= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
pjeby comments on Unknown knowns: Why did you choose to be monogamous? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (651)
This is a generalization, but men who can stick to their principles are generally more attractive.
Look at it this way: if you can actually "get away with" having relationships that meet your preference, then this is social proof that you are being judged valuable enough ("in the marketplace") to be worth having non-exclusively.
Conversely, if you accede to a request for monogamy, this is evidence that you do not consider yourself that valuable, or that you are unable to get other people to agree with your value assessment.
In short: acceding to a request for monogamy in overt contradiction of your preference is a statement of low self-esteem/confidence, and would be expected to reduce your attractiveness even to the person who made the request for monogamy.
Did the passion in those relationships increase or decrease following your concession? I would guess it decreased, and by more than would have occurred had you not made explicit your preference for polyamory.
If you want polyamory, you'll have to make it a principle, not a preference, and (IMO) state it before someone is even in the position of considering a relationship with you. In this way, merely interacting with you expresses a tacit commitment to at least consider it, and as your perceived attractiveness increases, so will the apparent reasonableness of your principle.
And, your attractiveness increases with your perceived willingness to sacrifice for your principles: this is a highly-valued trait, and a big part of why firefighters, soldiers, doctors, etc. are considered more attractive (than the same person without the role), even though an aspect of their sacrifice is decreased availability to their mates.
Edit: fixed typo of "over" for "overt"
del
True - what I said had an implied pre-commitment that they would not be attractive to you (from the initial meeting forward) if they were the kind of person who would make such an ultimatum. So, there's definitely a first-mover advantage from the game theory perspective as well. ;-)
Interesting, really... there are a number of PUA tactics (the entire subject of "qualifying" and "disqualifiying") that could be considered relationship negotiation via precommitment to not be even interested in the first place, unless one's own criteria are met. I don't know if anybody's actually explicitly discussed those things in terms of game theory per se, but that'd be an interesting topic.
Yes - but that's when it's his idea because he's so in love that no other woman will suffice to interest him, not because she gave him an ultimatum to give up pursuing those interests.
Ah. Different subject, then, I suppose.
del
'Usually will not'. Identity, affiliation with a subculture can override this consideration at times.
Affiliation with a subculture makes a lot of things way easier. Have you been reading Brad P?
Making a subcultural commitment may actually lower your average attractiveness to the entire population of women (most of who are not in that subculture), but it increases your variance in attractiveness across the female population, increasing the proportion of women who are into you to a high degree.
I don't how well this principle applies in reverse for women attracting men.
Never heard of him. Link and/or surname?
The obvious hypothesis, crude as it may be, is "It applies but is much weaker. Girls still have boobs either way." The premise clearly being that physical attractiveness on average plays more of a part in females attracting males than the reverse.
Retract the literal component of the link or surname request. Obviously google can answer the question for me (bradp.com!). Leave the signal of genuine interest and openness to receiving further information with respect rather than rejecting it as infringements upon social territory by a potential rival.
(What I have been reading (too much of) is Harry P.)
Um, what about all those married guys cheating on their wives? Not all their partners are deceived about the men's marital status, and of those not deceived, surely not all can be dismissed as not being "hot girls" in your rating system, nor can all the men in such situations be dismissed as "super-alpha".
So, your belief has too high a confidence rating, unless your definition of the "hot" set includes a term for "won't date me except exclusively", or your definition of the "super alpha" set is defined so as to exclude yourself. ;-)
(That being said, I'm not arguing that you change your belief or behavior instrumentally -- just pointing out that, epistemically, your map is out of alignment with the territory.)
Which has got to be the worst definition of "super alpha" ever! ;)
del
If the theory of hypergamy is correct, and women are indeed more selective on average, the large majority of women are typically going for guys who are at least slightly "out of their league" (which I will operationalize as "higher in rank attractiveness within ones gender).
My hypothesis is that lots of difficulties in dating between men and women stem from the same source: a difference in what each gender is willing to settle for. There may be a tendency of females to only settle for males of higher rank attractiveness, while males are willing to settle for females of "merely" equal rank attractiveness. Males want females at the same level of rank attractiveness, but those females are looking past those males at other males of higher rank attractiveness; meanwhile, males receive interest from women at lower levels of rank attractiveness, who they just aren't that into.This means that both genders experience the same difficulty a lot of the time: what you can get, you don't want, and what you want, you can't get.
Couldn't you have just agreed to always use condoms with other people, but not each other, for roughly the same amount of protection in a non-exclusive relationship? ("Roughly" because condoms aren't perfect.)
del
Good point. I'd almost forgotten that one. That convenience is a huge benefit.
del
Is it about friends with benefits?
del
-fart-
Agree and add that it is also possible to have a 'principle' that commitment to a monogamous relationship is something that you do at times but that it is a big step that really means something in relationships that takes time and a particularly special connection. When things must be earned we experience them as so much more valuable.
A caveat is that principles, particularly more complicated principles, should never be lived (or signalled) in a way that is at all wishy-washy.
del
Something like this happens in Dorothy Sayer's novel "Strong Poison", and I gather it happened in the author's life (but she couldn't talk about it, it being the 1930s). Man demands non-marriage relationship, woman gives in, man later concedes to marriage, woman flips out and leaves him.
That is a nice sounding story that is no doubt handy to illustrate a principle. But I basically don't buy it at all. Those roles are highly valued because they are high in status, come with power and are an established part of the authority system of the culture. Perceived willingness to sacrifice for your principles is in this case definitely not a (positive) contributing factor to the attractiveness of those high status roles.
I suspect it's not general willingness to sacrifice for principles-- it's willingness to sacrifice for values that the society agrees with.
This is closer to the mark, but I still assert that the sacrifice is not a positive contributor to the appeal.
If you take two roles with equal power, equal authority, equal recognition as 'official' and equal reliance on physical prowess then the one that requires the least sacrifice will be the most attractive. Having to give up resources to get your power is a strict negative in the signal it sends.
This is obviously not related to what those in a given high status role will say or even believe about the appeal of their station (and the dictator at the top says he's only doing things for the greater good too.)
Sacrifice is something that you (the hypothetical aspirant for power and status) convince others is the right thing to do, that you declare sincerely is the way to success but you never actually do yourself if you can avoid it. It is far more efficient and effective to simply declare that you have made sacrifice and implicitly threaten physical or social punishment for anyone who questions your word. Observers will be attracted both to the obvious lack of sacrifice that you have to make and to your ability to have other people go along with your make believe. (This process is best left unconscious. Acknowledging it explicitly is so banal.)
It's not the sacrifice, it's the willingness to sacrifice, that thereby demonstrates commitment - that one is capable of protecting and providing for one's partners.
This is a distinct and separate measure from the amount of resources one has control or influence over. If you have a lot of resources, but are stingy, then you might actually be less suitable than if you had few resources but were willing to risk them all on something you believe in... as long as your potential mate believes they can get you to believe in them.
Are you kidding? What actual power does a firefighter or soldier have, at the bottom rung of the power structure? How about an EMT or a rescue um, tech? (What do they call people who rescue people?) What about lifeguards?
Conflating everything with "status" or "power" isn't useful here. There are occupations that don't give you extra respect or deference in society at large, and yet still have the increased attractiveness due to association with principle. Artists and musicians, for example, can often get this attractiveness bonus even if they lack any power or status in society at large... and in fact, the choice to sacrifice money or power for their creative principles is often a driving factor in that attractiveness.
The power over life and death. Being one of those who enforces the rules rather than the one enforced upon (with all the benefits that entails - see anything by Robin with the keyword 'homo hippocritus').
I don't accept your premises regarding artists either. I think it will be better for us to simply acknowledge that we fundamentally disagree on this particular topic. It has been my observation that many of your presented beliefs are better optimised for being healthy beliefs to instil in people than as raw descriptions of reality. (That too I obviously don't expect you to agree on, although I don't mean it as a slight. It is a valuable role, just not compatible with my thinking.)
Actually, these professions have vastly more rules imposed upon them. And what rules does an EMT enforce? "Power of life and death" doesn't make a lot of sense here, nor does it make sense for artists or musicians.
Your statements don't reflect a consistent model here, as it doesn't have any consistent predictions about what professions should and shouldn't be considered attractive. Instead, you just change your explanations, or avoid giving an explanation entirely. (e.g. "I don't accept your premises regarding artists").
OTOH, I'm making a testable prediction: an observable increase on average in indicators of attraction, admiration, or arousal (facial expression & autonomic responses) among women hearing about men who are in some profession that involves personal sacrifice for others or for a principle, controlled for whether the profession has any actual societal status or power, and provided that the principles or persons sacrificed for are not directly and personally opposed by the listener as a matter of vengeance or personal principles.
For example, I would predict that participation in say, a Big Brother program, or other volunteer activity would make a man be considered more attractive than a person who did not so volunteer, provided that their other attractiveness factors were considered.
I do not predict that power, status, an so on are not attractive; I'm just saying they're orthogonal to the element of ability to effectively precommit, whether it's to sacrifice for others or for one's principles. Either way, evidence of ability to successfully follow through on a precommitment is attractive in a person.