Polyamory, Polygamy, BDSM and Rational Thinking Skills Discussion

From the Fallible Ideas Discord.

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Freeze:

Some stuff I read today and liked (some of it was re-reading):

Freeze:

https://fallibleideas.com/common-preferences

Freeze:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_preference

Freeze:

http://curi.us/2086--the-choice-passage-dealing-with-conflict

Freeze:

http://curi.us/1539-autonomy-respecting-relationships

Freeze:

Anyone getting into a romantic relationship, without some good explanation of what they will do differently, is setting themselves up for immense suffering. A good explanation of how one will avoid suffering will have to be something that hasn't been tried a thousand times without solving the problem or else we can't really expect it to work. It will also have to be exposed to critical evaluation and pass.

Freeze:

shared it in the other chat but ppl disagreed heavily

Freeze:

I didn't spend much time or effort trying to explain once they stopped giving explanations

Freeze:

i also agreed with the idea that sex feels good because we put so much effort into making it so

Freeze:

it's interpreted that way by our culture

Freeze:

the main things ppl disagreed with were: Sex doesn't feel intrinsically good, we make it so. People can always find common preferences and get what they want. (at first they argued that compromises ARE common preferences, and that the definition says so. Then I pulled up the definition and showed how a key part of compromises are concessions. Then they said that you can't always get what you want, and I disagreed with that, saying that common preferences are ways of people getting what they want without sacrifice)

Freeze:

I agreed with the following

Freeze:

ARR has room for refinement and advancement but has also reached a number of conclusions and figured some things out.

For example, monogamy is not rationally defensible. Nor is love. Nor the way people approach sex, and sexual relationships. These things are mistakes as well as static memes, and they have been refuted by ARR's criticism.

ARR also has some things which may seem like its own conclusions, but which are really conclusions of TCS or the general worldview behind ARR. For example, it rejects compromise and sacrifice, and insists that conflicts should be resolved in a rational, truth-seeking way. It says human interaction should be non-coercive and people should seek common preferences. It says problems are soluble and not a part of life to simply accept, and that people can change and improve their preferences.

Freeze:

Confidently I say, "The second obstacle is that people's perception is that conflicts are a given and that the best we can do is to seek a compromise."

Bitterly Father remarks, "In academia we are encouraging that devastating mistake. Under the glorifying title of 'optimization' we invest considerable efforts to teach students, not how to remove conflicts, but how to waste time finding the 'best' compromise. What a waste of talent."

Freeze:

@Wisp looks like you also disagree about some of this. we can make a tree if u want

Wisp:

not at the moment, I am in them middle of solving a problem and it might interfere with it

curi:

i partially disagree with a bit of that fyi

curi:

or at least ppl get misled by it

Freeze:

oh?

Freeze:

are there any common misconceptions you can point out

curi:

1) in general poly = MORE LOVE, MORE ROMANCE. most ARR ppl thot mono bad, poly good

Freeze:

i think you explained that in a post somewhere

curi:

yes

Freeze:

oh i remember a podcast

curi:

in general poly ppl are fucking retarded and dumber than normal ppl

Freeze:

where you talked about poly not always being better

curi:

like way dumber

Freeze:

and it being situational

Freeze:

https://curi.us/files/podcasts/polygamy.mp3

curi:

if u wanna do something non-traditional u need to nkow wtf ur doing

Freeze:

right

Freeze:

because traditions have knowledge

curi:

if ur need a top tier thinker, be alone or mono, those are the normal options

Freeze:

if you dont have good arguments against traditions, follow them

curi:

or like poly hookups when ur young and it's not srs relatinoships. that's normal. im not a fan of promiscuity but whatever.

curi:

ya that podcast should say my current views fine

curi:

iirc

Freeze:

how would it interfere with a current problem @Wisp?

Freeze:

are you worried it might change your mind about something and thus change your approach/desire for the relationship etc.?

Wisp:

curi: in general poly ppl are fucking retarded and dumber than normal ppl

Wisp:

how do you reach that conclusion?

curi:

reading some of their stuff and talking to some

curi:

obviously not 100% applicable but it's a major pattern

JustinCEO:

i thot u might say guesses and crit curi

curi:

and i mean just retarded about relationships, not dumber re other stuff

curi:

not like lower IQ

Wisp:

ah I see

Freeze:

in this podcast curi explains how poly ppl value sex and love

Wisp:

what does retarded about relationships means?

curi:

their ideas are stupid and make their lives worse than normal stuff, cause lots of problems

curi:

and they are unreasonable about it

Freeze:

their error correction is also worse about those ideas?

curi:

their error correctino might just be avg

curi:

so... bad

Freeze:

ah

curi:

not enuf for unconventional stuff

curi:

when u do poly u run into more errors + esp more errors that don't already have well known solutions

JustinCEO:

does "in general" include or exclude religiously motivated poly people

curi:

poly ppl can get less useful advice from most books, magazines, websites, friends, podcasts

curi:

i dont' recall any poly i have exposure to being highly religiously motivated

curi:

don't think i'm familiar with that

JustinCEO:

kk

Freeze:

like polygamous mormons or something?

Freeze:

i think curi is referring to polyamory primarily

Wisp:

What if they dont process jealousy and understand power dynamics more? Thus having a more smoother relationship? For exmaple people in the bdsm community seem to handle these emotions much better.

curi:

i assume the islam version is awful

Freeze:

polygamy secondarily?

JustinCEO:

fundamentalist mormons and muslims are the two examples that i'm aware of, ya

curi:

wisp i think a lot of them claim something like that but just aren't aware of what's going on and have bad self-understanding

curi:

i think the bdsm community is awful too

curi:

normal ppl also generally have bad self-understanding too. it's just they are following safer default lifestyle so it does less harm.

curi:

islam is really sexist, idk how sexist mormons are today

Freeze:

so it's like one of the best ways to improve the lives of lots of people is to improve the general, default traditional knowledge quality?

Wisp:

default life style according to you is just social conditioning, what is the guarantee that is it actually safer?

JustinCEO:

the mormons that do poly are a small splinter group afaik

Freeze:

it's been through lots of error correction wisp

Freeze:

traditions embody a lot of knowledge

curi:

it's safer b/c ppl have spent millenia fixing the worst ways it hurts ppl

Freeze:

they have been criticized over time and improved

Freeze:

there are some static memes in traditional knowledge that make things worse afaik

Freeze:

but yeah, the worst issues have been improved

Freeze:

if u start from scratch, it's far more likely u'll do worse

Freeze:

that's why it's better to make incremental improvements

curi:

Wisp what's ur background or profession? do u happen to know programming?

Wisp:

do you really think social rules are that easily fixable? they have only improved through thinkers actually protesting and trying to fix stuff. BDSM on the other hand is not as bound by social norms and people are free to invent and re-invent rules that work

Wisp:

very quickly

Wisp:

I am a PhD candidate, computer science

curi:

ok cool. it's like if u have very big, complex computer software that is 20 years old. over those 20 years ppl fixed a million bugs. if u start from scratch u will make a million new bugs. rewrites tend to be bad.

curi:

and it's much, much worse to rewrite when the code is live in production the entire time and u have no test server and no dev environment, which is how IRL works

Wisp:

starting from scratch but in a new environment that makes it easy to de-bug

Wisp:

the conditions are different

curi:

the idea of BDSM community u present is like "we are more rational, so we can use our rational problem solving to do better than tradition". in practice they are in fact just as dumb as everyone else and do worse.

curi:

IME

curi:

and it's predicted by theory too

Freeze:

IME = In My Experience

Wisp:

ah ok

curi:

if they were any good at reason why don't they discuss Popper or something and write some good philosophy essays

Wisp:

because that is not their objective?

Freeze:

it is though

curi:

b/c u need to test ur actually not just an arrogant fool. try to objectively test ur knoweldge qualty and skill

Freeze:

error-correction is their objective

Freeze:

Popper revolutionized that field

curi:

rational ppl don't just assume their self-judgment is true

curi:

they look for ways to find out it might not be

curi:

and if ppl are are actually god tier at rational problem solving, they could be superstars in philosophy just be writing it down a bit

Wisp:

I am not calling them rational or philosophers , I am saying that their unique environemnt lets them change rules much faster, so even if they use a dumber algo to do it (not popper's method) they might have a better success rate through random walks

curi:

if they can get it practical and approachable enuf to work for sexual relationships, it should also actually work for ppl thinking about easier shit like doing a startup and getting rich

curi:

changing rules faster doesn't help nearly enuf if u have no clue what to chagne to or how to think well or how to tell what is working or not

Wisp:

then how is it different from the emprical stuff PUAs do? how do they have more merit?

Wisp:

trying and changing things

Wisp:

and seeing what works

curi:

some PUAs had scientific attitudes and put in a lot of work over years at ... figuring out how the status quo works, which is much easier than changing how ppl live.

curi:

i'm unaware of any BDSM material with similar rational quality

Wisp:

I see, makes sense

curi:

and even if they had equal skill they'd still fail

curi:

cuz their thing is harder

Wisp:

so there is a threshold of hardness where this kind of method fails?

curi:

PUA community is really exceptional and unusual, even for that level of difficulty most attempts fail

curi:

it's from usenet

curi:

usenet and its culture is dead now 😦

Wisp:

what is usenet?

curi:

it's basically the old school internet forums when the internet was full of early adopters

Wisp:

I see

curi:

it died in sept 1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

curi:

or began dying then

Wisp:

a few months after my birth

curi:

it died to what is essentially analogous to mass immigration

curi:

they couldn't assimilate the AOL users fast enuf

curi:

the FI google group is usenet legacy. it's similar forum style (and it started in 1994...)

curi:

nowaways it's very very hard to get anyone to join that sort of email forum instead of facebook, reddit, twitter, discord, etc.

Wisp:

I think these kinds of problems instead of having linear difficulty levels are more like different types of problems, so saying something is harder is not as useful?

curi:

there's some of that but some types (going against tradition) are broadly much harder than others (not challenging tradition)

Wisp:

but polygamy and probably bdsm has been tradition in societies? Its not a new concept. I will have to check my claim though

curi:

the atheists doing poly today are not following ancient polygamous customs and don't live in a society where polygamy is normal

curi:

i'm not very familiar with history of bdsm. i think actual cruelty was common and men had power over women. that's pretty different than what ppl are trying to do today.

curi:

i think a bit of bdsm play isn't necessarly a big deal at all but when it's more of a lifestyle one is involved in then it's a bad subculture and kinda similar to and overlapping poly

curi:

A theory of why ppl like BDSM and related is they (esp the girl) don't want the responsibility of choosing to have sex, for which they feel shame and guilt. It helps remove that by fooling themselves (it doesn't rationally take away responsibility). This explanation doesn't fit with the BDSM ppl being rational and good at solving problems.

curi:

long term mono relationships and marriage are also good at removing the shame and guilt of having sex, anyway.

curi:

(far from perfect tho)

curi:

(it's a hard thing to remove)

curi:

it's also often not just the shame and guilt of sex itself but of particular sex acts, fantasies, weaknesses (revealing imperfect physical characteristics) etc.

curi:

poly is also fundamentally harder than mono b/c more ppl involved is more complicated

curi:

very similar to how i advise ppl to only have one child. every added child is more complexity and they will fuck up enuf with just one.

curi:

mixing poly + any kids is a mess

curi:

also btw tons of young ppl think they don't want kids and never will, then a few years later they do. the belief they will never want kids is one of the things that can make their poly ideas seem viable to them.

curi:

ppl who fuck around with poly stuff for a few years when they are young isn't so important, it's kinda just like promiscuity in general, but trying to make it a lifestyle for decades is different.

curi:

and doing it for a few years while expecting it to last a lifetime, but then stopping, is generally bad. ur wrong about how ur life works. ur plan didn't work.

Wisp:

A thought comes to mind vis a vis mono vs poly relationships, there are two kinds of sexually reproducing species "gladiatorial" and "par bonding". After observing humans, we seem to show behaviour from both, including physical features associated with both. a lot of variation is observed. And I agree that maintaing a long ploy relationship is very hard. i have seen one healthy poly relationship among a friend of mine but eventually it did not last beyond a few years. Five years I think.

Wisp:

But that also seems to be the failure or success rate of mono relationships, considering the dataset of poly is much smaller

curi:

i don't think animal behavior is relevant to humans b/c we think in ways they don't. i've got a lot of material on animal intelligence fyi.

Wisp:

I would not say its completely irrelevant, after all there are besides creating new knowledge every other system is the same

Wisp:

you cannot dismiss physical reality when discussing human behaviour

curi:

knowledge is the dominant factor

Wisp:

but you said most people are dumb and not rational, which means knowledge is not the dominant factor and biological behaviour is

curi:

no, dumb and irrational are types of knowledge. they are bad ideas, not no ideas and letting biology dictate.

Wisp:

I see

curi:

like uhh scientology is irrational knoweldge

curi:

nothing to do with animals

curi:

or biology

Wisp:

what about the skinner box and how they are used in casinos, works on both animals and humans

Wisp:

means there is a commonality

Wisp:

knowledge of how other spices work can be applied in understanding humans, is my point

curi:

i think ppl are badly wrong about how they analyze that stuff and a lot of "neuroscience" stuff

Wisp:

why treat the mind or studying humans as different from studying say photons

Wisp:

the methodology

Freeze:

photons don't have knowledge

curi:

there's so much complexity it's more enlightening to look at higher level

curi:

like not reading machine code for complex software

Wisp:

at some point you need to look at the lower level to re-create it

Wisp:

or alter it

curi:

not necessarily but often ya

curi:

it's good to study neurons

curi:

but ppl trying to base psychology conclusions on neurons today are getting it wrong

Wisp:

thats ok, error correction will fix that

curi:

well they don't have rational philosophy or methods

curi:

it's not being fixed currently. broken field.

Wisp:

do you think most scientists dont have a rational philosphy?

curi:

yeah

Wisp:

then how has so much progress been made in 2k years?

curi:

minority have been productive, not majority

curi:

the ratio was better in the past when there were way fewer scientists

curi:

now we draw too many ppl into the field who are dumb and think university will teach them to think well (it mostly doesn't)

curi:

and a lot of them chase grants and prestige and promotions for their careers

curi:

social climbing instead of real science

Wisp:

which I think was done even before

curi:

yes some. it's been expanded a lot with e.g. massive govt funding of science which i think offhand is mostly post WWII

curi:

and university being for ~everyone now instead of just early adopters

curi:

it's not just individual cleverness at issue tho. lots of smart ppl believe common, mainstream ideas like induction which lead them wrong.

curi:

philosophy is the ~worst field and is hurting the others by spreading really bad ideas

Freeze:

greg is an inductivist :FeelsBadMan:

curi:

most scientists are not philosophers and have not carefully investigated the correct philosophy ideas themselves. they outsource that thinking to philosophy experts who have failed the world.

curi:

most philosophers lack a scientific mindset and are less rational than the avg scientist but nevertheless are allowed to be deemed experts on philosophy of science and spread methodology

curi:

there has been pushback. many scientists now disrespect philosophers. but the stuff they believe came from philosophy anyway. they broadly don't understand its history and the alternative philosophies.

curi:

it's hard to sort the mess out

curi:

just disrespecting philosophers won't fix it for ppl

curi:

if u just don't listen to the latest crap philosophers say and believe the stuff in science books ... ur just getting stuff philosophers told scientists a while ago

curi:

with ppl being mis-educated to believe the wrong ideas, most scientists aren't effective. plus parenting destroys most ppl's minds by age 10 anyway so they aren't cut out to be scientists without a lot of help/fixing that we don't currently know how to do...

Wisp:

wait a minute how do philosphers actually help creating knowledge/

Wisp:

they are just arm chair scientists

Wisp:

where is the work?

curi:

philosphers write about topics like what the methods of science are

curi:

how learning works

curi:

how to think rationally

curi:

these ideas are used by all other fields

curi:

u can't do anything without ideas about critical thinking, avoiding bias, etc

Wisp:

ok yeah , agreed

curi:

when philosophers fuck this up then it screws everyone else who is accepting their crap

Freeze:

all knowledge is created thru guessing and criticizing

Freeze:

empirical testing is only one form of criticism

Freeze:

plenty of criticism happens in human minds

JustinCEO:

grass cures colds etc

curi:

lots of ppl think they are ignoring philosophers but lots of philosophy ideas are common sense or spread around anyway, even if u aren't getting them directly from a philosopher

Freeze:

wait a minute how do philosphers actually help creating knowledge/
they are just arm chair scientists
where is the work?
this shows some serious misconceptions imo

Freeze:

about how knowledge is created, what "work" is, and where the value is in philosophy

curi:

maybe it just shows he knows what most philosophers are like today

Freeze:

i guess

curi:

they earned that disrespect

JustinCEO:

:\

Freeze:

many scientists are like this too though

Freeze:

even if they do experiments

Freeze:

they're wasted experiments

curi:

Now some of you might say, as many people do: “Aw, I never think in such abstract terms—I want to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems—what do I need philosophy for?” My answer is: In order to be able to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems—i.e., in order to be able to live on earth.
You might claim—as most people do—that you have never been influenced by philosophy. I will ask you to check that claim. Have you ever thought or said the following? “Don’t be so sure—nobody can be certain of anything.” You got that notion from David Hume (and many, many others), even though you might never have heard of him. Or: “This may be good in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice.” You got that from Plato. Or: “That was a rotten thing to do, but it’s only human, nobody is perfect in this world.” You got it from Augustine. Or: “It may be true for you, but it’s not true for me.” You got it from William James. Or: “I couldn’t help it! Nobody can help anything he does.” You got it from Hegel. Or: “I can’t prove it, but I feel that it’s true.” You got it from Kant. Or: “It’s logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality.” You got it from Kant. Or: “It’s evil, because it’s selfish.” You got it from Kant. Have you heard the modern activists say: “Act first, think afterward”? They got it from John Dewey.
Some people might answer: “Sure, I’ve said those things at different times, but I don’t have to believe that stuff all of the time. It may have been true yesterday, but it’s not true today.” They got it from Hegel. They might say: “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” They got it from a very little mind, Emerson. They might say: “But can’t one compromise and borrow different ideas from different philosophies according to the expediency of the moment?” They got it from Richard Nixon—who got it from William James.

JustinCEO:

LOL

JustinCEO:

curi

JustinCEO:

i had the window open, was reaching for the paste

curi:

from Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand, chapter 1. highly reccommend reading chapters 1-2

curi:

and maybe 11

Freeze:

someone from the other discord who is training to be an experimental physicist, when i brought up the value of epistemology

I have done zero philosophy of science, and plan on doing none
I don't think it's useful as a physics/math double major, as a physicist, or as a person

Freeze:

i said i don't give a flying fuck about philosophy because it doesn't create a quantum computer or solve the many body problem or create better telescopes to learn more about space

Freeze:

>_<

Freeze:

i think philosophy does all these things

curi:

that means he will pick up philosophy ideas secondhand (or third or fourth), here and there, and never think about them much. disaster!

Freeze:

i have zero reason to learn more, or to learn it "correctly"
because philosophy doesn't advance science
research does

Freeze:

my response

Freeze:

philosophy governs research

curi:

it's maybe the word "philosophy" he hates

curi:

mb switch to: critical+rational thinking methods/skills

Freeze:

we can sit in dark rooms and discuss your many worlds shit all day but that doesn't mean anything until someone mathematically or experimentally proves it true or false

curi:

which is one branch of philosophy which not everyone even associates with philosophy

Freeze:

yeah disgussing methods of thinking doesn't solve problems freeze

JustinCEO:

wtf

Freeze:

doing an experiment or doing the math does

Freeze:

he's like a hardcore experimentalist

curi:

see with scientists like that a lot of ppl waste their careers... he'll have to get lucky to accomplish much

Freeze:

you can sit on a high horse all day and discuss how philosophically correct something is but that doesn't advance the science

curi:

(or change his mind)

JustinCEO:

does he think learning is relevant to doing science?

curi:

what he's saying to you are ARGUMENTS. how does one evaluate whether an argument is correct and should be believed? with critical and rational thinking methods and skills...

curi:

he's trying to use those RIGHT NOW

JustinCEO:

cuz lots of learning is learning how to think about and approach various kinds of problems

JustinCEO:

well he's not convincing freeze so that just proves philosophy is useless curi

JustinCEO:

qed

Freeze:

so how does philosophy solve open problems in science and math then
how does philosophy demonstrate the temperature dependence of the decay of LaAlO3/SrTiO3 nanowires

curi:

it's a tool not a full solution...

Freeze:

yikes

Freeze:

an argument is correct if the math or experiment backs it up

JustinCEO:

you could say like

curi:

yeah freeze there is a LOT of this in the world

JustinCEO:

how does language per se demonstrate the temperature dependence of the decay of LaAlO3/SrTiO3 nanowires

curi:

shut up and calculate skool as DD calls it

Freeze:

it doesn't have any sort of relevance if it doesn't

JustinCEO:

and then use that and say there's no value in knowing a language

curi:

and anti-conceptual inductivism etc

Freeze:

philosophy is a tool the same way a spoon is a tool
a spoon doesn't help me prove a theorem

Freeze:

geez

JustinCEO:

and just be like "well show me how comma rules help demonstrate the temperature dependence of the decay of LaAlO3/SrTiO3 nanowires, motherfucker"

Freeze:

Wisp:

pyro I think freeze is just trying to change your definition of philosophy to what it actually is

curi:

yeah the world is fucking broken and desparately needs the stuff i work on...

Freeze:

i guess so

JustinCEO:

:\

curi:

it's a good example

curi:

he's hostile not just wrong

curi:

makes it harder

JustinCEO:

ya