“The thing is, I actually do endorse polyamory. I mean, not in the sense of thinking everyone should do it, but in the sense of thinking it should be an option. I think there are some people who tend to do better in monogamous relationships, some people who are naturally polyamorous, and some people who can go either way.”
According to the 2014 LessWrong Survey Results, 15.1 % of the LessWrong community prefers polyamorous relationships to monogamous ones. If you don’t know what polyamory is, it’s been described as “consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy. (Source). This excludes (formerly) monogamous relationships where one party is “cheating”, i.e., engaged in an additional sexual or romantic relationship in secret. Semi-monogamous, or “monogamish”, marriages and relationships may be count as polyamorous in the minds of some, but may be eschewed by the couple in question themselves. Among LessWrongers and almost all secular crowds, at least, “polyamory” is also not the same as the common thought of “polygamy”, usually polygyny (one man, many women), which is practiced by some religious sects, and adheres to norms not shared by the polyamorous.
Anyway, I’m wondering if Eliezer Yudkowsky’s position, that monogamy or polyamory will work better for different people, is the consensus opinion among poly people. I’m not sure if poly folk tend to think polyamory is, in some sense, superior to monogamy, and that if people think they prefer monogamy, or that monogamy is better in general, they’re mistaken. I know lots of monogamous people state polyamory is unsustainable, and so poly folk defend poly as equal in validity and usefulness to monogamy, depending on one’s preferences. I’m curious about something different. Do poly folk tend to think polyamory is a superior relationship style for people, that almost everyone would do better in polyamory, because it is a more valid and useful relationship style?
I’m also aware there have been different waves of polyamory. I’m aware a large portion of poly population in North America hail from the tradition of “free love” among hippies. This is the second wave. Polyamory is and was more of a fuzzy concept within this wave However, I know several polyamorous people or relationships among LessWrongers/rationalists, as well as some hailing from the skeptic community. While the hippie generation of poly folk also correlates New Age beliefs, people who became poly via explicitly secular communities, or by learning about it through the Internet, tend to accept it merely on the grounds of rejecting monogamy as the only relationship style as an outdated cultural/religious tradition. Do the perspectives of the New Age, and most recent, waves of polyamory greatly differ on the validity of monogamy or polyamory?
If you yourself hold a position on this topic, please feel free to share.
The issues on polyamory are very related, but are distinct from dating more generally. They could be their own top-level post. I tend to downgrade my confidence in my own theories or the validity of my questions, so I put them in open threads rather than as top-level posts. I don’t want to initially signal more confidence in my own theories than I think is justified. When I have a model of how the world works, I try to live the virtue of lightness by seeking to break it by asking others. My strength as a rationalist only seems such that when I think something might be true, but I’m not confident I can evaluate my map of the territory by myself, I bring in the rest of your for help.
So, I try to separate questions on a common topic down to a level at which they’re most intelligible and easy to answer, without losing the gist of what I’m trying to figure out. This habit was confirmed when I made several suggestions for the 2014 Less Wrong Survey, one of which was heavily adopted and upvoted, another which was downvoted and improved upon by other suggestions. Had I just put all those suggestions for improving the Survey in one comment, the strength of votes as signals would have been diluted, and been noisier. Thus, I might not have caused the survey to improve at all. That would be worse for everyone.
That example demonstrates the rationale for why I make multiple comments in the open thread. If I don’t separate my posts so atomically, even if it seems redundant, I’m worried the quality of the feedback I receive will be jumbled. If I’m polluting the open thread, or ruining it, I’ll change tactics, but it seems a low-intensity environment where people don’t mind some amount of repetition.
Those who I know who engage in poly have no interest in pushing their views on others and hold the belief that the way they are doing things seem to be working for them. (And from time to time they change their minds and drop out of the poly community and so its hard to say how often that happens to people). Of the people I know; its a learn-by-trial method of being. Also being aware that some people are better at life (and interactions) than others will help you decide whether to stay or go in a relationship.
As a model; I like the model of “X works for some people but does not work for others”. to keep in my toolbox of ideas for whenever someone suggests something that I think works for them but will not work for me; or before I suggest something that works for me but might not work for them. (also known as “Your mileage may vary”).
“The thing is, I actually do endorse polyamory. I mean, not in the sense of thinking everyone should do it, but in the sense of thinking it should be an option. I think there are some people who tend to do better in monogamous relationships, some people who are naturally polyamorous, and some people who can go either way.”
Eliezer Yudkowsky
According to the 2014 LessWrong Survey Results, 15.1 % of the LessWrong community prefers polyamorous relationships to monogamous ones. If you don’t know what polyamory is, it’s been described as “consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy. (Source). This excludes (formerly) monogamous relationships where one party is “cheating”, i.e., engaged in an additional sexual or romantic relationship in secret. Semi-monogamous, or “monogamish”, marriages and relationships may be count as polyamorous in the minds of some, but may be eschewed by the couple in question themselves. Among LessWrongers and almost all secular crowds, at least, “polyamory” is also not the same as the common thought of “polygamy”, usually polygyny (one man, many women), which is practiced by some religious sects, and adheres to norms not shared by the polyamorous.
Anyway, I’m wondering if Eliezer Yudkowsky’s position, that monogamy or polyamory will work better for different people, is the consensus opinion among poly people. I’m not sure if poly folk tend to think polyamory is, in some sense, superior to monogamy, and that if people think they prefer monogamy, or that monogamy is better in general, they’re mistaken. I know lots of monogamous people state polyamory is unsustainable, and so poly folk defend poly as equal in validity and usefulness to monogamy, depending on one’s preferences. I’m curious about something different. Do poly folk tend to think polyamory is a superior relationship style for people, that almost everyone would do better in polyamory, because it is a more valid and useful relationship style?
I’m also aware there have been different waves of polyamory. I’m aware a large portion of poly population in North America hail from the tradition of “free love” among hippies. This is the second wave. Polyamory is and was more of a fuzzy concept within this wave However, I know several polyamorous people or relationships among LessWrongers/rationalists, as well as some hailing from the skeptic community. While the hippie generation of poly folk also correlates New Age beliefs, people who became poly via explicitly secular communities, or by learning about it through the Internet, tend to accept it merely on the grounds of rejecting monogamy as the only relationship style as an outdated cultural/religious tradition. Do the perspectives of the New Age, and most recent, waves of polyamory greatly differ on the validity of monogamy or polyamory?
If you yourself hold a position on this topic, please feel free to share.
… Are you sure that your three related posts on this topic in this open thread alone wouldn’t warrant their own top-level post?
The issues on polyamory are very related, but are distinct from dating more generally. They could be their own top-level post. I tend to downgrade my confidence in my own theories or the validity of my questions, so I put them in open threads rather than as top-level posts. I don’t want to initially signal more confidence in my own theories than I think is justified. When I have a model of how the world works, I try to live the virtue of lightness by seeking to break it by asking others. My strength as a rationalist only seems such that when I think something might be true, but I’m not confident I can evaluate my map of the territory by myself, I bring in the rest of your for help.
So, I try to separate questions on a common topic down to a level at which they’re most intelligible and easy to answer, without losing the gist of what I’m trying to figure out. This habit was confirmed when I made several suggestions for the 2014 Less Wrong Survey, one of which was heavily adopted and upvoted, another which was downvoted and improved upon by other suggestions. Had I just put all those suggestions for improving the Survey in one comment, the strength of votes as signals would have been diluted, and been noisier. Thus, I might not have caused the survey to improve at all. That would be worse for everyone.
That example demonstrates the rationale for why I make multiple comments in the open thread. If I don’t separate my posts so atomically, even if it seems redundant, I’m worried the quality of the feedback I receive will be jumbled. If I’m polluting the open thread, or ruining it, I’ll change tactics, but it seems a low-intensity environment where people don’t mind some amount of repetition.
Those who I know who engage in poly have no interest in pushing their views on others and hold the belief that the way they are doing things seem to be working for them. (And from time to time they change their minds and drop out of the poly community and so its hard to say how often that happens to people). Of the people I know; its a learn-by-trial method of being. Also being aware that some people are better at life (and interactions) than others will help you decide whether to stay or go in a relationship.
As a model; I like the model of “X works for some people but does not work for others”. to keep in my toolbox of ideas for whenever someone suggests something that I think works for them but will not work for me; or before I suggest something that works for me but might not work for them. (also known as “Your mileage may vary”).
[http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/m8o/open_thread_may_25_may_31_2015/cehm