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.
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.