How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating • Hacker News Board

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#91

Post by Chukwu » Wed, Sep 30, 2009, 7:23 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #89

Chukwu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. People Know what they want Clearly they don't - otherwise they wouldn't be on okcupid in the first place.

What do you mean by this?

Thanks for asking for clarification; it seems many have totally missed the point of this.

For okcupid to employ such a method, they must then be making assumption #4. However, people do not know what they want generally - and this ignorance covers what type of person would be an ideal mate for themselves. So answering questions posed about how you would want your ideal mate to answer a question, is as I pointed out, as foolhardy an exercise as asking one to construct the mind of their ideal mate neuron by neuron.

Furthermore, the people who use dating sites are just as ignorant as the rest of us about what their ideal mate might be like, or they have rejected the notion of an "ideal mate" altogether due to frustrating past experiences.

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#92

Post by philwelch » Wed, Sep 30, 2009, 8:48 PM UTC

Chukwu wrote: post #68

michaelkeenan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what my perfect mate looks like - and no one does. While I agree that one's guess at a perfect partner might not be 100% accurate, are you sure you have no information on this at all? Here are some OkCupid questions. Would you be equally willing to date someone regardless of how they answered these questions? -Is homosexuality a sin? -How important is religion/God in your life? -Are you happy with your…

Interestingly, the universal answer set of these questions, from all of the women I've seriously dated, would be full! That is, every possible answer would be in the set. And I am certain I am not unique. Indeed, half of the enjoyment in getting to know someone is in the mutual effort expended in trying to understand how the other person was formed: thoughts, feelings, desires, etc - and this enjoyment is independent…

That's why OkCupid gives you aggregate percentages instead of ruling people out or anything. An aggregate percentage says you mostly agree with this person on the things you care about most. It doesn't mean you have perfect harmony, nothing means that, but it gives you an easier starting point.

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#93

Post by padmapper » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 12:49 AM UTC

ZitchDog wrote: post #80

padmapper wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, hilarious. And that's the first really solid evidence that I've seen shared that zodiac signs are utter BS, which makes me doubly grateful to them. Something to point to when someone says it can't be proved otherwise...

The best evidence against astrology I've heard came from my college astronomy professor. Basically, due to the precession of the earth on its axis, the constellations are visible at completely different times than they were when astrology was invented. So even if it wasn't BS back then, it sure is now. http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/your-astronomical-sig...

Ooh, even more portable, no computer needed. Thanks!

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#94

Post by Gormo » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 1:18 PM UTC

codexon wrote: post #12

They left out the axis on the "message reply rate" diagram as a teaser for the next blog post. I just copy and pasted the image onto the axis. It shows that white and native American males are more likely to get responses than the other races. http://www.codexon.com/temp/mrr.png And I wrote a small analysis here if you can be bothered to take a look. http://www.codexon.com/posts/okcupid-dating-statistics-shows...

As an aside, I can't help but wonder if OKCupid intentionally left the reply rate chart unlabeled and unexplained, knowing that some people would post an analysis on their own blogs and generate some viral goodness.

Brilliant strategy if so.

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#95

Post by roundsquare » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 1:50 PM UTC

alanthonyc wrote: post #90

alanthonyc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some Hindu men will say they like ice cream. Some Hindu men will say they don't.

Well, I'm not sure why I was down-modded. However, I hope I didn't offend anyone. Race/religion can be touchy subjects.

If I had to guess, you got down-modded because you were ignoring the premise of the above statement that being a hindu man might be correlated to liking ice cream. You are free to disagree with that but you need to give a reason.

Of course, ice cream wasn't the point and other people gave better examples.

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#96

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 1:56 PM UTC

codexon wrote: post #12

They left out the axis on the "message reply rate" diagram as a teaser for the next blog post. I just copy and pasted the image onto the axis. It shows that white and native American males are more likely to get responses than the other races. http://www.codexon.com/temp/mrr.png And I wrote a small analysis here if you can be bothered to take a look. http://www.codexon.com/posts/okcupid-dating-statistics-shows...

[deleted]

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#97

Post by roundsquare » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 2:06 PM UTC

codexon wrote: post #40

potatolicious wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so compare that with the message reply rate chart at the bottom of the article. Assuming the axes haven't changed from other charts on the page (which IMHO is a pretty good assumption)... It suggests that certain races have good matches with other races, but horrible reply rates . Reply rate may be the best metric okcupid has as to "success rate". It also suggests strong racial biases on the part of its users.

To elaborate more on your point: Many people claim they aren't racist when they refuse to date other races. They always say they haven't found the right guy/girl. What I've found from personal experience, is that the bar is set much higher for those minority races.

What I've found from personal experience, is that the bar is set much higher for those minority races.

Depends what you mean by that. Certain physical traits are correlated to race. To the extent that these traits matter to someone, one would need to set the bar higher on other traits to offset this. I hesitate to give examples since that could anger some people...

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#98

Post by roundsquare » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 2:12 PM UTC

codexon wrote: post #12

They left out the axis on the "message reply rate" diagram as a teaser for the next blog post. I just copy and pasted the image onto the axis. It shows that white and native American males are more likely to get responses than the other races. http://www.codexon.com/temp/mrr.png And I wrote a small analysis here if you can be bothered to take a look. http://www.codexon.com/posts/okcupid-dating-statistics-shows...

Nice, thanks for this.

However, I think one critical component is missing (from what OKCupid posted, not from your analysis). Who sends the first message? For example, we are seeing a lot of green in the black female column. Does this mean that:

a) Black females reply back a lot?

b) Lots of men reply to black females?

These two results would mean entirely different things. The first means that black females aren't picky, the second that men like black females.

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#99

Post by stevejohnson » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 3:07 PM UTC

known wrote: post #87

Endogamous marriages in Ashkenazi Jews have resulted in serious genetic disorders and hereditary diseases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Specific_disease...

Could you elaborate on how this relates to the article? I'm sure you have an interesting point to make, but I find it difficult to extrapolate.

Re: How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating

#100

Post by ryne » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 6:33 PM UTC

chime wrote: post #29

hughprime wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is there anything you can replace "ice cream" with to make it a workable example? What _real_ questions are you likely to see this kind of Hindu-Hindu antimatching behaviour on?

Arranged-marriage.

Sorry are you serious? Why would a Hindu that is pro-arranged marriage be on a dating website? Arranged marriages were a severe form of keeping the caste system in tact but that's not applicable now. But then again your type of logic can probably explain why Islamic people aren't liked since everyone is anti-terrorism.