My Tedxmcr talk: Dating against humanity

…a game in which nice single people are roped into a horrible game with others, resulting in cognitive overload, shocking manners, narcissism, algorithmic prejudice, financial loss and decisions based purely on appearances.

I’m just back from TedxManchester which was at homemcr, where I gave a presentation about onlne dating and some of the things I’ve observed about it. I believe I’m the first person to publicilly ask for a date from a Tedx stage.

Today is the day – Dating against humanity my #tedxmcr talk – https://t.co/GqhEO7g586

— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) February 14, 2016

It went well but I did have to speed up at the end, which did mean loosing some of my connecting points.

Maybe I’ll do a full breakdown of my thoughts but for now here’s some of the higher level ones.

• Online dating sites and services are fundimentally in conflict with the goals of its customers.
• There is too much evidence suggesting that online dating sites are unlikely to do what they say they do.
• Online dating services are using gamification to prolong attention to collect even more data and make the service addictive
• I believe the birthday paradox is a good reason why regardless of what dating sites do, there will be people who will pair off
• Meetup, brisklr and other niche services which bring people together should have equal amount of successful connections as the likes of the big dating sites. They just don’t shout about it like the rest.
• You shouldn’t let the tools dictate how you conduct yourself online.

Great TedX once again by Herb Kim and the thinking digital crew.

It was so apt, giving such a talk on valentines day…

I’ll write a review of the other great talks in a few days time, but I wanted to post up the slides as so many people have asked me about them.