bogus comments on Using Evolution for Marriage or Sex - Less Wrong

17 Post author: diegocaleiro 06 May 2013 05:34AM

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Comment author: knb 06 May 2013 07:22:44PM *  7 points [-]

I do believe that humans have intentionally attempted to reduce the risks of having sex. We have in particular invented several kinds of contraceptives, condoms, spermicides, and vaccination with the conscious, deliberate intent of making sex less dangerous.

I understood all of that, you were quite clear about this in your post. You think that the danger of sex is biological and that this has been vanquished by vaccines, condoms, etc. In reality, most of the power of sex to harm is social, emotional, and psychological. You are feigning expertise, without even considering the emotional, psychological, and social ramifications. It is pretty common to see this kind of shallow, hyper-atomistic (not considering ramifications upon society), reasoning on Less Wrong.

I do, sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the vast majority of humans, regardless of age and gender, would lead better and more pleasureful lives if they had sex more often, with less guilt, with less fear.

There is substantial evidence that sexually promiscuous people (distinct from people who have frequent sex) are less happy. It is also a fact that married people have more sex (and more varied sex) than demographically comparable singles. Since married people are also significantly happier and report better health, it seems likely that it is not sex *itself that causes people to be happy, but rather that people who are in stable, happy relationships are also having more sex. Yet your post instead argues that people should just have more sex (including casual sex with strangers, multiple partners, etc.), ignoring the vital element of being in a stable, long-term relationship--in spite of the fact that promiscuity actually is associated with lower happiness. This is inexcusable. Do not give advice about topics when you have such a shallow understanding.

Comment author: bogus 06 May 2013 07:28:19PM 9 points [-]

promiscuity actually decreases happiness.

You have not shown this. Perhaps less happy people tend to engage in more promiscuous sex as a way of compensating for their lower happiness. Perhaps there is a common cause of both factors, e.g. excitement seekers might have more promiscuous sex, and also have lower happiness set points due to the same neuro/psych factors that cause them to be excitement seekers.

Comment author: knb 06 May 2013 07:34:06PM -1 points [-]

Fair enough, although the overall point still stands. He is arguing in favor of promiscuity, something associated with lower happiness.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 07 May 2013 03:04:08AM 10 points [-]

Students who go to my office hours are generally at slightly below average grades in their class. If someone said that encouraging students to go to office hours was arguing in favor of something associated with lower grades, how would you respond?

Comment author: jaibot 08 May 2013 01:40:39PM 1 point [-]

If someone proposed that encouraging students to go to office hours was leading to lower grades, I'd try to run a semester with little to no office hours notification/encouragement to see if it held up.

In this specific example, it's not inconceivable that the lack of office hours would make students more determined to focus during class and seek out other avenues that may prove more useful. I doubt it, but it's in the realm of reasonable possibility.

Comment author: diegocaleiro 07 May 2013 02:53:15AM *  1 point [-]

I felt like I was trying to help people get what they want, improving instrumental rationality. Long-terming frequently ends up in marriage, monogamous marriage even. More sex doesn't mean more partners (except when changing from 0 to 1, which is an important transition), and I don't understand why you think it does.

I personally think that being in a long-term relationship is a very good move for a human who wants to achieve higher levels of happiness. I have been in 4 over the last eight years, and will celebrate 3 years of the current one this Wednesday! :) I'm very glad about both of my longer relationships thus far (both 3 year long).

I most wanted to help Long-terming women and Long-terming men achieve their purposes, whom through the mild levels of autism, or high levels of influence of the PUA community, may have been mistakenly suffering about their prospects and endeavours.

I don't think that qualifies as promoting promiscuity. (note: I also do not object to promoting promiscuity)

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 May 2013 03:31:34AM 3 points [-]

I am trying to help people get what they want

Careful, this is a good way to get people addicted to superstimuli.

Comment author: diegocaleiro 07 May 2013 04:04:12AM 2 points [-]

Yeah, good point. I'm feeling addicted to reading and replying to this post now, which obviously is decreasing the signal to noise ratio of the post itself and my and other's early comments. For the sake of my future self, and my addictive self, I'll refrain from any further commentaries. (Please if you, reading this, downvoted the one comment which I said eluded me, still explain why, I'm baffled).

I'll catch up with my Masters now. This semester of experimenting writing on Lesswrong was great. Thanks to everyone who read this :)