Rational approach to finding life partners

c_edwards

Speaking from personal experience, finding the right relationship can be HARD. I recently came across a rational take on finding relationship partners, much of which really resonated with my experiences:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner.html

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner-part-2.html

(I'm still working my way through the Sequences, and lw has more than eight thousand articles with "relationship" in them. I'm not promising the linked articles include unique information)

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner.html

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner-part-2.html

(I'm still working my way through the Sequences, and lw has more than eight thousand articles with "relationship" in them. I'm not promising the linked articles include unique information)

For any given potential worker, it is good if they are able to have a job if they want one.

But no one in particular is obliged to give them a job.

However, it is generally understood that society as a whole is obliged to arrange things so that everyone who wants a job can find one. Furthermore, a lot of people don't seem to agree with your claim that "no one in particular is obliged to give them a job", at the every least they seem to think this is someone's duty even if they're not clear on whose.

One way in which I would expect politicians and pundits to treat those two cases differently: if we think it good for more people to have jobs, it's socially and politically acceptable to suggest that incentives be put in place to encourage people to employ them; but if we think it good for more people to have sex, it's not so acceptable to suggest incentives for that. I think that shows that sex is a sensitive topic; I'm not sure it indicates anything worse.

Except sex used to be an even more sensitive topic in the past, and it was taken for granted the society had a duty to arrange for people to have the opportunity to get married.

The reaction advancedatheist got, so far as I can tell, was founded on the idea that he thinks women have an obligation to have sex with men.

The statement "women have an obligation to have sex with men" is ambiguous. However, Mirzhan_Irkegulov presumed that it was meant in a creepy way and is thus unacceptable. By contrast consider Part III, Article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:

(1) The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right.

(2) The steps to be taken by a State Party to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include technical and vocational guidance and training programmes, policies and techniques to achieve steady economic, social and cultural development and full and productive employment under conditions safeguarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual.

Notice that it is also vague on just who is obliged to provide the employment but carries no such presumption of creepiness.

Okay, it seems to me that people use the word "right" with at least different meanings, and misunderstand each other as a result.

As a EU citizen, I have a right to travel to other EU countries in the sense that, if by mutual consent between me and an airline I buy a plane ticket and take a plane to Poland, I must not be stopped by the police or anybody else. (By comparison, I don't have a right to travel to Pakistan unless I get a visa first.) But it sounds like there are people using the word "right" with a narrower sense, according to... (read more)

1gjm11y

No society on earth that I know of has ever achieved this, and I'm pretty sure it's usually felt that one can't have an obligation to do something impossible. I think the actual sentiment is the one I already expressed: if someone wants to have a job, it is better if they can get one. (On the face of it, the International Covenant thing you linked to contradicts that, but I'm pretty sure it's (1) intended aspirationally, as if it were proclaiming a right to happiness or a right to good health rather than a right to work, and (2) primarily aimed at measures whereby people try to stop one another working -- e.g., discrimination where some racial or cultural group is systematically unable to find jobs.) Anyway, it's not clear to me what your actual argument is. Do you think that someone in this discussion (Mirzhan_Irkegulov, me, the United Nations General Assembly, I dunno) holds inconsistent opinions? If so, what inconsistent positions? Because all I'm seeing so far is that sex and jobs are kinda-sorta a bit similar but not the same, and my opinions on them are kinda-sorta a bit similar but not the same, and I don't see what the problem's meant to be.