Hacker News Reader

Comment by didactylost | Hacker News Reader

At some level, a dating network needs to make recommendations.

In Plato's Republic, he proposed his vision for a utopian city-state. Essentially, citizens would be ranked into castes: bronze/iron for laborers and artisans, silver for soldiers, gold for leaders. When people came of age in this utopia, they would be paired off through what they would be told is a random lottery.

In reality, however, the city's leaders would decide on the couplings ahead of time, pairing like with like. Plato called this the "noble lie", and it neatly demonstrates what any government-run dating system would probably develop into: a systemic eugenics program.

View on HN

If you leave it up to private companies, you'd still get an eugenics program, one that selects for creating the perfect little consumer.

In a future where dating apps (and technology in general) becomes the only way to meet potential mates, only those who successfully "engage" with the apps/tech in a way that the company approves of will be allowed to reproduce.

Those that either refuse to engage on principles, or don't "engage" with it the "right" way (let's say by not falling for dark patterns, etc) and end up banned are effectively prevented from reproducing.

Both options can end up dystopian, but I'll take a government-run scheme any day. Not only are governments at least theoretically accountable to their citizens, but they are also as slow as molasses and terrible at tech, so they'd fare much worse at eugenics than a private company.

You people take it to far. I am not talking about some dystopian government that forces marriages to create some kind of super-citizen.

I just want the incentive of making profit removed and provide a decent service that does what it promises. If that service can only be provided at a loss (which seems to be the case) then let the state do it. Nobody would force anyone to use it.

Sure, but it's a slippery slope, and there are other ways to reduce the profit motive, like grant/donation-based non-profits or public benefit corporations.

Well-intentioned government mandates have a nasty habit of being used coercively when authoritarian-minded administrations get their turn at the helm.

As if non-profits wouldn't have any agendas...

Publicly-run (= by government) open source script would be most transparent I guess. Otherwise some sort of algorithm would sneak in sooner or later.

Oh wow. This is the first time we’ve heard about Plato’s political thought experiment, didacticos.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com