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Comment by sbilstein | Hacker News Reader

the inability for self-described rationalists to reason about how their emotions determine what they deem "objective" or significant is the most annoying thing on the planet.

one example where a lot of rationalists stop making sense is blaming challenges with dating on macrotrends and demographics when their own 'microtrends' of personal behavior, manners, and selection bias is the larger contributor to the issue.

No different than a company blaming the macro with 'the market wasn't ready' rather than their failure to bring a compelling product to market. Example: Instacart vs. Webvan.

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> one example where a lot of rationalists stop making sense is blaming challenges with dating on macrotrends and demographics when their own 'microtrends' of personal behavior, manners, and selection bias is the larger contributor to the issue.

Both can be true at once though. The rational person says: these are the facts, I have to work harder to date successfully. Is dating then still worth it? Some say yes, work harder, other say no, and give up. Those who give up says that society made dating too hard, not sure why you think that is wrong. You can call them lazy, sure, or maybe they don't value relationships highly, but that is hardly an irrational choice.

I agree that both are true but what contributes to loneliness is far more likely to be your own personal choices.

Is challenging your own choices and behavior worth it? The answer to that is subjective.

Often, the problem in dating requires one to work differently rather than harder. They are missing some facts -- people always are. So the conclusion that their decision is rational is incorrect.

That doesn't make their decision irrational, except to the degree that all complex decisions are made on the basis of incomplete information. You make the best possible induction from limited information. It becomes irrational when one believes they are making infallible deductions, which is false.

Dating may not be worth it. That's a valid choice. But it's misleading to attribute it to facts which may be false or incomplete, and leads to problems with other human interactions.

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