I need some relationship advice. I suggested 125% but my wife won’t budge from 10%. Is this normal? How did it go when you had this conversation with your romantic partner?
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Wow this guru of AI and rationality is a dipshit. Makes me wonder about all those Silicon Valley folk and vc people that take him seriously. 🤔
You do realize this is satire though?
No, I know this dude’s deal, he is 100% for real (or trying to get a reaction, but that’s not satire on its own). His posts are often like this.
Wait what?! Not for one second did I think that this could be anything else than satire
Yudkowsky is well-known for his work in AI. He occasionally makes jokes, but it’s usually about AI (not relationships). I know that on his profile, it says something like “when I don’t use punctuation, it’s a joke,” akin to Reddit’s /s.
And yeah, he left off a period on the first post, though not the other two. But that said, he rarely makes multi-part jokes. It’s pretty clear to me, having read his posts and articles for a while, that he means this.
To further clarify that this is a “rationalist” of the highest order, consider that he wrote a half-a-million-plus word fanfic of Harry Potter, but with Harry studying science instead of magic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality
I hate that I love that story, but HPMOR is actually genuinely really good.
No shame in that! It is actually pretty well-written, and it has some engaging points. I’m not “anti-rationalism” or anti-this-guy or anything like that. LessWrong did more for global altruism than I ever will.
I’m just pointing out that a person who has dedicated their entire public persona to an ideology (or lack of one) is probably not joking when they start evaluating romantic partners with supposedly objective percentages.
No kidding. Anyone who thinks the hallmark of a good relationship is being able to determine the point at which they would dump their SO for someone “better” and somehow distill that down to a concrete (yet still highly subjective) number should just avoid relationships altogether. At least until they’ve consulted a proctologist about removing their head from their own ass.
Be glad she didn’t insist on -10%.
all you have to do then is lower your own ‘rating’ so far that finding someone ‘worse’ would be impossible.
“Is this normal?”
No, it is not normal to state what percent-better-person you would leave your romantic partner for. It’s cynical and narcissistic.
What if your partner is in an accident that changes how they look or live? Now that they’re X% “less” than what you signed on for, you can just dip?
Like I get being upfront about stuff, but this is just transactional. It’s not about your commitment to another person, it’s about maximizing your return on investment.
You could have answered my question a bit earlier, I broke my nose this morning and now her divorce lawyer has informed me that my neighbor across the street has gone up to 12% better than me.
EDIT: I just went over and broke the guy’s kneecaps and am now happily married again.
Mozel tov, may your love enemy forever crawl on his belly
And wait till they start disagreeing on if that person is really “75%” better. I bet you this guy is single
This Eliezer Yudkowsky. He wrote a bunch of nerd fanfiction, and is apparently mostly famous for his takes on AI. He is a public figure.
This is surely satire right? Why’s everyone taking it so seriously?
Someone else commented that this dude often posts stuff like this and it’s not satire…
Yikes…
If this tweet is real then I would 100% expect something like this from this guy.
Edit: I mean I think Yudkowsky is being sincere. The lemmy OP is clearly a jokeYou can never be sure on the Internet. Plus, I know there are people who think like this; my mom did something similar to my dad when I was a kid. When they were first dating she told him she didn’t want to be tied down, a sentiment that he thought was long over by the time they got married. Much to his surprise, she was angry that he wasn’t more accepting when he caught her cheating. Decades later, she still claims that she was entirely justified, and that my dad is an asshole for getting angry at her.
Sorry to hear that bro.
STA
I wish people who thought like this were just upfront about wanting non-monogamy rather than sneaking around and causing pain and strife for those around then.
Like, my wife (and partner) practice ethical non-monogamy and have fire years. If one of us wants to stay outside of our thruple, we talk about it and discuss how we feel, and then make a decision everyone is happy with. There are times where something is denied (last one was because of a bad partner she ended up breaking up with a month later, who went full ‘you can’t fire me I quit’ on her), but we all work through it.
Communicate is not that hard…
People need to communicate these things. If either myself or my partner wants to be with someone else, it is discussed. It allows everyone to make an informed decision going forward and no one is betrayed. Only time this ever happened with us, we were with the same person
This is a stupid measure. I say that because every person I’ve dated, which isn’t a short list, puts their best foot forward when they start seeing someone. For some, that’s just who they are, they stay consistent, but IMO, this is rare.
For most, the “mask falls off” at some point and you get to see the seedy underbelly of who they are. All the “warts” in their lifestyle, personality, decision-making etc. Usually after you’re committed to a relationship with them and they get more conformable.
This, in and of itself, denotes a certain uncertainty in dating. The person you meet is not the person you will end up with after a few years. I recognized this in myself and decided for myself not to do it. There’s still parts of my personality I kind of restrain in spite of this policy because some of my darker humor can be rather off putting on the first take, and usually makes a bad impression if said so early into knowing someone that they don’t take it as a joke, which it was intended to be. It doesn’t help that I usually joke about things very deadpan, so new people tend to doubt when I say “it’s a joke” and jump to the conclusion that I’m just saying that because I’m trying to save face. Which I’m not, but that’s another matter.
My point is, even for me, you don’t meet the person, you meet their idealized view of what they want you to know of them. So someone who seems 10%/25%/125% better than your current partner, isn’t really a valid comparison. You’re comparing someone who you know their “ugly” side, to someone who you have only met their representative personality. Their % “better” may be artificially inflated because you don’t have the whole picture.
The other issue I have here is that while he’s correct that “not everyone sees marriage like that” or whatever, they should. Marriage is a vow. A vow is simply a commitment to uphold into the future, regardless of circumstances. During a wedding ceremony, you vow, before your friends, family, the officiant (a legal representative) and God (if you believe in such a thing), that you will love, cherish, have, hold, another person, in sickness, health, good times and bad, until you die. You’re making a very serious promise to do those things forever until your death, in front of everyone you hold dear.
Divorce breaks that promise, and a legally binding contract.
Personally, I couldn’t give any shits if others break their word with their marriage vows/contract, but the purpose of the vows is clear. This is a promise that should not be broken, and can only be terminated by death. Vows are supposed to be the highest form of a promise, one which cannot be broken. But people do it.
That’s the theory at least…
People’s misunderstanding of what that means, IMO, is mainly a lack of being educated on what the words are spelling out. People don’t take vows anymore except in marriage. It’s fallen out of fashion to commit yourself to something with a vow. Because of the relative scarcity of such vows, they’re only used in marriage now and the misunderstandings of what a vow should represent is staggering. The only other person’s who take vows in the current era are doctors. They take the Hippocratic oath, which is, in essence, a vow to “do no harm”, yet, it can easily be argued that harm is actively inflicted during every medical procedure. Whether placing an IV, taking blood, or doing surgery, you’re actively harming your patients; but it’s generally understood that such things are a requirement to help people. It’s still committing harm for the benefit of the patient, but it is harm nonetheless.
I’ll step away from that aside since it’s not relevant to the core point, that all of these comments made in the image posted by OP are a demonstration of this fundamentally short sighted thinking and poor understanding of the commitments you make.
I’d like to actually discuss the problems I perceive with Yudkowsky‘s take for a moment, before everyone can go on with telling each other how crap his opinion is.
First, quantifying emotional states is hard, if not impossible at the moment. This could easily lead to misconceptions and misunderstandings, as it is not clear what x% “better” means. Second, people probably don’t always want to live in constant fear of getting dumped by their partners. I mean, I get it, if you are in a relationship where you would leave your partner for someone else it’s definitely not a bad idea to be clear about that, but I don’t think that is the norm at all in relationships “even” apart from marriage. So his tweet about marriages being an agreement to ignore other options is not wrong itself, but he seems to lack the understanding that many relationships outside of marriage include this social contract as well. Especially in a monogamous relationship, this view does not seem to make sense to me as it’s just a possibly emotionally hurtful way to tell your partner about your fear of commitment.
My problem with it is that the percentage changes day by day
I fucking hate this guy
Ive no plan to meet second best nor be second best and I wouldn’t want to put someone through that nor go through it.
We live in a world of consumption and throw away culture, we should have more respect then to inflict these ideas on living breathing and feeling people.
Fuck that guy and his creed.
I seriously doubt that’s his creed.
It’s clearly meant as a parody of the way relationships end, but said out loud, in advance, to show the absurdity of exactly what you called out: “trading up” out of a relationship.
The whole point of his post, was to get people to realize how shitty it is to think of people that way.
No this guy is a guru and has influenced a lot of silicon valley with this type of “parody” look him up if you haven’t already.
Oof, fair enough. I just ran head first into Poe’s law. Thank you for the added context. Yeah, he’s a piece of shit then.
If you ever think abour that, Eliezer, I’ll get you bitten by Roko’s basilisk.
His gf
Being poly makes this a non-issue. In the case that one of my partners meets someone else they want to date at least as much as me, they do. This seems to lead to greater overall happiness.
I know for a fact that Eliezer is open to dating poly people, although I don’t know if he is himself poly or just poly compatible.
If they meet someone they want to date more than you, why would they keep you around? You’re 75% less ideal. What are you bringing to the table, besides a lower average score for the polycule?
Why are you the voice of my insecurities? :p
Clearly it’s because I’m another dedicated player for the polycule tabletop game.
Not sure where that 75% number is coming from?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to poke at your anxieties! I was remarking on the arbitrary nature of the original post.
While you’re probably right that Eliezer is open to dating poly people, the post in question definitely appears to take a monogamous stance—that is, the question of whether to exchange one person for another of “higher value.”
Saying that you’re cool if
one my partners meets someone else they want to date at least as much as me, they do
is different from
I’d trade up if I found somebody 10%/25%/125% better than you
which is what the original post said.
My partners bring a lot to our relationships. I find it a lot harder to understand what they see in me.
My sense is that he is talking about the modal relationship in our society, that is mono, and in which my understanding is that people often (I would say at least 10% of the time?) do in fact have the “trading up” nature. That being the case, I think it’s better for the participants in a relationship to be aware of that, and at what threshold to expect it? Having a moderately awkward discussion early on seems better than the heartbreak later.
This is coming from a very ask / tell culture perspective. I’m autistic enough (diagnosed, not slang / common use) that guess culture / relationships as imperfect information games is a distinctly negative experience. I don’t find any “magic” in not considering bad outcomes or pretending that potential futures don’t exist (the “happily ever after” expectation) or in leaving things unsaid.
I wouldn’t call 10% of the time “often,” but let’s entertain the idea that it’s a popular concept regardless. We’ll say 100% of people are like this. And they’re constantly trying to trade up. What does that look like? Would most relationships be based on mutual trust and compassion, or would they be cynical cycles of mercenary evaluation?
Meanwhile, though you seem very rational, even the most rational person isn’t free from their subjective experience or perception. It begs the question: how much do you trust your partners’ assessment of you, or themselves, to stay the same for years to come? I can promise it will not. In this paradigm of value-over-commitment, all relationships (even poly ones) are doomed to fail.
When you make a proper commitment to someone (or multiple someones), you’re not shirking the negative possibilities by leaving your “trade-up threshold” unsaid. You’re saying, “I accept the good with the bad.”
And no, I’m not saying people should stick with an abusive partner or someone they don’t like or love. I’m saying that the “trade-up” model is an oversimplified view that places the onus of being “good enough” on another person while shedding the fundamental responsibilities of growing both as individuals and together.
Sure, “happily ever after” is a fantasy, but working toward a lifelong partnership isn’t—unless, of course, you’ve got one foot out the door from day one.
If things change, either internally or interpersonally, and people do change, then I’d rather be able to have an open discussion in those cases as well. I’m into my seventh year with my primary, and I don’t foresee things breaking down in a hurry. Still, if being with me was bringing him more suffering than satisfaction, I’d want to know that. It may be that things can be improved within the relationship, although they likely won’t without communication. It may also be that things can be improved within the relationship, in which case I’d prefer to know that. I want my partners to be happy, and while there would be an emotional hit to learn that they would be happier without me, I value them being happy more than I value trying to maintain a relationship that is a drag. Like fish, once the relationship is dead I think it’s better to get rid of it before it starts to stink. I don’t think that a relationship that doesn’t make the people in it happy is worth maintaining for the sake of maintaining it.
All I’m saying is, much like using a litany of addons for World of Warcraft, that it’s possible to optimize yourself out of happiness. I don’t trust myself (or anyone else) enough to say what “percent” better someone would need to be to ditch a long-standing partnership, and anyone who does is probably a narcissist.
It’s from the image post.
I have had this easy with one simple trick: be naturally worse than literally any other person out there and you’ll never need to worry about someone trading up because they won’t take you to begin with!
Checkmate logic dude!
Tell me you’re a 44 year old man with a Messiah complex who spends his Friday nights trolling college bars for girls his estranged daughter’s age without telling me.
I’m pretty sure the ROI for relationships with people who quantify abstractions is in the negative.
They are. Which is why these people go for FWB…if they can even get that
I honestly enjoy seeing people like this with batshit insane but logically consistent views. Makes things much more fun
This guy essentially founded modern “rationalism.” He has millions of literal followers, not just the Twitter kind. His dumbass is the one that spawned the Effective Altruism cult that has become extremely popular with tech bros. Sam bankman-fried, Sam Altman, Elon musk all subscribe to this “philosophy.” It’s all batshit insane and incredibly stupid.
Hold on, he’s serious?
Yes, he basically has a cult dedicated to his whims. He’s pretty stupid
Damn, I thought he was shitposting, that’s sad.
Yup. Satire no longer exists, welcome to 2024.
As an autistic dude, I feel like I know that it’s weird too say, but I also feel like it makes sense. Like it’s hard to quantify x% better, but I’m sure there is a number, for me at least, where if someone is that much better and would date me, I’d do it. It’s not romantic to say, but it’s true. And I’ve been dumped for other people twice so the same must have been true for them.
It just feels like one of the thousands of unspoken rules you’re not allowed to talk about out of politeness. But honestly I would like to know that number for my SO.
If you’re curious about an alternative view, I suggest The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Relationships are about growing your own and the others natural abilities, something you do and not about trading something you have. The OP post is a materialistic view and a belief in inequality. YMMV.
He’s also the psycho who founded a movement which designed to let insane billionaires justify spending their money however they want, no matter the people they hurt now, as long as it’s ‘for the greater good’ long term.
The OOP needs to kiss the business end of a wood chipper if you ask me
sure. just codify the human experience of love, marriage, sex, relationships, family and their interpersonal connections and the entire population into a single integer in a way that the difference between 42 and 43, and 1 and 153, is meaningful to everyone regardless of race, culture, creed, ethnicity, language, class, location, age, upbringing, wants, needs, desires, hopes, dreams and in a way that remains meaningful for up to 8 decades as well as the first meeting of a relationship and encourages people to feel safe, confident and happy to leave a relationship based on a relative number to their assigned integer. It should keep you busy for a little while but I look forward to seeing what number you assign to, for eg a Liberian refugee in Sierra Leone or a Changar itinerant harvesting travelling village, or Prince Harry of England and when I see it I can say “ah, yes, an 81, of course.”
So the idea is you set the playing field with this subject, with zero intent to actually play ball.
Become inscrutable. It’s hard to find the percentage of an unknown quantity.
They’re off thinking about percents but you’re about to become the equivalent of Andy Kaufman. One minute they’re convinced you’re Elvis, the next they’re wondering if the breadcrumb trail you’ve left about faking your death is a joke or something you’re real about.
