Natural Selection Breaks Hearts

The second question is, how does the selection process take place? Imagine this is all happening at a bar. Each agent knows what to look for, so they scope out the rest of the clientele, chit-chat, have a drink. Everyone's talking, it's relaxed.

Now in a real bar, someone flashes the lights. That's the signal for the nice girls to go home with assholes, and for you to drive your friends home because you have a car.

But that's not an option here. The only light inside my computer is the caps lock, and I fucking hate the caps lock. No, we need to turn down the lights, and cue the Marvin Gaye.

The two immediate possibilities for selection involve replacement.

• Without replacement: Once an agent has chosen its partner, they're both taken out of the running. They go home together. No other agent can choose them.
• With replacement: Every agent has its pick of every other agent, no matter who's already been chosen. My only metaphor walks the line of decency, and involves Dean Moriarty and a trip to Mexico.
  

In addition, there is one further division to consider. Assume we've arranged the simulation without replacement; then, there is significance to the order in which agents choose mates. By the end of the line, the pool will have shrunk considerably, and we would presume the best agents will have already been removed. Depending on their positioning, agents are given an advantage or a distinct disadvantage.

There are lots of ways to determine order, and I like them all. Epigamic fitness, historical success, certainty. Randomly, of course. We'll see. I'm tempted to throw everything in the bag, and test later what encourages the best results. To some extent, it doesn't matter. Natural selection is all about setting up the conditions for positive growth, the incentives, and if those are in place details don't seem to be relevant.

My self-improvement book, Iteration, will be three-hundred sixty-five glossy expensive pages telling idiots to not get any dumber in the course of a day. I will be on the cover, drinking champagne, reading a Poor Richard's Almanac printed on $100 bills.