[Previous MTG blogger here; so I’ve had thoughts about this before]
I think it’s important to note that systems are almost always white.
As in, the individuals who partake in polyamory and BDSM are more likely to be B or R. But polyamory and the BDSM community itself are about using white frameworks in order to foster B/R needs in a safe, predictable way.
White makes things more scalable. So if you have any system at all that includes lots of agents in it, there’s probably white involved. (It’s easier to make copies of something rigid than something moving/chaotic.)
So the institution of marriage is white, but so is polyamory, and both have lots of norms and rules.
I’d be interested in hearing examples of non-white systems.
I think ecologies and competitive landscapes could be thought of as green-black systems. Wherever you have survival of the fittest. E.g. Silicon Valley.
Maybe black is the color of hormetic systems, green the color of selective systems, and white the color of robust systems. I suppose that would make systems based on effectuative principles red. Can’t think of how a system would be based on blue, but I’m sure those exist as well.
I agree about BDSM but not about polyamory. One prominent subtype of polyamory is the aptly named “relationship anarchy”, which explicitly rejects rules and commitments. The modal polyamorous relationship includes some rules, but The Book on polyamory, More Than Two, takes a very hard line against rules and organizing your relationships to make you priorities legible. (The other The Book on polyamory, The Ethical Slut, I haven’t read, but I believe it’s near the relationship anarchist side.) Modern polyamory is greenish-red.
I’d say the default Bay Area rationalsphere breed of polyamory does involve significant structure, and that it is more stable. But this is probably an effect of the founding population of rationalsphere polyamorists being heavy on BDSM, and so already having a framework that balancing structure into your hedonism makes it stabler and healthier. There is also, very speculatively, more of a desire for stability, though since I’m comparing mainly to college-dominated populations I don’t know.
[Previous MTG blogger here; so I’ve had thoughts about this before]
I think it’s important to note that systems are almost always white.
As in, the individuals who partake in polyamory and BDSM are more likely to be B or R. But polyamory and the BDSM community itself are about using white frameworks in order to foster B/R needs in a safe, predictable way.
White makes things more scalable. So if you have any system at all that includes lots of agents in it, there’s probably white involved. (It’s easier to make copies of something rigid than something moving/chaotic.)
So the institution of marriage is white, but so is polyamory, and both have lots of norms and rules.
I’d be interested in hearing examples of non-white systems.
I think ecologies and competitive landscapes could be thought of as green-black systems. Wherever you have survival of the fittest. E.g. Silicon Valley.
Loren ipsum
Maybe black is the color of hormetic systems, green the color of selective systems, and white the color of robust systems. I suppose that would make systems based on effectuative principles red. Can’t think of how a system would be based on blue, but I’m sure those exist as well.
I agree about BDSM but not about polyamory. One prominent subtype of polyamory is the aptly named “relationship anarchy”, which explicitly rejects rules and commitments. The modal polyamorous relationship includes some rules, but The Book on polyamory, More Than Two, takes a very hard line against rules and organizing your relationships to make you priorities legible. (The other The Book on polyamory, The Ethical Slut, I haven’t read, but I believe it’s near the relationship anarchist side.) Modern polyamory is greenish-red.
I’d say the default Bay Area rationalsphere breed of polyamory does involve significant structure, and that it is more stable. But this is probably an effect of the founding population of rationalsphere polyamorists being heavy on BDSM, and so already having a framework that balancing structure into your hedonism makes it stabler and healthier. There is also, very speculatively, more of a desire for stability, though since I’m comparing mainly to college-dominated populations I don’t know.