Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: It's awful. Bad for parents as well as children.

Elliot: Because they don't know better.

Elliot: An unhappy child who is thwarted from doing and getting things he wants. A stressed parent who must constantly watch his child to enforce the rules and make decisions before the child does. Worse decisions about the child's life because the parent often doesn't know what's best for the child, because he doesn't know the intimate details of what the child wants.

Elliot: In general, sure, but they can convey this information as advice. But what I mean is parents don't know the personal details of their child well enough: what mood he is in, what he's trying to accomplish right this second, what has struck his interest, and so on.

Elliot: Sort of. Parents should be paying attention but it's not possible to know those things with perfect detail. And in fact parents are often quite mystified by their children. They often don't see what makes them tick.

Elliot: Yeah, but young kids as well. Consider the "terrible twos" where a child might bang pots and pans. Parents sometimes say he is trying to annoy them, but that is mostly just bitterness talking.

Elliot: Parents primarily say things like "that is just how children are" and they say it's natural or genetic. That is a retreat from explanation. They are saying they don't know why, it just is. So they really don't understand their child's motivations very well.

Elliot: That could be it. Most adults have been bored with things like that for many years, and because of their parochial mindset, they can't imagine that anyone else would be interested in them.

Elliot: But it also really can be an attempt to hurt the parents. The classic psychological explanation for this would be that the child does it to get attention. That is possible. But also, parents treat their children badly in a variety of ways, and they don't know this, and the child doesn't know it's wrong, but he may know he's unhappy.

Elliot: And as is somewhat well known, family dynamics get set up where the people habitually poke each other. Each person, when poked, reacts badly, upsetting the other, and thus causing him to do more poking. It's a cycle.

Elliot: It's a generic word for doing something to something. More concrete examples include banging on pans for children, or leaving toys on the floor. And for parents, there is yelling at the child for the pans and other things, getting frustrated/upset and blaming child for the toys, or being annoyingly over-protective and nagging.

Elliot: Very good. The way of dividing up which things are allowed to be on the floor is parochial. It says that toys are "a mess", but chair legs are so normal people don't even think of counting them. But why is that? For example, with proper design chairs can be stacked and put in the corner or closet, or folded up, or paired to take half as much space. Why shouldn't they be put away?

Elliot: Correct. But the same can be said of a child's favorite toys.

Elliot: Well, parents habitually get mad about it. Sometimes children throw a bunch of toys on the floor just to poke their parents. In many cases, children believe the false theory of what a clean room should be, so they would clean up if they weren't acting irrationally and in a cycle of fighting with their parents.

Elliot: The cycles only work so long as the people are not self-aware enough to notice what's going on while it's happening. If they are, they can just stop doing it. Revenge is pointless, poking the other gets them nothing useful and is bad for the poker since he does live there.

Elliot: It doesn't make your own life nicer to have hurt someone else.

Elliot: It's bad for everyone when any family member is upset. Conversely it's good for everyone when that person is flourishing.

Elliot: A flourishing family member will find new music and TV and share it, and write nice dialogs, and bring over interesting guests, and help solve any interesting problems that the others around him have.

Elliot: An upset family member will ask for help (but not of the person who hurt him), and be less creative and therefore less interesting.

Elliot: By thinking carefully.

Elliot: Maybe. I might know if you asked a different question.

Elliot: Right.

Elliot: Why would I know? No one told me.

Elliot: I don't know all of it at once. But even if I did, that wouldn't help. Consider a sprinter who knows how strong his muscles are. Can he win a race? He may not know. Even figuring out what time he can get would take a lot of physics calculations.

Elliot: Now consider puzzles where you are given a situation and some information about it, which is enough to reach the solution, and you have to figure out the solution. What's the point of them? Well, it's not obvious how to get from knowing the resources available to knowing their best use.

Elliot: What a given set of stuff can do, if used properly, is an emergent property of that stuff which can't be seen just by looking at it. So even if I knew all the ideas in my head, that wouldn't mean I'd know what can be done with them.

Elliot: I have ideas. Forming them into a coherent, English explanation is tricky. But there's the further issue of my audience. I want to answer your question. That means, among other things, that I need to know what your question means. If we talk more, I'll learn about what you want to know, and what you do and don't understand, and then it'll be easier to see what would be good to tell you. Giving a brief answer is one way to get you talking, and it also gauges your interest: if you don't ask again, you evidently didn't care very much.

Elliot: Oh, I wasn't commenting on you just now, only in general. If you're interested you will ask again. It might be in a month, or a year. Whenever you ask, I'll figure you're interested then.

Elliot: I wouldn't say that. It's cruel and silly. What do I know about your interests? Maybe you've scheduled what to work on perfectly, and it involves asking that question in a year. And why be resentful? You haven't hurt or wronged me if you don't ask any questions, let alone not asking one particular one for a while.

Elliot: The crawling part is insulting. And saying too bad is cruel. It's just being spiteful. Trying to hurt the questioner for the sake of hurting him. It's saying he doesn't have any reasons to give for why he won't answer, he's just not going to.

Elliot: Why would it be? Unless he forgot the answer, in which case he could just say that.

Elliot: But why was he waiting? He should have gotten on with his life immediately.

Elliot: There are various advantages. But people have other things to do. Sometimes they are important, and take a year, or ten.

Elliot: Remembering the topic and the context. The full context includes what other things were said recently, and current events, and so on. It makes for a richer conversation more interwoven with the rest of life. And one may not be interested in the topic anymore in a year. Interests often drift a bit, and hopefully move on to progressively more advanced or subtle things, and sometimes they change wildly.

Elliot: A person could convert to a religion, or discover a very good philosopher, or have a mid-life crisis.

Elliot: Hmm. Money...?

Elliot: Oh! Now I remember. I was going to pay you $0.50 to pull all the weeds in my garden. And it'd be wrong not to pay you, after you did all that work.

Elliot: So you wanted to know about being more self-aware.

Elliot: I wouldn't worry. You asked other things instead.

Elliot: One thing that helps is forming good intuitions.

Elliot: We can't keep track of everything at once. What we need to do is create policies about how to live which we can keep track of. The policy itself can say in what situations to use it, and in what situations you better stop and think carefully.

Elliot: We can make improvements to them when we find they don't work the way we'd like in a situation. We can think carefully about what policies to have and what improvements to make, so they will be full of our best knowledge.

Elliot: One thing is that there's less to remember: a policy about how to live doesn't have to include all the reasons for why to live that way. You only need to remember your conclusions.

Elliot: Your questions remind me. But it's easy to remember stuff when it's interesting enough, and it comes up in context. And in many cases I've thought about how to answer what you're asking about somewhat recently.

Elliot: Mostly, yeah.

Elliot: If someone asks you the same thing next month, what will you say?

Elliot: Indeed. So, that's a lot of the answer. The rest is mostly reading and thinking.

Elliot: Sure. Bye.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: Yes, and further, you can create policies with reach. They will apply to many situations. So you won't need to have remember something for every situation, because policies can cover many situations that share common themes.

Elliot: One of my policies is not to shame people, especially in public, but also in private. So if I'm considering making a joke at someone's expense, this policy can tell me what to do. Or if someone makes a mistake, the policy will tell me to carefully only criticize the idea and not the person, and possibly in private if people might misunderstand. And the policy also applies to how I treat myself: it's bad to be self-deprecating. It's better to be respectful of people, including myself. Even if I make a mistake, that doesn't mean I'm bad, and I should be confident that I am not, rather than put myself down.

Elliot: That's true, but the policy has applicability and helps me with that issue all the same. It doesn't have to fit perfectly to be meaningful.

Elliot: May you.

Elliot: In some contexts it is important to use English correctly. But mostly I thought that either you didn't know the proper word, or were not self-aware enough to notice.

Elliot: Is there any advantage to using the wrong word?

Elliot: I can give you another example. In other words, I am capable of doing so. But that's not what you wanted to know.

Elliot: Another policy I have is to distrust categories. People frequently use categories to gloss over the issue of whether the actual qualities of something lead to their conclusion. It helps them not make part of their argument without people noticing.

Elliot: Some people say that all stories can be divided into seven categories. Doing this is an information-losing process: knowing a story's category has much less information than knowing the details of the story. People then proceed to say things about a story based on its category, without considering if the actual details of the story support this very well or not. First they lose information, then they ignore it, so they don't have to argue with it.

Elliot: This sort of glossing over details is very common in psychology. They say there are different types of people, like introverts and extroverts. Then people actually say things like, "because you are an introvert, it's hard for you to speak in public". But that is absolutely horrible as an analysis. What we should do is look at what qualities make it hard to speak in public, and see if the person has those. Plenty of generally introverted qualities have nothing to do with speaking in public, and plenty of public speakers would be called introverts.

Elliot: Another way being distrustful of categorizations is useful is for detecting logical fallacies. People often say there are three kinds of dog, and then argue that a dog is not the first or second type, and therefore must be the third type. That doesn't work, because there might be other types of dog the person hadn't thought of.

Elliot: Not all. A friend told me it's bad to shame people. I hadn't put it in those words before. Identifying that categories are a sign of bad arguments has probably been done by others, but I thought of it myself. But maybe it hasn't: philosophers think categories and definitions are signs of good arguments.

Elliot: Yes. We already have a good sense of what words mean, and trying to discuss it explicitly rarely helps much. Further, it distracts from the actual topic. And further, it is used in a bad way very similar to categorization.

Elliot: Writing explicit definitions for words is an information losing process. When you write down definitions you can't express all the subtleties and connotations that the word has. People often make arguments that follow from the definition of a word they have chosen, but they forget that their definition isn't the whole story.

Elliot: There's a further issue with definitions (and sometimes categories) which is that they are part of a quest for certainty and justification. People, especially philosophers, want to avoid errors, so they try to make their arguments air tight. They try to hard to get perfect premises that they get distracted away from thinking about anything interesting. It's easy to argue with people's definitions and categories. They always have perversities if you look closely enough. But it's boring to do so. We should be focussed on creating useful knowledge, not trying to express minute details such that mistakes are impossible.

Elliot: First of all, it doesn't work. We aren't perfect, so we can't do it. Second of all, it misses the point. What we need to be good at is solving problems, and correcting errors. That will help us deal with both present and future problems, instead of only a proportion of future problems.

Elliot: Sort of. For example, how do you deal with the problem of apologizing to your wife after you hit her? Mostly just avoid facing that problem in the first place. But that's just a sort of problem solving in advance. You know of a problem and take steps to make nothing bad happen. A separate issue is what to do about unknown future problems. The ones we don't see coming. We can't avoid those very well, because we don't know what they are. That leaves problem solving as the only reasonable option.

Elliot: David Deutsch gave a speech which discusses it. I think you'd like it.

Elliot: Yes. For example, most people have policies about how much to tip, if anything. They rarely fully consider the issues involved in tipping, and generally just use their pre-existing policy. And that's OK: they only need change it if it seems to have a problem.

Elliot: Perhaps it's just the right way to live. But it frees up attention to be more aware of other things. And there is the issue of whether we think about our policies and try to improve them frequently, or not. There is the issue of whether we realize we are executing policies, and whether we realize we could do otherwise.

Elliot: Many people never seriously consider not leaving tips (unless they are poor). It's just something they do and assume, without consideration, is how life works.

Elliot: There is the standard advice: question everything, think before you act, reflect after you act. But it doesn't work very well. Many people think they do that, but don't at all.

Elliot: If you ask most people about marriage you will discover they haven't thought about it very much. They will have a strongly held position about how great monogamy and commitment are, but there arguments will just be the standard ones that everybody knows. They won't have looked any deeper. People who fancy themselves free thinkers are rarely any better about this than conservatives. The same holds true of other issues, like parenting.

Elliot: Yeah. A lot of "free thinkers" seem to think that they don't have blind spots, and it's only other people who are dumb. They are never right about this. One thing that's needed is a humble attitude which assumes we do have blind spots, and will make mistakes, and what's needed is to find and correct our errors.

Elliot: Yup. The idea has reach.

Elliot: It's a large issue. What to do is basically to try to explain the world. While learning, and connecting topics, and considering the reasons for things, we will get a better perspective, and find errors when things don't fit together well. And bear in mind that the worst enemy of bad ideas is criticism, but by contrast criticism is the best friend of good ideas: it helps to prove their worth.

Elliot: A good idea will withstand criticism. It will be easy to defend the criticism, or make minor modifications to meet it. A bad idea will be unable to cope with criticism: it will be hard to change or fix, because analysis only finds more problems that need fixing. And it will be hard to defend, because there is plenty of true criticism of it.

Elliot: Yes. And there are various things to recommend this approach, like that it isn't parochial. It doesn't reference any of the unique features of the human situation.

Elliot: Knowledge creation plays a part in the laws of physics. Intelligent aliens would also create knowledge. A parochial feature of our world is sky scrapers. On another planet with different available resources, and different gravity, and different weather conditions, there might very well not be any sky scrapers. Maybe everyone would live underground. But there would be explanations.

Elliot: I don't. Ignorance isn't wicked. What's much worse is that people often reject good ideas without much consideration, or they realize one of their ideas is flawed but they never do much about it. Or they know they have a problem, but they try to ignore it.

Elliot: People make choices. Some people come from much worse circumstances, with much less help, but still manage to be great. Others mess up their life in unconventional ways. They could have lived conventionally, but chose not to.

Elliot: More generally, the concepts of free choice and responsibility for our actions are a critical part of our explanation of what people are, and how life works. And they contain a lot of valuable truth. We don't need to give perfect justifications for them in order to be right to use them.

Elliot: Everything is hard to defend precisely.

Elliot: Yes.

Elliot: We got to discussing bad cycles in families, and a key element in getting rid of those is self-awareness. People often get in patterns of hurting each other habitually, and what's needed is not just good intentions and kindness (though those are important), it's also the awareness to realize what is going on, and to keep perspective, and to stop it. We can choose not to continue if we pay enough attention.

Elliot: Is it really so important that your sister stole your toy? It matters, but most times that happens it's not worth fighting over. Most things aren't worth fighting over. Fighting sucks. Life is grand. Just go live your life, nevermind this or that little way you were wronged. Things go wrong all the time. If you make your life nice, that will more than make up for it. Getting your sister back won't make up for it.

Elliot: Another example is that some workers steal from their companies. I don't mean a lot, just some materials or tools. A wise man once said about this: "I am making money faster than they can steal it." And it was true. They were not trying to ruin him, and it was best to just let it go. He was still making money.

Elliot: It makes them responsible for their children's lives, which is a huge burden. It takes away their children's freedom, and makes it harder for their children to learn how to live. The children will pay for their parent's mistakes, and that's a bad incentive structure. The parents have no right to control their children.

Elliot: The right way to parent must be a universally applicable educational policy for helping ignorant people to learn. Right?

Elliot: So, it must be workable in a wide variety of situations. On other planets, with different weather, and different natural resources, and different cultures. And critically, it must work if the pupils are larger and stronger and more powerful than the educators. In that case, the parents can't control their children even if they want to. The correct educational policies would work anyway, so they can't rely on having power over the learner.

Elliot: I'm leaving now. Bye.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: One of the problems with monogamy is that you only get to try out one theory of who you should be with, for all of time.

Elliot: You have to commit to not change partners anymore to really call it monogamy. If you kept changing partners as much as you wanted (say, a few times a day, depending who you were with) that would be something else entirely.

Elliot: Right. So, you have this one partner forever. You can't try out rival ideas of who you should be with. This is very bad.

Elliot: If he did find a better life for himself, wouldn't that be good?

Elliot: Would you want to hold back someone you loved, selfishly, and keep him from being as happy as he could be?

Elliot: You may be worried he will leave because of New Relationship Energy: because he's excited by benefits with the new person that won't last. This does indeed happen. It's a parochial error. It means he's lost perspective on his life, and is misjudging which things will have lasting importance.

Elliot: Well, one way is not to be monogamous in the first place. But never mind that for now. If the new relationship has temporary benefits, wouldn't it be a shame to miss out on that? He'll learn cool stuff, and when he comes back, he will share it with you. You'll both be better for it.

Elliot: In general, criticism makes good theories stable, and crushes bad theories. Good theories only appear good when you compare them to their rivals. Just by themselves, we have no way to judge them. We don't know how close to the truth we are. We only know if they seem to solve our current problems. Having a history of being adaptable, and defeating rivals, is a way to boost our confidence in a theory.

Elliot: It means that trying lots of relationships will make it clearer which are good and which are bad, and help you see why the good ones are better than the others.

Elliot: Yes, and that's good. But once they settle down, they stop doing this. They stop learning about relationships in this way. They limit themselves, and don't try new relationships they think would be valuable. They avoid them without learning about them. As long as their are still temptations, it proves the person still has more to learn (or is in the wrong relationship).

Elliot: Marriages get unstable after a while because people forget what being in other relationships is like. There is actually a common experience in stories and on TV of someone who cheats on his longtime partner only to realize that he prefers to be with his partner. He just needed to be free to spend time with other people, and compare, to see that being with his partner was best. But he wasn't allowed to, and had to cheat to learn about the issue. That's bad for everyone involved. Who would really want a partner to stay with him in ignorance?

Elliot: Spending time with lots of people increases our perspective. Like with everything else, the ideal policy as far as learning is concerned is to do it as much as we are interested in.

Elliot: They are parochial, they have nothing to do with learning, or what the ideal sorts of relationships are, and you are assuming that relationships have something to do with sex.

Elliot: In our culture people equate the two. But there is no good reason to. Sex isn't very interesting, and it doesn't make sense to choose who to live with based on who we like to have sex with.

Elliot: Sharing a bed is annoying. You have to deal with snoring, and waking each other up, and it makes it less convenient to sleep at different times. And there is no need to share a bed in order to have sex. (Though if you sometimes fall asleep together, there's nothing wrong with that.) Everyone should have a room, and a bed, of her own.

Elliot: Because "a room of her own" is a famous quote by Virginia Woolf.

Elliot: It consists of rubbing your bodies together, and playing with ancient remnants of our animal past. That part is very simple. More complex is the ideas our culture has about sex, but those are extremely parochial. And none of them have much to do with learning, they are just things purported to make people happy. But happiness is a bad goal.

Elliot: Do you mind?

Elliot: Nothing is wrong with happiness. The problem is aiming for it. It should be an indirect consequence of a good life. Trying to get happiness directly is either meaningless (because we only do what we think is moral), or it means we sometimes do things that we do not think are moral.

Elliot: Morality is about how to live. By definition it's our best ideas about how to live. Whether they provide happiness, money, knowledge, whatever. And it takes into account, by definition, whether we are treating others rightly or not, and so on. Seeking happiness does not necessarily take all those things into account.

Elliot: That's fine. If an activity provides one valuable thing, that is a noteworthy fact about that activity, and a good answer to why to do it.

Elliot: That's right. In general, a relationship (which is not a very good word) just means people cooperating in some way. Well, it generally doesn't mean free trade. What we mean is a personal relationship. So, if it's not about wealth or stuff, then what's the point? Well, people can share ideas.

Elliot: Human coordination is better.

Elliot: People who share goals (or parts of goals) can coordinate (act in a way that works together) to achieve those goals. Coordinating means people changing what they do so that the overall result of the actions of a group of people achieves what they want better.

Elliot: Not much. That's part of my point. :)

Elliot: It's a vague word. Do you mean strong liking?

Elliot: It doesn't matter if I have.

Elliot: If there is an important part that is hard to figure out without being in love, you can tell me about it. Even people who had been in love might not have noticed it.

Elliot: That's a lot of purported benefits. First, we should keep in mind that those are not the usual experience. People often are in love then break that trust and hurt each other. Lovers and families have some of the worst fights (excepting wars and other deadly violence).

Elliot: A policy of calling all instances of love that ended badly, "fake love", does exist. But if you want to talk about it that way, then what we should really discuss is the state of thinking you are in love, but not being sure. And since you can never be entirely sure it won't end badly tomorrow, that will be the only kind of love there is.

Elliot: If there is, no one has found it. If someone did, he would write a book and get very rich.

Elliot: But people try to take advice from them, and it does not work reliably.

Elliot: Yes. Trust is bad. Trusting someone is just refusing to take responsibility for your own expectations of the person. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Once you know a person, you should make your own predictions about what he will do, and if you are wrong, you should not hold that against the person. If you can't safely expect someone to do as he said, then make sure your plans don't count on him doing it. Trusting people is just setting yourself up to have fights.

Elliot: Yes, exactly. Don't take people's word for what they will do, and play the victim if they don't. Be a responsible, independent person who prevents being let down by proactively considering what will happen, not taking anything on trust or faith.

Elliot: Partly that is a matter of trust. Partly that is a matter of knowing each other well, and having genuine reasons to consider the person safe. The second thing is purely good, but it can be isolated away from the term love.

Elliot: If we can identify components of love, and pull them out, we can then see if there is anything good left we haven't identified. If there doesn't seem to be, we will know what love is, or at least the good part: it's the individual parts we identified. Doing this will help it to be less vague.

Elliot: First, people should help themselves. Second, if a policy of cooperating seems mutually beneficial, and also they are willing to risk that the other person may not do as expected, then great, help each other. This happens all the time. People who aren't in love do it.

Elliot: People should cooperate when their rational judgment tells them it is best, and not otherwise.

Elliot: Most of the time, no it is not. It's better to persuade people to do things. They won't have to trust you, so they won't blame you if it goes wrong. And they will understand what's happening better. But now and then, there is a reason not to explain, such as a great rush, or needing to protect someone's privacy. In that case a person who will "go out on a limb for you" is valuable. What he should be doing is using his best judgment to decide he should help out. He doesn't know the reasons, but his best judgment tells him that you do have good reasons.

Elliot: Let me add that I don't see this to have anything to do with love. The default policy of many people is to help strangers in relatively minor ways if they ask for help. This is a good thing. Living in a society where help is easily available makes us all more powerful. It's easier for everyone to achieve their objectives. Most people in our society have good objectives. And in general people try to have good objectives. Humans being powerful is good. The opposite, humans being weak, would only ensure our destruction (one day an asteroid will come, or whatever, and if we don't have good enough science then -- if we aren't powerful enough yet -- then we will all die).

Elliot: People should be happy about love if and only if love is a good, rational thing. So this can't settle the argument.

Elliot: We shouldn't be scared of trying things that aren't best, and if something is genuinely good, it shouldn't fear criticism and rivals. If it's good, it will beat those rivals. Trying bad things helps us see why the good ones are better, so it stabilising good things. It helps make sure we'll stick to good things in the future. It means when you have second thoughts, you'll be able to remember why that thing was bad. And if you're still not sure, try it more. Learn and find out what's best. Marriage means not trying rival theories about who to live with and have sex with anymore. It means committing yourself not to. That is bad for learning.

Elliot: Maybe. But learning matters a lot. And if people admit marriage harms knowledge growth, that'd be a good first step.

Elliot: Bye.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: It requires restricting your life if you want to commit to a marriage, forever. To reliably avoid a breakup, you have to avoid drifting apart. You have to make sure your interests remain compatible.

Elliot: There are no reliable ways to agree, about anything, quickly. You might not agree. You might not think of any persuasive arguments today. And you might not again tomorrow. Who can say when you will?

Elliot: Well, normally disagreement doesn't have to be a problem. People disagree all the time and life goes on. There is no reason they must hurt each other. The problem comes when you are unwilling to drift apart. Part of the way people who disagree are able to continue amicably is by going their own ways: each does what he thinks is right.

Elliot: True, but they have to do the same thing more then never, or being married makes no sense.

Elliot: They could have two disagreements, or three, or fifty thousand. And they could all last over a hundred thousand years. They might move to different countries, and have no contact of any sort, for centuries. They might die before they see each other again.

Elliot: One day they will, with life extension. But that only adds to my argument: if they die before solving the disagreement, then the fact that it could be solved hasn't helped their marriage.

Elliot: I don't know how likely it is. But I do know that marriage has no defense against this. It could happen. So the philosophical grounds for marriage are shaky. At best you are taking a risk.

Elliot: Perhaps. But how big is the risk? Why do you think it's small?

Elliot: Does it really? It's very common that families fight and disagree. It's very common that controversies are not resolved in the lifetimes of the people who started them. And it's very common that marriages don't work out, because the couple grew bored of each other.

Elliot: Isn't the divorce rate around 50%?

Elliot: No. People hate to divorce so they try very hard to avoid it. On first principles, we might think that for every divorce, ten couples want one but won't do it. The numbers don't work out for that. Still, there are a lot of unhappy marriages, and a lot more that are more neutral: not a constant source of pain, but nothing magnificent about them.

Elliot: It's a cliche that smart guys get dumb about girls.

Elliot: Why marry? Just find a woman you hate and buy her a house.

Elliot: Good luck with that. Have you seen The War of the Roses?

Elliot: Yes. It's about a marriage that doesn't work out. The people start hurting each other very badly.

Elliot: People feel they'd never hurt their partner. They are in love. They want the marriage to work. They are committed to trying very hard. You might expect all this will result in them being very nice to each other. And that works at first. But if things start to go badly, then they feel betrayed: the other isn't as passionate as they are. All the efforts they made now spite them, because they know this person wasn't really worth it, he only lied that hew as. The more you put at stake, the more there is to be upset about if it doesn't work as you hoped.

Elliot: Right. So marriages with jerks work out badly. Then of the marriages entered into in a serious, loving, passionate, committed way as described above, they suffer from the logic I described where the more people try, the more betrayed they feel if it doesn't live up to expectations.

Elliot: Partly because of unreasonable expectations. Romantic fantasies are pretty grand. But more importantly, because people are different and want and expect different things.

Elliot: A little. But you'd be surprised. People are scared to disagree and fight, and don't want to break up, and they're insecure, so they often try to avoid discussions like that. If they do agree, the discussion won't make things better, and if they don't, it could ruin their relationship today.

Elliot: Can't they? Most people are prepared to break up, immediately, if they discover certain things, such as that their partner secretly has a child, or is having an affair.

Elliot: There's very little that would put me off my friends. If they were criminals, that would put me off. But only immediately if it was an especially bad crime. If they were mean to me, I'd assume it was a misunderstanding, and only mind if it kept up for a while. Friendships are far more stable than romance.

Elliot: Stability is supposed to be one of the goals of marriage.

Elliot: If nothing ever changes, that is bad. But if things change very rapidly, that is worrisome. Misunderstandings are very common, so we should be resistant to those. And there are many more ways to be wrong than right, so we should try out new ideas tentatively at first. When people change their opinions of each other quickly, it's usually because they lost perspective and they are focussing on one little issue and over estimating its importance.

Elliot: Consider cooking using a recipe. A stable recipe would mean if you change the quantities of ingredients slightly, then the meal comes out about the same. That's good. Unstable means if you put in an extra drop of water, or pinch of flour, it will come out wildly different. More generally, unstable things get wildly different results based on different inputs. In our life, the input data is sensory data, and our observations of the world. We know we make lots of mistakes in that area: there are hallucinations and misunderstandings and misinterpretations of what we see all the time. So a stable approach is important.

Elliot: No. My advice is more like "just don't do it". We don't want the opposite of marriage, or even something that makes sense in terms of the romantic mindset. That's too similar. We want to find a better way to look at relationships. When we do that, dichotomies like monogamy versus polygamy will go away. That doesn't matter.

Elliot: Well I can't tell you exactly how to live, and I don't want to. The idea that everyone should do the same thing is another flaw in marriage. People are different.

Elliot: I can tell you some concrete things to avoid. Maybe that will help.

Elliot: Promises are irrational. People shouldn't make them.

Elliot: Suppose I promise to do X. The time comes, and I'm considering doing it. Now, I either think X is morally right, or not. If it is right, I will do it whether I promised or not. If I think it's wrong, I shouldn't do it, but I might because I promised. So a promise ends up either being a promise to do what you would have done anyway, or a promise to do wrong.

Elliot: Yeah. Just because something is widely accepted doesn't prove it's very good.

Elliot: Yes. But people should just say, "I plan to walk the dog," instead of promising to.

Elliot: Yes. People don't get very upset if you change your mind about a plan. But a promise they will hold against you. You promised, and how can they ever trust you again if you don't keep your promise?

Elliot: If you don't make a promise, you don't have to be trusted, so that's a much better way of interacting and not irrational as explained above. But now that you ask, trust is bad.

Elliot: Trusting someone to do something means not using your own judgment about whether he'll do it. It means if he doesn't, you play the victim and say he hurt you. It's better to think about what he will do, and make your own prediction, and take responsibility for it, not put part of your life in another person's hands.

Elliot: Then you certainly shouldn't put great trust in him!

Elliot: It means the person is bad at predicting what he will do, or it means he says what he thinks you want to hear. Either way, abolishing promises will fix things. He won't have to lie to you, or you can just consider him unreliable and not count on him.

Elliot: If someone is unreliable, promises won't help anything. The cure can only be for him to get better at planning things.

Elliot: If he intends to try, he could tell you that. But he might not: he's unreliable.

Elliot: This is like the same question about marriage. The answer is: they are bad. Get rid of them. Just don't do it. They don't need any replacement.

Elliot: Only trivially. It's not hard to just state your intentions plainly.

Elliot: True enough. But that's only more evidence that the whole tradition is irrational and we'd be better off without it.

Elliot: The romantic tradition is stereotyped. It's the same for everyone. People are different, so that's no good. This, like with promises, doesn't demand any particular alternative. Part of the problem is actually trying to have a one-size-fits-all solution.

Elliot: Yes, that's good. But only for certain traditions we've identified as bad. Tradition isn't a bad thing in general.

Elliot: Marriages aren't based on what's functional. People are attracted by pretty people, and what feels right, and first impressions, and whether the sex is good, and things like that. But none of those have anything to do with who would be good to share a kitchen with, or raise a child with, or have to live in the same country, city, and house as. People don't seek marriage partners based on who, rationally, would actually be nice to live with. In fact, they reject their friends out of hand due to a lack of spark or chemistry, or it not feeling right, even though their friends are the ones they know well, and get along with, and can rationally expect to still like in a few decades.

Elliot: Yeah. The next criticism of marriage is simply that it's well known that it often hurts everyone involved.

Elliot: Indeed, it comes up a lot. But it's worth repeating, because people are good at forgetting it. When people contemplate marrying, they aren't generally thinking to themselves that the usual result is being hurt badly. They expect it to work out, even if they have no reason to.

Elliot: We've talked about marriage being part of a tradition, which I usually call romance. There is more detail than that.

Elliot: I'll tell you tomorrow.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: I'd like to tell you something else first. Maybe I should have started with it.

Elliot: You asked about polygamy. People often assume that is the alternative to marriage. But when I talk with poly people, I find their motivations are things like they want to have sex and love with more people. But my largest objections to monogamy is that the sex and love parts are bad.

Elliot: By the way, it's polyamory, not polygamy. "Amor" is love, and "gamy" is marriage. I think only religious people advocate many literal marriages, more philosophical people just live together and fall in love without trying to all get married.

Elliot: My motivation is simply to do what's rational. I don't like the entire mode of relationship epitomized by monogamous marriages, but also found in polyamorous people. I generally discuss monogamy because it's dominant.

Elliot: Let's separate them. Love is vague. Does it mean something other than "likes a lot"? Answers vary. But the real problem is a sort of separation. First, people decide if they are in love (based on how they feel, sexual attraction and chemistry, dreamy eyes, first impressions, mysteriousness, loneliness, desperation, stereotypes, and so on). Second, people derive all sorts of conclusions from being in love. The conclusions have nothing to do with the evidence from the first step, only to do with "love". So by separating the evidence gathering, and the concluding, people cover up a huge lack of logic.

Elliot: Many of the conclusions about love don't follow at all from the evidence used. They often have nothing to do with each other. Conclusions are things like: they should have a close, personal, exclusive relationship full of obligations and expectations. They should share their bank accounts. They should raise kids together. And if someone feels in love, everyone thinks that means the object of his affection is obligated to give him a chance, hear him out, and try to see if it will work. Why should you raise kids with someone who has dreamy eyes? Why should you share finances with someone sexy?

Elliot: And one shouldn't be able to create obligations for other people just by feeling a certain way. That's not rational.

Elliot: It reminds me of an email exchange. One person thought poor, hungry people should be able to steal oranges from a rich man's grove to feed their children, and that the rich man was guilty of something if he didn't allow it. The other person said: and if the poor people choose to have twice as many children, is the rich man twice as guilty for not feeding them?

Elliot: This illustrates how perverse things can get if my choices create obligations for you which benefit me.

Elliot: For example, having intellectual agreement, and shared values; being at roughly the same place in your lives; being good at working out problems together and not fighting; knowing each other well.

Elliot: They take them into account, some. But not enough. Love often overrides some of those. It shouldn't, but it does because they are undervalued. There is a common expression, "Love conquers all," which sums up how much power people attribute to love.

Elliot: And people generally marry within 18 months. That's not enough time to get to know someone really well. People reasonably often learn new things about their friends after decades.

Elliot: I think it's more likely that dating makes them know each other less well. Interacting in only stereotyped situations like that gives them plenty of opportunity to lie and mislead about what kind of people they are.

Elliot: But it's very common. People get nervous, and don't want to risk the relationship over something the other person might not like. They don't want to risk a fight, or a break up. Lying is normal during courtship. It helps keep your options open.

Elliot: It's ubiquitous in popular culture like movies. But also in live journal entries by real people, and advice columns, and so on.

Elliot: Romantic relationships put an undue burden on people to have no privacy, and ties honesty and trust up in this. But privacy is important. It should be expected that people take steps to maintain it.

Elliot: Well, what's good about it?

Elliot: As we discussed, usually it doesn't. People get hurt and betrayed. They only stay happy if the person they love acts the way they want.

Elliot: Indeed.

Elliot: Why do you say that?

Elliot: That isn't relevant.

Elliot: If I don't know something that you do, then tell me about it.

Elliot: It's hard to give the pro-love arguments myself, and refute them, because there really aren't any. No one seems to think it needs a rational defense, even though it hurts people all the time. This hurting is considered unremarkable. That just proves the huge irrationality of people's attitudes.

Elliot: I have a few things to say about sex. The first is that rubbing your bodies together isn't very interesting. I realize it stimulates nerves, so perhaps it's comparable to eating. And it releases chemicals, so perhaps its comparable to taking drugs. But neither of those is very interesting either.

Elliot: They make a big deal out of sexual knowledge, skill, and expertise, as if there is lots to learn. And they say it creates a meaningful connection between the participants, at least if done lovingly. And they sometimes claim it's like an emotional dialog, that involves real and important communication. And they claim it helps them get to know each other intimately.

Elliot: That's right. Except for sexual skill: there is some, just not lots. It's relatively simple. But it's understandable that people think otherwise, because before the internet information about sex was hard to find.

Elliot: Because people hide it. Especially adults from kids.

Elliot: The supposed justifications were things about the morality of chastity, the virtue of not interacting with sex before marriage, the sin of masturbation, the righteousness of self-denial of sex, and the great value of (sexual) innocence.

Elliot: Yes.

Elliot: Not at all. Being an atheist means rejecting God, not all of religion. Whether one rejects more depends on whether he is a thoughtful person, and whether he figures out what else is religious, and also on his judgment about what should be rejected.

Elliot: It's obvious that religion has stuff to say about sex. But it's not obvious that religion is wrong, nor that non-religious people shouldn't think and say the same things about sex.

Elliot: Yeah. But that logic applies to all of religion. If it hasn't worked persuaded people to question the rest of religion, we shouldn't expect people to apply it here.

Elliot: Right.

Elliot: As with love, no one seems to think sex needs a rational defense. They often go so far as to claim that sex is not about being rational.

Elliot: Let's try the dictionary first:

1) a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love "¢ love, esp. when sentimental or idealized "¢ an exciting, enjoyable love affair, esp. one that is not serious or long-lasting 2) a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life "¢ wild exaggeration; picturesque falsehood

Elliot: Do you notice anything interesting about those?

Elliot: Cool :)

Elliot: Yes.

Elliot: Yes. And that's an awful thing to base a relationship on.

Elliot: Right.

Elliot: People often base long term monogamous relationships on short term passionate romance. They want to have both. This is similar to being attracted to the mysterious.

Elliot: Yes, good.

Elliot: Yup. It's not about what really exists in someone's life, just how she feels about whatever is there.

Elliot: Yes, which reinforces the short term focus.

Elliot: They say they do. They say they look for romance in who they date. And people who have been married want to keep a "spark", and will go to therapy to get it back. That spark, most would agree, could be call romance. "Keeping the romance alive" is a common expression. There is lots of advice about how to do it on Google. For example:

23 Ways to Keep Your Romance Alive
Itty-bitty ways to make him lovesick for you every day of the week.

Elliot: Yeah. And it seems pretty self-centered. It's focussed on keeping him wanting you, not keeping a balanced relationship.

Elliot: Right.

Elliot: Yes that sounds fun, but it should be a separate dialog.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: OK. I'll quote each, and then you say what you notice.

Elliot:

Share a Secret Code
Pick a word that's likely to come up occasionally in conversation (heat, midnight, bedroom, whipped cream...) and agree that every time someone uses it, you have to touch -- anything from a kiss to a lingering thigh stroke under the table.

Elliot: Right. Let's keep track of how many are about sex. So far, 1/1. The words were intended to be ambiguously sexy as well. Notice also that thigh stroking is supposed to take place under the table. Why do they need privacy for it?

Elliot: And partly because people are ashamed of their sexuality.

Elliot:

Transform Dinner Into Dining
That midweek post-grind meal you devour together? Make it register off the mush-o-meter with some tiny adjustments to the atmosphere. "Pull out your nicest dishes and light a couple of candles, even if you're just having a mushroom pizza," suggests Gregory Godek, author of 1001 Ways to Be Romantic (Casablanca Press, 2000). "It's the mood, not the food, that sets a romantic scene. So stick a bouquet of daisies from the corner store in the center of the table, lower the lights, and turn up Enrique Iglesias or Bessie Smith. You could even conveniently forget the utensils so you have an excuse to feed each other."

Elliot: If feeding each other is fun, why does it need an excuse?

Elliot: It's embarrassing to ask something so simple of your spouse? The person closest to you in all the world, that you trust completely, and could tell anything to?

Elliot: Evidently, complete trust isn't really the norm, and many spouses aren't close at all. In fact, I remember a Malcom in the Middle episode where the husband wants to do something sexual (we don't hear what), and then, before his wife can reply, says he was joking out of fear of rejection. Then she says yes and he's surprised.

Elliot: One would be tempted to think so.

Elliot:

Get Swept Off Your Feet
Make up your own tango moves and groove with your guy for 15 minutes while you wait for dinner. Pop in the Marc Anthony CD, then press your pelvises together, entwine your legs, and twist and twirl around the living room. "Slow dancing is so intimate," says Godek. "The way you stand hip-to-hip, block out the world, and sway to each other's rhythms ... now you're really cookin'."

Elliot: Yup. It also equates touching slowness with intimacy, and uses the euphemism "cookin'" to mean hot, which means sexy.

Elliot: Because the author avoided writing "now you're doing something sexual that will really get you in the mood to have sex".

Elliot: Yes, but why is it? Because people don't like to be explicit about sex. They prefer not to say it.

Elliot:

Outlaw Grunge-Wear
You and your guy are having a Blockbuster night. But wait, think twice before you change into your lounging-on-the-couch clothes ... You know, oversize T-shirt, shabby sweater. That gear isn't exactly a recipe for a night of making googly eyes. Instead, slip into something a little more comfortable but a lot more cuddle-enticing. "A fitted T-shirt or a semisheer tank top, especially when worn without a bra, is a lot sexier than some too-big shirt you're swimming in," says fashion designer and Cosmo contributing editor Shoshanna Lonstein. "Pair it with your favorite perfectly worn-out blue jeans or khaki cutoffs for a casual but irresistible look."

Elliot: It means that if you do that, he will have sex with you.

Elliot: What's interesting to me is that people have to be reminded so much to act sexy, and if they forget about it, and wear normal, comfortable clothes, that is not sexy. It's so much work people have to push themselves to do it. Being sexy is different than being a good person and living pleasantly. It's all this extra stuff to do, based on its own value system, that doesn't even claim to be morally right.

Elliot: I suppose. But it is so intrusive. Why should sex need to intrude on our clothes, on our movie watching, or on our couch use?

Elliot: Isn't that a bit strange? If you want to have sex, why not just do it now? Then watch the movie in your preferred attire.

Elliot: Why? What purpose does it serve? For example, people don't take movies slow, by pausing them on and off every few minutes. They would only pause for a functional reason, such as a bathroom or food break, to stop watching, or to comment on the scene. People generally avoid pauses in movies, because it interrupts the flow.

Elliot: But why? What's the functional reason?

Elliot: People only do that because they are irrational about diet, and don't eat as much desert as they want, and they're trying to pretend they like it that way. But they don't, and they are tempted to binge all the time. Which sounds a lot like sex. People want to do it a lot, sometimes binge, often feel guilty afterwards, and never get all they want.

Elliot:

Dish With Him
Flash back to the '50s and get passionate over pots and pans. "Okay, it's totally old-fashioned and cornball, but I find doing dishes together incredibly romantic," says Janet, a 28-year-old chiropractor. "My dishwasher went on the blink one night, and my boyfriend offered to help clean up. We both rolled up our sleeves and got sudsy in the warm water. We talked about the places we'd love to travel to, the crazy things we'd like to try just once in our lives, and our hands kept touching -- we just got completely lost in each other as we did this mindless activity. It was so sweet and oddly intimate that I haven't bothered to get the dishwasher fixed."

Elliot: Sure. But why something so dull? The article even calls it mindless.

Elliot: If they want to talk, why not sit on the couch and talk?

Elliot: That may be. But why do they need an excuse to think of what to say? Why are they uncomfortable talking with each other? They don't seem very close or intimate. The dishes, if they are a pretense, are a sign of a lack of intimacy, exactly the opposite of how the people interpret them.

Elliot:

Touch Tenderly in Front of the TV
When you're both chilling out in front of the tube, heat things up with some hands-on action. "Give each other mini foot massages while watching the evening news," suggests Laura Corn, author of 101 Nights of Grrreat Romance (Park Avenue Publishers, 1995). "Or lay your head in his lap and let him stroke your hair." For the ultimate drive-in date experience, invest in an extralong extension cord and watch TV outside on the deck or on lawn chairs on the front stoop underneath the stars.

Elliot: Romance is a bit limited. It prefers the dark or candle light or moon light. It likes fancy things, or chances to touch or taste or smell. It likes unusual things you wouldn't do otherwise -- things you only bother with because they are romantic.

Elliot:

Flash Him
When no one's looking, give your guy a sneak peak in public. Granted, it's not exactly violins-in-the-background romantic, but it's certainly guaranteed to send his heart (and pulse) soaring.

Elliot: It seems to say, "Who cares if it's romantic? It's sexual. He'll like it. He'll be excited." Now, why should he be excited? He's seen it before. All he wants. Hasn't he?

Elliot: And public is fun because it's naughty, it's wrong, and there is a risk of being caught?

Elliot: Sex isn't wrong, naughty, bad, or sinful. That's a horrible idea.

Elliot: Back to the earlier issue: Why keep in sexually unfulfilled?

Elliot: He wants the same thing over and over, without limit?

Elliot: Isn't that boring and mechanical?

Elliot: There aren't many interesting variations on showing him your breasts. And are these tips only for young people? The tips are roughly the same every article, so surely older people have tried them already.

Elliot:

Send Him a Sweet Afternoon Treat
If you know your guy's facing a particularly grueling, sucky afternoon at the office, call up a local restaurant that delivers and send him an I'm-thinking-about-you lunch, suggests Ilene Rosenzweig, coauthor of Swell: A Girl's Guide to the Good Life (Warner Books, 1999). Let him know dessert's waiting at your place later.

Elliot: This didn't have to be about sex, but then they put in a euphemism for sex at the end, so that's 6/8. It's also about food, again.

Elliot: Right. And also, consider all these tips are aimed at girls. And that's true of most such lists. Why? Because guys aren't expected to really care, even though girls apparently do. That's not a perfection connection and total agreement.

Elliot: Of course it does. That's the point. Who wouldn't like to meet someone who really understood him, and agreed about everything he didn't want to argue about? And fulfilled his sexual fantasies. But it's silly. You can't find such a person. The only difference between a soul mate and many people you meet is knowledge (and the soul mate is imagined to be prettier). But how can the person have all this knowledge of you, if you have only just met? It's silly.

Elliot: They are connecting with things they share in common because they are common in our culture. They are stereotyped. Often it's romance: they both like to eat fancy dinners, have sex in the moonlight, and have sex during movies, so that seems like a connection.

Elliot: Only if you're expecting romance to be a primary source of your happiness.

Elliot:

Keep Him in the Dark
For the ultimate lights-out love nudge, fake a power outage. "Unplug the phone, computer, and TV, then turn off all the lights," instructs Godek. "With nothing else to distract you, you have no choice but to break out the candles and cling to each other as you tell scary ghost stories...or just plain cling to each other."

Elliot: 7/9 for sex. It's only implicit, but it's fairly obvious. The meaning here seems to be that if you have things you like, such as your computer and TV, then sex won't be appealing enough to bother with. So just deprive yourself of everything more attractive than sex.

Elliot: Distractions are things you can't easily turn off, like street noise, or worrying you're fat. If it's something you can easily turn off, like a TV, then distractions mean things you prefer to do; they are chosen.

Elliot: If you aren't thinking, you can't take the advice from this article.

Elliot: If you just cling that will get boring fast. But people don't just touch, and sit there for ages and not do anything more. There is a standard progression.

Elliot: Because that's embarrassing, and crude, and people get the idea. And people like to imagine that they have this brilliant, original idea to use that situation as an excuse for sex, which would be ruined if it was clear everyone else did exactly the same thing.

Elliot: Two of the other ones were about how to turn TV watching into sex. Now we have one about getting rid of the TV to have sex. As our counter is showing, one of the main themes of romance is just to have sex more often.

Elliot: At first they do, then it gets boring.

Elliot: Only if you expect your happiness to come from sex.

Elliot:

Ban the Peck
Replace that chaste, no-effort lip graze with a 10-second smooch -- and make every single kiss a bit of bliss.

Elliot: 8/10 are about sex now. This is another one that intrudes on your life. It says stop doing what you normally prefer. It assumes that many people consider kissing too much bother, and don't want to spend their time on it, and just do it quickly and symbolically. And it says, as usual, stop that, spend more time on sex.

Elliot: I mean sexual stuff. Kissing has a lot in common with sex. It's a form of cheating on your sexually exclusive partner, it's something people get jealous over, it's foreplay for sex, it's a form of touching, it arouses people.

Elliot:

Map Out the Hot Spots in Your Neighborhood
Make it your mission to fool around in every prime passion nook of your neighborhood -- behind trees, on nearby park benches, under a lamppost. Every time you walk out your front door with your dream guy, hit one of these desire-designated areas until you have the whole area PDA'd.

Elliot: 9/11 are about sex. This continues the same themes we've been noticing. Do more sexual stuff. It's romantic.

Elliot:

Write Him a Sexy Check
While you're taking care of the bills, take care of your guy with a personal payment for head-to-toe kisses, suggests Godek. "Tell him he can cash in anytime."

Elliot: 10/12 are about sex. This again says to have more sex. And it also seems to imply the guy can't have as much sex as he wants without a special gift.

Elliot: She doesn't have to. But sexually frustrated and deprived people is not good. Notice that the attitude of assuming the woman won't want to is setting people up for problems. If the cultural norm is that guys and girls want different amounts of sex, then that must result in tension. I'm not sure it's true though. Girls want sex too. They just don't like to admit it.

Elliot: Sex is dirty, impure, unchaste, sinful, and taboo. It's carefully hidden from children, and from other people in general, and people, especially girls, often feel guilty. Sex has to be justified, by a loving, romantic, relationship, or it's wrong.

Elliot: A lot do. Caring is considered nice. But it's true that most of the pressure is on girls. Look at Islam: if a girl is raped, they blame the girl. It's her responsibility to be chaste, no matter what. And abortions for rape victims is still a controversial issue in the US.

Elliot: Yeah. And there's a whole issue, among psychologists, about rape victims (girls) blaming themselves. We're all familiar with the reasons, too. They're well known. She dressed sexy, and attracted him, and flirted too much, and has breasts, and guys can't control their urges anyway.

Elliot: Let's do one more and then stop for now.

Elliot:

Make Out Every Time You're Alone in an Elevator
Use this love-lifter as a cue to sneak in a secret smooch session.

Elliot: Yup. And it's the same theme of having more sex, and having it differently to make it less boring.

Elliot: Sure.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot:

Play the Dating Game
Get out of the same old Saturday-night film-and-food groove. For your next date, come up with three out-of-the-ordinary evening ideas -- perhaps a starlit ferry ride, a game of mini golf, dinner at a restaurant with a kind of food you've never tried, or even seen, before -- and write them down on index cards, suggests David D. Coleman, coauthor of Date Smart! How to Stop Revolving and Start Evolving in Relationships (Prima Publishing, 1999). "Then, have your guy blindly choose one of the cards and embark on a mysterious, exotic adventure."

Elliot: Yeah. No matter. What stands out to me is that this is supposed to be exotic and mysterious, but the examples given are all very well-known, usual ideas. And even if this works, won't most people have personally tried them with a previous partner?

Elliot: That they are seeking mystery in the mundane, and somehow this works for people. So either they are unfamiliar with the mundane or forgetful. Neither of those is an impressive quality.

Elliot: Also, this tip uses randomness to try to make things more exciting. But I advocate an intentional life. Think about which activity you'd like best, use your best judgment, and do that one. Letting chance decide is abstaining from living part of your own life.

Elliot: Thinking doesn't have to be painful, or time consuming. But even if we imagine thinking is sometimes distasteful, people do think often. So, what is the explanation which shows that the particular decisions that are especially painful, and must be avoided, are ones like which fun activity to do, from a short list?

Elliot: That's right. It's an easy decision with limited options and only pleasant results.

Elliot: If they choose randomly, and have a bad time, they might blame themselves for choosing to choose randomly.

Elliot: Yeah. So that isn't an argument against any of their options.

Elliot:

Read Seductive Stories to Each Other
Pick up a steamy best-seller like Vox, by Nicholson Baker (it certainly got Monica boiling for Bill), and take turns reading it aloud. "My boyfriend and I love sharing juicy novels," says Liz, a 30-year-old producer. "We'll get in bed or curl up on the couch and take turns being the narrator. At first I was a bit nervous and rigid -- I sounded like Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone -- but eventually I found my natural rhythm and got really turned on by it. It's so utterly romantic because we're in this sort of fantastical fictional world together rather than sticking our noses in our respective books. And listening to my boyfriend's voice is unbelievably sexy."

Elliot: Some of the messages are: romance is about fantasy; they would have read their own books, because they have different interests, if not prodded to do otherwise; it's good to find voices (and all sorts of things) sexy; you should focus more of your life on sex and romance (by reading "steamy" novel -- note the euphemism).

Elliot:

Go Postal
Create some surprising postal passion by mailing I-want-you notes to your man. Start by telling him exactly what you love about every part of his body.

Elliot: Why doesn't he already know he's wanted?

Elliot: Is he insecure? Or maybe most days she is not passionate about wanting him (for sex)?

Elliot: So the advice is she should be more interested in sex, and feel more passionate about it, more often. Just like most of the others. By the way, what if she doesn't love every part of his body?

Elliot: That's an unpleasant set of options.

Elliot: Never mind that for now. Just notice that romantic monogamy offers unpleasant choices.

Elliot:

Play Barber Babe
Show your man some passionate pampering by giving him a sensual shave. After his morning shower, lather up his face with a great-smelling shaving cream and slide the razor in the direction the hair grows. "It's a way to steal a very intimate moment when you're both usually so rushed to get out the door," says Kelly, a 26-year-old massage therapist who loves to groom her guy. "Not to mention the perfect excuse to straddle him."

Elliot: Why does she need an excuse to straddle him? They'll both like it, apparently.

Elliot: Setting things up so that talking ruins the fun is awful. How are people supposed to decide what's best without saying their preferences?

Elliot: Yes, mostly. One could answer, for example by saying, "sign language".

Elliot: How come they are rushed to get out the door, by the way? This isn't a flaw in romance, but it is a flaw in conventional culture. As a pattern, they have this unpleasant morning rush.

Elliot:

Tempt Him With a Slew of Where-to-Find-You Clues
Make your usual rendezvous a million times racier by keeping them mysterious for your man. "I have a standing Friday-evening drink date with my boyfriend," says Sue, a 27-year-old tax attorney. "To keep it exciting, I have this trick for spicing things up: I send him on a treasure hunt ... to find me. I pick an obscure, out-of-the-way bar, one we'd never normally go to in a million years. Then every hour on the hour during the workday, I send my boyfriend an email feeding him clues about where I want him to meet me that night -- little riddles that hint at the name, landmarks that will lead him to the location. When he puts all the pieces together, he finds me waiting in the most private booth I can find. Now he's scheming up the next mystery meeting."

Elliot: What if they don't find each other?

Elliot: Or she could get mad that he "doesn't know her at all" because he couldn't understand some obscure hint, and he could be mad about wasting his time looking for her. So he calls her cell phone, and she says "if you don't know, then I'm not going to tell you". Then they break up because both are angry about different things and neither will apologize.

Elliot: Or they might have angry sex before that. Sex doesn't actually solve the problem. They'll still break up later. Or get married, and fight for their whole lives.

Elliot: What's needed is an attitude of problem solving. This is lacking in romantic relationships, where compromises are expected.

Elliot: It's a course of action no one thinks is best. The goal should be something that everyone thinks is best.

Elliot: You think it's the best option available?

Elliot: Then it's not a compromise, it's getting what you want.

Elliot: You think your way is not best, but you want it to happen anyway?

Elliot: You want the wrong thing to happen?

Elliot: That's not good.

Elliot: Whatever you think would be best to do, you should want to do that.

Elliot: If the "compromise" proposal doesn't get you what you wanted, why would you think it's best?

Elliot: OK, it probably is better than fighting. But that's not the real alternative. The alternative could be to try to think of some plan that you'd be happy with, that didn't involve any fighting.

Elliot: No. It seems more like it was assumed that wasn't possible, so it was never tried.

Elliot:

Hold the Sports Section Hostage
Steal the paper before your guy gets a chance to check out the scores. Place a ransom note on his pillow and insist that your demands for A.M. sex, smooching, and snuggling be met before you'll consider giving him access to the stats.

Elliot: Yeah. The assumption is that he'd rather read about sports than have sex, so he should be forced into sex.

Elliot:

Outlaw Work Talk
Make office gripes and groans a taboo topic when having dinner with your doll. "My boyfriend and I make meals our time," says Anne, a 29-year-old furniture maker. "We talk about upcoming vacations, friends, movies -- anything that lets us share ideas instead of bombarding each other with tales of work woes. After eight hours of focusing on other people on the job, it's such a luxurious treat to indulge in some time that's all about us." If professional topics accidentally pop up, quash them by saying, "Get your mind out of the grind and back onto me."

Elliot: If she considers office-talk unpleasant, why would he talk about it? And why is the default assumption that they find each other's work boring?

Elliot:

Give Him an All-Day "Scentual" Reminder
"The next time your guy sleeps over, spritz a small item of clothing -- scarf, underwear, camisole -- with your signature fragrance, and slyly slip it into his briefcase or backpack," suggests author Corn. "With your sexy scent wafting out every time he reaches into his bag, he won't be able to take his mind off of you." When the clock strikes 5, he'll follow his nose all the way to your front door.

Elliot: It's based on sensory stimulation. He slept over last night, so coming to the door may not mean immediate sex, but can be assumed to mean sex that night. Since we counted touch-focussed ones, I think smell-focussed should count too, to be consistent. So, 16/21.

Elliot: I guess so. Sex is a type of sensory stimulation. Not just touch, but smell is said to be part of it too (and the others, of course). And the quote even says specifically that the smell is intended to be sexy.

Elliot: It demonstrates that romance pays a lot of attention to sex. Sometimes people deny that.

Elliot: To disingenuously defend romance.

Elliot: "If romance is supposed to be a way to have a good relationship, then why is it mostly about sex?"

Elliot: Right. Everyone agrees to that. That doesn't mean sex can't be there. But there has to be other stuff. Otherwise it's just a fling, for fun, and won't last.

Elliot: Yes.

Elliot:

Get a Sound Track
Create your relationship repertoire by picking a few favorite songs (a sentimental score, a sultry in-the-mood croon, a sassy "Feel the Earth Move"-type number) that really capture the essence of your couplehood and make them yours by playing them on romantic, sexy occasions.

Elliot: Yeah, presumably they'll just want to dance, or hold hands and feel special. Which might lead to sex. But so might going out to dinner, and absolutely everything else couples do.

Elliot: Fights can. Apologies can. Eating can. Movies can. Going to sleep can. Doing something together can. Missing each other because they were apart can. What can't?

Elliot: Washing each other off could be sexy.

Elliot: Sounds tense. They'll want to relax afterwards.

Elliot: OK, you win. :)

Elliot:

Compliment Each Other in Public
"My girlfriend tells everyone that I'm the most talented person she's ever met," says Andrew, 28, a teacher. "She'll tell a cashier, 'We'll take a chocolate brownie because my guy so deserves it.' When she introduces me, she says, 'This is my hilariously funny boyfriend' or 'Meet my handsome boyfriend. He puts George Clooney to shame.' My heart jumps every time. I swear it makes going to the deli sexy."

Elliot: Why do they feel the need to exaggerate so badly? I think they're insecure.

Elliot: Only if the truth is good. But it might not be. They probably honestly aren't sure about each other -- they don't know if they'll want to marry or not -- and that's scary.

Elliot: Yeah. It's ever present.

Elliot: This is an advice column. In many ways, it's better than people actually, usually do. It's an idealization. It's also worse in some ways, because people don't always take romance this seriously. But if taking romance seriously makes things worse, that's a damning criticism of romance.

Elliot: Please don't have kids with someone just because you like the sex and have romantic moments.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: How about authority?

Elliot: Believing ideas because they are backed by some authority is a blight on our society.

Elliot: That's all true. It could be worse. But it could also be a lot better. Take government. Although people distrust it in certain ways, they also think governments have special, magical powers. Only governments can solve public good problems. How? By force. Why can't normal people solve public good problems by using force? Because force is bad. So why does it work for the government? Because people trust the government to do the right thing and not make mistakes. Which is absurd given its record.

Elliot: The reason "argument from authority" is a well-known fallacy is because it's a common fallacy. It needs to be pointed out because people do it all the time.

Elliot: Experts can be wrong, but people often assume they are right, or likely to be right, and trust them based on faith, without knowing the expert's reasons, arguments, or method of reaching his conclusions.

Elliot: Who knows? Being right isn't a matter of probability.

Elliot: The reason experts are valuable is that in certain circumstances we can reasonably expect they have looked into issues for us, using methods we would approve of. When we ask a lawyer what the law says, we're saving ourselves the trouble of looking it up. We'd only want to look it up ourselves if we thought we might know something the lawyer doesn't.

Elliot: One of the critical things is that I only listen to the lawyer if I agree with him. If I think he's mistaken, he has no authority over me. I'll form my own opinion, and argue with him, and I won't consider him likely to be right.

Elliot: But it's a frequent occurrence in debates that someone says scientists, research, or "the experts" back his side. That's silly. Expertise cannot overrule disagreement. If I disagree, the person needs to give actual reasons that his side is right. If experts have come up with good arguments, he could quote them, but they will only have whatever power is inherent in the arguments.

Elliot: We can reasonably suppose that a scientist has done something before saying this. If we want to say he's wrong, we'll need to answer whatever basis his claim has. If your neighbor says stuff, it's likely he has just made it up. In other words, when a scientist says something, it's an idea that has been subjected to a lot of criticism already. When your neighbor says something, that isn't so.

Elliot: Yeah.

Elliot: Not necessarily. I can think about ideas, and criticize them, just as scientists do.

Elliot: That's correct.

Elliot: People get the things you summarized wrong, frequently. But that is indeed not the end of the world. I was thinking of a number of other issues as well.

Elliot: There's authority over children, granted to teachers, parents, and adults in general. There's government authority, as I mentioned earlier. There is religious authority. But none of those are the worst of it.

Elliot: The worst forms of authority are very subtle. Imagine you play a game, and win. Should you feel proud?

Elliot: Did you? Perhaps the game was very easy.

Elliot: It could. But the point is that feeling proud automatically is trusting in the authority of the game designer. I believe that it's important to think about games we play, and consider whether beating them is something to be proud of or not.

Elliot: There are games designed for young children which are simple and I wouldn't be proud to beat, today. It's true that games designed be large companies generally meet some minimum quality standards. However, there are a lot of other games available to play. Many computer games come with "world editors" that let users create their own games. Most of these games are badly done and they often include godly items that let you easily win.

Elliot: It depends how easy they are to acquire. If a game gives rewards much greater than the difficulty of the task achieved, then it becomes very easy. That should be boring. But many people keep playing. They are submitting to the authority of the game designer, even though he's just a regular user with no special expertise. They aren't thinking.

Elliot: In a good game, you'll be learning things. You'll be able to beat the same areas faster and more efficiently after you've played a lot. You'll know useful tricks that you discovered, which weren't obvious. In computer and video games, you'll learn things about the AI, and find its weak points.

Elliot: Artificial Intelligence. Whenever there are enemies in a game, controlled by a computer chip, they have an AI which tells them what to do. It's often very simple and can be taken advantage of.

Elliot: Because it's not simple to discover how they work. You see the individual actions that the enemies perform, but the AI consists of a few fairly universal rules. You have to try to find patterns and form general explanations from what you observe.

Elliot: Consider chess. When you learn more, you'll be able to beat people you couldn't before. And you'll know more patterns. And you'll be better able to invent new patterns. You'll know general principles like "control the center", and you'll know why they are important, and when not to follow them, and how to take advantage if your opponent doesn't do it.

Elliot: In a bad game, you might just issue an "attack" order and your hero will kill everything, because he's too strong. There's nothing to learn, no interesting ways to win faster the second time. Or imagine you have some spells. How many different ways are there to use them? If there's only one way to use each spell, then there's very little decision making, and little to learn. But if there are a lot of options to keep track of, that's a better game.

Elliot: That's true. No game is absolutely, completely worthless. Their value is on a continuum. Some are very bad, others are very good. We should only be a little bit proud if we beat a very bad game. The main point is that we need to consider how hard the game was before we're proud to beat it, instead of just assuming that the game creator did a good job.

Elliot: Another issue is competitive games that aren't fair. Suppose there is a game where one person controls orcs, and one humans. You might assume that if you're beating another human being then you must be doing a good job. But that is only true if the game designer made the game fairly fair. If humans are actually ten times more powerful than orcs, then the only way you could lose is if the other person was ten times better than you.

Elliot: I've watched people play games where one player gets a huge advantage, use the advantage, and go kill other players. They think that's fun. The advantage is generally something that takes no control to use, like attacking really fast for lots of damage, and having tons of health.

Elliot: There are a lot at school. People give undo authority to The Instructions. Many people try to do exactly as they are told, and get confused if the instructions aren't clear. They don't think about what might be a better way, or whether they are learning much. I remember people would refuse to take my suggestions simply because the instructions said to do something else. They didn't offer up any reasons that the way in the instructions was better, whereas I did give reasons that my way was an improvement. But it didn't matter. The instructions had authority.

Elliot: Another example is that when people want to learn about something, they often do their homework. Is that the best way to learn the material? Rarely. It's one-size-fits-all learning, and that's not ideal. But people assume that because the lesson plans and assignments were designed by experts, they are best.

Elliot: Suppose people are playing a game together. And don't worry, this is completely different than I was talking about earlier. Now, the rules say to do one thing. But one player doesn't want to. He thinks that won't be fun or interesting. He wants to make a change. Many people will refuse on principle. The rules have authority.

Elliot: This is terribly frustrating. You're in a room with three friends. No one else is around. There should be nothing here to thwart you. It should be very easy to get what you want. But you start playing a game, written by people far away, and for whatever reason you don't like part of it. That's no surprise, games aren't perfect and it wasn't designed for you personally. No big deal, right? Just change it. But your friends may call you a cheater, and think you just don't want to lose. They may think they are winning and like it that way. They may say games have rules for a reason. If you're playing with your parents, they may tell you that you can't change the rules of life, and you'd better get used to it.

Elliot: There are experiments that psychologists have done. They'll assign people roles. Some of them have authority, and some don't. It's not like before everyone plays there part. The people arbitrarily given authority aren't special in any way. They don't know best. But it doesn't matter.

Elliot: In one experiment, everyone was divided into two rival groups. The groups fought. Why? Because they respected the authority of the people who put them in groups. They accepted the rules they were told of how the experiment would work. They cared more about that than being nice to the new people they met.

Elliot: There's another experiment where they told people to use electric shock on others. Even when the others screamed and begged them to stop, they kept doing what they were told. They were told it was important. They had faith. (In fact, the people being hurt were only acting.)

Elliot: Often, just naming something gives it authority. Instead of asking what's the best way to do something, people often pick a named thing, and ask how that school of thought handles it. What is the Attachment Parenting way to handle bullies? What is the Parent Effectiveness Training way? People choose an authority to submit themselves to, and then try to get all their answers from it. Lost is what would be rational and what would work well.

Elliot: This is very common. People want to know the Zen way to think about something, so that they can be Zen. They want to know the Christian way to approach something, so they can be a good Christian.

Elliot: If someone goes up to you and says, "Will you do whatever I say, for a while?" you will almost certainly decline. That's a terrible deal. You should only do what he says as long as it sounds like good ideas. But if he says, "I've found out about this new way of living, called Mystara's Glory. It will make you happy." then a lot of people will agree. And they'll find themselves doing whatever he says, and asking how to do it better. All he has to do is veil his orders with a name, and people will think the name must have at least enough authority to be worth a try.

Elliot: Sure. If you liked Zen ideas in the past, you might be interested in hearing more because you think Zen may be a good source of ideas. And knowing the source and history of ideas can help you understand them better.

Elliot: Never obey authority.

Elliot: Because I said so.

Elliot: Excellent :)

Elliot: More seriously, people should think for themselves more. Make your own choices, live your own life, be independent, and take responsibility for what you do. If someone tells you to do something, or a Proper Noun tells you to, and you do it, that's your decision and your responsibility. I don't care if it's Hitler, or your father, or Zen. You need to make your own evaluations about what's a good idea. There isn't much point being free to live your own life and have your own ideas if you don't actually use your freedom.

Elliot: Because people try to excuse German soldiers who were "just following orders," and that is no excuse.

Elliot: Bye.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: Because people want to kill us.

Elliot: What difference does it make?

Elliot: We've tried to reason with them. It hasn't worked. I'm not saying it's impossible. But apparently we don't know how.

Elliot: There aren't any signs that we were.

Elliot: As far as pissing them off, and why they want to kill us, there are mixed messages coming from various places. The Western media would have us believe that our cultural imperialism and colonialism, and arrogance, and stuff like that is to blame.

Elliot: Theoretically it means that we should not meddle with other countries, and certainly not try to control and exploit them. But the left advocates all sorts of intervention in other countries. It isn't actually isolationist.

Elliot: Sure. No one disagrees about that.

Elliot: Suppose an American company opens a factory in a third world country. They offer work for 20 cents an hour. They make a profit. Some people say this is exploitation. Others say it's just offering people an opportunity, and if they didn't consider it an improvement, they wouldn't take it.

Elliot: No one is forced to take these jobs. They want to. That's not exploitation, it's free association and free trade. If anyone actually is forced to take a job, that actually is wrong and, more to the point, criminal.

Elliot: By force, I meant if the company sends thugs to beat up people who quit their job. If you're "forced" to keep your job in order to continue being paid, that is not exploitation.

Elliot: They will be paid higher wages when there is more competition for their labor. The more people that want to hire them, the more leverage they'll have. So, if they start more local companies, then foreign companies will have to offer higher wages to get any workers. And if more foreign companies come to "exploit" them by offering jobs, they will compete with each other and wages will go up.

Elliot: Yes, you've got it. But bear in mind that there are other obstacles those people face.

Elliot: Violence. Not by visiting Americans, but by other locals. And by their own governments. And their governments confiscate and squander wealth.

Elliot: In many cases, they don't elect them. They live under tyrants who took power by force. In other cases, they don't know better, or none of the other candidates looked better, or the guy made false promises and fooled them.

Elliot: If we spread democracy to those countries, and helped establish good political traditions, that would help. They don't have a lot of things we take for granted, there. Respect for human rights is not ingrained in their culture, nor is the idea that interactions should be voluntary.

Elliot: Not really. I'm just saying that if you want to help those people, that would help. Not much else would. For example, giving them money is little help, because their governments steal it. Or the people themselves squander it, because they aren't knowledgeable about how to use wealth efficiently and effectively.

Elliot: If there was an intervention that was popular enough and well thought out enough to get a hearing in American political debate, I'd almost certainly be in favor of it. But I don't spend my time telling people that what we really need to do is go help Africa.

Elliot: It isn't our problem. When people say American companies are taking advantage of these people's circumstance, that's silly. We didn't create their circumstances. All it really means is that they are willing to trade with people who don't have much. That's far closer to kindness than exploitation.

Elliot: Nah. It's profitable. It's just trade. Free trade helps everyone involved.

Elliot: Continuing on, it does matter if there are people in the world in bad conditions. They are humans beings. People matter. It is not our responsibility. But if we can help, that is a perfectly good thing to do. And if we can help at a profit, that's even better. That's a good reason to prefer helping them through trade and offering jobs (which is a form of trade) instead of through government intervention, which is paid for with taxes, and not designed to make a profit.

Elliot: Voluntary charity is a thousand times better than involuntary (government) charity. My only concern is how effective it is. Is it really doing much good for the amount of money spent?

Elliot: Fair trade is a doctrine that says free trade is good sometimes and bad sometimes. It opposes any trades that people don't like. For example, minimum wage laws are a form of fair trade. What those say is that any trades where someone's labored is valued less than a minimum amount are illegal.

Elliot: However much money they feel people "need"? I don't know. I guess whatever is politically feasible.

Elliot: They make it illegal for unskilled people to get jobs. If your labor is worth less than the minimum, you can't sell it. Unless you can get someone to overpay you.

Elliot: Labor has a market rate. It's governed by supply and demand. The more people want to purchase a hour of a certain type of labor, the higher the wage for that hour of work, because sellers are in a good bargaining position. The more people want to sell those hours, the lower the wage, because buyers are in a good bargaining position. The more other people you could trade with instead, the better deal you can ask for.

Elliot: Yeah, it is. Or it should be. So, labor has a price that it's worth. If you set the minimum wage law too high, now that can't be sold.

Elliot: If it's set so low that it doesn't exclude any trades, then it has no effect whatsoever. The only possible effect of minimum wage laws is to make certain trades illegal.

Elliot: First, they can't handle the idea of unskilled people. They don't want anyone to have to live on very little money, so they just try to ban it. They like to imagine there is plenty of money to go around, and the only problem is greedy capitalists.

Elliot: Indeed. And that isn't exactly a problem, anyway. If we had free trade, these people would have better, richer lives than their parents did. And they'd quickly move up in the world. Of course they'd like to be rich now. But most of them will be happy to work their way up, if given a chance.

Elliot: Yes. A few people benefit. But mostly it just destroys jobs, by making many jobs illegal. However, it does create an artificial scarcity of labor for certain jobs, and thus raise the price.

Elliot: Of the people who would have been paid below minimum wage, some lose their jobs entirely, and some are paid more. That isn't exactly working. But it's worse. Consider the ones who are paid more. That money has to come from somewhere. It comes from employers. A lot of these employers are small businesses who don't have extra money. The owners have to work longer hours because they can't afford to hire enough help. And they raise their prices. If prices go up, being paid more isn't as helpful. Most people lose out.

Elliot: Indeed. When you forcibly prevent free association and free trade, that makes a big mess. Free trade always involves two parties who want to be there, and who both think they are benefitting. Who could object to that?

Elliot: :)

Elliot: We're at war because people want to kill us. Some people in the West think this is because of unfair trades, racism, cultural insensitivity, and so on. But that's false. If you listen to the people who want to kill us, that's not what they actually say.

Elliot: They frequently say that they hate Jews and Christians, and want to subjugate and kill them, and force Sharia on them. And they believe that America is Satanic. And keep in mind that this isn't just terrorists, these are standard things that Imams say at religious services, and leaders say on TV in Arabic.

Elliot: Very strict, Islamic law. It's nasty stuff. For example, women are treated like dirt and are stoned for adultery.

Elliot: That's a good question. If you can get them to answer it, I'd love to hear.

Elliot: So, what else do the terrorists say? Here are some of their generic bullet points:

• They (meaning Jews and Crusaders) are Conspirators who have been, and are, responsible for all the woes of Muslims and they are planning much worse. (If you believed that of someone, wouldn't you want to kill them too?)
• They (Jews and Crusaders) are corrupt in that they are promiscuous, their women are whores, they are materialistic, they gamble, they trade with interest, they don't kill their homosexuals, etc...
• They love life, while Muslims love death. (Here, the underlying allegation is that, being corrupt, there is nothing they will risk their lives and comfort for, and hence they are destined to be defeated.)
• They attacked us and occupied our lands and oppressed our peoples, and we want bloody revenge.
• They do not follow Islam.

Elliot: The men who committed the 9/11 attacks said that they were mad about Bosnia.

Elliot: We used military force against Christians to defend Muslims.

Elliot: Who knows. It doesn't make sense. Perhaps because they are ignorant. I think what's going on is our enemies hate us first, and make up excuses second. Whether the excuses are coherent doesn't make much difference. The West apologizes for the terrorists and makes up more Western-friendly excuses, and their own people know that it's all just different ways of saying "death to the infidels".

Elliot: First, let me warn you: this stuff is unpleasant. It involves death and suffering, and callous disregard for life.

Elliot: They have textbooks in schools in the Arab world with maps that don't have Israel. They indoctrinate their children with lies and hate. There was an incident where a school was on fire. Some girls tried to leave. Not so fast. The religious police caught them: they didn't have enough clothing covering them. It was improper. So, the religious police sent them back into the fire to die. Fifteen girls died. These cultures we are dealing with don't value human life like we do. Especially not female life.

Elliot: Yeah. It also makes it implausible that the real reason they want to kill us is because they are upset about some incident we caused. They cause worse incidents, themselves, all the time.

Elliot: Careful with "can't". We could. It's within our power. But, we rightly do not want to. Not everyone is part of the religious police, or a terrorist. People are full of contradictions. They cheer the 9/11 attacks because Americans were hurt, worship Osama for his great success, and also believe the US government or the Jews were behind the attacks. That's a contradiction. Sometimes they don't care for life. But other times they do. A lot of them would like a better life if they knew how to have it. A lot of them would be happier living in peace.

Elliot: That's racist. Arabs are just as capable of being free and democratic as white people.

Elliot: Bad traditions, bad culture.

Elliot: Use force as necessary, to defend ourselves. But also use persuasion, and spread knowledge. Like everyone, they are capable of improving.

Elliot: By defensive force, I don't mean waiting and retaliating. I mean taking whatever measures are necessary to defend ourselves. It's whatever policy is required to keep us safe. If that means making attacks against people who are a threat, but who haven't attacked yet, so be it.

Elliot: In many cases we can. There are such things as terrorist training camps, weapons depots, meeting rooms, bunkers, fortified positions, and monetary backers. Those are all good targets. Without them, the terrorists are much weaker.

Elliot: If a terrorist training camp is not within our borders, people say that States should be sovereign, and to let the local government deal with it.

Elliot: Nothing if they do it. Everything if they don't.

Elliot: Yes.

Elliot: Yes.

Elliot: That's what I always say.

Elliot: Yes. That's unfortunate.

Elliot: If hurting innocents was always wrong, no matter what, our hands would be tied. One terrorist straps babies all over his body, and he's invincible. He kills whoever he wants. And if property counts, all he has to do is steal a robe. If we shoot him, we damage someone's property.

Elliot: Take reasonable steps to minimize collateral damage, such as never aiming at innocents. But do not take any steps that are suicidal.

Elliot: If a step would kill Americans then that's no good. We shouldn't kill ourselves. Not ever. Not even one person.

Elliot: We don't face decisions like that. We face decisions about what policies to have. The policy I suggest would actually save countless lives. People would very quickly stop screwing with us. Any terrorists would be completely unwelcome anywhere. The civilian populations would be highly motivated to do something about them. If they don't, we will.

Elliot: Then those people are aiding terrorists. That doesn't mean we'll target them on purpose. But if they decide to sleep next door to a terrorist, and die in a bomb blast, that is no disaster.

Elliot: Things are murky today. We try very hard to protect people. Frequently even people that concretely aid terrorists. But certainly people who are only complicit, and don't do anything about terrorists, or help in minor ways. By protecting their ability to help terrorists, we encourage them to do so, and we prevent it being clear who is guilty or not. This ambiguity is the largest cause of collateral damage.

Elliot: Exactly.

Elliot: Yeah. Good intentions don't guarantee good results.

Elliot: Bye.

Elliot: Hi, Caeli.

Elliot: No.

Elliot: Doing something because it's in your interest is good. Doing it because you are forced to is bad.

Elliot: Greed means trying to get stuff you want. It could be money, it could be other stuff. It is the things you value. Things you consider to be in your interest.

Elliot: They are cheating. When one person gets what he wants, and it isn't money, they don't call it greed, even though it's equally self-interested. When another makes money, that is greed. And by the way, money is just an "I owe you" for actual, real stuff. Money should not be the object of scorn anymore than wheat is. Money is actually quite nice: it's easier to carry around and doesn't go bad.

Elliot: Treating customers well is profitable.

Elliot: That doesn't mean treating customers well isn't profitable. It is.

Elliot: No. It's important that treating customers well is a way to make money. It works. We shouldn't overlook that.

Elliot: If you trick people, or do anything else but sell/trade something valuable, then you are working against people. You have to outfox them. That is far harder than cooperating with them. Now and then it has spectacular results, to be sure. But frequently it has bad results. But Cooperation consistently has good results, and also has more spectacular results.

Elliot: Yes. Fighting with people over the wealth that already existed is a silly strategy, when you can just make more.

Elliot: Then there is an opportunity for someone else to sell a similar product, but in a more transparent fashion. Or for him to inform people about your shoddy work.

Elliot: Then you've managed to trick the entire world. Congratulations. But that's very hard. Your workers could talk. How will you stop them? By paying them a lot?

Elliot: I thought this was about narrow-minded greed. But now you want to pay your workers well.

Elliot: The better you do, the harder it will be to prevent leaks, and the more rewards are available for someone who spills the beans. There are other issues as well. Consider new hires. They have nothing invested in the company. For many of them, being fired in their first week wouldn't be that big a deal. How will you keep them quiet?

Elliot: Having to pay a lot of money to all your workers, and more besides to new people, just to keep a secret, doesn't sound like the best way to get rich. Secrets are expensive. But it's worse than that. Not everyone will accept money. Many people have principles.

Elliot: Greed doesn't motivate people to do bad things, because doing bad things does not make your life rich and fulfilling. Doing bad things turns people against you, and it is bad to be that way and makes it hard to be creative. The greedier someone is -- the more he cares about achieving things -- the more he will want to ensure he gets it. And there's only one reliable way to do that: create valuable, good things.

Elliot: They, too, should create valuable, good things. Like philosophical dialogs, or Warcraft III maps. This can bring them fun or knowledge. Or if they want to attract a desirable wife, the best way to do that is to be a worthwhile person with good, valuable things in his life.

Elliot: If you aren't trying to get good things for yourself, then you're not greedy. This is very dangerous. What will you try to get? Common candidates are to increase the fairness of the world, or the proselytize for a religion, or to try to hurt people.

Elliot: It means going around interfering with people. It means deciding that their way of living is unfair, and doing things to them by force. Like taking their stuff and giving it to poor people.

Elliot: No. Not unless they make it.

Elliot: Yes. And everyone can. They should get jobs. It's easy. No one is stopping them.

Elliot: Then help them, on your own time, with your own wealth.

Elliot: It's OK. But in general poor people are the ones who have made bad decisions about what to do with resources. That's why they don't have any. They squander wealth. Helping those people is often a waste.

Elliot: Productive people who have a large effect on the world. If you can make a brilliant scientist just a little bit happier, so that he makes better inventions, that could make the whole world drastically better.

Elliot: Well, in the abstract, consider this: there are people who are skilled at using resources in good ways so that they have large, beneficial effects. They end up with more resources, and so does everyone else. People like that, due to logic, are likely to end up rich. And on the other hand there are people who constantly make bad decisions. Every time they use wealth for something, it turns out badly. Those people will end up poor, due to logic.

Elliot: They don't. There are people with inheritances who are not doing much of value. But never fear: those people will either soon be poor, or they will hoard their money so it won't do anything bad.

Elliot: Quite the opposite. If the silly rich person sit around with pieces of paper, that is absolutely great. He isn't causing any trouble, and meanwhile some other person has the actual stuff the paper represents, and will do useful things with it.

Elliot: Perhaps. But no matter. Loaning money is a great thing: it gives poor people an opportunity to control a lot of wealth. This means that poor people who are skilled with wealth can get a chance to use some, and do good things.

Elliot: Yeah. So as I was going to say, there are also poor people who are not incompetent and stupid. But, again, never fear: they can and will move up in the world. They will make good decisions, and their wealth will increase. And, as we've discovered, if some rich person will loan them wealth, that will be great. Both people will benefit: the rich man took a risk on this person, and will be paid for it. And the poor man will make a huge profit and keep a lot of it. Their mutual greed lets them cooperate.

Elliot: That is a very important possibility. The result is that both people will be poorer. And that's as it should be: the rich man had bad judgment to loan this person his money, and now he won't be able to make that mistake again. And the poor man squandered money, and now no one will want to loan him money again. So the whole system is self-correcting. The people who do well have more power to make decisions about what to do with wealth in the future. And the people who do badly, end up with less power to make decisions.

Elliot: I want to add at this point that lending money is a very important skill. It is not a way that rich people hurt us. A man who has a talent for finding skilled people who lack capital, but who want to do great things if only they could get started, is very important. He irons out the bugs in the system. Instead of having government wealth redistribution, we have loans. We have people who actively seek out people who should have wealth distributed to them, and who personally give them money. That is wonderful.

Elliot: What would you do with it?

Elliot: It's a good thing that people are too discerning to give you much, then.

Elliot: That's true. That's a small enough amount that it's no big risk to a rich person. And even someone who works at minimum wage will make many thousands of dollars per year. So anyone can pay that back.

Elliot: Yeah. Without people willing to take a risk on you, it'd be harder.

Elliot: When people trade, they both think they are benefitting. And they usually really are, because they have different needs and priorities. This is purely good, and it's purely voluntary. The reason people trade voluntarily is that it helps them. Their greed -- their desire to benefit themselves -- makes sure I have plenty of people to trade with. If they weren't greedy, they wouldn't be motivated to trade with me. They wouldn't bother. That would suck.

Elliot: If someone was doing something at gunpoint, no one would call that greedy. Greedy actions always refer to things people choose to do, voluntarily, because they want to. It's meant to slander their motives. But never mind that. It proves the person is living freely. That is great.

Elliot: Who cares? As long as they don't hurt people or do criminal actions then you have nothing to complain about.

Elliot: As I've said, he hasn't hurt you. He's just living his own life. Leave him alone. Just as you want to make your own choices, let him make his. That's what living in a voluntary way means. No one does anything they don't want to. People have a right to their own lives.

Elliot: Interventions are also capable of leading to disasters, and in fact they frequently have.

Elliot: No. If it's such a good idea, then what's the point of using force? Persuasion will be easy.

Elliot: Tell your idea to people.

Elliot: You could solve this by figuring out how to explain it better. So that's one solution available to you. You could also solve it by explaining to them that you know something, and it's very important, but they don't understand, but despite that you'd really like them to take a certain action that will have good results. You could persuade them to do this. So that's another solution available to you. Third, you could think of a way to make their intended course of action not cause a disaster.

Elliot: Often, yes. There's a very common example of this. Suppose an airline company is going to need a lot of fuel, and you know the price is going to go way up soon. What do you do? Well, you could tell them to buy a lot, so they don't go out of business. But the don't believe you. Now what? Easy. Buy fuel yourself. As the price goes up, sell your fuel, thus increasing supply and keeping the price from going up as much.

Elliot: Yeah. Keeping prices stable is very profitable, and it helps people a lot.

Elliot: "Greed is good" is a cheat code in Warcraft III.