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Val comments on Open Thread April 4 - April 10, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Many people are aware of Alicorn's post on polyhacking. There are a few things which have been written on bihacking, though I haven't seen bihacking discussed within the rationalist community as widely as polyhacking has been. Bihacking is the process of actively trying to become bisexual.
First, there are a couple sources which suggest that people can have "epiphanies", after which they become bisexual, or perhaps just recognize their latent bisexuality. This may be due to the fact that they are able to tell themselves different stories about their feelings towards others after having an epiphany. Here are two relevant links:
Secondly, some people have had mild successes with working towards bisexuality by slowly starting to explore new experiences:
I fear a time will come when people who don't want to try <del>polyhacking</del> bihacking will be labeled as homophobic. And that will just further dilute the term.
When you write "polyhacking", do you actually mean "bihacking"? If not, what you say you fear seems to me a very odd thing to fear.
Actually, I would be quite surprised if (within, let's say, the next 40 years, and assuming no huge technological changes that would affect this) heterosexuality + unwillingness to try to become bi were enough to get anyone widely labelled as homophobic. (I'm sure there are already people who would apply that label, but not enough to have much impact.)
[EDITED to add:] Just to clarify, the point of the second paragraph is that I find Val's fear not-terribly-plausible even if "bihacking" is what s/he meant.
You are right, I meant bihacking, my mistake.
My concern was based on the observation how the word phobia (especially in cases of homophobia and xenophobia) is increasingly applied to cases of mild dislike, or even to cases of failing to show open support.
I agree that -phobia gets applied much more broadly than my etymological sensitivities would prefer, and I expect that (unfortunately) to continue. But what I find unlikely isn't anything to do with word usage; I just don't expect that any time in the near future it will be widely held that you mistreat any group by not going out of your way to make yourself want to have sex with them.
I could be wrong, of course. And, as I already said, I'm sure there are some people who hold that kind of position even now. But it doesn't seem to me like the kind of silliness that would ever attract a lot of support.