Comment author: HughRistik 04 June 2009 03:31:43AM 2 points [-]

I am not as old as you (I am in my early 20s), but I have come to the same conclusions independently.

If an interest or proficiency in rationality is related to cognitive or personality traits that show sex differences in mean or variance, such as systemizing or Openness to Ideas, then the pool of female rationalists would be lower that the pool of male rationalists. Consequently, barring polyandry, not all male rationalists can date female rationalists.

Yet even though a female rationalist might be a good match for a male rationalist in many ways, it is not self-evident that a male rationalist will only be compatible with females with a similar interest in rationality. What types of women he will be compatible with is an empirical question, that can only be answered through experimentation (i.e. dating women with different types of personalities).

Even though many male rationalists might think that they would be ideally matched with someone who thinks like them and inhabits an attractive female body, in practice, this may not happen. In females, an interest in rationality may be correlated with other masculine features, personality traits, body language, etc... which may or may not be attractive to the male rationalist, depending on the degree. While commonality due to similar thought processes might increase compatibility, there might be less chemistry. Or the chemistry might be just fine, and they might drive each other crazy for other reasons, especially if they have unresolvable philosophical differences and they both have a need to be right.

If a male rationalist cannot date a female rationalist, either due to scarcity or incompatibility, there are other more common types of women he might be quite compatible with. Specifically, I recommend women who are high in Openness to Experience. She will be more open-minded and interested in your views of the world, and if you are also high in Openness, you will be more interested in hers, and you both will be more understanding of the other in the event of disagreement.

Female rationalists may well be great matches for male rationalists. But they are rarer, and they don't hold a monopoly as good matches for a male rationalist. Consequently, a male rationalist is best off dating a variety of women until he discovers through actual experience what types of women he is best matched with.

Comment author: rhollerith 04 June 2009 08:34:18PM 1 point [-]

HughRistik writes, "I recommend women who are high in Openness to Experience."

My two most personally-useful long-term relationships have been with women high in Openness to Experience. The Wikipedia article says that this trait is normally distributed, so I will add that both women were definitely in the top quartile in this trait and probably at least a standard deviation above the mean.

HughRistik, since we seem to see things similarly, maybe we should talk.

Contact rhollerith

Comment author: pjeby 04 June 2009 05:00:26AM 3 points [-]

Female rationalists may well be great matches for male rationalists. But they are rarer

Is that really true? It could easily be an availability bias on my part, but I find most non-airheaded women to be supremely rational on the instrumental level. Much more level-headed and focused on results, and far less likely to get obsessed about some stupid thing the way men do, with the possible exception of a man or a social drama, and in both cases, those things are usually short-lived by comparison to male irrational obsessions, or so ISTM.

(Of course, most of the women I meet these days besides my wife are either at internet marketing conferences, or else customers of mine. So, could easily be some sort of bias factor there!)

Comment author: rhollerith 04 June 2009 08:11:31PM 1 point [-]

Yes, but there is a sense of the word "rationalist" that makes HughRistik's quote (and my post) make sense. Something like "strongly motivated to learn science and the art of rationality" or "the kind of person you become if for the last 20 years you have been strongly motivated to . . ."

Comment author: Tom_Talbot 04 June 2009 06:39:17PM 3 points [-]

This post assumes that the reader wants a long-term relationship. There is often talk here on Less Wrong about PUA techniques, but they seem to be oriented towards the short-term. So, as usual, the question to ask yourself is: what do you really want? If your preference is for the short-term then you should get to know someone who knows PUA techniques, or attend a bootcamp. If your preference is for the long-term there are plenty of dating sites that claim to be able to match you with people of your type.

Comment author: rhollerith 04 June 2009 07:39:17PM 1 point [-]

This post assumes that the reader wants a long-term relationship.

Post edited to make the assumption explicit.

Comment author: dclayh 04 June 2009 05:50:18PM 3 points [-]

They are two entirely different statements, and, while there are cases where both apply, by no means are they equivalent.

They're obviously not completely equivalent, but in cases where your measurements form some Gaussian (or similar) distribution, which is very common, the you have the choice of saying things like (to use the water-purifying example), "we're 85% confident it's at least 99.97% pure", "we're 97.7% confident it's at least 99.3% pure", "We're 99.9% confident it's at least 98.5% pure", etc., etc., each of which represents a different part of the curve. Now obviously the most complete answer here would be to say "our data are decribed by a Gaussian of mean X and st. dev. Y", but people don't frequently do that in informal contexts, so how do you reduce it to one claim with one confidence?

In the relationship context, "better off" tends to come in large, uncertain chunks, so what rhollerith said is reasonable, what you suggested he might say seems very unlikely to be the case.

Would you go into why that is? It doesn't seem intuitive to me at all. Why shouldn't a relationship improve your life by just a small amount?

Comment author: rhollerith 04 June 2009 07:11:53PM 0 points [-]

dclayh, I have replied to you privately.

Specifically, the first likely google hit for "dclayh" is a Livejournal user of that name, so I used Livejournal to send a private message to that user.

Contact rhollerith

Comment author: knb 03 June 2009 11:56:36PM 0 points [-]

I think these are all pretty good points, but I have to wonder if female rationality is very important to most male rationalists. This implies that rationalist (Rationalist?) men are very, very, different from most men in the qualities they look for in a partner.

Comment author: rhollerith 04 June 2009 01:20:36AM *  1 point [-]

The following comments are evidence that female rationality is important to at least some male rationalists. Note that the first comment was upvoted by 7 readers.

I know I would love to have my next girlfriend be a rationalist (if only to avoid my most recent failure mode)

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ap/of_gender_and_rationality/7me by MBlume

But she loves magical thinking, she is somewhat averse to expected-utility calculations, my atheism, etc. . . . We love each other but are scared that our differences may be too great.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/zj/open_thread_june_2009/rxy

Comment author: QuestionTime 02 June 2009 02:30:34PM *  7 points [-]

I need relationship advice and I trust the wisdom and honesty of this community more than most of my friends. I created a new account to ask this question.

I'm with an incredibly compassionate, creative woman. She excels at her job, which is a "helping profession," and one which I believe improves social welfare far more than most. The sex is outstanding.

But she loves magical thinking, she is somewhat averse to expected-utility calculations, my atheism, etc. She is, by her own admission, subject to strong swings of emotion and at greater than average risk of longer-lasting depression. We love each other but are scared that our differences may be too great.

How would you personally feel about a relationship like this? How should I go about deciding whether to continue this?

Added: We have been together more than 6 months. She has learned a decent amount about my way of thinking, but I have not pushed it on her. I frequently mention how great rationality is (but also mock myself to make sure we're all having fun).

I wish I had confidence that trying to convert her to my way of thinking would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term, but I don't. Not that I'm convinced trying to convert her is a bad idea on utilitarian grounds either, it just seems risky.

Comment author: rhollerith 04 June 2009 12:40:37AM *  0 points [-]

I am pretty sure that most strong male rationalists are better off learning how the typical woman thinks than holding out for a long-term relationship with a strong female rationalist. Since this point is probably of general interest, I put it in a [top-level post][1].

Converting her to your worldview sounds like a bad idea in general. An additional consideration that applies in your particular situation is that converting a helping professional from deontologism to consequentialism will more likely than not make her less effective at work (because helping professionals need all the help they can get to care enough about their patients and clients, and worldview is definitely one source of significant help in that regard).

Nobody has responded to the following:

she is, by her own admission, subject to strong swings of emotion and at greater than average risk of longer-lasting depression

I, too, will refrain from commenting because you probably mean "strong swings of mood" and I do not have romantic experience with a moody woman. I do have romantic experience with a fiery woman, i.e., a woman easily aroused to strong negative emotions, but I doubt that is what you mean: in what I am calling a "fiery" woman, the emotion always dissipates quickly -- usually in a few minutes.

You say,

She excels at her job, which is a helping profession, and one which I believe improves social welfare far more than most.

I would consider that a very positive sign in a prospective sexual partner -- maybe an extremely positive sign (the reason for my uncertainty being that I have never been with a woman whose expected global utility was as high as you describe) -- a sign that would make me pursue the woman much more keenly. The fact that you use language such as "would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term" (emphasis mine) suggests to me that you are like me in the relevant characteristics and consequently should take it to be a very positive sign, too.

The most I can say about the global expected utility (i.e., expected effect on the world in the long term) of any of my girlfriends up to now is that (1) she has many close friendships of long duration, and she is very caring and helpful to those friends or that (2) she is a resourceful and clearly productive member of the labor force and does not harm anyone unless you consider the occasional cheating of the government a harm. If I were with a woman whose expected global utility was much higher than any of my girlfriends up to now, there is a good chance that I could become much more unconditionally loving to her than I have been to any of my girlfriends up to now. By "unconditionally loving" I mean being helpful and caring to her without any regard for how much she has done for me or is expected to do for me.

So, that is why I would consider what you wrote a very positive sign: lack of expected global utility is my best current guess as to what has been holding me back from being more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend up to now. (Why I even want to become more unconditionally loving to my girlfriend is a long story.)

And yeah, I know that "expected global utility of the girlfriend" is an odd and cold phrasing, but if that oddness or coldness is enough to prevent you from reading this comment, then we are probably too different for the advice in this comment to be of any use to you.

Mate selection for the men here

13 rhollerith 03 June 2009 11:05PM

The following started as a reply to a request for relationship advice (http://lesswrong.com/lw/zj/open_thread_june_2009/rxy) but is expected to be of enough general interest to justify a top-level post.  Sometimes it is beneficial to have older men in the conversation, and this might be one of those times.  (I am in my late 40s.)

I am pretty sure that most straight men strong in rationality are better off learning how the typical woman thinks than holding out for a long-term relationship with a women as strong in rationality as he is. If you hold out for a strong female rationalist, you drastically shrink the pool of women you have to choose from -- and people with a lot of experience with dating and relationships tend to consider that a bad move.  A useful data point here is the fact (http://lesswrong.com/lw/fk/survey_results/cee) that 95%-97% of Less Wrongers are male.  If on the other hand, women currently (*currently* -- not in some extrapolated future after you've sold your company and bought a big house in Woodside) find you extremely attractive or extremely desirable long-term-relationship material, well, then maybe you should hold out for a strong female rationalist if you are a strong male rationalist.

Here is some personal experience in support of the advice above to help you decide whether to follow the advice above.

My information is incomplete because I have never been in a long-term relationship with a really strong rationalist -- or even a scientist, programmer or engineer -- but I have been with a woman who has years of formal education in science (majored in anthropology, later took chem and bio for a nursing credential) and her knowledge of science did not contribute to the relationship in any way that I could tell.  Moreover, that relationship was not any better than the one I am in now, with a woman with no college-level science classes at all.

The woman I have been with for the last 5 years is not particularly knowledgeable about science and is not particularly skilled in the art of rationality.  Although she is curious about most areas of science, she tends to give up and to stop paying attention if a scientific explanation fails to satisfy her curiosity within 2 or 3 minutes.  If there is a strong emotion driving her inquiry, though, she will focus longer.  E.g., she sat still for at least 15 or 20 minutes on the evolutionary biology of zoonoses during the height of the public concern over swine flu about a month ago -- and was glad she did.  (I know she was glad she did because she thanked me for the explanation, and it is not like her to make an insincere expression of gratitude out of, e.g., politeness.)  (The strong emotion driving her inquiry was her fear of swine flu combined with her suspicion that perhaps the authorities were minimizing the severity of the situation to avoid panicking the public.)

Despite her having so much less knowledge of science and the art of rationality than I have, I consider my current relationship a resounding success: it is no exaggeration to say that I am more likely than not vastly better off than I would have been if I had chosen 5 years ago not to pursue this woman to hold out for someone more rational.  She is rational enough to take care of herself and to be the most caring and the most helpful girlfriend I have ever had.  (Moreover, nothing in my ordinary conversations and interactions with her draw my attention to her relative lack of scientific knowledge or her relative lack of advanced rationalist skills in a way that evokes any regret or sadness in me.  Of course, if I had experienced a long-term relationship with a very strong female rationalist in the past, maybe I *would* experience episodes of regret or sadness towards the woman I am with now.)

Here are two more tips on mate selection for the straight men around here.

I have found that it is a very good sign if the woman either (1) assigns high social status to scientific ability or scientific achievement or finds scientific ability appealing in a man or (2) sees science as a positive force in the world.  The woman I am with now clearly and decisively meets criterion (1) but does not meet criterion (2).  Moreover, one of my most successful relationships was with a woman who finds science fiction very inspiring.  (I do not BTW.)  The salient thing about that was that she never revealed it to me, nor the fact that she definitely sees science as a positive force in the world.  (I pieced those two facts together after we broke up.)  The probable reason she never revealed them to me is that she thought they would clue me in to the fact that she found scientific ability appealing in a man, which in turn would have increased the probability that I would try to snow her by pretending to be better at science or more interested in science than I really was.  (She'd probably been snowed that way by a man before she met me: male snowing of prospective female sexual partners is common.)

By posting on a topic of such direct consequence to normal straight adult male self-esteem, I am making myself more vulnerable than I would be if I were posting on, e.g., regulatory policy.  Awareness of my vulnerability might cause someone to refrain from publicly contradicting what I just wrote.  Do not refrain from publicly contradicting what I just wrote!  The successful application of rationality and scientific knowledge to this domain has high expected global utility, and after considering the emotional and reputational risks to myself of having posted on this topic, I have concluded that I do not require any special consideration over and above what I would get if I had posted on regulatory policy.

And of course if you have advice to give about mate selection for the straight men around here, here is your chance.

(EDITED to avoid implying that all men are heterosexual.)

Comments (111)
Comment author: RobinHanson 30 May 2009 10:48:46AM 1 point [-]

But how many altruists can there really be, relative to status seekers?

Comment author: rhollerith 30 May 2009 11:45:09AM *  1 point [-]

Status seekers probably greatly outnumber true altruists.

But you should tend to keep the status seekers out of positions of great responsibility IMHO even if doing so greatly reduces the total number of volunteers working on existential risks.

My tentative belief that status seekers will not do as good a job BTW stems from (1) first-hand observation and second-hand observation of long-term personal performance as a function of personal motivation in domains such as science-learning, programming, management and politics and (2) a result from social psychology that intrinsic reinforcers provide more reliable motivation than extrinsic reinforcers (for more about which, google "Punished by Rewards").

The last thing the future light cone needs is for existential-risk activism to become the next big thing in how to show prospective friends and prospective lovers how cool you are.

Comment author: steven0461 26 May 2009 05:37:17PM 8 points [-]

i'm genuinely curious about how other less wrong readers feel about UR.

Huge fan here. Not sure that Moldbug is necessarily the most reliable thinker of good thoughts, but his good thoughts have almost no overlap with other people's good thoughts, which makes them especially informative.

Comment author: rhollerith 29 May 2009 02:16:38AM *  0 points [-]

I am in tentative agreement with Moldbug's main points. But like patrissimo says, some of his claims are overly sweeping. Unlike patrissimo, I have no significant personal stake in Moldbug's being right aside from the stake we all have in the health of the state and the society in which we live.

Comment author: rhollerith 29 May 2009 12:54:34AM *  1 point [-]

Helping to rescue marine mammals is a more effective way for a straight guy to signal high status to prospective sex partners than addressing existential risks is. I always considered that a feature, not a bug, because I always thought that people doing something to signal status do not do as good a job as people motivated by altruism, a desire to serve something greater than oneself or a sense of duty -- or even people motivated by a salary.

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