Well, you want some negative selection: Choose dating partners from among the set who are unlikely to steal your money, assault you, or otherwise ruin your life.
This is especially true for women, for whom the risk of being raped is considerably higher and obviously worth negative selecting against.
That carries the assumption that the qualities you’re positively selecting for don’t have a strong negative correlation with the ones you’re trying to select against. I don’t think it’s hard to lay out a few basic “are” qualities that imply “are not” for “violent, thief, etc.”
If A means not B, then selecting for A is the same thing as selecting against B.
If A means “with probability 90% not B”, then if B is a serious problem, it is worth checking both A and not B. Maybe even checking not B first, to avoid halo effect from A.
In my experience, some people treat dating as a negative selection process with thousand requirements that no one passes, because thousand criteria are simply too much. (Assuming independent results, even with probability 99% of passing each test, less than one person in 20 000 passes all thousand criteria. In real life, the criteria are often positively correlated, but on the other hand the probability is way less than 99%.) And those people usually defend it by taking each criterium out of the context and saying: “What’s wrong about wanting my boyfriend/girlfriend to be interested in opera/programming?” Well, nothing wrong per se, but if you have thousand criteria like this, good luck finding a person who fulfills them all (and is also interested in you).
The solution is to separate those criteria into two groups: “must have” and “nice to have”. (And if nine hundred of the thousand criteria are in the first group, you are doing it wrong.) First, filter people by the “must have” criteria. What remains is your dating pool. Some of those will be never interested in you, but you will find that out by trying. Now use the “nice to have” criteria for a utility function, and go seduce someone with a high utility. (And as a parallel process, try to increase your market value.) At the end, you may find someone who has all “must have” and some of the “nice to have” traits; and you may be happy with them.
If A means not B, then selecting for A is only the same thing as selecting against B IF A doesn’t also mean other things, besides not B.
In the dating example, a (straight) woman might employ positive selection to choose men who are particularly decent people. This would also have the effect of weeding out thieves and rapists (assuming that the woman in question can assess a man’s decency with sufficient accuracy), but the quality of “being a decent person” doesn’t only mean one isn’t a thief and a rapist; it’s more wide-ranging than that.
Doubtful. My romantic excitement, as best as I can tell, follows a positive selection process and it is highly inconvenient. (Basically, my dating history looks like I sat down at 16, compiled a list of people who fit a particular description, sorted them along that axis, and then have tried to date them.) Like Viliam_Bur points out, you don’t want to have 900 criteria which can disqualify someone- but you do want to have a reasonable number of thresholds that you don’t go below. At some point, the amount you dislike the other person will be determined by their lowest stat that you care about, and it would be nice to not have to deal with a lot of dislike.
It seems that Vaniver and pnrjulius have assumed that you’re having trouble picking good dates. If, instead, you are worried about getting picked (or accepted) for dates, then maybe you’re on to something. I’d be interested in knowing whether the majority of people accept dates based on a positive or a negative selection process. It may need to be broken down by gender.
(I have a hypothesis that I won’t share yet, in case it influences results)
It seems that Vaniver and pnrjulius have assumed that you’re having trouble picking good dates.
Viliam_Bur describes my thought process correctly.
I’m faltering on the first step, finding a woman whom I would be interested in dating. I think part of this is due to what I now recognize to be too many criteria ruling out people who might otherwise be appealing. (I’ve certainly had people tell me I’m too picky before, but it took a comparison to undergraduate admissions for the underlying nature of the problem to become apparent.)
Worrying about getting picked or accepted is a different step entirely.
I’ve just realized that I have been treating dating as a negative selection process. This might explain the lack of success.
Well, you want some negative selection: Choose dating partners from among the set who are unlikely to steal your money, assault you, or otherwise ruin your life.
This is especially true for women, for whom the risk of being raped is considerably higher and obviously worth negative selecting against.
That carries the assumption that the qualities you’re positively selecting for don’t have a strong negative correlation with the ones you’re trying to select against. I don’t think it’s hard to lay out a few basic “are” qualities that imply “are not” for “violent, thief, etc.”
If A means not B, then selecting for A is the same thing as selecting against B.
If A means “with probability 90% not B”, then if B is a serious problem, it is worth checking both A and not B. Maybe even checking not B first, to avoid halo effect from A.
In my experience, some people treat dating as a negative selection process with thousand requirements that no one passes, because thousand criteria are simply too much. (Assuming independent results, even with probability 99% of passing each test, less than one person in 20 000 passes all thousand criteria. In real life, the criteria are often positively correlated, but on the other hand the probability is way less than 99%.) And those people usually defend it by taking each criterium out of the context and saying: “What’s wrong about wanting my boyfriend/girlfriend to be interested in opera/programming?” Well, nothing wrong per se, but if you have thousand criteria like this, good luck finding a person who fulfills them all (and is also interested in you).
The solution is to separate those criteria into two groups: “must have” and “nice to have”. (And if nine hundred of the thousand criteria are in the first group, you are doing it wrong.) First, filter people by the “must have” criteria. What remains is your dating pool. Some of those will be never interested in you, but you will find that out by trying. Now use the “nice to have” criteria for a utility function, and go seduce someone with a high utility. (And as a parallel process, try to increase your market value.) At the end, you may find someone who has all “must have” and some of the “nice to have” traits; and you may be happy with them.
If A means not B, then selecting for A is only the same thing as selecting against B IF A doesn’t also mean other things, besides not B.
In the dating example, a (straight) woman might employ positive selection to choose men who are particularly decent people. This would also have the effect of weeding out thieves and rapists (assuming that the woman in question can assess a man’s decency with sufficient accuracy), but the quality of “being a decent person” doesn’t only mean one isn’t a thief and a rapist; it’s more wide-ranging than that.
Doubtful. My romantic excitement, as best as I can tell, follows a positive selection process and it is highly inconvenient. (Basically, my dating history looks like I sat down at 16, compiled a list of people who fit a particular description, sorted them along that axis, and then have tried to date them.) Like Viliam_Bur points out, you don’t want to have 900 criteria which can disqualify someone- but you do want to have a reasonable number of thresholds that you don’t go below. At some point, the amount you dislike the other person will be determined by their lowest stat that you care about, and it would be nice to not have to deal with a lot of dislike.
It seems that Vaniver and pnrjulius have assumed that you’re having trouble picking good dates. If, instead, you are worried about getting picked (or accepted) for dates, then maybe you’re on to something. I’d be interested in knowing whether the majority of people accept dates based on a positive or a negative selection process. It may need to be broken down by gender.
(I have a hypothesis that I won’t share yet, in case it influences results)
Viliam_Bur describes my thought process correctly.
I’m faltering on the first step, finding a woman whom I would be interested in dating. I think part of this is due to what I now recognize to be too many criteria ruling out people who might otherwise be appealing. (I’ve certainly had people tell me I’m too picky before, but it took a comparison to undergraduate admissions for the underlying nature of the problem to become apparent.)
Worrying about getting picked or accepted is a different step entirely.
That definitely makes it clear what your intention is.
I’m male and (I think) I tend to apply negative selection when deciding.