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Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#71

Post by rms »

xlnt wrote: post #67
euccastro wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't know, you have to keep trying. If I had to convince you, I'd say that: For many millions of years, selecting mates and being selected was much of what being animal/human was all about. Right now, with the increasing sophistication of our brains, individual and collective, the game has diversified a lot. You can satisfy/sublimate your social and sexual instincts in other ways. But all this is relatively r…

As I understand it, you are proposing a sort of evolutionary psychology theory. Humans personalities today are certain ways because of selection pressure on genes. I think that sort of theory is mistaken because there has not been significant selection pressure on human genes recently. More specifically, there hasn't been selection pressure on human genes since around the time that humans first got personalities. So…

>The reason there wasn't selection pressure on genes is that any survival needs could be filled faster and better by ideas, so genetic differences didn't have much chance to matter.

Link to external evidence to support this statement, please

Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#72

Post by xlnt »

rms wrote: post #71
xlnt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, you are proposing a sort of evolutionary psychology theory. Humans personalities today are certain ways because of selection pressure on genes. I think that sort of theory is mistaken because there has not been significant selection pressure on human genes recently. More specifically, there hasn't been selection pressure on human genes since around the time that humans first got personalities. So…

>The reason there wasn't selection pressure on genes is that any survival needs could be filled faster and better by ideas, so genetic differences didn't have much chance to matter. Link to external evidence to support this statement, please

Genes get to make changes every generation of humans. That's every 25 years or so. And to get very far evolution can take a lot of generations.

Ideas can go through generations in a matter of seconds within someone's head. So that's orders of magnitude faster.

Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#73

Post by rms »

yters wrote: post #65
xlnt wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You expected more of YC? :)

Yeah, otherwise it isn't worth coming here. I can go anywhere else online and find people who'll just spout their preferences instead of respond rationally. I made a submission out of this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=149248

You're paying too much attention to the voting. It just sorts the comments on the page and changes an arbitrary number next to your name.

Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#74

Post by xlnt »

wheels wrote: post #70
xlnt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just are what we are. Play to win You can only play to win if you have some control over your life. If you do, then you aren't just what you are now. If you want to win, I don't see how life strategies known for causing lots of pain and misery are wise. Couldn't we say that life is too short to to waste time with love and sex instead of working on something important (like, say, life-extension research)?

You could, but you could also say that life is too short to waste on ice cream, smiling and literature. None of these things have absolute value. Happiness, and success are a perspective, not an objective reality. Importance is synthetic. Freedom is just a macroscopic view of determinism. If you can find a way to be happy with or without relationships, you win. People seem to have succeeded and failed with both strat…

If an argument works to support either position then it's not a justification for romance.

Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#75

Post by Emmjaykay »

xlnt wrote: post #5

No, romance is dumb.

I agree and disagree. I don't think that romance is dumb. In fact, courtship and companionship seems like it would be wonderful, sublime.

However, reading your other comments about risk and so forth, I can feel myself resigning to agreement. It does seem like it would be a heavy risk and certain to fail. I can't explain why I'm so risk-averse where as other things in my life seem just as unsure.

Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#76

Post by edu »

Girlfriend, we have been dating for 3 years and 8 months

We both are pretty hardworkers, and planning to start something toghether (she's been pulling me to apply to this YC's round). I think we are a good time, I understand computers and she understands people (BSc in Psychology).

I don't think having a gf need so much time, I always feel that I spend more time procrastinating that staying with her, and with the later I feel better! :)

Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#79

Post by kajecounterhack »

xlnt wrote: post #40
kajecounterhack wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is entitled their opinions, I dont see why this had to be downmodded necessarily because it is a valid statement. Besides the fact that antisocial people tend to say things like that. And nobody likes antisocial people. And they dont like anyone either, by definition. I guess it was downmodded cause he didn't back up his valid statement. Of course, I disagree with his statement. No gf here but I've got a dat…

So far after posting support for my statement I've lost 13 more points. I don't care, but this is useful as evidence: I think your theory that I was being downvoted due to lack of support for my statement is incorrect.

Well I think its impossible to make a statement like this and not lose points because of the sheer number of people who strongly strongly disagree with the statement (and the fact that it isn't connected to support directly, in the same post, and people dont always read downward in the thread) -- Also there seems to be this peer pressure to downmod when something looks disagreeable.

Re: Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?

#80

Post by wheels »

xlnt wrote: post #74
wheels wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could, but you could also say that life is too short to waste on ice cream, smiling and literature. None of these things have absolute value. Happiness, and success are a perspective, not an objective reality. Importance is synthetic. Freedom is just a macroscopic view of determinism. If you can find a way to be happy with or without relationships, you win. People seem to have succeeded and failed with both strat…

If an argument works to support either position then it's not a justification for romance.

Why should it be justified at all? I feel like you're coming to logical conclusions based on all the wrong questions. ;-)

Edit: Oh, and if you're actually interested in wasting some time on a little literature you might enjoy some Alain de Botton; he's a logical ninny that's written some good stuff on relationships in a weird way of combining a novel with light philosophy. On Love is probably better than The Romantic Movement; though the latter paints a prettier picture of romance.

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