From my perspective, the reason against having articles like this here is a combination of several factors, each of them individually not a big problem, but together it’s a bit too much.
The topic is sensitive to some people.
The quality is quite low.
The author already wroterelatedarticles within one month, which suggests more may be coming.
Individually, each of there things is not a big problem for me. Sensitive topics can be approached carefully. Low-quality articles can be ignored. An author writing multiple articles about their pet topic makes the website more interesting, and can be ignored if you don’t care about the topic.
But put these three things together, and you get something that is irritating (if you are not irritated by the articles, you probably will be by reactions of people who are irritated by them), cannot be easily ignored, and doesn’t bring any benefit that could justify the costs.
(On the good side, the author noticed that not appearing needy is attractive. Good. The idea of hiring an acting coach to improve social skills: interesting. But that’s two good ideas per four articles. Bad ratio.)
Another thing is that the author seems to only be interested in this one topic. But this is not a dating-advice website; this is a rationality website. Yes, we had some dating advice in the past, but it was usually written by people who already got some rationalist creds by writing highly upvoted articles on other topics.
The buzzwords in the first article were too much; luckily the following articles contained less of that:
This post is about applying rationality to my dating life… it was a great triumph over motivated reasoning… I notice my confusion… This explanation agreed with the results of my favorite epistemology… I reinvestigated with Bayesian reasoning… Such a complicated theory should have a low prior.
I was bad at dating. First I believed it was because of some problems in my life; I assumed the women I wanted to date perceived them somehow. But sometimes I was actually more successful when I was distracted by my problems, and less successful when I had my life under control.
Then I got an advice to act less needy. I tried it, and it worked.
I can provide an evolutionary explanation for why it works (scarcity implies higher value), but considering that I was also able to provide an evolutionary explanation for my previous hypothesis, I probably shouldn’t trust these ad-hoc explanations too much.
I agree with Dagon’s analogy that dating is similar to politics in its ability to lower the quality of discussion.
There’s a bunch here to respond to, I’ll take them in order of how relevant they are to my empirical questions, and put the infohazard stuff at the bottom.
I disagree, the Yudkowsky quote is too vague and you misinterpret it. If you talk about being “rational” you will not achieve the way. But if you talk about specific individual epistemic tools with a defined empirical goal and a desire to know and grow stronger, you will better map the territory. My use of those cached thoughts from Yudkowsky made my reasoning way better. Plz comment specific misinterpretations on the original.
Since you don’t specifically call out any misused epistemic tools, I will justify my arguments to simplicity (its the same as Robin Hanson’s signalling argument).
The simplest explanation for when relationships occur is randomness. I approach more in good times but have less success, which is unlikely if each approach is equal. So there is a sorting mechanism I misunderstood. Next I listened to people’s explanations but after many long conversations I noticed an explanation from one instance did not predict behavior in another instance. So I read Cialdini and thought about the next simplest explanation, and arrived at the status signalling explanation. This explanation does a great job of explaining the data.
The signalling explanation outperforms the neediness explanation because neediness suggests that a confident “I like you” on the first date would work (it doesn’t). When I was having a crisis I was desperately needy, in the sense that I craved a friend and companion to help me through the traumatic experience. But I put less effort into signalling interest in relationships. That increased approach success rate. If I had never looked for a simple hypothesis and rejected rationalizations, I would not have noticed the signalling definition of needy. So the arguments to simplicity and heuristics are powerful. My reasoning would have been worse without those “buzzwords”.
Imagine instead:
Your prescribed method would have failed because in aggregate I outperformed my peers even in needy periods. If I’d just compared myself to peers I would not have seen this pattern.
This is really important because in dating you do not make one decision to be “needy” or “not needy”. You make tons of small, contextual decisions about when to text, when to say “I love you”, when to have “the talk”, and who, how and why to approach. I don’t need to know “if needy bad” I need to be able to predict optimal signals in diverse social/relationship contexts. I can’t a/b test the whole relationship, so simple theories with good predictive power (like signalling) are incredibly useful.
TLDR: The language you use to describe your reasoning affects your reasoning
Another thing is that the author seems to only be interested in this one topic. But this is not a dating-advice website; this is a rationality website.
I cannot worry about dating theory my whole life. I crammed the whole process into one month. It worked really well. A lot of posts in rapid succession is a great way to build comprehension, I would recommend it.
The dating websites are full of ideology and unethical people (with a few notable exeptions). If I posted there I would have gotten very different comments I did not want.
Yes, we had some dating advice in the past, but it was usually written by people who already got some rationalist creds by writing highly upvoted articles on other topics.
LIfe optimization is a well accepted theme on LW. Had I written 4 posts about task prioritization, then a summary “task prioritization plan” no one would have complained.
Another thing is that the author seems to only be interested in this one topic.
I prefer not to write anonymously, so I write anonymously only on this topic. Again, I’m sorry to be anonymous but the topic is too sensitive.
Finally—Yes, I am not yet a great writer. I came here to grow stronger. I don’t apologize for trying, you can’t improve if you never get feedback.
From my perspective, the reason against having articles like this here is a combination of several factors, each of them individually not a big problem, but together it’s a bit too much.
The topic is sensitive to some people.
The quality is quite low.
The author already wrote related articles within one month, which suggests more may be coming.
Individually, each of there things is not a big problem for me. Sensitive topics can be approached carefully. Low-quality articles can be ignored. An author writing multiple articles about their pet topic makes the website more interesting, and can be ignored if you don’t care about the topic.
But put these three things together, and you get something that is irritating (if you are not irritated by the articles, you probably will be by reactions of people who are irritated by them), cannot be easily ignored, and doesn’t bring any benefit that could justify the costs.
(On the good side, the author noticed that not appearing needy is attractive. Good. The idea of hiring an acting coach to improve social skills: interesting. But that’s two good ideas per four articles. Bad ratio.)
Another thing is that the author seems to only be interested in this one topic. But this is not a dating-advice website; this is a rationality website. Yes, we had some dating advice in the past, but it was usually written by people who already got some rationalist creds by writing highly upvoted articles on other topics.
The buzzwords in the first article were too much; luckily the following articles contained less of that:
If you speak overmuch of the Way you will not attain it. Imagine instead:
I agree with Dagon’s analogy that dating is similar to politics in its ability to lower the quality of discussion.
There’s a bunch here to respond to, I’ll take them in order of how relevant they are to my empirical questions, and put the infohazard stuff at the bottom.
1. Buzzwords -
I disagree, the Yudkowsky quote is too vague and you misinterpret it. If you talk about being “rational” you will not achieve the way. But if you talk about specific individual epistemic tools with a defined empirical goal and a desire to know and grow stronger, you will better map the territory. My use of those cached thoughts from Yudkowsky made my reasoning way better. Plz comment specific misinterpretations on the original.
Since you don’t specifically call out any misused epistemic tools, I will justify my arguments to simplicity (its the same as Robin Hanson’s signalling argument).
The simplest explanation for when relationships occur is randomness. I approach more in good times but have less success, which is unlikely if each approach is equal. So there is a sorting mechanism I misunderstood. Next I listened to people’s explanations but after many long conversations I noticed an explanation from one instance did not predict behavior in another instance. So I read Cialdini and thought about the next simplest explanation, and arrived at the status signalling explanation. This explanation does a great job of explaining the data.
The signalling explanation outperforms the neediness explanation because neediness suggests that a confident “I like you” on the first date would work (it doesn’t). When I was having a crisis I was desperately needy, in the sense that I craved a friend and companion to help me through the traumatic experience. But I put less effort into signalling interest in relationships. That increased approach success rate. If I had never looked for a simple hypothesis and rejected rationalizations, I would not have noticed the signalling definition of needy. So the arguments to simplicity and heuristics are powerful. My reasoning would have been worse without those “buzzwords”.
Your prescribed method would have failed because in aggregate I outperformed my peers even in needy periods. If I’d just compared myself to peers I would not have seen this pattern.
This is really important because in dating you do not make one decision to be “needy” or “not needy”. You make tons of small, contextual decisions about when to text, when to say “I love you”, when to have “the talk”, and who, how and why to approach. I don’t need to know “if needy bad” I need to be able to predict optimal signals in diverse social/relationship contexts. I can’t a/b test the whole relationship, so simple theories with good predictive power (like signalling) are incredibly useful.
TLDR: The language you use to describe your reasoning affects your reasoning
I cannot worry about dating theory my whole life. I crammed the whole process into one month. It worked really well. A lot of posts in rapid succession is a great way to build comprehension, I would recommend it.
The dating websites are full of ideology and unethical people (with a few notable exeptions). If I posted there I would have gotten very different comments I did not want.
LIfe optimization is a well accepted theme on LW. Had I written 4 posts about task prioritization, then a summary “task prioritization plan” no one would have complained.
I prefer not to write anonymously, so I write anonymously only on this topic. Again, I’m sorry to be anonymous but the topic is too sensitive.
Finally—Yes, I am not yet a great writer. I came here to grow stronger. I don’t apologize for trying, you can’t improve if you never get feedback.