You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Brillyant comments on A Rationalist Guide to OkCupid - Less Wrong Discussion

25 Post author: Jacobian 03 February 2016 08:50PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (66)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: helldalgo 04 February 2016 02:16:23PM *  9 points [-]

"Why are people seduced by the pernicious meme that finding love requires no deliberate effort?"

Possibly because relaxing about their dating prospects makes them more attractive. For people whose effort looks like desperation, they may have better results if they stop trying so hard.

EDIT: I think I just did the thing that has been annoying people. I searched for the contrarian statement I could make, rather than any other type of commentary or response. I'm sorry.

Comment author: Brillyant 04 February 2016 02:31:08PM 0 points [-]

I think you're misunderstanding. "Deliberate" need not be "desperate". There is a big difference.

Comment author: helldalgo 04 February 2016 02:36:13PM 2 points [-]

"For people whose effort looks like desperation."

I think we're having an inferential gap issue here. There is "High effort, no skill" and "Desperate." These look very similar. Then there's "Low effort, low skill," and "no desperation," which also look similar. These often result in a massive improvement over "High effort, no skill." I'd bet on many people seeing that improvement and thinking it's enough; maybe they're satisfied with their results, or maybe they don't realize that better results could be had. Hence, the proliferation of the meme.

Then, of course, there's deliberate effort, which requires actual skill. "High effort, high skill" probably delivers better results than "no effort, low skill," and this article seems to be a good example of that.