It is pretty vague on it's own and does not really show much. It is just a conversation piece really. Now it could have value if you were to show how it could be used to manipulate society in general. That is pretty much what dating apps and the fashion industry do. You can create a subject that will be attractive and you will hook people with it. So it is probably good for fishing type things.
Whenever a member of Rightforge screams about source-bashing, I just imagine what they'd do if I posted an article called "Karl Marx took my anal cherry", from The Daily Worker. I'm SO sure it would be a level headed and rational appraisal, and have no knee-jerk bias whatsoever.
But it makes the data suspect. For example, OKC has admitted that it shows people false information that the two of them are compatible. If a person "liked" another person on the basis of that false information, then using that "like" as proof of something is problematic. Had the person been shown accurate information, they might not have "liked" that other person. Additionally, OKC, like every other social site on the web, is rife with scammers. Not to mention that with the demise of BackPage, it is used by prostitutes and people looking for drugs to make connections. To think that it, or any other dating site, can be used to provide a meaningful analysis of human behavior without taking such things into account, is foolish.
He's devout Mormon, I'm an atheist. It's not much of a stretch to think that our personal beliefs differ. Additionally, unlike the author, I've had training in psychology, sociology, and human behavior. I've also spent some three decades studying the subjects in my free time, including reading journal publications on the subject. I'm no expert, but I do know a bit about the topic at hand. Except that there's ample evidence his research is not sound. He's not a trained psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, or behaviorist, so there's a good chance that his methodology is flawed. His religious background makes his work suspect as well. I would trust his work on a subject like this as much as I would that of a Catholic priest: Not at all. The study of human behavior is far from an exact science, and the field is often rife with unreplicable studies. The results of studies by even reputable researchers in the field are often heavily colored by their own personal biases to the point where their conclusions should be discarded. The best that one can say is that his article is "interesting" in the way that finding out someone is left-handed is "interesting."
I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m explaining why I have no interest in debating the author/piece by proxy. I don’t think it was written after a good faith examination of the evidence but instead he picked and chose info and misinterpreted info to fit his previously held (and written about) beliefs. They are beliefs I don’t share so we aren’t even coming at it from a similar position. The fact it is published on a page that prides itself on posting controversial takes and not accurate ones and yeah, no interest in engaging with it, much less doing it through someone else. If you want point by point rebuttal then @K. has done a good job of that for you and I think is still waiting on a response from you. If you’d like me to engage on the general topic, then feel free to state your thoughts and ideas. I can’t make any promises but I would definitely be more inclined to get deeper into that discussion.
Isn't the point of a debate to open yourself to a new way of thinking? Perhaps your foundational beliefs aren't so rock solid? You only agree with K. because he says things that you like to hear. He's actually an intellectual fraud.
Leaving Quilette out of this (I had to google what it was) we need to look closely here at what is empirical and what is ideological. There's a lot of data amongst mammals that supports the hypothesis that reproductive strategies are statistically shaped by biological investment, with the simple fact of the egg being larger than the sperm being the starting point for a buyer's market for females. Therefore the trend is for females to be more cautious in choosing mates than males and less likely to engage in risky behaviour without a perceived advantage. That is, however, taking an extremely broad brush to a picture which includes a plethora of nuance in strategies (including female promiscuity and varying forms of LGBTQ behaviours which might, on the face of it, seem counter intuitive). Hypergamy does not mean "women go for attractive men, men go for anyone" as your chart suggests, it literally refers to marrying "upmarket" in a caste system and has little applicability outside of that context. What we can say is that on aggregate there's a tendency for females across the Mammal class in general to be more choosy than their male counterparts, precisely because of that disparity in sex cell investment extrapolating across the mating process. On average it serves a male's interest to limit his investment, whereas the opposite serves a female's interest, she wants the male to have invested heavily in the offspring to incentivise him protecting his investment via good parenting strategies. So far, so uncontroversial. Where this applies to humans is, naturally, much more complex but the broad strokes are sound and can be illustrated best in the statistical patterns involved in infidelity. Anonymous surveys indicate men are more likely to cheat on their partner multiple times, often with women they wouldn't choose to date over the long term. In contrast, females are more likely numerically to be faithful but to be swayed by high status alpha males who are more conventionally attractive than their partner. In crude and rather gross terms men "cheat down" for the quantity, women "cheat up" for the quality. One strategy is based around spreading DNA as widely as possible, the other about finding the best partner available but looking for alternatives who might represent a genetically favourable offspring. This is obviously complicated greatly by individual circumstances and societal norms which predict and normalise gender stereotypical behaviour (the virile man about town, the married secretary sleeping with her boss), not to mention outliers and alternative strategies (prostitution, celibacy, so on and so forth) but overall the trends hold. None of the above should shape politics and as with all objective data should be viewed as value free. Observing behavioural trends does not make them "right" or "wrong", nor does it give anyone the right to object to them on principle (religion, incels), any more than observing gravity validates hanging people. It just gives us data which confirms a hypothesis about human behaviour from an ecological perspective.
Yes the point of debate is to open yourself up to a new way of thinking, but it is not to rehash old failed ways of thinking. For example we should not engage in debate whether the earth is flat because we know it isn't and that only leads to stupidity. Also letting nonsense into the discussion is problematic in the case of god did it. Since there is no data supporting the favoring of a deity in regards to circumstance it actually misdirects us to look for one when we realize things work based on physical laws in this universe.
Really good video on incels. Also goes into Red Pill philosophy which is pretty much exactly the OPs argument. Even goes into internet dating and specifically the different experiences of men and women on dating apps. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=fD2briZ6fB0
Interesting thought which will doubtless raise some eyebrows but someone upthread raised questions abut the usage of data regarding prostitution and rape as valid reproductive strategies. From a moral and sociological viewpoint I have no problem with that idea, but from a biological one it makes assumptions about the divide between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom. Throughout many animal species a significant portion of reproduction is done on the basis of rape, by and large without the constraints inherent to human ethical reasoning or, well, decency. Typically that strategy is employed by male members of a species who have failed to mate via more conventional means, in other words an alternative to the pair bonding, harem formation, etc, which would be employed by more successful members of the given species. The point? We are unwilling to discuss rape as a valid method of reproduction (or uncomfortable doing so), but nature disagrees. It is well established as a means by which those males who cannot compete in the mating game redress the balance. The parallels with the subgroup we call "incels" and the incidence of rape or sexual assault should be obvious. We should, on average, expect that incels represent a high risk group for sexual offending and if we're honest with ourselves the reality of that is not really too controversial.
Money can't buy love. But it can rent a reasonably good facsimile. And boring, ugly, rich guys are the ones in their 50s and 60s with the wives that are 20 years younger.
That just makes way too much sense for the layless collective here to understand. It's really not that hard getting chicks, boys. You just need to develop some game, market yourself and your accomplishments, and have confidence. Oh, one more thing. When it comes to making out, put on Side 1 of Led Zeppelin IV.
Which tends to be the underlying assumption dividing "us" and "them". It's not hard for some of us. Without meaning to sound arrogant I've been lucky enough to fall into that category for whatever reason, usually without making any effort at all. Others can't make the same claim and resent those of us who can and the women who reject them. They have no right to be resentful towards the women at the very least, no one owes them love or sex, but it isn't hard to see how the dynamic plays out once those parameters are in place.
Sure!! But how do you control for your own biases? How ocan I be sure he didn't ignore data that didn't support his pre-determined conclusion?
So, I found a major flaw in the reasoning here: Tinder is not real life. The article might be more plausible if the ratio of men to women was the same as it is in real life, but it's not. In real life it's close to 50/50 with slightly more women, whereas on Tinder the ratio is more like 70/30. Based on that ratio, the top 80% of women going after the top 20% of men, after adjusting for inflation, becomes the top 34% of women go after the top 20% of men. Maybe not ideal for men, but really not a big deal. This is why there's no math in the Red Room. It's too easy to play tricks with numbers and then be all "bUt ThE nUmBeRs DoN't LiE!"
I don't. That's why I don't trust people. I trust data. When people put together articles like this I consider them anecdotal until I can analyze their data. I am appalled at the low bar people will accept stuff as evidence.
There is much truth in what you say. But it would be more correct to say it is appalling to see the low standard people have for accepting stuff as evidence for what they want to believe. There is a very blatant double standard here, used by most people. The standard for accepting arguments that uphold our preconceptions is distressingly low, and at the same time the standard for accepting arguments that overthrow our preconceptions is distressingly high. I am not actually sure if anyone is immune to this. We all like to pretend we are rational and "just looking at the facts", but I tend to think that we let ourselves be swayed by our previously held conceptions more than any of us would like to admit.
So in Portland, I can swipe right to no avail. On a lark, I popped Tinder open here in Barddhaman, and matched with four gals. Of course, being the only white guy on Tinder in the Kolkata area is a (the?) major factor, but I also suspect that in general, Tinder's a woman's market.
Are white guys in demand in the Kolkata area or something? Or is it more like novelty for the local ladies?
