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How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

selonomics.com

71–76 of 76 posts

Re: How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

#71
post #5

"We don’t have to assume very much to see this play out in the real world, only that men prefer young women and women prefer high status men." Author puts on his MRA hat to make a few assertions, runs a simulation, and uses that assumption to conclude that women will get more dates with high-status men with technology.

For folks who think he's exaggerating about the MRA thing, his other posts are about "whether 'beta males' should resign themselves to sleeping with transwomen" with the conclusion that, of course not, we just need to shame those real women who are sluts (really needed some A+ transphobia and anti-woman bullshit up in here, that was good) and links to goddamned Return of Kings as a positive source.

I flagged this source and it should probably be on HN's autokill list. This guy is a bad dude and he isn't even an interesting bad dude.

Re: How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

#72
post #34

"Why does it appear that the vast majority of women prefer the same small group of men?" The chart doesn't show that. The chart shows that in surveys, women and men answer a survey with different average baselines for what "average" means. That's interesting, but it fundamentally tells you about how men and women answer surveys, not how they are attracted to the opposite gender. What tells you their actual attraction…

You're cherry picking the data to match your conclusions. To be fair, so is the article. And your "revealed preference" justification for cherry-picking sounds compelling. But I still disagree.

When I was a teenager, I observed interactions around me and came to the same conclusion that most women prefer the top few men and most men prefer any woman average or better.

So I have confirmation bias similar to the author (on this point. I don't necessarily agree with the author on other points)

But let me suggest why the different data point to different conclusions. When I was younger, I tried (very poorly) to flirt with the most beautiful women but was thrilled when any girl in the top 50% showed interest in me. I wasn't that picky, but it's more fun to get rejected by the prettiest girl than to be rejected by the average girl and rejection was pretty much the guaranteed outcome either way.

"Revealed preference" in who I'd date was, in my opinion, a lot more meaningful than "revealed preference" in who I'd approach.

Re: How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

#73
post #34

"Why does it appear that the vast majority of women prefer the same small group of men?" The chart doesn't show that. The chart shows that in surveys, women and men answer a survey with different average baselines for what "average" means. That's interesting, but it fundamentally tells you about how men and women answer surveys, not how they are attracted to the opposite gender. What tells you their actual attraction…

This is what happens when your discipline values methodology above real insight. If I were doing this analysis, I'd note that the first chart is probably consistent with male scores being drawn from one beta distribution (mapped to the interval (1,5)) and female scores being drawn from another. But I'd stop there, and observe that any number of phenomena could generate results like that: the beta distribution is extr…

> it's naive and a bit sexist

It's not a bit sexist, and it's not naive. This is MRA/redpill propaganda. Bad methodology isn't accidental when it gets you the "women are alpha-riding sluts" result you hoped for.

Re: How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

#74
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what happens when your discipline values methodology above real insight. If I were doing this analysis, I'd note that the first chart is probably consistent with male scores being drawn from one beta distribution (mapped to the interval (1,5)) and female scores being drawn from another. But I'd stop there, and observe that any number of phenomena could generate results like that: the beta distribution is extr…

> it's naive and a bit sexist It's not a bit sexist, and it's not naive. This is MRA/redpill propaganda. Bad methodology isn't accidental when it gets you the "women are alpha-riding sluts" result you hoped for.

[deleted]

Re: How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

#75
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is evidence from OKCupid etc (and, y'know, the real world) that the two assertions you quoted are true, broadly speaking. What has this got to do with "putting on his MRA hat"? Does this invalidate the assertions somehow?

> What has this got to do with "putting on his MRA hat"? I'd say it's more a mark of red pill than MRA (although to most people outside the related subcultures, that's probably a distinction without a difference). Basically, the red pill narrative centers on people exploiting their own "sexual market value", with male SMV being determined by wealth and social status and female SMV being determined by youth and sexual…

I agree with the distinction between mens rights activism and the red pill. These and other male subcultures (MGTOW etc) always seem to get lumped together by people who want to discredit them. A documentary about men's rights being called "The Red Pill" certainly didn't help in this regard.

But my question to the grandparent comment was meant to be more like, why should making some fairly uncontroversial (and evidence-backed) assertions require putting on any sort of 'hat' at all?

I'm not saying I agree with all of the red pill philosophy, but it's amazing how some people automatically go on the defensive when this stuff comes up.

Re: How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What has this got to do with "putting on his MRA hat"? I'd say it's more a mark of red pill than MRA (although to most people outside the related subcultures, that's probably a distinction without a difference). Basically, the red pill narrative centers on people exploiting their own "sexual market value", with male SMV being determined by wealth and social status and female SMV being determined by youth and sexual…

That was a depressing, yet succinct and solid summary.

Depressing in the sense of "it's depressing that it's true" or in the sense of "it's depressing that some people think that way?"

Personally I think it's a mixture of both. And also that it doesn't necessarily need to be depressing.

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