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?
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.
I find the quantification of very emotional topics not very helpfull in the long run:
What counts as "10% better"?
Do you know if the number, should it even exist, stays consistent? Or that you got the "correct one"?
My advice:
Find out what you seek out in a relathionship, what you want to avoid, and then talk about it.
Because "10% better" could just mean the other guy is driving more carefull with the family-car, doesnt chew with an open mouth or shaves more often.
Yeah the idea that somebody has a percentage rating of quality is genuine lunacy. It's also sociopathic to overlook that being fond of someone despite their flaws or "lower rating".
This seems to be the whole point. Neg the other person and make them question their own worth. "Oh, no! I'd better keep them happy. Is THAT GUY 10% better than me!?"
If they chew open mouthed and are not amenable to change that is a straight up deal breaker, sorry not sorry, my misophonia doesn't leave room to compromise on that.
I got uncomfortable just reading 'chew open mouthed' shudder
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.
Can you post some bikini pics of your wife? I think I'm at least 11% better than you.
I also choose this guy's wife.
It's a reddit reference sir, but it checks out.
Now now. Let's form an orderly queue here.
Not a circle? Or a blowbang?
"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.
And wait till they start disagreeing on if that person is really "75%" better. I bet you this guy is single
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
This is surely satire right? Why's everyone taking it so seriously?
You 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.
STA
Sorry to hear that bro.
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
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 joke
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?
It's from the image post.
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.
I still kind of miss DBM, since I raid on FFXIV these days.
I would expect a narcissist to be completely incapable of making such an evaluation to any degree of accuracy; the kind of self honesty it would require seems foreign to my understanding of the narcissistic mind. Is it possible you were thinking of sociopathy here?
Playing hypothetical games like this are poisonous to a relationship. My advice is to not do that kind of thing anymore.
Yea I would have this conversation with my partner but as a joke that we'd both find amusing.
I had a boyfriend who early on told me if he won the lottery, I would no longer be part of his life.
Then guess what happened? I got a ridiculous family inheritance and he was no longer part of my life.
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.
Yeah I've had this conversation but percentages are too hard. I said if it comes down to where they need to tabulate and weigh pros vs cons then I already lost. I don't want to be in those kinds of games.
I understand why someone would say this, it’s just acknowledging your own shortcomings in a way and realizing that you can’t be everything that someone might want. But so what? If someone is willing to do this math with you, then they’re not really appreciative of you as a person. Imperfect is fine, insecure is not.
"Legibility" 😆
How has no one else screamed "HE MEANS ELIGIBILITY!" ??
I think he means "legibility" as in being more clear, upfront, honest, open. It's still a weird way to use the word
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