How to Keep Someone with You Forever.
This is a description of "sick systems"-- jobs and relationships which destructively take people's lives over.
I'm posting it here partly because it may be of use-- systems like that are fairly common and can take a while to recognize, and partly because it leads to some general questions.
One of the marks of a sick system is that the people running it convince the victims that they (the victims) are both indispensable and incompetent-- and it can take a very long time to recognize the contradiction. It's plausible that the crises, lack of sleep, and frequent interruptions are enough to make people not think clearly about what's being done to them, but is there any more to it than that?
One of the commenters to the essay suggests that people are vulnerable to sick systems because raising babies and small children is a lot like being in a sick system. This is somewhat plausible, but I suspect that a large part of the stress is induced by modern methods of raising small children-- the parents are unlikely to have a substantial network of helpers, they aren't sharing a bed with the baby (leading to more serious sleep deprivation), and there's a belief that raising children is almost impossible to do well enough.
Also, it's interesting that people keep spontaneously inventing sick systems. It isn't as though there's a manual. I'm guessing that one of the drivers is feeling uncomfortable at seeing the victims feeling good and/or capable of independent choice, so that there are short-run rewards for the victimizers for piling the stress on.
On the other hand, there's a commenter who reports being treated better by her family after she disconnected from the craziness.
Interesting. I suspect that sick systems are actually highly competitively-fit, and while people who opt-out of them may be happier, those people will propagate themselves less, and therefore will be overwhelmed by Azathothian forces.
Is there any way to combat Azathoth aside from forming a singleton?
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