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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

This is why matchmakers are actually a good idea. You need experienced grownups who understand what kinds of people are compatible.

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I'm curious how much feedback traditional matchmakers actually get about whether their matches were long-term good or not. It seems like a "wicked problem" in which any feedback is delayed and unclear, which means even people with experience might just be developing superstitious habits/generalizations rather than truly learning from success and failure.

Why wouldn't they get feedback? They generally live next to each other as the marriage progresses. If anything too much blame: the relative of the matchmaker in the marriage blames the matchmaker for all the flaws and difficulties that everyone finds in their spouse as time goes on.

That means the only feedback you get is crazy relatives yelling at you, which probably isn't that useful.

Most people won't go out of their way to provide detailed feedback.

There's an asterisk on this, which is that the traditional approach would often be hired by and answerable to the parents, who would not necessarily want a love match but one of appropriate social and economic status.

It still happens that way today in certain communities.

"You need experienced grown ups" has been true for a lot of problems that we've very successfully automated.

And problems we think we've automated but actually made worse with automation.

Reality check: considering the domestic violence rates, no, they did not understood who is compatible.

That is caused by the normalization of domestic violence in those cultures.

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