Yet another factor: Nerds are usually worse at lying and other social skills.
Therefore a nerd would consider polyamory in a situation where a non-nerd would be like “I can simply cheat on my spouse, why make it unnecessarily complicated”.
In other words, don’t just compare consensual nonmonogamy” but also nonmonogamy in general. If the numbers for nonmonogamy in general are more similar, it can mean that rationalists are less likely to lie about their behavior; that the more frequent thing is not nonmonogamy but consent.
Maybe? It doesn’t square with my personal experience, at least. I went through the usual spiel with someone last night, without knowing whether that was going to be a deal breaker, and I very easily could have avoided that problem, because (1) I’m a good liar, or at least I was back when I let myself do it, and (2) this person and my SO live in totally different cities and run in completely different social circles, so an alternate version of me who’s willing to cheat and lie would have no reason to think that keeping this particular secret would be hard to do.
On the other hand, my father lied a lot and much of who I am today is basically An Attempt At Being Not-Him, so I might have a Weird Reluctance To Lie for reasons other than “am a nerd.”
Yet another factor: Nerds are usually worse at lying and other social skills.
Therefore a nerd would consider polyamory in a situation where a non-nerd would be like “I can simply cheat on my spouse, why make it unnecessarily complicated”.
In other words, don’t just compare consensual nonmonogamy” but also nonmonogamy in general. If the numbers for nonmonogamy in general are more similar, it can mean that rationalists are less likely to lie about their behavior; that the more frequent thing is not nonmonogamy but consent.
Maybe? It doesn’t square with my personal experience, at least. I went through the usual spiel with someone last night, without knowing whether that was going to be a deal breaker, and I very easily could have avoided that problem, because (1) I’m a good liar, or at least I was back when I let myself do it, and (2) this person and my SO live in totally different cities and run in completely different social circles, so an alternate version of me who’s willing to cheat and lie would have no reason to think that keeping this particular secret would be hard to do.
On the other hand, my father lied a lot and much of who I am today is basically An Attempt At Being Not-Him, so I might have a Weird Reluctance To Lie for reasons other than “am a nerd.”