Well, yeah, but I don’t mean “seduction methods”, I mean basic discipline, among which are ethics and forethought.
My idea of ethics is different from following a process that avoids errors that make other people dislike you. Act ethically for it’s own sake and not because it’s a technique to influence your partner into staying in a relationship with you.
I think people who act ethically in order to get other people to like them are generally untrustworthy, because you don’t know what they will do when put in a emotional charged situation which they haven’t analysed beforehand. I rather interact with someone with a strongly developed system of ethics even if that system differs from my own.
It’s not a matter of getting people to like you, it’s a matter of preventing people from getting hurt. Lovesickness and heartache are, in my experience, among the worst, most devastating pains the world can offer.
I share your feeling that breakups, and all things related, suck. And I like your idea of coming up with best practices for avoiding as much heartache as possible. But I’m unsure about the practicality here.
It is my experience that love involves high-level risk necessarily, and by it’s nature.
I just saw a Terence Malick flim this past weekend (To the Wonder) and a quote from the movie comes to mind “The one who loves less is the one who is stronger”.
My general thought is that this is opposed to everything of which LW is in favor. That is, love is not a rational move, since it (by a definion I’d accept) requires self-sacrifice for the good of another.
(Note: Not that LWers are selfish, per se. Only that love which chooses another person winning big while you open yourself up to lose hard is antithetical to most of the sentiment I see here.)
My general thought is that this is opposed to everything of which LW is in favor. That is, love is not a rational move, since it (by a definion I’d accept) requires self-sacrifice for the good of another.
Dedicating resources to one thing that you want means that you can’t dedicate them to another thing that you want. Wanting to make someone happy isn’t different from any of the other things that you want.
That is, love is not a rational move, since it (by a definion I’d accept) requires self-sacrifice for the good of another.
Love makes/recognizes another person’s good part of your good, so, depending on the magnitude, it isn’t self-sacrifice to give up some other parts of your good to increase that of your loved one’s.
If love were as simple as this, that would be great.
As Ritalin said:
...it’s a matter of preventing people from getting hurt. Lovesickness and heartache are, in my experience, among the worst, most devastating pains the world can offer.
“Love” requires that you risk the “devastating pain”, I think. You may hold back, or engage principles that mitigate the heartache you feel when a relationship ends—to an extent this is fine, as recklessness is not good—but the risk or devastating pain is inherent in “love”, as I’d define it.
Of course, if you find a relationship where both parties are always happy and healthy and pinging each other’s fuzzy/utilon meters, then good for you. Life, in my experience, is a bit more dynamic and challenging than that.
I like the idea of coming up with disciplines to protect those who you love from heartache whould things not work out, but love is risky. It just is.
What’s to elaborate? That your partner’s smile seems to be directly connected to endorphins in your bloodstream? That knowing that your smile has the same effect on them makes it twice as potent? That your baby’s first laugh or step makes all the sleepless nights to fade away? That your dog happily wagging its tail when you come home cheers you up after a hard day? “The ultimate incentive to cooperate” seems like an apt decision-theoretic description of what evolution wrought.
“The ultimate incentive to cooperate” seems like an apt decision-theoretic description of what evolution wrought.
It’s actually considerably more than just incentive to cooperate. Valuing the welfare/happiness of another above your own leads to many things other than game-theoretic cooperation.
You can follow the ethical principle of always telling the truth, you can also follow the principle of telling white lies whenever that will make the other person feel better.
If you are consistent and the other person can expect you to follow your principles they won’t ask you for opinion if the truth will hurt them and you have the policy to always tell the truth.
If you don’t have principles and sometimes tell the truth and sometimes tell white lies, it’s however much harder for the other person to interact with you to avoid getting hurt.
When driving and there are pedestrians who want to cross the street, you have two valid choices. Stop and let them pass the street before you or continue driving with your speed.
When I started taking driving lessons I got the idea of going the middle way of driving slower. That was stupid. It doesn’t provide the pedestrians with valid information that they can use to adapt their behavior towards myself.
Hurt feelings often come from people expecting something which doesn’t happen. If you follow some codex of ethics and the other person understands which codex of ethics you follow, they won’t be in much emotional pain if you act in according with that codex because they can expect you to do so.
it’s a matter of preventing people from getting hurt.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t think that focusing on preventing other people from getting hurt is good for a loving relationship.
In the past I also found it very condescending when other people thought that they should make the decisions about risk getting hurt for me. Give me all the information that I need to make a decision but in the end it’s my own decision if I want to risk getting hurt.
Here we have another principle: “Have ethics and morals, and be consistent about following them, so that people know what to expect, and don’t feel betrayed, cheated, or disappointed.”.
In the past I also found it very condensing when other people thought that they should make the decisions about risk getting hurt for me. Give me all the information that I need to make a decision but in the end it’s my own decision if I want to risk getting hurt.
Here we have another principle: “Have ethics and morals, and be consistent about following them, so that people know what to expect, and don’t feel betrayed, cheated, or disappointed.”.
That’s not the kind of principle that you create as a result of Fault Tree Analysis.
Then you might want to edit this too: “that they should make the decisions about risk getting hurt for me.” The syntax is ambiguous.
I see you have that Classic Liberal mentality of “Do not protect me from my own stupidity, give me all the relevant information and let me make my informed decisions as a responsible adult”. Problem is,
it is possible that the other person is unwilling to share all the relevant info with you (privacy, information hazard, shame, cowardice, dishonesty) or even unable (they don’t know or they can’t properly put it into words)
Even in possession of all relevant information, you may find yourself making the wrong decisions because you’re not quite in your right mind. I don’t know about you, but when I am high on sexual arousal I can barely even talk.
It’s not about protecting others from their stupidity, but from your own.
I see you have that Classic Liberal mentality of “Do not protect me from my own stupidity, give me all the relevant information and let me make my informed decisions as a responsible adult”
I do share those sentiments but they don’t fully describe my position I’m not focused on the mental stuff.
Even in possession of all relevant information, you may find yourself making the wrong decisions because you’re not quite in your right mind. I don’t know about you, but when I am high on sexual arousal I can barely even talk.
I might make decisions that bring me emotional pain, but then I’ll learn worthwhile lessons.
it is possible that the other person is unwilling to share all the relevant info with you (privacy, information hazard, shame, cowardice, dishonesty) or even unable (they don’t know or they can’t properly put it into words)
I think it’s very useful to learn nonviolent communication to express your emotional needs to give the other person the information he needs.
I however wouldn’t say that everyone has to learn nonviolent communication because it’s not the only model that works.
My idea of ethics is different from following a process that avoids errors that make other people dislike you. Act ethically for it’s own sake and not because it’s a technique to influence your partner into staying in a relationship with you.
I think people who act ethically in order to get other people to like them are generally untrustworthy, because you don’t know what they will do when put in a emotional charged situation which they haven’t analysed beforehand. I rather interact with someone with a strongly developed system of ethics even if that system differs from my own.
It’s not a matter of getting people to like you, it’s a matter of preventing people from getting hurt. Lovesickness and heartache are, in my experience, among the worst, most devastating pains the world can offer.
I share your feeling that breakups, and all things related, suck. And I like your idea of coming up with best practices for avoiding as much heartache as possible. But I’m unsure about the practicality here.
It is my experience that love involves high-level risk necessarily, and by it’s nature.
I just saw a Terence Malick flim this past weekend (To the Wonder) and a quote from the movie comes to mind “The one who loves less is the one who is stronger”.
My general thought is that this is opposed to everything of which LW is in favor. That is, love is not a rational move, since it (by a definion I’d accept) requires self-sacrifice for the good of another.
(Note: Not that LWers are selfish, per se. Only that love which chooses another person winning big while you open yourself up to lose hard is antithetical to most of the sentiment I see here.)
Dedicating resources to one thing that you want means that you can’t dedicate them to another thing that you want. Wanting to make someone happy isn’t different from any of the other things that you want.
Love makes/recognizes another person’s good part of your good, so, depending on the magnitude, it isn’t self-sacrifice to give up some other parts of your good to increase that of your loved one’s.
If love were as simple as this, that would be great.
As Ritalin said:
“Love” requires that you risk the “devastating pain”, I think. You may hold back, or engage principles that mitigate the heartache you feel when a relationship ends—to an extent this is fine, as recklessness is not good—but the risk or devastating pain is inherent in “love”, as I’d define it.
Of course, if you find a relationship where both parties are always happy and healthy and pinging each other’s fuzzy/utilon meters, then good for you. Life, in my experience, is a bit more dynamic and challenging than that.
I like the idea of coming up with disciplines to protect those who you love from heartache whould things not work out, but love is risky. It just is.
Love makes the other’s welfare a win state. It is the ultimate incentive to cooperate.
Would you be willing to elaborate?
What’s to elaborate? That your partner’s smile seems to be directly connected to endorphins in your bloodstream? That knowing that your smile has the same effect on them makes it twice as potent? That your baby’s first laugh or step makes all the sleepless nights to fade away? That your dog happily wagging its tail when you come home cheers you up after a hard day? “The ultimate incentive to cooperate” seems like an apt decision-theoretic description of what evolution wrought.
It’s actually considerably more than just incentive to cooperate. Valuing the welfare/happiness of another above your own leads to many things other than game-theoretic cooperation.
I’d like to hear more of what you have to say about that.
Love (and consequences) is a very wide topic :-) Do you have anything particular in mind?
You can follow the ethical principle of always telling the truth, you can also follow the principle of telling white lies whenever that will make the other person feel better.
If you are consistent and the other person can expect you to follow your principles they won’t ask you for opinion if the truth will hurt them and you have the policy to always tell the truth.
If you don’t have principles and sometimes tell the truth and sometimes tell white lies, it’s however much harder for the other person to interact with you to avoid getting hurt.
When driving and there are pedestrians who want to cross the street, you have two valid choices. Stop and let them pass the street before you or continue driving with your speed. When I started taking driving lessons I got the idea of going the middle way of driving slower. That was stupid. It doesn’t provide the pedestrians with valid information that they can use to adapt their behavior towards myself.
Hurt feelings often come from people expecting something which doesn’t happen. If you follow some codex of ethics and the other person understands which codex of ethics you follow, they won’t be in much emotional pain if you act in according with that codex because they can expect you to do so.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t think that focusing on preventing other people from getting hurt is good for a loving relationship.
In the past I also found it very condescending when other people thought that they should make the decisions about risk getting hurt for me. Give me all the information that I need to make a decision but in the end it’s my own decision if I want to risk getting hurt.
Here we have another principle: “Have ethics and morals, and be consistent about following them, so that people know what to expect, and don’t feel betrayed, cheated, or disappointed.”.
Condensing?!
That’s not the kind of principle that you create as a result of Fault Tree Analysis.
Ah, good! Someone who actually knows about this! Well, help me out here; we do have a causation tree, yes?
“Inconsistent Behavour → Broken Expectations → Pereption of Defection”.
Probably intended to be “condescending”.
Yes. I edited.
Then you might want to edit this too: “that they should make the decisions about risk getting hurt for me.” The syntax is ambiguous.
I see you have that Classic Liberal mentality of “Do not protect me from my own stupidity, give me all the relevant information and let me make my informed decisions as a responsible adult”. Problem is,
it is possible that the other person is unwilling to share all the relevant info with you (privacy, information hazard, shame, cowardice, dishonesty) or even unable (they don’t know or they can’t properly put it into words)
Even in possession of all relevant information, you may find yourself making the wrong decisions because you’re not quite in your right mind. I don’t know about you, but when I am high on sexual arousal I can barely even talk.
It’s not about protecting others from their stupidity, but from your own.
I suggest that it is probably counterproductive to make this a debate about identity rather than about issues.
I do share those sentiments but they don’t fully describe my position I’m not focused on the mental stuff.
I might make decisions that bring me emotional pain, but then I’ll learn worthwhile lessons.
I think it’s very useful to learn nonviolent communication to express your emotional needs to give the other person the information he needs.
I however wouldn’t say that everyone has to learn nonviolent communication because it’s not the only model that works.