ET equation estimates number of potential girlfriends | Hacker News Reader

ET equation estimates number of potential girlfriends

newscientist.com

14 pointsbootload6 comments

By Peter Backus, University of Warwick, original link here ~ http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_studen... Reminds me a bit of Steven Strogatz work on "Love affairs and differential equations" ~ http://tam.cornell.edu/tam/cms/manage/upload/Love-Affairs-an...

I did the same thing once to figure out if there really are "plenty of fish in the sea." I calculated that there are around 300 women in the world that I might be compatible with. Luckily I don't play by those rules and I already won the lottery.

I think part of the reason why such things don't work can be explained with this experience I had with finding a startup partner:

I wrote this definition of what I was looking for in a startup partner so I would be able to recognize the right person when they appeared on my radar. So I went round looking for that person. After meeting a whole bunch of people I ended up spending more and more time with this guy who violated a number of the rules of my definition. Over time it became apparent that despite these violations, overall he greatly exceeded my requirements. He just brought so many over unexpected benefits with him. Things I couldn't ignore.

He's complaining about the odds but is still voluntarily throwing away 90% of potential candidates. I would advise that he recognize reality and relax his standards.

Alternately he can relax his standards about wanting a university educated woman.

The drake equation is by far the most far-fetched equation I have ever since, which certainly does not deserve to be termed to have anything even close to mathematical accuracy let alone a testimony from observational confirmance.

What's far-fetched about it? It seems self-evidently true-- it's not as though the equation even makes claims about the probabilities involved.

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