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Comment by sytelus | Hacker News Reader

I think you don't understand that you cannot escape the consequences of human mating behavior by making dating online to offline. 80% of women will prefer top 20% of men. You can go to bar and get some beer goggles for a while, but it will wear down eventually. In Western world, 30% of the couples end up in affairs and 50% marriages end up in divorce. Ask why.

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In nonwestern countries, polygamy is acceptable.

I think it's obvious that people have preferences, and will seek partners that match those preferences better. But even if that's true, people have different preferences. People don't adhere to some universal rating system.

>Ask why.

Why?

Because of the biological asymmetry between the sexes. A man can have thousands of children, and women can only have a small amount. It's what drives natural selection and evolution of the species. Some part of the men are supposed to get rejected.

I know this will be hard to swallow for a lot: No polygamy is not stable and that is why it is outlawed in a lot of countries. Consider that men physiologically have a drive to produce wealth and "grow" to attract and sustain a family. (Nations I hear want that.)

What do you think throughout history the men that could not find a match did? They joined wars, became vagabonds, thieves, joined piracy or similar and went to forcefully acquire wealth and/or women (and rape). Needless to say a peaceful nation does not want that. Men are going to fight the rejection tooth and nail (a trait evolved in a similar fashion).

I tend to agree with you that nations are essentially trying to optimize for wealth under their jurisdiction, but I don't think that _necessarily_ tells you anything about how they'll treat polygyny.

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