Modern Day Social Engineering
Posted By: The Rational Investor
Filed Under: News, Opinion on February 17, 2010
Jimmy Tran In Gangsta Lean
Jimmy Tran, a recovering addict of ahnline dating sites, has become another statistic. Mr. Tran is a 23 year old Vietnamese-American male living in Irvine, CA. Despite major efforts on all this dating site, he can’t manage to get a message from a girl .
“I’ve tried OkCupid. It just isn’t working. My parents are getting tired of paying an extra $50 a month for text messaging on my phone plan when I can’t even use it,” he expressed in frustration. “I sent about 50 personalized emails to these girls. Only one girl responded and she didn’t reply back to my second email that had lyrics to one of the songs I wrote for her. I’ve prayed for the last two nights that I’d see an email back from her. Nothing.”
Tran’s a recent graduate of UC Irvine with a bachelor’s degree in biological engineering. He’s also a lead bassist and backup vocalist for a local boy band named Soul Pho Real. So why can’t he get laid you ask? New research on the site Okcupid.com helps us understand why.
“I know it’s taboo, but the answer to the question is in the race of the chicks he’s trying to score,” says a leading Mathematician at Harvard University who chose to remain anonymous. “I know people think we’re living in a world that’s much different than 50 years ago. Race relations have improved over that time or so we would like to think and proclaim. It’s just not true that things are better now and we have the data to prove it.”
Okcupid is a website that brings math into the equation of ahnline dating. While sites like eharmony and match.com try to play matchmaker through hobbies and interests, okcupid says fuck it and asks users arbitrary questions created by other users. What Okcupid users are unaware of is the site’s ability to then use finely tuned algorithms that use each user’s answers and several social factors to determine compatibility. Welcome to modern day social engineering.
I met with the anonymous mathematician to helps us understand how the algorithm works. He started spewing out all kinds of mathematical notation on his white board. I smiled and nodded politely to entertain his flossing. However, I did ask him to give the common man an example of how the algorithm works. “As a simple example of a question that could be created by a user and asked to site members: John Mayer’s Playboy Interview was A) 100% True B) Extremely Racist C) Don’t care. The algorithm then weighs in the user’s race and gender along with how they answered. It then brings in several factors. For instance, how many white males answered A and how many black females answered B. It then assigns weights of compatibility based on those answers. The majority of Whites and Asians will answer A. People of color will answer B. Thus, if you’re White and male, and answered A, you will increase your compatibility with a White and Asian female.”
The anonymous mathematician pauses, takes a sip of his latte, and then goes on to explain with his eyes closed, “If you’re White and male and answered B, you will be matched at a higher compatbility with black females. If you’re Asian and female and answered A or B you will increase your compatibility with Whites. If you’re Asian and male and answered A or B you will increase your compatibility with blacks. Decrease compatibility with the global community if C is chosen since it showcases the user’s bias towards independent thought. That’s all the algorithm does.” The mathematician attached the following grid to help us also understand how the algorithm weighs compatibility based on the John Mayer answer. “This shows how males of different races will score against females of different races based on how they answered,” he said.
OkCupid Weighing Algorithm Results for John Mayer Question
After understanding the grid’s results and overview of the algorithm, I came to the conclusion that since the majority of Okcupid’s users are White males, most of the algorithms will be weighted towards their favor. As a result, they’ll get the majority of messages sent to them and majority of responses back. “So you’ve essentially modeled the real world using mathematical formulas,” I postured. “Precisely,” he replied. “That’s fucked up! That’s like Hitler using Spencer and Darwin’s survival of the fittest to deem the Aryan race the master race,” I angrily exclaimed. “Right, but now we have the math to prove it,” the mathematician replied. “Well don’t you think that’s extremely racist?” “No I think it’s whatever the algorithm says will favor my biological makeup that’ll increase my chance of mating based on my race. So I say 100% true.”
The Smug Mathematician Standing In Front of his Latest Racist Algorithms
I reacquainted with Mr. Tran after speaking with the mathematician, and revealed the Mathematician’s algorithm to him. He was upset but yet became complacent. “If the fact that I can’t get a white girl is backed by mathematical proof, then it’s just part of God’s will, and I don’t like it, but I’ll just have to accept it. I’ll continue to pray to God to help me understand why. Until then I’ll just continue singing at church and doing the whole band thing.” According to the Okcupid’s latest numbers [results can be found here] that sampled a white female’s probability to respond an Asian male on their blog, Mr. Tran has absolutely slim to no chance to scoring a white girl.
“We’re White nerdy mathematicians that haven’t had female genetalia since female genetalia has had us” said the Mathematician jokingly. He admits to having contributed to the theory behind the majority of the site’s algorithms . “It’s important to finely tune and weigh the algorithms in our favor so that we can increase our probability of winning an Asian trophy wife or whatever else we prefer, but usually Asian, once we leave college and enter the workforce.”
After leaving the mathematician to his social engineering algorithms and half White half Asian family photos, I took it upon myself to find other dating sites that favored a majority over the minority group. I came across http://www.christiansingles.com/. Hang in there Jimmy, there’s hope for you. As an atheist and person of color, I on the other hand, am screwed. Oh wait no I’m not, there’s http://www.freethinkermatch.com/. Let’s see what that site’s statistics say. Total Male Members: 10609. Total Female Members: 2946. Great, that’s probably the only statistic where the majority doesn’t favor me. So in conclusion, if you’re an Atheist, ethnic minority, freethinking male, then no ahnline dating algorithm will ever work in your favor.
Author’s Note: FUCK OKCUPID.COM FOR BEING RACIST. I wrote this piece because I read this and this and I got pissed. The fact that they act like their stuff is math-based and that other sites probably have the same results is completely ungrounded. It’s the fucking internet. OKCUPID.com has about as much credibility as streetverse.com does.
About the Author
The Rational Investor whirlwinds through streetverse at a crazy rate. He holds a G.E.D. in Illness.
