‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Singapore govt dating app uses Gale-Shapley stable marriage algorithm

466 points · 499 comments · rzk

  1. janalsncm · · focus · HN ↗
    In principle this can be a lot better than regular dating apps.

    Tinder doesn’t know if they were successful or not. They just know you stopped opening the app. In fact they are incentivized not to make matches that lead to marriage, because then you will stop paying.

    The government knows whether you got married and stayed married, and given the social cost of divorce, they are pretty incentivized to keep people married.

    1. derangedHorse · · focus · HN ↗
      > given the social cost of divorce

      I think they're more concerned about their fertility rate and labor force. A 0.87 total fertility rate for 2025 [1] is pretty bad.

      [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;2026-03-12&#x2F;singapore-low-fertility-rate-existential-challenge&#x2F;106397470" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;2026-03-12&#x2F;singapore-low-fertili...

      1. yutter4 · · focus · HN ↗
        Western governments don&#x27;t seem at all concerned about this, unfortunately. They no longer represent the people, they represent the economy. And the economy is far more interested in importing millions of unskilled adult migrants from developing countries who are immediately eligible for debt, rent, mortgages, and low-paying jobs to prop up the GDP, rather than a crying baby that will leech on public services for 18 years beforehand. Culture, stability, safety, happiness, long-term prosperity and survival be damned.
        1. roenxi · · focus · HN ↗
          What aspect of that do you want them to be concerned about? The bigger concern was population growth, it is nearly impossible for living standards to keep rising if the population is growing exponentially - at some point the number of new mouths overwhelmed the ability to produce food and some sort of underclass has to form. We need at least stabilisation at some point and it seems the easiest way to achieve that is to wobble between growth and decay.

          We have all the tools for population decline to work out fine. The economy is run mainly by capital and it seems like we&#x27;re decoupling military power from number of soldiers.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.