• Semester3383@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    No, there’s actually no evidence that they work. Period. Not because people don’t know what they want–although that’s true–but because they can’t predict how people will feel in person. Attraction is incredibly complicated, and it doesn’t come down to checking a whole lot of boxes. The idea of ‘market value’ is pure incel bullshit; that’s the reason that incels do things like looksmaxxing, and it’s also the reason that it utterly fails.

    At best, they can help screen people for core values, e.g., I’m not going to be able to get along with an evangelical christian, and I’m certainly not going to be able to date anyone that believes that firearms should be banned or heavily restricted. But even that’s difficult, because people that seem to have radically different values can still have good relationships with each other.

    Most of it is a placebo effect.

    https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/i4eb4e8b/download/pdf