Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
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Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
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Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#2Is it valid to apply the Gini coefficient math to dating as they do?
> On a list of 149 countries’ Gini indices provided by the CIA World Factbook, this would place the female dating economy as 75th most unequal (average—think Western Europe) and the male dating economy as the 8th most unequal (kleptocracy, apartheid, perpetual civil war—think South Africa).
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#3This really does poke a few holes in the equity of outcomes view. Interestingly it also pokes a few holes in the unrestrained capitalism view. As we've seen society in the past restrain individuals and produce more equitable outcomes.
We've seen via enforced monogamy a society with more equitable outcomes. Was it better or worse?
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#4Is it valid to apply the Gini coefficient math to dating as they do? > On a list of 149 countries’ Gini indices provided by the CIA World Factbook, this would place the female dating economy as 75th most unequal (average—think Western Europe) and the male dating economy as the 8th most unequal (kleptocracy, apartheid, perpetual civil war—think South Africa).
Why wouldn't it be?
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#5This is nonsense for many reasons, but I'll just remind everyone for starters that it does no good to hire someone to go get layed so you can capture a percentage of the sexual experience they create.
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#6I'll just point out that attractiveness changes quite a lot over time, as well as the importance people give to it.
Maybe whatever calculations they're doing should take age into account?
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#7I wonder what studies there are on what features women find attractive in order of priority. How many of those could men generally do something about?
How easy/hard would it be for a male generally to increase their attractiveness through effort - sufficient enough to compete with the existing top 20%? Or is that not possible - due to genetic fitness (or maybe environmental vars only marginally in their control - diet as children etc)?
Assuming that men COULD increase their attractiveness to compete with the EXISTING top 20% of men - would the size of the top cohort that 80% of women compete for increase? Or not? I.e. are women looking for a particular level of minimum quality that won't change much over time? Or if that 20% figure remains constant - that their desire in this respect is a relative value; relative to the overall quality of mate choices available currently.
Getting down to the brass tax questions I'm building too.
Does that 80/20 figure of women chasing men amount to a cultural fact that men are lazy in terms of trying to appear attractive? Do men find more women attractive - not because they are less choosy, but because women put more effort into being attractive? Or are women just choosy and men easy?
What drives female choosiness? If that 20% figure stays constant no matter what men do - then one explanation might be that mate choice for women is highly status driven. But something must mitigate it generally right? Outside of the tinder abstraction - women settle for less than the top 20% all the time. Don't they?
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#8The subset of people who go on swipe left style dating sites are not a random slice of the population.
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#9I wonder what studies there are on what features women find attractive in order of priority. How many of those could men generally do something about? How easy/hard would it be for a male generally to increase their attractiveness through effort - sufficient enough to compete with the existing top 20%? Or is that not possible - due to genetic fitness (or maybe environmental vars only marginally in their control - die…
Intuitively it seems that it should be possible. Physical fitness, confidence, kindness, empathy, social standing, even appearance: these things can all to a large extent be improved through effort.
Facial attractiveness seems extremely important to both genders, and is rather difficult and expensive to change. But certainly someone with a merely average face could achieve overall attractiveness by pumping enough points into the above areas.
Re: Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy
#10I wonder what studies there are on what features women find attractive in order of priority. How many of those could men generally do something about? How easy/hard would it be for a male generally to increase their attractiveness through effort - sufficient enough to compete with the existing top 20%? Or is that not possible - due to genetic fitness (or maybe environmental vars only marginally in their control - die…
Intuitively it seems that it should be possible. Physical fitness, confidence, kindness, empathy, social standing, even appearance: these things can all to a large extent be improved through effort. Facial attractiveness seems extremely important to both genders, and is rather difficult and expensive to change. But certainly someone with a merely average face could achieve overall attractiveness by pumping enough poi…
That's where my intuitions lean... that culturally men just aren't used to having to work on their attractiveness...
But you'd need long term cross-cultural data to confirm.