wedrifid comments on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA - Less Wrong

66 Post author: XFrequentist 10 September 2010 12:25AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 13 September 2010 02:45:50AM 2 points [-]

Why do you favor the hypothesis that it's only women who are over-selective?

Trivial understanding of game theory in an evolutionary context, observation of human behavior or accepting the nearly universally acknowledged stereotype (or generalisation) would suggest this hypothesis. Since evolution doesn't 'care' at all about our happiness and given the payoffs for human mating it would be extremely surprising if female instincts were well calibrated for ensuring the individual's wellbeing. The payoffs for males are such that it would be credible to hypothesise from evolutionary reasoning that their selectiveness would any one of too low, just right or too high for the males individual wellbeing.

Comment author: Cyan 13 September 2010 02:59:09AM 3 points [-]

Trivial understanding of game theory in an evolutionary context, observation of human behavior or accepting the nearly universally acknowledged stereotype (or generalisation) would suggest this hypothesis. [emphasis added]

A slightly less trivial understanding suggests that a human male's selectiveness will be an increasing function of the investment he expects to make in the resulting offspring.

Comment author: wedrifid 13 September 2010 03:19:01AM 1 point [-]

A slightly less trivial understanding suggests that a human male's selectiveness will be an increasing function of the investment he expects to make in the resulting offspring.

Exactly. This is what allows me to make the claim in the final sentence:

The payoffs for males are such that it would be credible to hypothesise from evolutionary reasoning that their selectiveness would any one of too low, just right or too high for the males individual wellbeing.