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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 11, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Not sure how much this counts as insightful in the way you meant it, but FWIW my take on all of this is that human courtship really isn't as complicated as people make out. Because most people are keenly interested in anything that improves their romantic prospects there's an incentive to come up with complicated analysis that can be sold as useful advice (much like stock-picking) but very little of it adds much explanatory power (again, like stock picking).

Like, an alien species discovering humanity for the first time would not find it difficult to come up with a model of human courtship that explains ~90% of observable dating behaviour.