52 comments

  • qihqi 9 minutes ago

    Depending on the which gender does the initiation; the result is either male optimal (males get the best he can get, females gets the worst among those she would tolerate) or female optimal. I wonder which version this one is.

    • jb1991 6 minutes ago

      The article also mentioned that, but I don’t understand it. Receivers are also making choices, so why do they end up with the worst match?

  • abeppu an hour ago

    So on the one hand it's nice to see when a cool algorithm or framework is used IRL.

    On the other hand, actually applying a 'stable marriage algorithm' to people makes a bunch of assumptions which are worth interrogating:

    - Do people actually know what they want even in the short term?

    - Do people's preference change meaningfully over longer periods of time?

    - Does your preference _upon reading people's profiles_ have any strong relationship to your preference after spending any amount of time with them?

    The property that right after being matched, no one could have matched with someone whose profile they preferred more does not mean that this will create stable relationships.

    • 2muchcoffeeman a few seconds ago

      Gale-Shapely provides the best possible stable outcome for the proposing side.

      You’re never going to match with people who aren’t actively looking.

      You’re only ever going to match with the people who are looking at the same time as you.

      Your criticisms are true of real life without apps. That’s why we have this thing called “divorce”.

      Comments like these always seem to miss the point. They aren’t trying to solve marriage. They are trying to create social lubricants to get young people more interested in dating. This algorithm tries to ensure that at the very least your core values at the time match up.

    • justonceokay 17 minutes ago

      Least they are using an algorithm that has the intended purpose of matching people. For profit dating apps are more interested in keeping you coming back then they are in creating successful relationships

    • qprofyeh 41 minutes ago

      The match is whoever wants to start on the journey with the user, at that moment, and the algorithm is there to give the potential couple a better starting point. I guess at any rate that’s better than leaving it to hope and chance.

  • throw0101c an hour ago

    Stable marriage algorithm or stable matching algorithm?

    > In mathematics, economics, and computer science, the Gale–Shapley algorithm (also known as the deferred acceptance algorithm,[1] propose-and-reject algorithm,[2] or Boston Pool algorithm[1]) is an algorithm for finding a solution to the stable matching problem.

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gale–Shapley_algorithm

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_matching_problem

    • thaumasiotes an hour ago

      It is in fact known as the stable marriage algorithm. It's not known as the stable matching algorithm.

  • laybak an hour ago

    the Singaporean government is often described as having a "parental" approach. I guess this move would be on brand

    • vovavili 32 minutes ago

      It's also known as being one of the very few countries actually capable of using state capacity to overcome serious social and economic problems. Godspeed.

      • jb1991 a few seconds ago

        It's also known as being one of the very few first-world countries actually without basic freedoms, like free speech, freedom of the press, etc.

      • oatmeal1 25 minutes ago

        It's basically a benevolent dictatorship due to one party being in charge for the last 67 years.

        • jb1991 2 minutes ago

          Not just one party, but one family.

        • PorciiVorbesc 23 minutes ago

          Sometimes a benevolent dictatorship is better than a perverted and corrupt democracy. Democracy isn't the perfect be-all and end-all form of governance that will work well for everyone, a fact even ancient greeks recognized. Letting the masses decide the future of a country just because they're the majority is like letting the passengers fly the plane because they outnumber the captain.

          While many countries in the west have a two or multi party system due to historical reasons, on certain issues they often just function as controlled opposition, making your vote worthless anyway, with political battles between parties now being mostly and ideological circus to keep the unwashed masses distracted and divided while they get robbed blind, rather than focused on actually fixing things for the working class.

          If Singapore can skip this expensive time consuming circus and just get shit done, then good for them, but I don't want our western leaders to take the wrong lesson and move us to a dictatorship as the promised solution to fix things, which is what I feel they're trying.

        • vovavili 20 minutes ago

          Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him.

          • outside1234 a minute ago

            The Singaporean president gets paid USD$2M a year.

        • bijowo1676 7 minutes ago

          Singapore is the case when you can just rely on your government to do its job and they will do the job properly!!!!

          Can't remember when it was last time you could rely on western government to do the right thing

      • Barrin92 7 minutes ago

        the kind of issues that Singapore has been fairly effective at, getting people to speak the same tongue or not spitting on the street, what you could put into a bucket of 'public discipline' measures I think is over-romanticized.

        The country has been effective at it but so was Prussia or England. Singapore has increasingly complex social issues you aren't going to solve with a cane, and government organized marriage likely will go as well as government cheese

    • chaostheory an hour ago

      Before Xi, Singapore is what China aspired to become. Totally onbrand

  • storywatch 8 hours ago

    I wonder if it's made by the same people behind

    https://aphrodite.global/

    The project was partially started by some students/scholars from there.

  • dnautics an hour ago

    Which side do they screw over (the choosers get their worst possible match and the bidders get their best possible match)

  • djoldman 2 hours ago
  • beeforpork 10 hours ago

    Nice! But is there an app with this algorithm/strategy/design for finding good matches for casually having fun together? All the apps I know suck.

    • PorciiVorbesc 9 hours ago

      > finding good matches for casually having fun together?

      Basically all dating apps are optimized for enabling casual hookups at this point.

      >All the apps I know suck.

      Do ALL the apps suck, or are you maybe not appealing enough for being picked for casual hookups by the users on the app?

      • rrr_oh_man an hour ago

        > Do ALL the apps suck, or are you maybe not appealing enough for being picked for casual hookups by the users on the app?

        Dunno, @beeforpork sounds hawt

      • nextaccountic 8 hours ago

        The app has an incentive to suck unless you pay

        • whatshisface 2 hours ago

          Go recheck your calculations, you'll notice something about their incentive in the case where you pay.

    • notpushkin 34 minutes ago

      This could work for that purpose in a pinch. You do actually get other matches afterwards, you just don’t get an infinite feed of other candidates and can focus on having great time with the one you’ve got.

    • derektank an hour ago

      Why would you need a pairwise matching algorithm for finding friends? Friends are generally not exclusive nor rivalrous

      • waldrews an hour ago

        It's about prioritizing candidates for the costly initial audition, and breaking symmetry for the introduction, something particularly useful for people who can't just approach other at random in a social setting.

    • Joakal 9 hours ago

      meetup and other related apps have always been best for finding people with related interests.

      If they don't have your interests, feel free to start a new group?

      • TFNA 2 hours ago

        Meetup got enshittified years ago already, and the changes drove away the small communities that once made up so much of the site; the only groups which prosper on it now are mainly large for-profit ventures.

        In places where there is a healthy ecosystem of casual, non-rapacious meetups, that is overwhelmingly organized via Facebook, not Meetup.

        • exhilaration 2 hours ago

          Thank you, I just learned a new word.

          Rapacious

          ADJECTIVE

          1 given to seizing for plunder or the satisfaction of greed.

          2 inordinately greedy; predatory; extortionate.

          a rapacious disposition.

          grasping, voracious,

          Synonyms:

          ravenous

          Antonyms: generous

          3 (of animals) subsisting by the capture of living prey; predacious.

        • bluebarbet 33 minutes ago

          >Meetup got enshittified years ago already

          Citation needed. Not my experience at all. And it has the major benefit of being independent of the tech giants, who already know too much about your social graph.

        • rrr_oh_man an hour ago

          FYI, Meetup got acquired by Bending Spoons and it seems it's being de-enshittified.

  • pydry an hour ago

    this is their third attempt at a government run dating service I think :/

    it's low key kind of funny how they keep reaching for the quick fix to their collapsed birth rates instead of changing the things that would cost real money or make them less desirable to foreign investors.

    • aw4rzs an hour ago

      What things could Singapore change to fix their birth rates? Empirically, nothing that any country is trying is working.

      • PorciiVorbesc 29 minutes ago

        >nothing that any country is trying is working.

        Because most countries aren't actually trying anything nor can the government do much in that regard when the issues are cultural and emotional.

        The low-birthrate couples who can't/don't want kids aren't suddenly gonna want them if you give them 3 months of paid maternity leave and a monthly stipend or other such welfare perks.

        And those who do have kids because of government welfare perks, were having kids anyway, they're now incentivized to have even more.

    • gib444 16 minutes ago

      Yeah the world is in a 60 year trend in declining births. An app isn't going to fix anything

      Increase women's education, labour participation, reduce infant mortality, have good access to birth control, and make life expensive...You're not going to get babies

    • fragmede an hour ago

      What would you do if you were the Singaporean government?

  • fHr an hour ago

    0-worlding

  • thomasfl an hour ago

    Will Tinder be blamed for the sudden decline in fertility rate? Is there any other plausible explanstion to South Korea’s sudden and dramatic drop in fertility rate to 0.8? No matter how bad the housing market is or the job market is, there has never in history been such a drop in population.

    • glitchc an hour ago

      The only new variable in the last century of humanity is birth control. All others (hypergamy, economic mobility, migration, etc.) are recurring and have not impacted birth rates significantly in the past.

    • password54321 an hour ago

      Yes, dating apps turbocharge hypergamy. It is not a secret that the top 10% of men get a huge share of the likes received.

      Edit:

      Share of all likes received according to ChatGPT

      Top 1% 16.4%

      Top 5% 41.1%

      Top 10% 58.0%

      Top 50% 95.7%

      Bottom 50% 4.3%

      • derektank an hour ago

        Male hypergamy and polygyny has been practiced by many cultures historically. They had many problems, but low birth rates wasn’t among them. I don’t think dating apps are a sufficient causal explanation alone for low birth rates