men aren't entitled to sex from anyone and that she is promoting rape culture. A woman isn't entitled to a relationship from men any more than men are entitled to sex from women.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#194

Post by normloman » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 3:30 PM UTC

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #192

normloman wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true when you're just looking for a quick fuck. But as someone in a long term relationship, believe me, superficial qualities matter a lot less. My wife is beautiful, but so were other girls I dated. I stuck with my wife because we make a good team, and she shares my values.

I disagree that the qualities one wants in a long term relationship are not obvious with quite short interaction. It's not mere superficiality. You can suss out a person's character very quickly. Instincts are usually right.

Tell that to everyone who's been in a relationship for 6 months before breaking up because "he/she seemed so perfect when I met them"

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#195

Post by Torgo » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 4:17 PM UTC

RachelF wrote: post #147

bradford wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that Tinder reduces the "time investment and biological risk" of [sex]. I'm not a Tinder user, how does it reduce the biological risk? wouldn't the risk of an STD be just as great, if not greater, than the status quo?

More Sex is Safer Sex, according to economists, apparently: http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/sitios/revsalud/more_sex_is_s...

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035585

"Internet’s Dirty Secret: Assessing the Impact of Online Intermediaries on HIV Transmission"

http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/26/technology/rhode-island-tind...

"Tinder and hookup apps blamed for rise in STDs"

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#196

Post by rndn » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #191

rndn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Citation needed. This is still very new research, but not implausible. See for example section 3.6 in this paper [1]. > By contrast, there are a lot of cultures (eg. India, the Arab/Muslim world) where marriage is societally more or less obligatory. An interpretation of that could be that it’s a result of memetics [2], i.e. several successful cultures have invented marriage because it makes them successful. Marriag…

The theory you brought makes no sense for two reasons: 1. If all women mated with the same small group of genetically-gifted men, there would be much less gene-mixing and variation in their offspring. Not good for evolution. 2. Monogamy was invented because it takes a lot of time/effort to bring up human offspring (typically 18-21 years :-)). Mothers need a guarantee that fathers will be around to provide for the chi…

1. Do you have a source for that claim? You probably only run into a significant lack of variation if the gene pool is extremely small, i.e. in incestuous relationships.

2. As far as I know this is not fully known yet. It is conceivable that the offspring did just fine in polygamous relationships or just inside the secure environment that the pack provides. There is, for example, some evidence that intensive mothering is ineffective [1]. Among Great Apes the upbringing of the young is commonly shared between the members of the pack and the identity of the father is unknown. Moreover, consider that the importance of education only became really significant within the past 100-50 years, or so, but the concept of marriage in Western culture is much older than that [2].

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12170/abstra...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage#Europe

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#197

Post by angersock » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC

normloman wrote: post #189

angersock wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think technology is somewhat to blame, and agree with you in a way. With broadcast mediums and technology, we first made it easy to compare any potential with the pool of all potential partners, and so many women (the historical gatekeepers of sex and relationships, fair or not) began to hold out on local suitors because they didn't meet some platonic ideal they'd seen once somewhere. Now technology has ticked agai…

"and so many women (the historical gatekeepers of sex and relationships, fair or not) began to hold out on local suitors because they didn't meet some platonic ideal they'd seen once somewhere." Citation needed. Pretty sure women had standards before television and movies. "If they'd wanted traditional relationships, they should've been friendlier and less aloof when they were being courted earlier." Ah, the 'nice gu…

So, for the first part, it follows pretty directly from basic logic:

Assume women are looking for mates (reasonable). Assume women will more favorably choose a mate the farther they are above some arbitrary standard (reasonable, though at the extreme end we see falloff--"I don't deserve him, he'd never date me, etc."--sames as we do in the other direction). Assume that these standards are the result of exposure to local norms (an example: as a friend returned from Kazakhstan explained to me, "A good Kazakh man is one who doesn't beat his wife after bedding down with a whore"). Assume that mass broadcast and the internet have redefined what local is (reasonable).

It follows then that standards are being influenced by members outside of the physical local community of women (for an example of similar issues, consider the body image research done with Barbies and other deconstructions of beauty).

That being the case, it seems perfectly reasonable that these same standards can be raised above local market rates.

Ah, the 'nice guy' argument.

Well, no, not really--the observation is that, at a time where there was a large supply of men looking for traditional arrangements, they held out, and now with the advent of technology, that supply has decreased because of the substitute good of hookups enabled by Tinder et al.

There's no point in being mad, for example, that carriages are hard to come by if you didn't buy until cars were widespread.

I'm a bit bitter because it all seems like such a waste: some of us were disappointed before, some of them are being disappointed now, and the sum total of unhappiness in the system (taken through time) has increased unnecessarily. It's just unfortunate, and could've been avoided.

It disturbs me that you refer to women as 'they' as if they all collectively decided to ignore you.

Don't read too much into it...it's just a useful and short pronoun in English to refer to women, saving a few characters.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#198

Post by normloman » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 5:35 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #197

normloman wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and so many women (the historical gatekeepers of sex and relationships, fair or not) began to hold out on local suitors because they didn't meet some platonic ideal they'd seen once somewhere." Citation needed. Pretty sure women had standards before television and movies. "If they'd wanted traditional relationships, they should've been friendlier and less aloof when they were being courted earlier." Ah, the 'nice gu…

So, for the first part, it follows pretty directly from basic logic: Assume women are looking for mates (reasonable). Assume women will more favorably choose a mate the farther they are above some arbitrary standard (reasonable, though at the extreme end we see falloff--"I don't deserve him, he'd never date me, etc."--sames as we do in the other direction). Assume that these standards are the result of exposure to lo…

Inaccurate assumption #1: There was a time when all men wanted traditional relationships. Inaccurate assumption #2: That all women rejected these traditional arrangements. Inaccurate assumption #3: That all women are now regretting the outcome of their collective actions.

Reality: Women made individual choices as to which relationships they wanted to pursue. And being rejected by a woman still doesn't give you the right to be an asshole.

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#199

Post by flinty » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 5:44 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #99

jrdnmadrid wrote: post #82

This article bothers me for several reasons, mostly given the interviews are all based in NY and are a focal point of the article. As a 24-yr old coming from outside Portland, OR, I don't see this trend much at all with my coworkers or friends. Most have used it once or twice, but not as serious as they make it out to believe. A lot of my friends are in committed relationships or are looking for them. Maybe I am an o…

I remember reading something a while ago about ratio imbalances and what men/women want in a relationship. In NYC where there are a lot more single women than men, men when interviewed were generally not interested in long term relationships and I think there was more casual sex (there were a lot more single mothers too I think). In the west coast where there are a lot more single men than women both women and men co…

Might have been an article around some match making service which took a bunch of girls from NY to SF to resolve this supply demand mismatch

Re: Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

#200

Post by walterbell » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #85

The big issue with Tinder (and a lot of other dating apps) is that they have a really shitty incentive structure for revealing your matching preferences. For Tinder specifically, you can't reveal your preferences, save by "is this better than nothing" and how much effort you put into initial messages. Compare this to a ranking + deferred acceptance system, where you can match every guy and every girl such that there'…

Are there marketplaces, in any industry, which take your approach to improving efficiency of matching?