2014-07-17
Explanation
The Joke
A woman tells a man to "pick two" from a list of desirable traits: smart, attractive, and reliable. The man dismisses this as a "simple optimization problem" — desirability equals smart plus attractive plus reliable. A woman nearby points out that the factors may be correlated positively or negatively, which complicates things. Thirteen hours later, after running 2^6 simulations, she announces optimal weightings: 0.71 to intelligence, 0.25 to reliability, and 0.46 to attractiveness. Another person remarks, "Wow, what a waste of time," and someone responds, "You must be really attractive and reliable" (implying low intelligence).
The Humor
The comic lampoons the tendency of analytically minded people to over-engineer simple social situations. The classic "pick two" dilemma (a riff on the project management triangle of "good, fast, cheap — pick two") is meant to be a lighthearted observation about tradeoffs in dating. But the characters treat it as a literal mathematical optimization problem, spending 13 hours running simulations. The punchline delivers a double burn: calling the exercise a waste of time, only for the respondent to use the very results of the optimization to insult the critic — implying that if they think intelligence is unimportant, they must not have much of it. The final weights humorously prioritize intelligence (0.71) over attractiveness (0.46) and reliability (0.25).