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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21700 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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He’s married, and has a secondary on the side.

Wait, who is the secondary? My understanding is that the polycule was a thing of the past.

I think it came up at some point in the last six months of Astral Codex but I had a quick scan and didn't see it. I still think it's true but take with a pinch of salt.

EDIT: he mentioned it again in an article this week. See parent comment.

If we're going to have this whole discussion about regulation, it is perhaps worth noting that for many, this would have been understood to be a contradiction or at least a betrayal - the affair at best is an undermining or a betrayal of the marriage, or at worst, is a sign that he isn't validly married at all.

(Traditionally, valid marriage requires intent - to marry someone, both you and they must agree to marry each other, freely, with full knowledge of what marriage is. Given that Scott and presumably his partner did not intend sexual fidelity to one another when they said their vows, their vows are deficient - they were not made with correct understanding of what marriage is, nor with the intent to constitute a marriage properly understood. Ergo he is not married as such. This is still the formal position of e.g. the Catholic Church.)

At any rate, yes, I think it is probably true to say that Scott's situation is highly atypical, and not a good one to generalise from. Does he feel subjectively happy? No idea. But the rules that govern his relationships are weird, and would not work for all or most.

I feel like this whole Bay Area rationalist scene is a group that - and I don't mean this pejoratively, though I realise it may sound like this - would benefit from acknowledging their own freakiness. They are a small, highly-selected group of weirdos. They are bizarre. They should not generalise from themselves to humanity. This is the case for most small highly-selected groups, and it is always worth remembering. Most people are not like you.

We don’t say “freakiness” we say “outlier” or “tail of the Bell curve” or “unrepresentative” or “three standard deviations out”.

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