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Comment by williamscales | Hacker News Reader

OK, I’m not going for cheap outrage points. I’ve read the Wikipedia article. I am honestly curious if there is a reason we still present the problem this way, or if we could just change it up a bit in its presentation.

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Regardless of intent, it pointlessly and unconstructively derails the conversation into an uninteresting and well trod aside that has nothing to do with the topic

I think it's okay here because we have threaded conversations. You can just collapse a thread that annoys you to tune it out.

I hate to be that guy, but it's a site guideline:

  Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.

For a reader clicking on the post thinking there's going to be a good discussion, they get the first post forcing gender politics irrelevantly into the discussion, then a bunch of stupid follow-up meta discussion. Even if they can collapse it, it's already ruined the thread

You make a good point about the site guidelines.

Although in this particular case, I think you're in the minority in believing that the original comment was provocative.

I think you are the only one of the few people that perceives it as hostile. The rest of us are legitimately curious. If it's a big problem for you, you could collapse the comment thread or report it and see if Dang will take action.

Now it's not uninteresting. I advise you to contact a mod if this thought police role-playing is not enough for your needs.

I think there is a reasonable argument that the etymology is probably the most interesting thing here. The rest of it is a pretty generic graph/combinatronics theory problem. I mean it is interesting as far graph theory is, but its pretty generic example. Just look at the comments - not a single comment here about the actual concept. I am doubtful it would have been posted here without the provocative name.

Can you come up with one? Given the specific problem, I find it challenging to come up with a different analogy for the same concept.

Sure. I’ll quote from Wikipedia and modify it.

“In combinatorial mathematics, the ménage problem or problème des ménages asks for the number of different ways in which it is possible to seat a set of couples, labeled “A_n” and “B_n” accordingly, at a round dining table so that the A and B alternate and no two couples are sat next to each other such that A_n = B_m”.

And this improves the problem statement how exactly? You are just doing the "parent 1" "parent 2" gymnastics that get (deservedly) mocked and (unfortunately) weaponized at any possible occasion.

You're organising the office dinner party and each employee has brought exactly one spouse (who is not an employee). You wish to seat the attendees alternating employees and spouses, perhaps so that the spouses feel maximally included and nobody starts a work-related conversation.

Pretty corporate for my tastes. Maybe it's just coming from Advent of Code, but a whimsical framing with elves and dwarves sounds nice.

Sure. Seating Pokemon trainers and Pokemon, where each trainer brings their Pokemon.

Idea stolen from this video on Gale-Shapley, which is also typically presented in a "gendered / heteronormative" way (but doesn't have to be): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fudb8DuzQlM.

I mean there are so many possible examples, right? Anything where you have pairs of partners.. bridge, tennis doubles, etc.

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