bramflakes comments on Rationality Quotes September 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: jaime2000 03 September 2014 09:36PM

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Comment author: bramflakes 12 September 2014 06:33:41PM *  4 points [-]

The idea that marriage is purely about love is a recent one.

Adams' lifestyle might work for a certain kind of wealthy high IQ rootless cosmopolitan but not for the other 95% of the world.

Comment author: shminux 12 September 2014 07:26:59PM 1 point [-]

If this is a criticism, it's wide off the mark.

Note his disclaimer about "the best economic arrangement". And he certainly speaks about the US only.

Comment author: bramflakes 12 September 2014 07:35:30PM *  1 point [-]

And it speaks volumes that he views it as an "economic arrangement", like he's channeling Bryan Caplan.

Comment author: gjm 28 September 2014 01:49:03PM 1 point [-]

I don't understand.

It looks to me as if Adams's whole point is that marriage isn't supposed to be primarily an economic arrangement, it's supposed to be an institution that provides couples with a stable context for loving one another, raising children, etc., but in fact (so he says) the only way in which it works well is economically, and in any other respect it's a failure.

It's as if I wrote "Smith's new book makes a very good doorstop, but in all other respects I have to say it seems to me an abject failure". Would you say it speaks volumes that I view Smith's book as a doorstop? Surely my criticism only makes sense because I think a book is meant to be other things besides a doorstop.