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Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes
artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"
Common, this is just a stunt in order to get his picture all over the net in order to find a girlfriend !
He must count on the fact that girls will try to prove him wrong or that girls will be pleased to be the one in a million girl.
Brilliant tactic although... ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
What about...
fraction of women who would find him attractive.
fraction of women who are hetro/bisexual.
fraction of women who wont think hes a dick for assuming love is as easy as guesstimating a few numbers.
The pdf:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_students/backus/why_i_dont_have_a_girlfriend.pdf
After getting Fox news coverage and front page Slashdotting N* is
now significantly higher than the paper estimate. Think 10-100x.
f(L) is fraction of people in London from N*. Why limit
yourself to London? You or your partner might move, travel,
visit friends, soon even if you're looking for love!
Even within London, the author doesn't count people movement -
those who come to London over time.
Further, the author forgets that most all people *like* to find
productive partnerships. Unlike SETI, where we have no evidence
that the other party is looking for us, we know that women like
to find great men just as much you want to find an "attractive,
age-appropriate woman with a University education".
Worst, the author spent time write why he "can't find" a partner
when he would be better served getting out there doing activities
he loves with other people and having a great time life. Then
other people will find him, and help find others.
Truly be yourself and it is uniquely attractive.
Writing a paper relating love to reason and math may actually change the probability. Love is not reasonable and can not be reasoned with.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
[Drake calculated that] of the 30 million women in the UK, only 26 would be suitable girlfriends for him.
There comes a point where being too particular about a mate becomes an evolutionary disadvantage.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
This guy is being too picky and unwilling to compromise
This is taken directly from this episode of This American Life with Ira Glass.
-l
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He should try lottery or SETI@Home next. From TFA:
But in the end Backus defied the odds. Asylum reported that Backus has a girlfriend of about six months. "She's from London," he told the Web site. "And she meets all my criteria."
Good for him, but not very good for his theory...
The ENIAC Demo Competition
This bodes well for the possibility of finding alien life.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
What's the mathematical odds that he might be gay? (Not that there's anything wrong with that)
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
...the chicks actually dig intelligent guys.
Really.
So do chicks from just about any eastern bloc country for that matter.
http://xkcd.com/384/
Congratulations, you can google some numbers and stick them into a formula. You're brilliant, and it's oh so funny to come up with bullshit statistics like "only 100 times more likely than finding intelligent life in the universe".
I'll wager his value for "penis" is too small and "dick" too large... Oh the irony.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Oh come on, it's obvious. He doesn't have a girlfriend because he is the type of guy who would use the Drake equation to figure out why he doesn't have a girlfriend. Duh.
One of the reasons he can't find a girlfriend is because he is one of those people who USE the Drake equation. But seriously, look at his Criteria.
Backus found that of the 30 million women in the UK, only 26 would be suitable girlfriends for him. His equation looked at the total number of women in the country, then narrowed it down using relevant factors including the number of women in London; the number of "age-appropriate" women (those aged between 24-34); women with a college degree; and those who Backus would find physically attractive.
Okay - so how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Wasn't this done on the big bang theory?
-------
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It is intuitively obvious that anyone who's inclined to "use the Drake Equation to explain girlfriend woes" is significantly less likely to have a girlfriend in the first place.
#DeleteChrome
He's set personal standards that are virtually impossible to meet. That would be his problem, not the female population's.
Are you kidding me? All he wants is a person around his age, living in the same city, with a university education, and that he finds attractive. That is not "virtually impossible" the only thing there that is probably different than 90+% of what everyone is looking for is the university education, and I wouldn't even be sure it's that different. Now, having said that I don't think using math like this is all that great an idea, though it could work.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
http://www.xkcd.com/384/
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Agreed. How does this in ANY way belong in the science section of slashdot?
Actually they appear to be quite reasonable. Go RTFA (or actually the pdf on the page that TFA links to).
I know the whole thing is probably not to be taken too seriously, but looking at the paper I would say there are at least a couple of shaky assumptions.
First he's defining a rate of people who live in London. That ignores people moving in or out, or even people willing to move closer. So the figure should be higher I think.
Then he mentions he will only find 5% of "physically attractive" candidates. In other words, he is limiting himself outside of 2 times the standard deviation of the population. That's a really sample of the population. In other words, guy's too picky :-)
The ENIAC Demo Competition
Perhaps he would do a lot better if he stopped refusing to date non-aliens?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Something similar was done in 1999. http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Why_I_Will_Never_Have_a_Girlfriend
He is studying at the University of Warwick, which is near Coventry. It is far away from London. He is "studying in London" in the same sense that all Californians are residents of San Francisco. Has FOX News' target audience never heard of any English city besides London?
the real reason is: who want to date someone who uses the drake equation to find this stuff out?
Apparently he has no attraction value, since that is also one of the keys of finding a potential girlfriend. Anyone with sufficient attraction (for instance, fame, money) would be hard-pressed to escape from potential suitors/stalkers/paparazzi.
I skimmed the TFA and saw no mention of what his standards are.
It sounds more like you are a typical nerd and your only standard is "female who will talk to me". People looking for a real relationship have standards, even if it means that they'll end up alone for life - it's better to be single than to end up marrying the wrong person.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I did. My original view stands.
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From here.
I guess it's not exactly the same, as the previous one didn't use the Drake Equation...but close enough for me to raise an eyebrow.
and that he finds attractive
That is precisely where his personal standards are guaranteed to out of sync with reality. It's not really a problem for anyone but him, though... whatever predisposition he has in this department is unlikely to get propagated any further in the gene pool, as he's unlikely to reproduce.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Actually, I have a gorgeous wife who also happens to be quite intelligent. I've got standards, all right... they're just not so far out of sync with reality that I've failed to find a mate. His are.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
His standards of attractiveness alone only apply to 2.5% of his age group (5% of females). Those are ridiculously high standards. Then he narrows it further by requiring them to live in the exact same city (yeah, nice goal, but it doesn't always work out that way) and have a similar education.
Compare this to the average high school where every other kid pairs up with someone in the same school. What does his Drake equation have to say about that?
Stop it, stop it, it's fine. I will *destroy* you.
Right. Any story about a mathematician finding a girlfriend should be in the science fiction section.
You are welcome on my lawn.
He assumes only 1 in 20 women are attractive enough. Maybe I'm a horn dog, but it seems that if you lined up 20 random women MY AGE, I would find more than one attractive enough to give a chance. Either he's not accounting for correlation between the age requirements and the attractiveness requirements, or he seems extremely picky about looks.
All I know is, if a girl asks you how much you love her, using a pie chart is not the way to go.
...and I'll bet he lowered his. Asylum reports Backus has had a girlfriend for six months. Or maybe his GF *is* an ET alien. Did you ever see Laliari in the movie Galaxy Quest? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-vccWZPSyQ @1:50 Backus asserts he is "mostly a heterosexual male". Why the ambiguity? Is he pondering that he's a lesbian trapped in a man's body? Woody Allen understood the Drake Equation: "The good thing about being bisexual is that it doubles your chance of a date on a Saturday night."
Birth is the leading cause of death.
Hmm, or am I wrong?
I only can find this one: http://xkcd.com/384/
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Oh yes, wanting more than just "smart and pretty" is "out of sync with reality". How about some pretty simple things such as "having shared hobbies" and "similar values / religion" or "similar sense of humor". It doesn't take a long list of what you're looking for in a significant other to realize that it's pretty damn hard to find someone you can have a real relationship with.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Ah but life's so much more interesting if you meet a few of the less than perfect matches on the way, and your standards might get in the way of getting to know the person that is the best fit.
Holding out for "the one" is a fools errand.
The problem is looking for an English girl. They think they are much better looking than they really are, and expect too much. It would be more interesting if he compared the chances of Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I dunno, have you seen the average person, regardless of country? The typical person is pretty damn ugly. Granted, I'd probably say 40% are attractive enough, but I don't have a predefined idea of what makes a girl pretty - I go by "does what they have work for them". That's why I've dated a huge variety of girls. Sadly, I've also realized that all girls are soul-sucking bitches.....which could also lead to why the guy in TFA has a hard time finding a date - maybe he's wanting a girl who's actually not a psychotic evil bitch?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Well, if you RTFA....
(He has a girlfriend)
The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
Hooters hooters, yum yum yum.
Hooter hooters, on a girl that's dumb.
What's all this education he's looking for?
Well, if he correctly applied the Drake Equation, it seems the equation is wrong - the odds are clearly much higher than the equation predicts.
But more likely, the formula makes assumptions his case doesn't meet, or he did it wrong.
Non-story.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I'm not talking about looking for someone "perfect", but living "happily ever after" with someone you can't stand only happens in movies and marriages that are covering up affairs.
Sorry that I'm not foolish enough to marry someone totally wrong and have the bitch take all my money and possessions.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Pesonally, I think he doesn't have a GF because he's the type of geek who thinks of explaining why he doesn't have a GF with the Drake equation
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
The problem is exactly in the question. . The chance of *finding* love is infinitesimal. The possibility of *making* it OTOH....
You're just vastly superior to him. Good for you.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
His equation was
G = R * Fw * Fl * Fa * Fu * Gb ... where Fl was the fraction of UK women living in London. Except ... wouldn't the fact that he's already in London (and therefore not sampling women across the whole population) mean that he's only sampling women from London anyways? Would that make that term drop out? I guess I misunderstand its application.
Also, I suspect his Fb (fraction he finds attractive) is ... underestimated. Would he really only find 5% physically attractive? I'd expect most men to consider any woman who's even above average to be attractive. 5% sounds low, I'd think 30% to 50% (or not higher) is more likely.
He seems to have left off the fraction of those women that would find HIM attractive, but he does mention that (along with other factors) in his paper. I suspect he can't estimate those as well as the others.
You've missed the point entirely. I'm not claiming superiority, I'm saying I cannot believe that the female population of the UK is somehow less attractive than that of the eastern US.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Or, if she is a psychotic evil bitch, it might be worth it - sometimes.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Maybe if he had spent the time and effort he did writing the paper on going out and trying to find a girlfriend instead, he'd have had one?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
> Then he narrows it further by requiring them to live in the exact same city (yeah, nice goal, but it doesn't always work out that way)
You realise that city has about 13% (his estimate) of the population of the UK (about 61 million people) which means he narrows it down to about 8 million people? That is more than some countries, and more than most states in the USA. The requirement might be unreasonable if you live in a little village on the north pole, but in this case it seems very reasonable and it is NOT a ridiculously high standard.
Differences between people are frequently just as valuable as similarities. If he's looking for a female clone of himself, I'd say that's not only out of touch with reality but unhealthy. Believe me, I know about difficulty finding someone who works long term. We're not talking about that, though... this guy claims he can't even find a girlfriend. His standards are obviously nearly impossible, but the problem isn't the female population of the UK. It's him.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I did RTFA, I just disagree with the sensationalist premise of it. I also look forward to finding alien life.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I prefer this one:
http://xkcd.com/404/
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
That's not what he said.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
My frame of reference is the eastern US, so that's what I have to base my replies on. The story summary says "the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy."
That's completely ridiculous. The only way that could possibly be true would be if women in the UK were radically less attractive than women who live elsewhere. I'm certain that's not the case.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
When did he ever say he's looking for a female clone of himself? Oh, that's right - he didn't.
Also, did you ever stop to think that some people out there - WAIT FOR IT! - actually aren't shallow and don't want a girlfriend just to get some? Yea, some people actually care about having a meaningful relationship, I know - sounds crazy, right?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
......only if it's a one night stand...or a week of non-stop sex, tops. But we're not talking about some crazy hot nutcase you hook up with, we're talking about an actual relationship.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
What do you do when she behaves erratically? Consult Microsoft Relationship Support.
Uhm, dude, have you ever watched British tv? Now, I love a girl with a sexy British accent and I've seen (and met) some incredibly hot British girls, but the average British girl is at least a whole notch lower than the average American girl. So if you say that the average American girl is a 5, then in the UK the average is a 4.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I work it in reverse. (And that does not mean "up the butt")
For every 3 girls I talk to, I'll get one number.
For every 3 numbers I get, I'll get a date.
For every 3 dates I get, I'll get a 2nd date.
For every 3 2nd dates I get I'll score.
For every 3 girls I score with I will continue to date.
So this means I'll actually have 1 in 243 chance of meeting a girl I like beyond just sex.
Given that I date about once a week (on average) that mean every 4.6 years I'll be in a relationship.
And checking my work, that works out to seem right.
I *HIGHLY* recommend the book "Mathematics and Sex" which I believe I bought because of a /. book review...
In it, it says 12 relationships is what you need to find your best match. Given 4.6 * 12, I'll be 56 before I find the one...
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I'm an asshole. One in twenty, yeah that's probably like watching howard stern judge wannabe playboy models, but who cares. I don't. He wants what he wants, if he wants to be a dick and say 95% of the earth's population is genetic waste, that's his call. Anyways, college educated, beautiful or coyote ugly doesn't matter, over-complimenting a woman you don't know (but like) is a DUMB fucking thing to do. You're a scary stalker type. Better to point out the gap in her teeth.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
I once did a similar calculation for my city of 200,000, and came up with an answer of approximately 2. At that point I concluded I would never find either one of them, and gave up.
I figured it was that "Drake Equation" thingy (along with the fact that there's no "Math" section).
I could be wrong, though.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
I think 5% is a reasonable number. Keep in mind when thinking about the number, he's 31, that means the dating pool of women is shrinking, I would think the majority of those are from the end of the pool that the general public is going to find attractive, which means that the available women keep getting "uglier". There is also the possibility that he doesn't think the "standard women" is attractive, hell for all we know he has a pegleg fetish( though i'm sure the number would be considerably lower if that were the case.). Not to mention he may have done a precalculation on that number of the number of women he finds attractive (lets say 15%), minus the number of women he feels are out of his league(lets say 10% of those he finds attractive), and yes, if that's the case he should have shown his work.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
The real reason he can't find a girlfriend? He decided to use the Drake Equation to show why he doesn't have a girlfriend!
(Counts on Slashdot readership to not RTFA and thus not know that he actually has a girlfriend now.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You're wrong.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1509216&cid=30758846
Yeah, you ever sleep with a chick and the towards the end, towards pillow time, you just start thinking to yourself "I hope she doesn't steal my shit" or "I hope she's not just trying to piss off her psycho ex"?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Nope, never thought that - not even the times that I hooked up with married girls.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Lol, yeah! First success from internet dating left me thinking that.
Fortunately, I haven't slept with a clepto yet. Though I'm still trying to find my favorite blue pair of socks...
So why am I seeing this shit on the front page?
Where is the one who will mourn me when I'm gone
Who will pour water on my bed of dirt
Who will breathe fire on my neck at night
I heard someone say there's a chance that I will meet her
I could be Persephone and she Demeter
To pull me from the underground that I call home
Her name is no one, no one, no one
She blinds me with her eyes 'cause she's the one, the one
She lives somewhere not here, not here
Not here
My lovers are as smooth as a politician's tongue
The more I look for goodness, the more that I find none
I heard someone say, that she's honest and good.
Heard someone say, that she's honest and good.
Heard someone say, that she's honest and good.
Her name is no one, no one, no one
(Her name is...) No one, no one, no one, no one
No one, no one, no one, no one
Her name is no one, no one, no one
She blinds me with her eyes 'cause she's the one, the one
She lives somewhere not here, not here
NOT HERE NEVER HERE NEVER EVER EVER EVER!
I measure out my days with six of the Corona
I'm pretty sure she drives an old fucked up Corolla
To pull me from the underground that I call home
I've a funny feeling there's no chance that I will meet her
So I'll measure out my nights to my metronome's meter
(one two three four)
Her name is no one...
Her name is no one...
Her name is no one...
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Prove this, and I'll show by induction that all the positive integers are subsets of 1!
We'll share the credit!
sitting at home working on drake equations in your spare time, to explain why you don't have a girlfriend is exactly why you don't have one...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
edinburgh
and... dublin!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
36d^2 + 24x + 36 = 5'3"
this particular form was derived by an english academic knighted by the queen, a certain sir mix-a-lot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Those two options may not be mutually exclusive.
Table-ized A.I.
He only finds the top 5% of women attractive maybe 20% of my female acquaintances (of the appropriate age group) are not attractive enough to date. And I would date them anyway if they happened to nail all the other criteria. Maybe he should have just considered that one factor to make it more likely.
Further he assumes that he is meeting people at random, which is NEVER the case. Where do I meet girls? At parties that are already pre-screened by friends or the hosts for girls within my age range and interests (most social gatherings) or education level and likely interests (most professional gatherings).
Finally, flipping my facebook status to single would activate 100+ agents (friends, family, coworkers in the area) to find the 20 or so girls that fit these criteria, not to mention that those 20 or so girls already have 2,000 agents (assuming we are not already all on the same networks as I showed in the last paragraph) hunting for me.
All that failing, I could always hit the personals to try and make contact with one of those 2,000 agents looking for me.
Anyone should be able to see from the above facts that it is extremely improbable not to have potential SOs around, which I would give some credence to from personal experience as well as the fact that he finds a girl that meets all his criteria.
"Women with a college degree" so I take it people without a college degree are somehow inferior? Un-educated buffoons, no doubt!
If I were a woman and had to make the choice of a man, I think my criteria would be to avoid people with such silly stipulations.
So you're implying that I'm not in a meaningful relationship, a view I'd strongly contest. My wife and I have a lot in common, but we also have significant differences that allow us to bring a nice level of differing perspectives to the relationship. We're able to be completely honest with each other, which is the most important factor in any relationship (my opinion there).
I'd say a truly shallow person is one who isn't willing to respect differences that bring richness to life.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I have to admit, I don't have a lot of experience there. More research is merited on my part.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Putting things the way you just did, I completely understand and respect your position. It's not how I'm wired, but I get it.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I think 5% is a reasonable number. Keep in mind when thinking about the number, he's 31, that means the dating pool of women is shrinking, I would think the majority of those are from the end of the pool that the general public is going to find attractive, which means that the available women keep getting "uglier".
That's rather insulting. His age group is 24 to (34?), and you're acting like the singles in that age group are mostly hags.
Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier:
"Compare this to the average high school where every other kid pairs up with someone in the same school. What does his Drake equation have to say about that?"
And that's *with* the social awkwardness of high school. Out of your average of, what, perhaps 1000 kids per school, generally over half of them pair up. And usually with people from the same class.
Stop it, stop it, it's fine. I will *destroy* you.
Right. Any story about a mathematician finding a girlfriend should be in the science fiction section.
Any story about the Drake Equation belongs in the SF section.
$ make available
I figured it was that "Drake Equation" thingy (along with the fact that there's no "Math" section).
I could be wrong, though.
That's a good idea. We should have a math section.
$ make available
This means 2010 is the year we make contact: He now has a girlfriend.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
What's his Slashdot UID?
I'm not sure if you think you're disagreeing with the GP or not..?
You don't have to marry the first girl you go out on a date with. Hell, that's part of what dating\relationships prior to marriage are for, getting to know the other person to make sure they're not completely incompatible with you.
Should still go out on dates with a few, even if they initially strike you as "less than perfect"
I think the more difficult part is the education side. It seems that if you get a degree but don't get a steady girlfriend while in college or immediately afterward it's extremely difficult to find a girl with a degree that isn't already married.
I can't remember the last time I met a girl my age (30) that had a 4 year degree that was single (and I live in Boulder, CO, hardly a place where it should be hard to find single women with a degree). Well, technically I met one but she had a drinking problem (consuming a half dozen Everclear jello shots plus a lot of other drinks didn't even phase her...).
First I didn't say they were mostly hags, though I can see how you might read that into what I did say. What I meant is that the attractivness in that group is going down as time goes on, that was all, not that they are all or even mostly ugly now. Also as for your high school analogy, most of those relationship's aren't serious, I assume that by the age of 31 he's probably looking for a serious relationship not just one to help find out what you want, which is most of what the high school relationships are.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
of course he didn't include the odds of the other loving him back, which reduces his chances down to the same level as finding intelligent life.
I believe you're thinking of "Fermirotica", #563: "On average, someone within distance r of you is having sex." http://xkcd.com/563/
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Should still go out on dates with a few, even if they initially strike you as "less than perfect"
Never said you shouldn't. However, you should get to know a girl before you go on a date with her, and in the process of getting to know her before asking her on a date, you can find out if she doesn't meet certain requirements (intelligence level, political views, vegan, whatever).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I want someone who's different, because I love learning new things. However, that doesn't mean that I'm going to get involved with someone I have nothing in common with and as a result, nothing to talk about nor any activities we both enjoy together.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
1. The Drake Equation is about aliens.
2. Some SF is about aliens.
----------------
3. Therefore, the Drake Equation is SF.
Did I miss something?
...because he's too busy using the Drake equation to prove he can't get girlfriend
On the one hand his model is used to predict the chances of finding intelligent life in the universe. Lacking finding intelligent life, he's looking for a terrestrial girlfriend, the complete opposite. Coincidence? I think not.
It seems building strawmen of scientists and setting fire to them is becoming a bit of a fad on slashdot. I don't know why you are rated informative, you would have to be ignorant or naive to believe that Drake thought his equation was more than a speculative tool.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
He's aiming for sympathy sex, don't tell me you haven't tried it in one form or another. ;)
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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His age group is 24 to (34?), and you're acting like the singles in that age group are mostly hags.
I believe the point was that the older he gets the less attractive SINGLE women will be available. As most of the attractive women in his age group will have already found someone.
A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend.
Doesn't seem like much of a mystery to me.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
To most high school students, their relationship is TEH MOST SERIOUS EVAR! In retrospect, they're not, but that doesn't change the equation.
5% is way, way, way too low. In the right situation, I bet he could fall in love with 80% of women in his age group. And the percent that is single is still quite high. And people don't get "locked up" forever in relationships, either, due to divorce or breakups. And it's not like people get married in the order of most attractive to least.
Stop it, stop it, it's fine. I will *destroy* you.
He treats the parameters "age-appropriate" and "physically attractive" as independent from each other. I am seriously doubt that they are for him. Furthermore: The percentage of college degrees among women is higher in the goup aged 24-34 than in the group 80+. I'm not sure he takes this into account.
If i were a young, intelligent and attractive woman, i would aim for a guy with better math :-).
CU, Martin
Well, if he thinks Warwick is near London, maybe he's literally having trouble *finding* his girlfriend?
Its nowhere near London. In units of Englands, its about 1/3 of an England further North. Not near London at all - its much closer to Birmingham, the 2nd city.
On a world-wide scale, yes the University of Warwick is near London, but then so is Africa.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
You've never flown Ryanair, have you?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
All he wants is a person around his age,
To within unnecessarily low margins.
living in the same city
Narrowing his options for no good reason.
with a university education
A completely arbitrary decision.
and that he finds attractive
... and he says only 5% of women meet this criterion. TOO PICKY.
Plus he says he wants them to be single. Jeez, way to narrow your options ;)
Plus, many of these variables aren't really orthogonal. For example, many of the women that he doesn't find attractive are likely to be older than his criteria allow. There's a correlation between wealth and physical attractiveness, and there's also a correlation between wealth and university education.
Plus you might date someone you find averagely attractive, by the end of the night glimpse something about them that makes you like them more, and six months later think they're the most beautiful person in the world.
They say familiarity breeds contempt, but sometimes it works the other way.
"The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'" 100 times an approximately zero probability is not a very optimistic chance
I'm British. I've spent a fair amount of time in the US. And I disagree.
Patriotism aside, I think one probably develops a taste for local styles.
Oh, and TV isn't really representative of real life. British TV has less of a propensity for glamour than American TV. Our most popular soaps - Coronation St. and Eastenders - make a habit of taking beautiful actresses and making them dowdy in costume/makeup.
My ex-girlfriend *was* an alien. Or looked like one anyway. Now what are the chances of that Dr Drake?
It's unreasonable when you consider that, unless he lives in the exact centre of the city, he's potentially ruling out women who are living closer to him than some women living in the city (assuming travel is his issue). If he lives on the outskirts this will be even more pronounced. It would be more reasonable to use a radius based on his location (and even that doesn't account for the fact that, if he lives on the east of the city, it might be easier to drive 20 miles out of the city to meet someone than it would be to drive only 10 miles across the city, but that might require some actual work figuring out the numbers instead of just googling the city population.
Well, technically I met one but she had a drinking problem (consuming a half dozen Everclear jello shots plus a lot of other drinks didn't even phase her...).
Not seeing the problem, sounds like she was actually quite proficient at drinking...
I cannot believe that the female population of the UK is somehow less attractive than that of the eastern US.
You've never been to the UK now, have you ?!?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
[anecdote]An old friend of mine was regarded by females as the best looking male in the universe - think young John Travolta. He lost his virginity at 13yo to a 19yo model. He was (is) also a very charming and charismatic guy. He left school early and worked in a very sexy industry and was literally buried in beautiful girls. He f*ck*d and dumped all of them, sometimes having sex with 2 or more per day (this was pre-AIDS too). I was so jealous you would not believe it.
He did live with some women for extended times in relationships and eventually settled down quite a lot. He was hurt once while very young as I recall. But he did not marry until quite late, to a younger woman with her own career. They split up because "she" did not want to settle down and placed her career first.
So, despite his 10+ attractiveness rating, we both have ended up alone, though he has had a lot more sex along the way.[/anecodote]
Wouldn't that mean that some of the Drake Equation is SF?
I've also realized that all girls are soul-sucking bitches...
Lol! Love that - one to quote!
But being a geek I tend to want to strike while my iron is hot ie in case she goes off me.
and cast your net further afield. American ladies love the accent and you can increase the chances of landing a bite from one you won't throw back by some simple pool selection. Universities are a good place to start. Whilst I would imagine that people with degrees are generally more intelligent than average, it's a pretty crude benchmark for intelligence. I have no degree (currently studying part time for a maths degree) but I consider myself more intelligent than a friend of mine with a 2:2 in Media, Culture and Communication.
Is 20 in a million some space scientist term for 1 in 50,000? Sounds more like marketing to me, "Sure baby, you're my one of 20 in a million!".
I think he just proved there is not much intelligent life on earth.
"The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy"
Assume the chance of finding love in the UK is 10%, then the chance of finding intelligent life anywhere in our galaxy is 0.1%.
That makes intelligent life on earth (subset of our galaxy) less likely than 0.1%!
That explains a lot...
I think a big part of why she likes me is because
Dammit, I can't even talk about a girl I'm not really into without my brain shutting down.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
As someone from the US who has visited England (London, Liverpool, Swinden, Cambridge) a couple times in the last few years, I would concur with you. I think I may have gotten a little whiplash while over there when seeing all of the local women. But you may be on to something when you say you develop a taste for the local style. I think part of the attraction for me is that it was different. Plus, in general, I would think that people in the UK and Europe as a whole tend to dress nicer than in the US which certainly makes people watching more enjoyable.
Sorry that I'm not foolish enough to marry someone totally wrong and have the bitch take all my money and possessions.
It's happened to people I know. Sadly, over time, some people change (or reveal themselves) in unpredictable ways.
Statistics always involve guesswork. Well, not always, but in 98% of the cases at least.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Dunno if it has already been posted but I would like to draw your attention to work done in the late 90s by a dude named Tristan Miller on the subject: http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Why_I_Will_Never_Have_a_Girlfriend
Du kan glomma dina ensama stunder, du kan lita paa teknikens under - Wilmer X
Statistics involve educated guesses while practical common sense relies on uneducated guesses.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
In the UK, being an "average UK girl" means all your ancestors are probably from the same area. In the US, even if only the white population is considered, many people have ancestors from multiple countries.
From a scientific viewpoint, attractiveness is correlated with fertility and health. As inherently multicultural societies will tend to have more healthy and fertile people due to hybrid vigour, a more multicultural society (in this case the U.S.) will be more attractive on average.
P.S. I'm not going to let my girlfriend see this post - she's from the U.K.
If you want to get a date, stop being a wuss. Be funny. Be confident. Bathe.
It's not difficult to get women once you know what they want.
Start with David DeAngelo's Double Your Dating. Stuff works.
Here's a freebie: It's not them... it's you.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I wonder if, given his age, he has taken the correlation between higher education and appearance into account. In my city, if you go to a mall in an area where few people have a degree, most of the over-25 women look pretty bad, whereas in areas where most people have degrees, most ladies in the 30-40 age range are still have at least some of their looks. Partly, this would be greater wealth allowing better food and more exercise, and partly that far fewer are smokers, but there are also things like better poise and more subtle use of makeup.
He's trying to find a GIRLFRIEND, not a wife. Obviously, one would assume that the girlfriend might eventually become a wife, but since we're still at the girlfriend stage, the numbers can be adjusted a bit. Remove the college degree requirement and the attractive requirement, and there will be plenty of opportunities. I can certainly understand why someone is finding it difficult to find 30 year old, college educated, attractive women available who is also interested in return.
Remember... if at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Backus found that there are 26 women in London who match his outrageously narrow criteria. He doesn't have to search all of the UK, just his own city. Now if he searches for them by randomly calling numbers in the phone book and asking the answerer if she's the one, then yes it will take many years to find her. But if he networks a little and asks the answerer if they might know the woman he's searching for then he'll find her much faster.
Or maybe he can do something crazy like hang out around a university where those intelligent, educated, interesting women might already be. Or go to social gatherings with people his age, where the population is already self-selected for women meeting his age, geographic, and availability requirements. Neglecting the factor of locality and self-selection is like declaring that the International Space Station has only a 0.00000003% chance of harboring intelligent life since it's just one of billions of objects in the galaxy.
Or maybe this genius should try Internet dating. There are 26 fabulous women whom he's a perfect match for within ten miles of him. If he posts on the most popular dating sites, what are the chances that one of them will find him there within one year?
And remember, that's 26 perfect women in London even if he's attracted to only 5% of the highly-educated women his age. Seriously? Who here found only 5% of their gender-appropriate college classmates attractive? And he narrows the pool twice, supposing that only 5% of the women that he finds attractive will find him attractive. That ignores the correlation of people being attracted to mates that match their own racial, genetic, and social background. Bumping those numbers to a more realistic 25% would give him 657 wonderful, beautiful, interesting, intelligent, friendly, available, captivated, local women to date.
Agreed. How does this in ANY way belong in the science section of slashdot?
While it didn't happen, I thought that there might be an interesting aside about the usefulness of the Drake Equation. I've heard multiple people say things along the lines of 'there's simply no way to test this to see if it's a valid equation.' So I assumed if it was used for a smaller purpose we might be able to test the ideas behind it and see whether they're valid. If they work for finding a girlfriend, maybe the overall idea works for the existence of aliens.
Sadly, there was no discussion of this in the article. I'd like someone to think of the significance in any sense. He said there'd be 26 people for him in England and now he has a girlfriend of 6 months. What does this mean for the validity of the equation?
http://angryee.blogspot.com
Does that matter? If 20% are in the right age range, and out of of those he finds 5% attractive, then 1% pass to the next stage (where they'll most likely fail!}.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The mistake is presume that the factors are independent of one another. When you assume independence you can take the logical intersection of the probabilities which is multiplying less-than-unity probabilities together. You can obtain a rather small result choosing enough factors. But if the factors are correlated, the correct mathematics is the largest probability number. Both the astronomical conditions and girlfriend factors are correlated to some degree makeing the results less than valid.
This is the identical mistake made valuating debt securities. The mathematical underpinning was that you can offload most of the risk into a "junk tranch" by assuming failures like foreclosures are statistically independent. By "drake equation magic", i.e. multiplying probabilities to obtain the group probability, the group risk appears rather small. Independence is a decent assumption during good economic times because economic failures are more individual luck or actions. But during a recession, economic failures are correlated, making the group statistical model invalid. The so-called good-risk securities turned into garbage and the junk securities became gold.
I fear since a economics grad student does not understand probability like so many of his peers, this does not bode well for the future economy.
But Tim Minchin already explained this.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Does that matter? If 20% are in the right age range, and out of of those he finds 5% attractive, then 1% pass to the next stage (where they'll most likely fail!}.
Depends what figures he plugs into his equation.
If he plugs in "Percentage of women I find attractive", he gets a different outcome from if he plugs in "Percentage of women within the age specified that I find attractive."
No No No! (work with me here)
Y'all missed the really important part.
1> He determined that his chances of finding a girlfriend were 100 times less likely(*) than finding an alien civilization.
2> He found a girlfriend
3> He also found 100 alien civilizations and the govenrment is concealing this information.
4> He is keeping silent because his "girlfirend" is actually a really hot alien babe. She does not appear in photgraphs so it is a matter of conjecture as to her exact species. My source speculates that she is either an Orion slave girl, an Azerothian succbi, or a rare pygmy Na'vi.
(*) I know he claimed the inverse of this, but given the massive fudge factors involved in any solution of the Drake Equation, and realize that a piddly four oprders of magnitude is nothing to worry about. ALso remember points 3 and 4 above.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Indeed. If only there were some way to find out. Ah well...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Okay, I'm possessed by slashdot.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Do, re, mi, Allah-u-akbar!
I can see Julie Andrews in a burqa instead of a nun's habit. Colonel von Trapp would be played by Omar Sharif and the family would flee Austria on camels.
How the heck did we get here?
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
You know I hardly did this justice. This comment really made me smile though.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
1. The Drake Equation is about aliens.
How about illegal aliens?
Life is not for the lazy.
I read this a while ago.
Yes, hence my comment wondering whether I was missing something. GP was an (admittedly veiled) attempt at pointing out the illogic of GGP.
I hate to break it to him but British chicks have no interest in American men unless they are black. I went there with a couple of friends back before we even tarnished our image so badly as a country under Bush and it was nothing doing. One of my friends was a very attractive guy (of latin decent) who women find easy to talk to and charming and he scores without any hassles in the US but he could barely get a British chick to talk to him. We did some experiments with going up to women in clubs and just asking them to dance to see how much we got rejected. It was quite the laugh comparing notes. In any event, we did notice black Americans didn't have the same problem at all.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
I'm not sure if GP was making some correlation between ET stories and SF, or more likely just pointing out the flaws in the Drake Equation, that essentially the equation only makes any kind of sense if you don't fill in all the parameters with complete guesswork.
It was the latter.
$ make available
90% of statistics are made up on the spot.
$ make available
Yes, you are quite right. I hate the fact that people are predominantly obsessed with appearances. It is as irritating as swallowing a glass of rotten eggs and parking yourself upside down on the commode for a month, only to live through it by ingesting what so happens to trickle down the front. I'm sure you can imagine the shriek.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
actually its only like 78.3%