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Comment by sndean | Hacker News Reader

> Dating Site OKCupid, for example, has shown that its users routinely rate members of their own race as more attractive.

> In this case, the data is clear that men’s preferences are much more homogenous than women’s. “There are women who 95% of men say yes to, and there’s nothing like that for men,” says McLeod. “A man is really attractive if 40% of women say yes.”

So women have more complicated taste than men. But there are probably certain clusters of women (based on demographics, location, etc.) who'd find a specific look attractive at a rate higher than 40%.

There'd be a "George Clooney cluster" and a "Leonardo DiCaprio cluster". I just need to find the sndean cluster.

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The reason why so many woman find Clooney or DiCaprio so attractive is not their looks. It's things like being the center of attention.

Wealth + status

Well, it's not that simple, because there are men like Clooney and DiCaprio in "everyday" life too, who don't have wealth and status, but who do get most of the women swoon for them...

(And the opposite: people with wealth and status that only attract cheap gold-digger types, and women in general could not care less for).

Yes, it's not a one-size fits all.

I recommend The Evolution of Desire or The Red Queen. Both fascinating.

I second the "The Red queen" reco.

No, it's simpler: It's just 'status'. I believe the men you describe are "alpha males" which is a form of status -- albeit it's generally considered a low-class form of status by modern educated professionals.

Wealth, I believe, is only interesting in this equation to the extend it confers status, or at least coincides with it. Beta-males/low-status guys who win the lottery typically gets taken advantage of, rather than swooned over.

>No, it's simpler: It's just 'status'. I believe the men you describe are "alpha males" which is a form of status -- albeit it's generally considered a low-class form of status by modern educated professionals.

Not always. It can be just the local barman or barista that women swoon for. Or just a guy in the office, with the same rank as 30 others. It can even be an unemployed bum. Heck, women went wild over some felon last year:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/hot-convict-jeremy-mee...

What it gets down to is: there is such a thing as male good looks, it's not all status and wealth. And Clooney and Pitt etc certainly have those too.

I think status is a sub-category of "charisma".

This is complete horse shit. There is no such thing as an 'alpha male'.

Well, there are top dogs and followers.

I think there is truth in this, but it is overused in an intellectually lazy way to "explain" group dynamics.

In other words, I think there are actually humans who are usefully described as "alpha", but they are rare enough that most people will never actually meet one in their lifetimes.

If that is true, thinking about this dynamic as useful in understanding the people they actually do interact with easily becomes misleading.

There are certainly many people who like to think of themselves as "alpha" but invariably in my experience they have been obviously, and demonstrably, wrong.

>In other words, I think there are actually humans who are usefully described as "alpha", but they are rare enough that most people will never actually meet one in their lifetimes.

Maybe not a full blown "alpha" (that would e.g. be their political leaders, CEOs, etc, so they will affect their lives, even if they don't get to meet one as a colleague/friend), but in most group scenarios there would be some people exerting much more influence than the others, even without a higher rank.

   but in most group scenarios there would be some people exerting much more influence than the others

Sure, but that is what is meant by group dynamics. And it usually isn't one dimensional.

What I'm saying is that the alpha/beta modeling of this is lazy and misleading, and better avoided.

A very few politicians and a very few CEOs meet a useful definition of alpha, in my opinion. Your point about rank affecting influence is true, but I think irrelevant to my point.

There are leaders and followers. There are also people who just do their own thing and others that fluctuate from leading to following based on circumstance.

The "alpha"/"beta" wolf-pack dynamics were debunked a while ago. Packs are typically made up of parents (previously referred to as "alphas") and children (previously referred to as "betas").

Status is definitely important, but the alpha/beta/omega/gamma/delta/greek-anthropomorphism thing is a load of crap.

+ charisma + looks.

... or possibly that they seem like nice guys.

citation needed

and confidence. Being confident gets you a lot of love and lucre. A date or a job interview goes better if you're confident and not worried about "losing" it.

That's been my experience. I appeal to a relatively small subset of women, but using OKC in a major city I was able to meet plenty of women in that subset.

>“There are women who 95% of men say yes to, and there’s nothing like that for men,”

The men that 95% of women would say yes to aren't available on dating apps, because they don't need to be - almost by definition.

Well, even rich people enjoy free lunch. If there are this kind of attractive women on those apps, why wouldn't ultra attractive males (those that 95% of women would say yes to) be there too?

I believe you both are conflating male reproductive goals with female reproductive goals, but I agree that the rich do enjoy free lunch.

Those women 95% of men are saying yes to are obviously not compatible with all of those men. But some men don't care about compatibility, they care about sex.

I also believe parent of parent, and OKTrends, is arguing there isn't a single man out there that "95% of women would say yes to" to begin with.

I remember another study (but cannot find it) that women are more influenced by their peers opinion than men. Weird that this does not lead to more homogenous preferences. Must be clusters for women instead. It makes sense for men though. No need to ask your buddys opinion, if he most certainly agrees anyways.

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