I’m sure that’s the case. But my point was that if the real reason for the break-up was “I want to be with someone who possesses quality X that you lack,” then tacking on ”...because evolution made me that way” does not render the reason more real or add an additional, separate reason; it just renders the one reason better explained in a mostly irrelevant way.
It is rather irrelevant. Even crockers rules doesn’t take you as far as giving evolutionary psychology explanations. So saying “because you have small breasts” is grossly insensitive and saying “because you have small breasts and I am biologically … signalling … etc” is grossly insensitive and also irrelevant, nerdy and kind of awkward.
If your true and actual reason for breaking up with someone is that her breasts are too small, consider that (a) saying “It was because you were too clingy” may cause them to try and mess with an aspect of their personality that doesn’t even need fixing, and (b) total silence, which you may fondly imagine to be mercy, may result in her frantically imagining dozens of possible flaws all of which she tries desperately to correct, just on the off-chance it was that one. As opposed to, say, looking for a guy who’s into smaller breasts next time.
Maybe I’m just being inordinately naive, but telling someone honestly, softly, and believably, your true reason for rejecting them, seems like it really should have certain advantages for them, if not for you. I mean, compared to either silence or lying. Calling it “grossly insensitive” is too quick a rejection of the possibility of telling a truth.
If you’re honest and say, “Your breasts are too small,” the person in question might seek a guy who likes smaller breasts next time. Or she might fall into a deep self-loathing in which she believes that her body is imperfect and nobody could be attracted to her, thus sabotaging her own future potential relationships. Or she could run out and get breast implants, even though she doesn’t really want them, in hopes that you / other future guys will find her more attractive—which is much more expensive and possibly less rewarding than simply finding people who like small breasts.
In my view it’s better to keep it vague. Guessing over dozens of possible flaws is likely to be less harmful than obsessing over one particular flaw, since it’s difficult to figure out / change whatever possible flaw you think may exist.
(Disclosure: I have been dumped once and did the dumping once. The dumper kept it vague; I kept it specific but lied. I can’t judge how keeping it specific while lying worked, since the person in question was bipolar and therefore not at all a normal test subject. I can judge how keeping it vague went: I obsessed over dozens of flaws for a while, until I found other people who were interested, at which point I decided it was probably just a bad match and nothing really to do with absolute flaws at all. I do not know how a completely honest dumping pans out.)
If you’re honest and say, “Your breasts are too small,” the person in question might seek a guy who likes smaller breasts next time. Or she might fall into a deep self-loathing in which she believes that her body is imperfect and nobody could be attracted to her, thus sabotaging her own future potential relationships.
In which case the honest answer would clearly have in fact been “you are too psychologically unstable, needy and difficult to communicate with honestly”.
That answer isn’t feasible—it’s based on behaviors after the breakup, so they can’t be the cause of the breakup, even if they were present (perhaps in less extreme form) before the breakup.
Also, it’s at least possible that the man would have tolerated the same difficult behavior from a woman with larger breasts—he may have been accurate about his preferences.
What about being accurate about difficult behaviors which are at least theoretically easier to change than basic body features?
I know a woman whose husband had been taking her office supplies, leaving her to think that her memory was seriously erratic. When she found her office supplies in her desk and confronted him about it, he told her off for violating his privacy.
I don’t know whether she mentioned this during the breakup, but would it have been a good idea to do so?
That answer isn’t feasible—it’s based on behaviors after the breakup, so they can’t be the cause of the breakup, even if they were present (perhaps in less extreme form) before the breakup.
Disagree, it is most certainly feasible—and something I would consider a rather wise reason to break up with someone. Being in a position where you can do enormous amounts of permanent psychological damage to someone by telling them they have small breasts is not a good place to be.
Psychological vulnerability insecurity and a tendency toward self loathing are traits of a person (in the medium term) and are not impossible to predict. When you are breaking up with someone for this reason you are not obliged to wait until they actually spiral into self loathing so you can justify your decision.
The very decision to refrain from telling someone that you are breaking up with them because they have small breasts is based off their predicted response. So it is clearly just as possible to make the same prediction and have it influence your decision to break up with them because of their psychological fragility.
What about being accurate about difficult behaviors which are at least theoretically easier to change than basic body features?
That sounds like a very good idea all else being equal. Focusing on what you can change is usually the best strategy and providing others with information about what they can change is probably going to be more useful.
I know a woman whose husband had been taking her office supplies, leaving her to think that her memory was seriously erratic. When she found her office supplies in her desk and confronted him about it, he told her off for violating his privacy.
Wow, that guy is a dick!
I don’t know whether she mentioned this during the breakup, but would it have been a good idea to do so?
I don’t see anything in it for her and nor do I see why she should feel any need to do things for his benefit. Do kind things for people who aren’t dicks.
My response in that situation would be to make no particularly extravagant reaction at the time of the incident, calmly make all the relevant preparations such as hiring a divorce lawyer and finding another place to live then break up via having someone else serve him a divorce notice. But I think most other people may be a little less extravagant in their responses (and less practical). My strategy when breaking up with a spouse for reasons like their diminished attractiveness or excessive more justifiable conflict would be entirely different and much more social.
I don’t see anything in it for her and nor do I see why she should feel any need to do things for his benefit. Do kind things for people who aren’t dicks.
If he’s capable of eventually acquiring a clue, this is also kindness to the people he’ll be dealing with later on. I don’t know whether the cost to her is worth the possible benefit.
In which case the honest answer would clearly have in fact been “you are too psychologically unstable, needy and difficult to communicate with honestly”.
That’s a very big one for me. Someone who can’t handle the truth is not someone for me.
This usually makes little sense, particularly for someone one was attracted to for a while.
It’s almost never true that for someone whose breasts one once found sufficient, her breasts would be a deal breaker, and no woman would be attractive with similar breasts regardless of her personality, face, legs, etc.
The problem is that the character sheet was filled out with mostly low die rolls, not that stat X is too low.
ETA: asking what the “true reason” for a breakup was is like asking what the “true reason” for a war, such as the Iraq War, was. Was it possible WMD? Past links to Al-Qaida? Possible future links to Al-Qaida? Past human rights abuses such as mass torture and murder? Aquiring influence over oil? Creating a pro-western regime? Creating a democratic regime? Perceived divine guidance during Bush’s praying?
The first test to figure out if someone is more rationalist than emotional about the Iraq war to ask them what the “true reason” for the invasion was and see if they right that wrong question. It’s just as much the wrong question in this context as that one.
Calling it “grossly insensitive” is too quick a rejection of the possibility of telling a truth.
It’s almost never true that for someone whose breasts one once found sufficient, her breasts would be a deal breaker
It is more or less true of people who gain a significant amount of status without a commensurate improvement in the status of their partner. Standards change.
Sure, it isn’t going to be the only reason but it can certainly be significant enough to single out.
In an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine was dating a man because she wanted to be dating a doctor. She then finds out that he never managed to pass his licensing exams and therefore couldn’t yet practice medicine. After she helps him pass, he dumps her, saying this:
Ben: I’m sorry, Elaine. I always knew that after I became a doctor, I would dump whoever I was with and find someone better. That’s the dream of becoming a doctor.
The principle of no aspect being the cause of too low value still applies.
How many guys are out of Morena Baccarin’s league because her breasts are small? She has everything else going for her so her weakest attribute is compensated for.
To call the weakest attribute of someone you reject the “true reason” makes sense only if it is a lone sufficient condition, which it probably won’t be even for someone who you no longer want to be with because you think you can do better.
A complementary position is that just because something is ‘grossly insensitive’ doesn’t mean it isn’t both a kindness and exactly the right thing to do. Humans learn from unpleasant things. Especially targeted unpleasant things. So ‘got to be cruel to be kind’ often applies.
If your true and actual reason for breaking up with someone is that her breasts are too small, consider that (a) saying “It was because you were too clingy” may cause them to try and mess with an aspect of their personality that doesn’t even need fixing, and (b) total silence, which you may fondly imagine to be mercy, may result in her frantically imagining dozens of possible flaws all of which she tries desperately to correct, just on the off-chance it was that one. As opposed to, say, looking for a guy who’s into smaller breasts next time.
Tangent: The tricky thing is that often “because you were too clingy” will technically be the real reason, just not the most useful part of the causal chain to select. If she had bigger breasts that will change both how ‘clingy’ any given behavior seems and how much attraction to her you exhibit which in turn influences how clingy she is likely to be. So sometimes even ‘real’ reasons can be a cop-out!
Maybe I’m just being inordinately naive, but telling someone honestly, softly, and believably, your true reason for rejecting them, seems like it really should have certain advantages for them, if not for you.
That certainly seems likely for most cases.
Even bigger tangent: I can’t think of many better ways to be broken up with than this! Seriously. It’s (counter-intuitively) one of the least personally insulting break ups I’ve seen. Because pussy-footying around being ‘sensitive’ is in its own way just another kind of insult.
It would depend on the broader social context—in particular, will you still share a social context—but if you do it seems likely you could get your name dragged through the mud in that example,and she still might not believe you and so suffer b) anyway.
WOW! I’d call this the most credible surprising argument for truthfulness I have seen in a long time. Figures it’s from Eliezer. Score in our years long argument over the strength of the prior for truthfulness. Note though, that to be a good idea this would have to be done very sensitively. Also, the girl would have to be awfully rationalistic. I’d default to the position that any girl who isn’t already poly is fairly unlikely to be a good candidate for this sort of argument, accompanied by a firm assertion that rationalist guys should not restrict themselves to poly girls.
I’m not convinced there’s a significant correlation between being poly and being rational. In general, polyamory seems to be a mostly unchosen state of preference, and I’ve neither noticed nor would I particularly anticipate polyamorous people having a pronounced tendency to be more rational.
I don’t think that it’s particularly rational to be poly, but I do think that most people who are trying to be rational try to be poly, because being poly is a natural consequence of assumptions which sound reasonable and which few people in our society who identify with reason challenge.
Also, let me note that I see polyamory through a lens much closer to that held by many lesbians, which sees sexual orientation as primarily political, rather than the lens favored by most male homosexuals, which sees sexual orientation as primarily biological but which would seem to contradict what we know of the history of cultures such as Classical Greece.
You really ought to get yourself an anonymous alter-identity so you aren’t tempted to discuss things like this under your real name. I believe that you in particular should avoid this topic when writing on public forums.
I’m curious as to why me in particular, but I’m happy to hear from you privately. In general, I go with radical transparency. I think that the truth is that so long as you don’t show shame, guilt or malice you win. Summers screwed up by accepting that his thoughts were shameful and then asserting that they were forced by reason and that others were so forced as well. This is both low-status and aggressive, a bad combination and a classic nerdy failure mode.
I find it doubtful that most aspiring rationalists try to be poly; there are probably more making the attempt since the polyhacking post, but I would be pretty surprised if they constitute a majority.
Personally, I’m already polyamorous in that I’m open to relationships of more than two people, provided all the people are in a relationship with each other (TheOtherDave referred to relationships of this kind as closed polyads, but I haven’t heard the term elsewhere and get no results by googling it.) I have no desire at all to engage in open relationship polyamory like Luke, Eliezer or Alicorn and MBlume, nor do I wish to self modify so that I would be happy with such a relationship. I don’t suppose my own romantic inclinations are representative of the broader rationalist community, but I don’t believe polyamory is as significant attractor as you seem to.
On a side note, I have tried to hack myself bisexual, to no avail. As far as I’m concerned, men are about as sexually attractive as plants and there seems to be nothing I can do about it.
I think it’s a matter of how far people go in these aspirations, and certainly asexuality is another plausible attractor. People can’t be very aspiring towards rationality if something like the the polyhacking post influenced them much. Personally, I don’t recommend polyamory, I just think that it’s common among the extreme enough outliers.
This might depend on what one means by poly. I’ve been in poly and mono relationships before and don’t try actively for either, it is a function of whether my primary is someone who is poly or mono. (This did lead to an interesting issue recently in that my current girlfriend is monoamorous and so I had to downgrade a certain highly poly friend back into the just friend category when my current girlfriend and I got serious.)
I’d call that poly, just like being open to strait or bi relationships makes you bi. It just means that you have self-determination regarding your actions and take responsibility for positive actions, which is pretty much our group’s core defining trait.
Mostly agreed, but with a caveat… my expectations would depend somewhat on context.
If someone lives in a predominantly X environment and has the option of identifying as X but instead identifies as Y, I consider that noteworthy (though far from definitive) evidence that they’re constructing their models of themselves based on observation rather than adopting the cultural default model unreflectively. Identifying as poly in some communities qualifies, to my mind.
Constructing models based on observed data is an important rationality skill, as is setting aside cultural assumptions when evaluating data.
Of course, that isn’t at all the same thing as a correlation between being poly and being rational, but there’s enough of a connection that the caveat seemed worth making.
I had considered the possibility that self identifying as poly would take both self knowledge and willingness to defy cultural norms, but I don’t think this would be likely to impose more than a fairly minimal lower limit on the rationality of people self identifying as poly. I wouldn’t expect it to take much more than the minimum rationality necessary to recognize oneself as homosexual. Anyone looking for partners above a low baseline of rationality is probably imposing a stronger filter for rationality already than they would by looking for polyamorous partners.
Agreed that identifying as homosexual in an environment that strongly encourages heterosexuality takes some of the same skills. Identifying as bisexual is an even closer analog. That is, it’s a lot easier for me to notice that I’m not attracted to women and thus different from my heterosexual peers, than it is for me to notice that in addition to being attracted to women I’m also attracted to men; noticing that in addition to wanting a relationship with one person I also want a relationship with a second person is similarly more difficult. (More generally: if X is easier for As to notice than Y is, A1 noticing X says less about A1 (relative to As) than A1 noticing Y does.)
Agreed that this basically raises the floor by some marginal amount.
Agreed that if you can only filter based on one attribute at a time, this isn’t the best one to choose if you want to maximize partner rationality. That said, if you can filter based on multiple attributes at once, it might turn out that a filter that takes this attribute into account performs better than one that doesn’t, all else being equal.
I’m not convinced there’s a significant correlation between being poly and being rational.
If there is a correlation, I doubt it’s much more than the general poly correlations of being white, educated, Open, and some groups into SciFi—but then, there’s also said to be a pagan current of poly-ers, which would drag down any correlation by quite a bit, pagan-types not being famous for rationality.
Based on the above considerations it’s still probably better to claim unnatural attraction to large breasts then saying something is wrong with her. It’s easier on the girl, plus possibly better to have reputation of a perv than a shmuck. Not sure what the score is now.
If your point is that going on about evolutionary psychology adds to the obfuscation but not to the insensitivity, I disagree. There are often ways of more or less sensitively coming clean about (what one takes to be) one’s true reasons for breaking up. Maybe you wouldn’t go so specific as “you’re too fat,” but you could talk about lack of physical chemistry or whatever without uttering a falsehood or being too misunderstood. But there is no way of sensitively taking your devastated ex aside and handing him/her a Tooby and Cosmides paper to read for homework.
If your point is that going on about evolutionary psychology adds to the obfuscation but not to the insensitivity, I disagree.
It could go either way. Digression into a bunch of theory and science impersonalizes things as well as focussing on ‘me’ instead of ‘you’ The main problem with getting into a big speel on science is that it increases the total time spent dwelling on the painfully negative topic. The fact that it is talking about the science isn’t the insulting part.
There are often ways of more or less sensitively coming clean about (what one takes to be) one’s true reasons for breaking up. Maybe you wouldn’t go so specific as “you’re too fat,” but you could talk about lack of physical chemistry or whatever without uttering a falsehood or being too misunderstood.
Talking about ‘lack of physical chemistry’ is less insulting by virtue of being a vague pre-packaged euphemism rather than brutally personal criticism of highly status-sensitive personal features. It seems to be an entirely different kind of difference to whether you mention evolutionary psychology or not.
Digression into a bunch of theory and science impersonalizes things as well as focussing on ‘me’ instead of ‘you’
Not really. Any evolutionary explanation of why I am repulsed by your physical appearance is going to spend a lot of time dwelling on your physical appearance. And I think the impersonalization bit is the key—it is a ridiculously impersonal digression at a moment of extreme emotional vulnerability on the other person’s part. Most people will interpret impersonal explanations of this sort of emotionally impactful decision as an extremely cold-hearted way of excusing oneself. “I’m sorry I’ve just hurt your feelings. But allow me to explain how this is all just the work of the forces of sexual selection in our ancestral environment...”
If your point is that going on about evolutionary psychology adds to the obfuscation but not to the insensitivity, I disagree. There are often ways of more or less sensitively coming clean about (what one takes to be) one’s true reasons for breaking up. Maybe you wouldn’t go so specific as “you’re too fat,” but you could talk about lack of physical chemistry or whatever without uttering a falsehood or being too misunderstood. But there is no way of sensitively taking your devastated ex aside and handing him/her a Tooby and Cosmides paper to read for homework.
It is rather irrelevant. Even crockers rules doesn’t take you as far as giving evolutionary psychology explanations. So saying “because you have small breasts” is grossly insensitive and saying “because you have small breasts and I am biologically … signalling … etc” is grossly insensitive and also irrelevant, nerdy and kind of awkward.
Agreed that the ev-psych was bad. But...
If your true and actual reason for breaking up with someone is that her breasts are too small, consider that (a) saying “It was because you were too clingy” may cause them to try and mess with an aspect of their personality that doesn’t even need fixing, and (b) total silence, which you may fondly imagine to be mercy, may result in her frantically imagining dozens of possible flaws all of which she tries desperately to correct, just on the off-chance it was that one. As opposed to, say, looking for a guy who’s into smaller breasts next time.
Maybe I’m just being inordinately naive, but telling someone honestly, softly, and believably, your true reason for rejecting them, seems like it really should have certain advantages for them, if not for you. I mean, compared to either silence or lying. Calling it “grossly insensitive” is too quick a rejection of the possibility of telling a truth.
I think you’re assuming too rational a partner.
If you’re honest and say, “Your breasts are too small,” the person in question might seek a guy who likes smaller breasts next time. Or she might fall into a deep self-loathing in which she believes that her body is imperfect and nobody could be attracted to her, thus sabotaging her own future potential relationships. Or she could run out and get breast implants, even though she doesn’t really want them, in hopes that you / other future guys will find her more attractive—which is much more expensive and possibly less rewarding than simply finding people who like small breasts.
In my view it’s better to keep it vague. Guessing over dozens of possible flaws is likely to be less harmful than obsessing over one particular flaw, since it’s difficult to figure out / change whatever possible flaw you think may exist.
(Disclosure: I have been dumped once and did the dumping once. The dumper kept it vague; I kept it specific but lied. I can’t judge how keeping it specific while lying worked, since the person in question was bipolar and therefore not at all a normal test subject. I can judge how keeping it vague went: I obsessed over dozens of flaws for a while, until I found other people who were interested, at which point I decided it was probably just a bad match and nothing really to do with absolute flaws at all. I do not know how a completely honest dumping pans out.)
In which case the honest answer would clearly have in fact been “you are too psychologically unstable, needy and difficult to communicate with honestly”.
That answer isn’t feasible—it’s based on behaviors after the breakup, so they can’t be the cause of the breakup, even if they were present (perhaps in less extreme form) before the breakup.
Also, it’s at least possible that the man would have tolerated the same difficult behavior from a woman with larger breasts—he may have been accurate about his preferences.
What about being accurate about difficult behaviors which are at least theoretically easier to change than basic body features?
I know a woman whose husband had been taking her office supplies, leaving her to think that her memory was seriously erratic. When she found her office supplies in her desk and confronted him about it, he told her off for violating his privacy.
I don’t know whether she mentioned this during the breakup, but would it have been a good idea to do so?
That’s called gaslighting.
I haven’t seen a wikipedia article look more like it belongs on tvtropes!
TVTropes has its own page on the subject.
Disagree, it is most certainly feasible—and something I would consider a rather wise reason to break up with someone. Being in a position where you can do enormous amounts of permanent psychological damage to someone by telling them they have small breasts is not a good place to be.
Psychological vulnerability insecurity and a tendency toward self loathing are traits of a person (in the medium term) and are not impossible to predict. When you are breaking up with someone for this reason you are not obliged to wait until they actually spiral into self loathing so you can justify your decision.
The very decision to refrain from telling someone that you are breaking up with them because they have small breasts is based off their predicted response. So it is clearly just as possible to make the same prediction and have it influence your decision to break up with them because of their psychological fragility.
That sounds like a very good idea all else being equal. Focusing on what you can change is usually the best strategy and providing others with information about what they can change is probably going to be more useful.
Wow, that guy is a dick!
I don’t see anything in it for her and nor do I see why she should feel any need to do things for his benefit. Do kind things for people who aren’t dicks.
My response in that situation would be to make no particularly extravagant reaction at the time of the incident, calmly make all the relevant preparations such as hiring a divorce lawyer and finding another place to live then break up via having someone else serve him a divorce notice. But I think most other people may be a little less extravagant in their responses (and less practical). My strategy when breaking up with a spouse for reasons like their diminished attractiveness or excessive more justifiable conflict would be entirely different and much more social.
If he’s capable of eventually acquiring a clue, this is also kindness to the people he’ll be dealing with later on. I don’t know whether the cost to her is worth the possible benefit.
That’s a very big one for me. Someone who can’t handle the truth is not someone for me.
This usually makes little sense, particularly for someone one was attracted to for a while.
It’s almost never true that for someone whose breasts one once found sufficient, her breasts would be a deal breaker, and no woman would be attractive with similar breasts regardless of her personality, face, legs, etc.
The problem is that the character sheet was filled out with mostly low die rolls, not that stat X is too low.
ETA: asking what the “true reason” for a breakup was is like asking what the “true reason” for a war, such as the Iraq War, was. Was it possible WMD? Past links to Al-Qaida? Possible future links to Al-Qaida? Past human rights abuses such as mass torture and murder? Aquiring influence over oil? Creating a pro-western regime? Creating a democratic regime? Perceived divine guidance during Bush’s praying?
The first test to figure out if someone is more rationalist than emotional about the Iraq war to ask them what the “true reason” for the invasion was and see if they right that wrong question. It’s just as much the wrong question in this context as that one.
I agree.
It is more or less true of people who gain a significant amount of status without a commensurate improvement in the status of their partner. Standards change.
Sure, it isn’t going to be the only reason but it can certainly be significant enough to single out.
In an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine was dating a man because she wanted to be dating a doctor. She then finds out that he never managed to pass his licensing exams and therefore couldn’t yet practice medicine. After she helps him pass, he dumps her, saying this:
Which illustrates the point rather nicely.
The principle of no aspect being the cause of too low value still applies.
How many guys are out of Morena Baccarin’s league because her breasts are small? She has everything else going for her so her weakest attribute is compensated for.
To call the weakest attribute of someone you reject the “true reason” makes sense only if it is a lone sufficient condition, which it probably won’t be even for someone who you no longer want to be with because you think you can do better.
A complementary position is that just because something is ‘grossly insensitive’ doesn’t mean it isn’t both a kindness and exactly the right thing to do. Humans learn from unpleasant things. Especially targeted unpleasant things. So ‘got to be cruel to be kind’ often applies.
Tangent: The tricky thing is that often “because you were too clingy” will technically be the real reason, just not the most useful part of the causal chain to select. If she had bigger breasts that will change both how ‘clingy’ any given behavior seems and how much attraction to her you exhibit which in turn influences how clingy she is likely to be. So sometimes even ‘real’ reasons can be a cop-out!
That certainly seems likely for most cases.
Even bigger tangent: I can’t think of many better ways to be broken up with than this! Seriously. It’s (counter-intuitively) one of the least personally insulting break ups I’ve seen. Because pussy-footying around being ‘sensitive’ is in its own way just another kind of insult.
Is there a better solution which preserves both values? Real reasons in rot13, maybe?
It would depend on the broader social context—in particular, will you still share a social context—but if you do it seems likely you could get your name dragged through the mud in that example,and she still might not believe you and so suffer b) anyway.
WOW! I’d call this the most credible surprising argument for truthfulness I have seen in a long time. Figures it’s from Eliezer. Score in our years long argument over the strength of the prior for truthfulness.
Note though, that to be a good idea this would have to be done very sensitively. Also, the girl would have to be awfully rationalistic. I’d default to the position that any girl who isn’t already poly is fairly unlikely to be a good candidate for this sort of argument, accompanied by a firm assertion that rationalist guys should not restrict themselves to poly girls.
I’m not convinced there’s a significant correlation between being poly and being rational. In general, polyamory seems to be a mostly unchosen state of preference, and I’ve neither noticed nor would I particularly anticipate polyamorous people having a pronounced tendency to be more rational.
I don’t think that it’s particularly rational to be poly, but I do think that most people who are trying to be rational try to be poly, because being poly is a natural consequence of assumptions which sound reasonable and which few people in our society who identify with reason challenge.
Also, let me note that I see polyamory through a lens much closer to that held by many lesbians, which sees sexual orientation as primarily political, rather than the lens favored by most male homosexuals, which sees sexual orientation as primarily biological but which would seem to contradict what we know of the history of cultures such as Classical Greece.
You really ought to get yourself an anonymous alter-identity so you aren’t tempted to discuss things like this under your real name. I believe that you in particular should avoid this topic when writing on public forums.
I’m curious as to why me in particular, but I’m happy to hear from you privately. In general, I go with radical transparency. I think that the truth is that so long as you don’t show shame, guilt or malice you win. Summers screwed up by accepting that his thoughts were shameful and then asserting that they were forced by reason and that others were so forced as well. This is both low-status and aggressive, a bad combination and a classic nerdy failure mode.
I find it doubtful that most aspiring rationalists try to be poly; there are probably more making the attempt since the polyhacking post, but I would be pretty surprised if they constitute a majority.
Personally, I’m already polyamorous in that I’m open to relationships of more than two people, provided all the people are in a relationship with each other (TheOtherDave referred to relationships of this kind as closed polyads, but I haven’t heard the term elsewhere and get no results by googling it.) I have no desire at all to engage in open relationship polyamory like Luke, Eliezer or Alicorn and MBlume, nor do I wish to self modify so that I would be happy with such a relationship. I don’t suppose my own romantic inclinations are representative of the broader rationalist community, but I don’t believe polyamory is as significant attractor as you seem to.
On a side note, I have tried to hack myself bisexual, to no avail. As far as I’m concerned, men are about as sexually attractive as plants and there seems to be nothing I can do about it.
I think it’s a matter of how far people go in these aspirations, and certainly asexuality is another plausible attractor. People can’t be very aspiring towards rationality if something like the the polyhacking post influenced them much. Personally, I don’t recommend polyamory, I just think that it’s common among the extreme enough outliers.
This might depend on what one means by poly. I’ve been in poly and mono relationships before and don’t try actively for either, it is a function of whether my primary is someone who is poly or mono. (This did lead to an interesting issue recently in that my current girlfriend is monoamorous and so I had to downgrade a certain highly poly friend back into the just friend category when my current girlfriend and I got serious.)
I’d call that poly, just like being open to strait or bi relationships makes you bi. It just means that you have self-determination regarding your actions and take responsibility for positive actions, which is pretty much our group’s core defining trait.
How are you defining poly then? Can you be more explicit?
Mostly agreed, but with a caveat… my expectations would depend somewhat on context.
If someone lives in a predominantly X environment and has the option of identifying as X but instead identifies as Y, I consider that noteworthy (though far from definitive) evidence that they’re constructing their models of themselves based on observation rather than adopting the cultural default model unreflectively. Identifying as poly in some communities qualifies, to my mind.
Constructing models based on observed data is an important rationality skill, as is setting aside cultural assumptions when evaluating data.
Of course, that isn’t at all the same thing as a correlation between being poly and being rational, but there’s enough of a connection that the caveat seemed worth making.
I had considered the possibility that self identifying as poly would take both self knowledge and willingness to defy cultural norms, but I don’t think this would be likely to impose more than a fairly minimal lower limit on the rationality of people self identifying as poly. I wouldn’t expect it to take much more than the minimum rationality necessary to recognize oneself as homosexual. Anyone looking for partners above a low baseline of rationality is probably imposing a stronger filter for rationality already than they would by looking for polyamorous partners.
Agreed that identifying as homosexual in an environment that strongly encourages heterosexuality takes some of the same skills. Identifying as bisexual is an even closer analog. That is, it’s a lot easier for me to notice that I’m not attracted to women and thus different from my heterosexual peers, than it is for me to notice that in addition to being attracted to women I’m also attracted to men; noticing that in addition to wanting a relationship with one person I also want a relationship with a second person is similarly more difficult. (More generally: if X is easier for As to notice than Y is, A1 noticing X says less about A1 (relative to As) than A1 noticing Y does.)
Agreed that this basically raises the floor by some marginal amount.
Agreed that if you can only filter based on one attribute at a time, this isn’t the best one to choose if you want to maximize partner rationality. That said, if you can filter based on multiple attributes at once, it might turn out that a filter that takes this attribute into account performs better than one that doesn’t, all else being equal.
Yes, I thought that assumption was pretty odd. Also, “already poly” has weird implications.
If there is a correlation, I doubt it’s much more than the general poly correlations of being white, educated, Open, and some groups into SciFi—but then, there’s also said to be a pagan current of poly-ers, which would drag down any correlation by quite a bit, pagan-types not being famous for rationality.
Based on the above considerations it’s still probably better to claim unnatural attraction to large breasts then saying something is wrong with her. It’s easier on the girl, plus possibly better to have reputation of a perv than a shmuck. Not sure what the score is now.
If your point is that going on about evolutionary psychology adds to the obfuscation but not to the insensitivity, I disagree. There are often ways of more or less sensitively coming clean about (what one takes to be) one’s true reasons for breaking up. Maybe you wouldn’t go so specific as “you’re too fat,” but you could talk about lack of physical chemistry or whatever without uttering a falsehood or being too misunderstood. But there is no way of sensitively taking your devastated ex aside and handing him/her a Tooby and Cosmides paper to read for homework.
It could go either way. Digression into a bunch of theory and science impersonalizes things as well as focussing on ‘me’ instead of ‘you’ The main problem with getting into a big speel on science is that it increases the total time spent dwelling on the painfully negative topic. The fact that it is talking about the science isn’t the insulting part.
Talking about ‘lack of physical chemistry’ is less insulting by virtue of being a vague pre-packaged euphemism rather than brutally personal criticism of highly status-sensitive personal features. It seems to be an entirely different kind of difference to whether you mention evolutionary psychology or not.
Not really. Any evolutionary explanation of why I am repulsed by your physical appearance is going to spend a lot of time dwelling on your physical appearance. And I think the impersonalization bit is the key—it is a ridiculously impersonal digression at a moment of extreme emotional vulnerability on the other person’s part. Most people will interpret impersonal explanations of this sort of emotionally impactful decision as an extremely cold-hearted way of excusing oneself. “I’m sorry I’ve just hurt your feelings. But allow me to explain how this is all just the work of the forces of sexual selection in our ancestral environment...”
I’m completely and utterly aghast at how some LW members can’t see it this way.
We have a straightforward disagreement with respect to both the conclusion and most of the details.
If your point is that going on about evolutionary psychology adds to the obfuscation but not to the insensitivity, I disagree. There are often ways of more or less sensitively coming clean about (what one takes to be) one’s true reasons for breaking up. Maybe you wouldn’t go so specific as “you’re too fat,” but you could talk about lack of physical chemistry or whatever without uttering a falsehood or being too misunderstood. But there is no way of sensitively taking your devastated ex aside and handing him/her a Tooby and Cosmides paper to read for homework.