Thread

1. water-data-dude · 1790912155 · focus · HN ↗

   You know, there's probably fewer perverse incentives with a government run dating service. Obviously I can imagine ways it could suck, but when I compare them to how commercial dating services are run it's hard to see how they could do a _worse_ job.

   1. pcthrowaway · 1790922092 · focus · HN ↗

      If people are oriented towards traditional relationships, then pairing people up younger probably leads to higher overall fertility rate in the population, so I could see governments with existentially declining fertility rates (read: almost all of them) taking an interest in actually providing a successful service here (unlike the commercial dating apps).

      Of course, a lack of a match is not the only thing that prevents people from having kids, but I'm curious what the impact of an optimal matching service would be on fertility rates.

      edit: I think governments might do well to provide funding for dating apps (whether privately or publicly owned) based on how many matches from the app actually lead to children. Completely flip the classical incentives on their head. Should be easy enough to ask if newborns were a product of a participating app as part of the birth certification process.

      1. expedition32 · 1790924999 · focus · HN ↗

         What is a traditional relationship? Fathers selling their daughter off?

         1. Retric · 1790926104 · focus · HN ↗

            People having “large” numbers of children.

            The modern trend of most families with 0-2 kids isn’t sustainable. We don’t need to go back to 5+ being the norm but a self stable society needs to be able to offset non parents thus requiring 3+ children families to be quite common.

            1. hypfer · 1790927099 · focus · HN ↗

               For that, one prerequisite would be housing that can house such families.

               Which, in times of working from home, means 4 bedrooms, 2 offices, 1 living room.

               Ideally with walls not built from paper mache, so that they can actually be used for encapsulation of different requirements.

               1. somenameforme · 1790930272 · focus · HN ↗

                  Traditionally families often just had one bedroom for children. That's what things like bunkbeds are for.

                  1. hypfer · 1790930855 · focus · HN ↗

                     That might very well be, but now people evidently seem to prefer not doing that, so what is your point?

                     "Just stop preferring that"? Good luck enforcing that.

                     1. KptMarchewa · 1790931767 · focus · HN ↗

                        That still works up to like age 7. It really is needed for that age up to ~18, which means you can get with providing that service for ~15 years (multiple children) and then going back to smaller apartments.

                        1. Lvl999Noob · 1790936765 · focus · HN ↗

                           Or you can keep the smaller apartments and make boarding schools more common. Small kids all live in the same room while the ones old enough to need their own space move out completely to a boarding school. Depending on the specifics, may be a much better solution overall.

                           1. hypfer · 1790937307 · focus · HN ↗

                              Hm. Indeed that is an idea, but I'm not sure if that doesn't come with other downsides that might be undesirable.

                              I guess this will work for something like 10-20%? Maybe? (Speaking from a very german cultural background)

                           2. watwut · 1790938544 · focus · HN ↗

                              So like, the idea of traditional family is "have kids raised by an institution, have them visit you once in a while"?
                           3. KptMarchewa · 1790938735 · focus · HN ↗

                              I actually attended high school in that way in Poland, despite it being very rare here. I was 15 when I started. While I think it was great for me, I would not recommend doing it for younger people - you need some basic emotional maturity and safety.

                              Even then, it would not solve any problems here, really.

                     2. bragh · 1790931900 · focus · HN ↗

                        It is not about preference, but because of regulation. Nowadays the government demand is that each child needs to have a separate studying and sleeping area. If a sliding wall in a room counts as a separate area is up to the officials' discretion.

                        On one hand, all of this is understandable, but on the other hand these policies do indeed raise the cost of having children.

                        1. hypfer · 1790932020 · focus · HN ↗

                           What government does that? That's something new to me.
                        2. vidarh · 1790932487 · focus · HN ↗

                           I have never heard of a government demanding that. Where does that happen?
                        3. Calazon · 1790947777 · focus · HN ↗

                           Where I live, even when government does make demands, as in the case of foster parenting, they still allow two boys or two girls to share a room.

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