Game Theory

Courtesy of The New York Times; when using Tinder, men are three times as likely as women to swipe right on any given picture.

The article explains that men basically select just about every woman that pops up whereas woman carefully select the men that they might want to connect with, based on the photos and accompanying text.

I suppose it’s a good thing that one half of the population is curating otherwise there’d be mayhem.

It makes me think though, whereas people assume that this observation is evidence for the polarised dating nature of the sexes, maybe not.

If one of the sexes was slightly more ‘curating’ in nature then, due to competitive pressures, the members of the other sex would be forced into a polarised non-curating mindset.

Any game theorist would attest to this. It’s simple maths.

I wonder what happens on the gay-equivalent apps to Tinder? Is there some other polarization of behavior based on a distinction other than gender?

As a final note, as in all things human, these apps ought to come with a safety warning ‘be careful what you wish for, you may just get it’.

That’s especially pertinent for the women. Being the curating party to this fatal dance they hold the moral peril as their own.

The men? Well I guess the internet was designed by their ilk just for this purpose.