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Comment by Joeboy | Hacker News Reader

Not sure what you mean by "pseudo-economic value" How is that different from "value"? It's not like people are putting dollar values on their dating prospects, from what I've seen.

I get that the "market" framing is not very endearing, for a lot of people, and maybe not very healthy. But I don't think it's wrong. Worrying about your position in the labour market also isn't particularly healthy or endearing, but I don't think it's wrong. How are you supposed to ununderstand what you've understood?

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"value" in economics is a term applied to goods and services. my use of "pseudo", as in spurious or invalid, here really plays with my critique of using the market framing for social relationships. They're not goods or services.

This "worry" as you purport it to be can only exist in a system that makes it so. The worry of >tfw no gf is not comparable to the fear of losing one's job and health insurance, and the utter lack of opportunity to bounce back, meaning a job is a matter of survival. But since a lot of people on HN don't experience this latter situation, it's easy to see dating as a market where goods and services should be easy to get. The market analogy breaks down in more than just this aspect.

So, it's not wrong per se, sure, you can say that, but it's deeply, even inherently, flawed in my book.

I don't understand you ending rhetorical question.

> I don't understand you ending rhetorical question.

Take a statement like "Not many people want to date Steve, so it's likely Steve will have to work harder to find a partner". Is that incorrect? If it isn't, how would you suggest I go about not believing it?

Edit: I don't agree with your second paragraph's suggestion that relationships aren't important (relationships and jobs, or the lack of them, can both have huge impacts on people's lives), but why does that matter here? There are markets for both important things (eg. jobs) and unimportant things (eg. baseball cards). There are also markets for things that are easy to get and things that are difficult to get. Those considerations aren't what makes something a market / not a market.

Sorry I re-edited the edit quite heavily after writing the first version.

Yeah it's just the way it is. And relationships, and marriage, is an economic union more than anything else, and the main goal is to gather enough cold hard economic value to provide for children, and each other.

> It's not like people are putting dollar values on their dating prospects, from what I've seen.

People (women) are putting dollar values on their dating prospects, from what I've seen, and I don't blame them, it is important. Sure it's not everything, but love is hardly a mystical force completely detached from economy.

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