Comment by rntz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rntz | Hacker News Reader

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The trouble with this advice is that, while it's accurate if your one and only goal is to predict the likelihood of someone divorcing or cheating on you, it seems profoundly unfair.

To examine this "unfairness", let's imagine it at its most extreme: a society in which divorcees are so stigmatized that it's practically impossible to ever re-marry; in which children of divorcees are likewise stigmatized; in which victims of child-abuse are further victimized by a society that considers them potential "snakes-in-the-grass". Do we really want to live in such a society?

Obviously I don't think you were advocating this. But it's a thought experiment which demonstrates a classic class of problem: what's good for the individual isn't always good for society, especially taken to extremes.

Isn't that true for any system you use to predict? If you rely on "gut instinct", then you filter out people who aren't good at fooling gut instinct. Ugly people, short people, people with poor social skills, autistics, etc. That's hardly fair either.

If you want to make the most accurate predictions possible, you absolutely should not use gut instinct. If you want to be fair, then have a lottery or select randomly. You can't have both. There's nothing remotely fair about gut instinct. See, e.g. judges giving unattractive people twice the sentences of attractive ones. I can provide tons more examples of stuff like that. Gut instinct should be illegal.

The other problem is that it assumes that divorce is a bad outcome to be avoided, while a long marriage must be successful and happy; neither are axiomatic.

I'm not sure I see your point. What GP is proposing is a risk assessment strategy. If your partner ticks all of those boxes (for example), then you better think long and hard about whether the relationship is viable without being blinded by "love".

Anyone from any background can either rise above their circumstances or fail regardless of the help they get. This should never prevent is from thinking clearly and logically about our future with these people based on their backgrounds or past actions.

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