Do you remember the online dating profile optimization thread? LessWrong went in Vladimir_M's words "healing crystal equivalent". That thread was a happy death spiral.

Can you expand on why you thought it amounted to a happy death spiral? I didn't get that impression. (I am very likely a biased source in this regard because I started using OkCupid essentially because one of the LW threads on it suggested that it was worth trying, and it has worked quite well for me, so I may be missing something obvious.)