How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose? | Hacker News Reader

How Does Technology Affect Which Men Women Choose?

selonomics.com

98 pointspanching65 comments

"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 is revealed preference: Who they date, and who they message. And the same OKCupid data source shows that women do message the same men they rate as "below average", whereas men actually overwhelmingly message the most attractive women. So right off the bat, this isn't a promising start: The author has interpreted the result backwards.

> translate this plot to IQ, and you have a world where the women thing 58 percent of men are brain damaged

No, it doesn't. It translates into a world where the women obviously do not act like they think this, and thus via revealed preferences, clearly do not think this. (But where the men do...)

> I began by wondering if a simple statistical model

Garbage in, garbage out. If you're reading the chart upside down, you're simple statistic model won't apply very well to real life.

Edit: According to the same data source OP is using "2/3 of male messages go to the top 1/3 of women" where women messages to men follow a much flatter response curve, with a peak right around the median. See https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0... In my view, that conclusively undermines OP's premise.

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 extremely common. To build a better explanatory model, I'd start digging into why people are voting the way they do. This means quite a lot of messy data analysis, and working at the level of individual user records. If you don't have that data there's not much more that can be said.

Instead, this guy makes some assumptions without any evidence, and takes the fact that his (complex) model can generate a common distribution as validation for his ideas.

Frankly, what bothers me about the article isn't that it's naive and a bit sexist. It's that untrained people can find this sort of analysis persuasive. Because hey, agent-based modelling is complex and impressive, right?

> 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.

Oh my, the mental gymnastics you're doing. Males and females are asked to rate eachother, males clearly rate females in a normal-distribution way, females highly skew it in favor of the more attractive males.

What is your conclusion about the graph, besides "interesting"? What is fundamentally different about how men and women answer surveys?

> males clearly rate females in a normal-distribution way, females highly skew it in favor of the more attractive males.

Yes. But males messaging females skew highly in favour of the more attractive females, while females messages males do so in a normal-distributed way.

So when OP asks "Why does it appear that the vast majority of women prefer the same small group of men?" the answer is simple: It's actually the other way around. 2/3 of men (a "vast majority") are messaging 1/3 of women (a "small group"). Women do not exhibit this behaviour. Those are the facts we are presented with.

Anything else is, as you put it, "mental gymnastics".

Not sure if it makes a difference but it's 2/3 of messages, not 2/3 of men.

Let me enlighten you: females message less attractive males because females love validation and attention and lose nothing if they do so, not because they don't actually know who they really like.

We live in a serial-monogamous society -- if the average individual wants a relationship he/she'll eventually have to settle for an average partner, regardless of who they fancy the most.

I have noticed this (as have many others).

Women are far more off in self-reporting their levels of attraction, arousal and the reasons for it.

Everything from studies done on bisexuality (women reported not being turned on by certain combinations but their genitals disagreed) to the OKCupid study cited above.

Men seem to be much better predictors and analyzers of what they are attracted to.

"What do women want" is a popular question ever since women were liberated.

I wish there were more studies done into this.

Rewording your comment (and not commenting on its veracity), it sounds like you're saying that women can differentiate between what their consciousness and what their reproductive glands want better than men. That's a pretty common stereotype about men...

I am saying that men have less of this difference in the first place.

> differentiate between what their consciousness and what their reproductive glands want

It is one and the same

I'm just curious how do you know that "Women are far more off in self-reporting their levels of attraction, arousal and the reasons for it" ?

> Women are far more off in self-reporting their levels of attraction, arousal and the reasons for it.

Women are conditioned by popular culture to resist sex at every turn, either to play "hard to get," to not be too "easy" for men to take advantage of, to not be perceived as slutty, to outright being taught by media that sex is something women dole out as a reward to the men in their lives, not something they are supposed to enjoy, let alone instigate.

It's not at all surprising to me that they'd be reserved about what revs their engines, where men are very straight forward because that's what we're taught that we're supposed to be.

Yet they seem not to be so reserved about highly rating higher status men, just they're reserved about lower status men. Are you saying somehow society makes women rate less attractive men even lower and more attractive men higher?

As in "Meh... this guy is a 7/10, but wait... ummmm society something something ... there, I'll rate him a 5/10 even though I think he's a 7/10"?

I think that's just good old Reporting bias. They're giving the answer they think they should be giving, not the truth.

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.

Classic agent-based modelling fallacy: "I made an algorithm that replicates an observed distribution, so my description of the algorithm is a potential explanation for that distribution.". The fact that you could relabel the relevant variables any which way (the author does, by equivocating status and technology) and product the same outcome should illustrate what a weak form of "evidence" this is.

A better title would be "simple rules to generate asymmetric opportunities", but I guess phrasing this in a way that tells guys the world is unfairly stacked against them gets more internet points.

Yeah. This is a classic case of what happens when someone who is good at math but has, how shall I put this gently, zero domain knowledge, gets their paws into something.

> "I made an algorithm that replicates an observed distribution, so my description of the algorithm is a potential explanation for that distribution."

I mean, technically it is a potential explanation, just not necessarily a correct one.

Absence of evidence actually IS (an albeit weak) evidence of absence. That kind of stuff.

I am very skeptical when there is a claim of some "objective status [of a person]" (in this case in the model assumption "In the simulation, men make their mate selection decisions by minimizing over the age of their prospective partners, whereas women maximize over the status of the men in their accessible vicinity." - which requires that there is some "objective" status hierarchy of men).

My counterclaim is that there is no objective status, but each person (in this case men) has a different status in different "communities" (it is intended that I leave it rather open what "community" encompasses here).

To give examples:

While "under 'ordinary' people" it is a sign of low status not to have a mobile phone/Facebook account/..., this is a sign of very high status and commitment in privacy-conscious communities such as civil rights activists, hacker/cypherpunk communities, ...

Similarly not owning a car can (depending on the community) both be a sign of low status (cannot afford) and very high status (in environment-conscious communities and people who love to be associated with being environment-conscious it is a sign of strong commitment and thus status).

A third example: Before it was paid very well, being a "computer science proramming nerd" had a very low status in general society. On the other hand being a good programmer/hacker could mean high status among nerds/hackers (again some specific community)/

I hope this clearly outlines why one rather should consider "status in a respective community" instead of some fictional "objective status metric".

While many cultures are different, I think we can talk about average culture, especially given certain selections. Average culture of people who use a dating app is likely different than average culture of people who scorn dating apps, and we can talk about what happens in each. There will be exceptions, but this seems true of any psychological/sociological statements. When we are talking about cultural norms, we are talking about averages recognizing there are sub-cultures and counter-cultures which can be quite different.

Take doing interviews (since I think that will be less controversial of a median to talk in). There is general advice on what one should do for an interview. It may be that you will be interviewing with someone whose opinion of you will go up when the see you in a t-shirt and flip flops, but when asked advice on what to wear to an interview we still tend to give advice based on the averages of wearing somewhere between business casual to business formal. We even stereotype different types of business culture (mobile startup vs international bank), and rarely do people point out a lack of peer reviewed studies or that there will be exceptions (or if they point out exceptions, they do it in addition to, instead of as a counter of, the standard advice).

>Before it was paid very well, being a "computer science programming nerd" had a very low status in general society.

Being very stereotypical and based on anecdotal evidence, but it still seems pretty low status (in the overall culture) despite the money to be made.

Yes, in order to paint a picture, one must draw the odd brush stroke. I'm a privacy-conscious, non-car owning urbanite programmer, but I accept and am comfortable with that most people (particularly in the US for car ownership) regard having a Facebook account and owning a car as indicators of some minimum amount of social status.

I love not having a car, and think Facebook is for people with lots of spare time, but this doesn't invalidate at all the results of the survey.

Personally I think more people would be turned off by the fact that someone thinks they are a "loser" for having a Facebook account. Though it's a bit harder to quantify personality.

I referred to using FB regularly, not having an account, but I've edited the above to be more what I meant (wasting time on FB).

> A third example: Before it was paid very well, being a "computer science proramming nerd" had a very low status in general society. On the other hand being a good programmer/hacker could mean high status among nerds/hackers (again some specific community)/

> My counterclaim is

How many people listen to it? If it's any, you probably have some of this fictitious status. Ever listened to a vagrant's claims? Would the average person of lower virtue?

You tried very hard to make 'computer science programming nerd' not roll off the tongue, just sayin'... I liked programming way more before computer science, and got a lot more girlfriends before I had a mortgage. Not sure I've ever met a CSPN :)

Status is real because programming is real, but humans are infinitely creative and can make their own status by writing their own program.

> You tried very hard to make 'computer science programming nerd' not roll off the tongue, just sayin'

This was a pun that "for the average person" computer science, programming and nerds are "all the same" (and they don't care the slightest what this is all about - they just pack all these esoteric things together into one package).

"objective status" is usually "net worth" (aka "life score") which has many readily evident indicators like clothes, car, house, jet, private island, etc.

I think the parent's point is that, for example, having a nice car is going to attract a specific demographic of mate, while speaking at a conference on marine ecology might be highly desirable to a different demographic.

> "objective status" is usually "net worth" (aka "life score") which has many readily evident indicators like clothes, car, house, jet, private island, etc.

I disagree that "net worth" is a measure that is applied in all communities. For example bohemian societies were even somewhat proud not to have a lot of money, because the members saw themselves as artistic avant-garde that is not understood by "the ordinary world".

"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.

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 inexperience. In this narrative, the most desirable women spend their peak-SMV years "riding the alpha cock carousel" and are "used up" by multiple high-SMV ("alpha") men, then cynically seek out lower-SMV ("beta") men for financial support after they've squandered their SMV, especially if they have children. This is summarized with the catchphrase "alpha fux, beta bux". Things like individual preferences and romantic compatibility don't exist in this model.

This is also behind the modern use of "cuck" as an insult in some subcultures: it's shorthand for describing the beta male in this scenario who is exploited to raise another man's children, and by extension anyone who is perceived as not being appropriately selfish.

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.

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.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/dating/19-scienc-men...

But yeah, lets blame MRA

That's not a great source. It also tells men to wear red and eat garlic.

I have no strong opinion on this subject, but this claim probably originates from a book written by a data analyst at OKCupid - Dataclysm by Christian Rudder. Its a good read fwiw.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Spreadsheet | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8291436

We Experiment On Human Beings | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097415

a) it has links. Use them.

b) one should have an intellectual capacity of appreciating that Kerr did not get together with Evan for his stunning personality.

> it has links. Use them.

If you're trying to prove something, its better to say nothing at all than to post a shitty source. And please don't ask someone else to do research that should be done by you.

Not the OP, but the article is full of citations to academic reearch and .gov sites. What else would you like?

Clicking a few random links:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19302732

http://akademiai.com/doi/abs/10.1556/JEP.12.2014.1.1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22947829

It's fairly obvious to see why notyourday may be frustrated with you saying its a 'a shitty source' and asking them to provide you with research when they just have.

I think it's fair to expect someone who wants to use the research to bolster their claims to highlight portions of it that are relevant rather than dumping a bunch of links (or posting an article and expecting someone to follow them all).

It's a left wing source (which are regarded as more reputable on HN [see edit]) reporting a study from the University of Wales, specifically:

> A 2010 study from the University of Wales Institute found that men pictured with a Silver Bentley Continental GT were perceived as way more attractive than those pictures with a Red Ford Fiesta ST.

What is your issue with The Independent and/or The University of Wales?

[edit]: noting the moderation on this fairly objective comment, I'll add that I'm not stating this is good or bad, but just that this is what I've observed after being here 10 years.

The Independent is likely to be a deficient source of information compared to other outlets: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/12/independent-an...

> It's a left wing source (which are regarded as more reputable on HN)

Yes, most major outlets are left-leaning but that does not necessarily imply that most left-leaning outlets are more reliable or are considered more reliable by HN.

Edit: to add even more to this silliness, the linked article isn’t even written by an Independent employee

The issue with the independent as a source is that it is obviously designed to be consumed as entertainment rather than a serious look at the topic. You can cherry-pick studies that show something entertaining, but that doesn't tell you much about the current scientific consensus. It's like how news loves to report that popular indulgences protect against cancer (wine, chocolate, coffee, whatever)

Are you planning on starting to wear red and eat a lot of garlic in order to attract more women?

> Are you planning on starting to wear red and eat a lot of garlic in order to attract more women?

Yes, I do wear subtly eye catching clothing and it does affect the amount of sexual attention I recieve from both men and women. You genuinely haven't heard of this before?

I will continue not to dress like a slob in vendor T-shirts and, eat in places other than Olive Garden or neighborhood chicken wings and pizza place and not live in a dump.

[Edit:]

Downvoting this is not going to change that your unwillingness to dress well, socialize with not tech geeks and project your desirability is what significantly limits your opportunities in attracting partners that you think you deserve.

Oh, too good for the neighborhood chicken wings and pizza place, huh?

There might be some interesting analysis there, but the social science underlying it is awful. If you base your analysis on unsubstantiated priors, you get useless results.

Site is being hugged to death.

Cache:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...

Men with a higher social status tend to also have a relative high level of social exposure, meaning they meet many people either as a result of networking, sycophantry, etc.

The curious case would be attractive women with a low social status, and how technology has drastically changed the playing field for these women. A woman who previously couldn't afford to travel or mingle in higher status social circles often would find herself "settling" for a local mate.

In the Internet age, that same woman can gain exposure on the Internet via multiple mediums to orders of magnitude more potential mates, creating a huge shift in pairing for both high-status low-attractiveness women and low-status high-attractiveness women.

There isn't a lot of meat to this article (at least, based on the Google cache version that passenger provided).

If mate selection is affected by technology, how does technology affect non-heterosexual relationships? What about non-monogamous relationships?

"Hypergamy doesn’t necessarily guarantee an inequality in actual sexual encounters..."

I'm not sure what he means by inequality in sexual encounters. Every time a man gets a new partner, a woman does as well. The average number of encounters is the same for both sexes so long as the number of men and women is equal(ish).

I think it's pretty obvious he means this:

   M1 -- W1
   M2 \- W2
   M3 -- W3
   M4 \- W4
   M5 -- W5

Yeah the averages are the same, by definition, but the distributions differ significantly.

Mean, median, mode, standard deviation, skew, etc. are all important measures. When people are talking about inequality (in any subject, not just here), they aren't likely focusing on just one of these, but on combinations of these.

The median might be significantly different though.

Hypergamy, then, is ever present. The only thing that changes whether it is realized or not is the extent to which women are free to act on it. Hypergamy doesn’t necessarily guarantee an inequality in actual sexual encounters, but the more free that women are to act on it (and this is personal speculation) the more likely are there to be social norms and institutions favoring women, i.e. fault-free divorce, preferential child custody laws, anti-slut shaming, popularity on social media, and the free trips to Dubai that entails, etc.

I need to report 'reality' to the mods for gender baiting.

I've never heard of "hypergamy" until today.

We (women) aren't a homogeneous group. Sure there are some psychopaths, but there are male psychopaths too.

I don't think "all men are rapists". I don't think most women are going on free trips to dubai or partying with silicon valley elites. Its a small percentage of people who live that type of life.

America is full of decent hardworking women and men. You just won't find them on the tv due to the entertainment cycle.

Sometimes I think the media is warping and twisting people opinions, you meet a lot of decent hardworking people in real life.

Could you explain the leap from hypergamy to a female dominated society? If women seek out socially "superior" men, one would think that men would hold much of the power in society.

Divorce and child custody laws aren't preferential by intent. They're simply archaic and/or very sticky. While I'm very much in favor of men's domestic rights, there are a lot of minefields when it comes to these issues which is I believe why a lot of the inequalities haven't been remedied.

Slut shaming is a bad thing for men. Men, especially men of lower social status (or "attractiveness"), benefit from a glut of promiscuous women. Also, prostitution is a market like any other. It's not women's fault that there is a high demand.

It's easy to get angry about things like this, and while you should strive for positive change (e.g. healthier self-image for women, regardless of sexual appetite), you should also act based on the reality of today where necessary.

I don't subscribe to the philosophy that I think underlies this article but I can see that from their perspective slut shaming has advantages.

If you assume that society accepting more sex leads mostly to more sex and sexual partners for the 20%, and not the 80%, and a delay to "settling", then tolerance of lots of sex outside of marriage, from the perspective of the 80% means that instead of the twenty year old settling with you at twenty, you're in a sexual desert until at 40 she couldn't snag any of the presumably many members of the 20% who she slept with whilst auditioning and then settles with you.

>Men, especially men of lower social status (or "attractiveness"), benefit from a glut of promiscuous women.

They don't because promiscuous women will continue to choose high status partners. More sex doesn't mean more sex for low status men.

I think if you close your eyes and think about it you can recall lots of counterexamples.

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