I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with this line of thinking. Sexuality isn’t a physical need in the sense that, say, water is a physical need, but it is a pretty fundamental drive. It certainly doesn’t morally oblige any particular person to fulfill it for you (analogously, the human need for companionship doesn’t oblige random strangers to accept overtures of friendship), but it’s sufficiently potent that I’d be cautious about casually demoting it below other social considerations, let alone suggesting sexual asceticism as a viable solution in the average case; that seems like an easy way to come up with eudaemonically suboptimal prescriptions.
Nice Guy (tm) psychology is something else again. I’m not sure how much of the popular view of it is anywhere near accurate, but in isolation I’d hesitate to take it as suggesting anything more than one particular pathology of sexual politics and maybe some interesting facts about the surrounding culture.
I’m not arguing against the need to express sexuality in a moral way. But if we have good reason to think that sexuality (or status-seeking, the wish to redress grievances, or any of the psychology behind revenge, nepotism, etc.) is a low-level motivation, then from a eudaemonic standpoint it seems like a very bad move to prioritize denying or minimizing those motivations instead of looking for relatively benign ways to express them.
We have only a very limited ability to change our motivational structure, and even within those limits it’s easy to screw up our emotional equilibrium by doing so. It’s far better—if far harder—to come up with an incentive structure that rewards ethical pursuit of human drives than to build one which frustrates them.
I agree with the first paragraph and ADBOC with the second. Human culture contains lots of incentive structures that do just that. It is often not at all necessary to invent new ones, but rather to evaluate, choose, and tweak existing ones.
Human culture contains lots of incentive structures that do just that. It is often not at all necessary to invent new ones, but rather to evaluate, choose, and tweak existing ones.
I don’t disagree, but I do think that the existing incentive structures surrounding sexuality are pretty damned dysfunctional. I chose the wording I did because I think there’ll need to be a lot of original thought going into a better incentive structure (and because I don’t think there currently exist any really good candidate solutions), but I’m not trying to imply that we need to throw out the existing culture completely.
It’s too specific/complicated to be low level/fundamental. Actually all of them are too specific/complicated to be low level. They’re just so widely and thoroughly internalised (to the point where not being that way will likely be bad for you just because other people will dislike you for it) very few people realise they are changable, or are motivated to change them. There’s little reason to change them for most people. Not having a desire for revenge or redress grievances is a quick way to become a target/victim, status seeking gets you status if you do it right which gets you power. nepotism makes you a more attractive ally.
I think it’s more accurate to say that changing motivational structure is hard and risky than the ability is limited. There’s no hard or soft cap afaik (which is what limited makes it sound like to me) it’s just really hard to do and most people don’t care to anyway.
Also wtf is a need. Is that like a right? It means you really really want something? really really really? really really really really? nonsense on stilts. Take your fucking stilts off bro.
edit: I can’t believe I put bro at the end of that post. Kinda ruins it.
We don’t have to “casually demote” anything. Like Fox News says, “we report—you decide.”
Generally, “need” is used to refer to something perceived to be necessary in an optimization process. There are cases where a human doesn’t need companionship, let alone sex (see recluses or transcendentalists’ recommendations that persons isolate themselves from society for a while to clear their heads of irrationalities).
If “the average case” involves little luminosity of sexuality and lots of sexualization of beings, then of course sexual abstinence wouldn’t be likely. Rape occurs in epidemic proportions in such places where people are also demoralized or decommissioned from doing much good work, like on reservations.
Nice Guy and Nice Gal are idealized gender roles for an optimal society. Some oppose gender roles to the extent that they limit persons from doing good, esp. when they make one gender subservient to the other or make a person of one gender subservient to another person of another gender (like the promulgated view that wife should serve husband). A person or AI caring only about one person or half the human population would not be optimal.
Nice Guy and Nice Gal are idealized gender roles for an optimal society.
I think we’re talking past each other here. The “Nice Guy (tm)” phenomenon I was referring to is categorically not an idealized gender role within an optimal or any other society, hence the sarcasm trademark, although it has its roots in (a misinterpretation of) one idealized masculinity. Instead, it’s a shorthand way of describing the pathology you described in the ancestor: the guy in question (there are women who do similar things, but the term as I’m using it is tied up in the male gender role) performs passive masculinity really hard and expects that sexual favors will follow. When this fails, usually due to poor socialization and poor understanding of sexual politics, bitterness and frustration ensue.
I actually think the terminology’s pretty toxic as such things go, since it tends to be treated as a static attribute of the people so described instead of suggesting solutions to the underlying problems. It’s common jargon in these sorts of discussions, though, and denotationally it does describe a real dysfunction, so I’m okay with using it as shorthand. Apologies for any bad assumptions on my part.
I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with this line of thinking. Sexuality isn’t a physical need in the sense that, say, water is a physical need, but it is a pretty fundamental drive. It certainly doesn’t morally oblige any particular person to fulfill it for you (analogously, the human need for companionship doesn’t oblige random strangers to accept overtures of friendship), but it’s sufficiently potent that I’d be cautious about casually demoting it below other social considerations, let alone suggesting sexual asceticism as a viable solution in the average case; that seems like an easy way to come up with eudaemonically suboptimal prescriptions.
Nice Guy (tm) psychology is something else again. I’m not sure how much of the popular view of it is anywhere near accurate, but in isolation I’d hesitate to take it as suggesting anything more than one particular pathology of sexual politics and maybe some interesting facts about the surrounding culture.
Some have argued the same regarding revenge, nepotism, and various other “drives” that we might expect people to learn how to express in a moral way.
I’m not arguing against the need to express sexuality in a moral way. But if we have good reason to think that sexuality (or status-seeking, the wish to redress grievances, or any of the psychology behind revenge, nepotism, etc.) is a low-level motivation, then from a eudaemonic standpoint it seems like a very bad move to prioritize denying or minimizing those motivations instead of looking for relatively benign ways to express them.
We have only a very limited ability to change our motivational structure, and even within those limits it’s easy to screw up our emotional equilibrium by doing so. It’s far better—if far harder—to come up with an incentive structure that rewards ethical pursuit of human drives than to build one which frustrates them.
I agree with the first paragraph and ADBOC with the second. Human culture contains lots of incentive structures that do just that. It is often not at all necessary to invent new ones, but rather to evaluate, choose, and tweak existing ones.
I don’t disagree, but I do think that the existing incentive structures surrounding sexuality are pretty damned dysfunctional. I chose the wording I did because I think there’ll need to be a lot of original thought going into a better incentive structure (and because I don’t think there currently exist any really good candidate solutions), but I’m not trying to imply that we need to throw out the existing culture completely.
It’s too specific/complicated to be low level/fundamental. Actually all of them are too specific/complicated to be low level. They’re just so widely and thoroughly internalised (to the point where not being that way will likely be bad for you just because other people will dislike you for it) very few people realise they are changable, or are motivated to change them. There’s little reason to change them for most people. Not having a desire for revenge or redress grievances is a quick way to become a target/victim, status seeking gets you status if you do it right which gets you power. nepotism makes you a more attractive ally.
I think it’s more accurate to say that changing motivational structure is hard and risky than the ability is limited. There’s no hard or soft cap afaik (which is what limited makes it sound like to me) it’s just really hard to do and most people don’t care to anyway.
Also wtf is a need. Is that like a right? It means you really really want something? really really really? really really really really? nonsense on stilts. Take your fucking stilts off bro.
edit: I can’t believe I put bro at the end of that post. Kinda ruins it.
edit2: no it doesn’t, stop pandering.
I’m having trouble making sense of this in context. Did you mean to reply to this post?
i typed it out as a response to that post and copy pasted it to this post (adding the /fundamental) because it is higher up. So kinda.
We don’t have to “casually demote” anything. Like Fox News says, “we report—you decide.”
Generally, “need” is used to refer to something perceived to be necessary in an optimization process. There are cases where a human doesn’t need companionship, let alone sex (see recluses or transcendentalists’ recommendations that persons isolate themselves from society for a while to clear their heads of irrationalities).
If “the average case” involves little luminosity of sexuality and lots of sexualization of beings, then of course sexual abstinence wouldn’t be likely. Rape occurs in epidemic proportions in such places where people are also demoralized or decommissioned from doing much good work, like on reservations.
Nice Guy and Nice Gal are idealized gender roles for an optimal society. Some oppose gender roles to the extent that they limit persons from doing good, esp. when they make one gender subservient to the other or make a person of one gender subservient to another person of another gender (like the promulgated view that wife should serve husband). A person or AI caring only about one person or half the human population would not be optimal.
I think we’re talking past each other here. The “Nice Guy (tm)” phenomenon I was referring to is categorically not an idealized gender role within an optimal or any other society, hence the sarcasm trademark, although it has its roots in (a misinterpretation of) one idealized masculinity. Instead, it’s a shorthand way of describing the pathology you described in the ancestor: the guy in question (there are women who do similar things, but the term as I’m using it is tied up in the male gender role) performs passive masculinity really hard and expects that sexual favors will follow. When this fails, usually due to poor socialization and poor understanding of sexual politics, bitterness and frustration ensue.
I actually think the terminology’s pretty toxic as such things go, since it tends to be treated as a static attribute of the people so described instead of suggesting solutions to the underlying problems. It’s common jargon in these sorts of discussions, though, and denotationally it does describe a real dysfunction, so I’m okay with using it as shorthand. Apologies for any bad assumptions on my part.
You might want to link “Nice Guy (tm)” in the grandparent to, er..., somewhere.
I’m open to suggestions.
I found this on Google but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a way better one before.
This might be better.
Edited.