QC

random topic to get started: i don't see anywhere in modern dating that you get strong positive signals of trustworthiness. many people are substituting trustworthiness = you have the same ideology as me, and this has nothing to do with trustworthiness

it would be great if we still had villages. if you date people you've been in community with your whole life you have a whole lifetime's worth of data on how trustworthy they are, not only from your experience but from gossip. you don't get any of that with a tinder rando

https://twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1127439363384561664 …

so, taking that train of thought seriously: given that we don't have villages, how might we redesign dating to produce honest signals of trustworthiness? my first thought is to add more stress: do harder stuff together sooner, e.g. take a class, do a hard escape room or sth

second thought is to pull in other people: meet each others' friends and parents sooner, hear all the gossip. relationship is not a 2-player game; if a relationship is gonna go anywhere it needs to be embedded in a shared community, so make that explicit in the process

That's how arranged marriages are supposed to work ideally. I used to think that was the norm, but over time I realized that my extended family just had anomalously good culture in this regard. Works spectacularly if you're lucky that way, but probably not so good otherwise.

Also, there's some sort of feedback loop going on here. In my family, parents evaluating a prospective suitor always ask about their family, and shamelessly apply guilt by association. And their ideal candidate is someone from a family already connected to them via marriage.