"The thing is, I actually do endorse polyamory. I mean, not in the sense of thinking everyone should do it, but in the sense of thinking it should be an option. I think there are some people who tend to do better in monogamous relationships, some people who are naturally polyamorous, and some people who can go either way." - Eliezer Yudkowsky

According to the 2014 LessWrong Survey Results, 15.1 % of the LessWrong community prefers polyamorous relationships to monogamous ones. If you don't know what polyamory is, it's been described as "consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy. (Source). This excludes (formerly) monogamous relationships where one party is "cheating", i.e., engaged in an additional sexual or romantic relationship in secret. Semi-monogamous, or "monogamish", marriages and relationships may be count as polyamorous in the minds of some, but may be eschewed by the couple in question themselves. Among LessWrongers and almost all secular crowds, at least, "polyamory" is also not the same as the common thought of "polygamy", usually polygyny (one man, many women), which is practiced by some religious sects, and adheres to norms not shared by the polyamorous.

Anyway, I'm wondering if Eliezer Yudkowsky's position, that monogamy or polyamory will work better for different people, is the consensus opinion among poly people. I'm not sure if poly folk tend to think polyamory is, in some sense, superior to monogamy, and that if people think they prefer monogamy, or that monogamy is better in general, they're mistaken. I know lots of monogamous people state polyamory is unsustainable, and so poly folk defend poly as equal in validity and usefulness to monogamy, depending on one's preferences. I'm curious about something different. Do poly folk tend to think polyamory is a superior relationship style for people, that almost everyone would do better in polyamory, because it is a more valid and useful relationship style?

I'm also aware there have been different waves of polyamory. I'm aware a large portion of poly population in North America hail from the tradition of "free love" among hippies. This is the second wave. Polyamory is and was more of a fuzzy concept within this wave However, I know several polyamorous people or relationships among LessWrongers/rationalists, as well as some hailing from the skeptic community. While the hippie generation of poly folk also correlates New Age beliefs, people who became poly via explicitly secular communities, or by learning about it through the Internet, tend to accept it merely on the grounds of rejecting monogamy as the only relationship style as an outdated cultural/religious tradition. Do the perspectives of the New Age, and most recent, waves of polyamory greatly differ on the validity of monogamy or polyamory?

If you yourself hold a position on this topic, please feel free to share.

According to the 2014 LessWrong Survey Results, 15.1 % of the LessWrong community prefers polyamorous relationships to monogamous ones. If you don't know what polyamory is, it's been described as "consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy. (Source). This excludes (formerly) monogamous relationships where one party is "cheating", i.e., engaged in an additional sexual or romantic relationship in secret. Semi-monogamous, or "monogamish", marriages and relationships may be count as polyamorous in the minds of some, but may be eschewed by the couple in question themselves. Among LessWrongers and almost all secular crowds, at least, "polyamory" is also not the same as the common thought of "polygamy", usually polygyny (one man, many women), which is practiced by some religious sects, and adheres to norms not shared by the polyamorous.

Anyway, I don't recall the specific column, but I've read letters to sex columnist Dan Savage about polyamorous people who believe there desire and preference for polyamory is biological or hard-wired, rather than merely being a choice. I recall Dan Savage being somewhat skeptical because "polyamory as hardwired preference" doesn't currently seem to have a basis in science. I'm skeptical. However, there is a history of sexual or gender minorities (who have faced discrimination and prejudice) to also faced backlash they were making lifestyle choices, rather than engaging immutable biological preferences. However, it's commonly accepted among scientists now homosexuality is not a choice, and research goes on in determining exactly what are its bases in biology, whether they be genetic, or due to prenatal hormones, or something else. In recent years, brain scans reveal patterns in the brains of transgender persons more closely match the patterns of the gender/sex they prefer, rather than the gender/sex they were assigned at birth. (More details).

I'm aware I could have a historical bias, where the culture of the sexual majority assumes it's way is the only "natural" or actual way humans can possibly relate to each other sexually, until science comes along, and debunks those assumptions. By merely questioning the notion preferences for polyamory have a basis in psychobiology rather than being a lifestyle choice indicate I'm privileging the hypothesis? Should I abandon confidence in the assumption polyamory has no basis in biology?

If you have an opinion on this matter, especially one informed by some kind of formal studies, please share.

The issue of how to approach this question is summed up by a Slate article, "Is Polyamory A Choice?":

Meanwhile, there are some people whose innate personality traits make it very difficult to live happily in a monogamous relationship but relatively easy to be happy in an open one. Given the persecution heaped on gays in most of the world in recent generations, and the relative difficulty of “passing,” there are probably few people who would choose that identity unless they could not find happiness in straight life. So, sure, there may be a larger fraction of non-monogamists for whom their unconventional relationship is “optional” or “a choice.” But there are almost certainly also some “obligate” non-monogamists who would never feel emotionally satisfied and healthy in a monogamous relationship, any more than a gay man would be satisfied and healthy in a straight marriage.

I would have cited a scholarly source, but I don't have the time now, and I'm guessing they're hard to find. Based on how the author of the article didn't cite any academic sources, and merely stated he hopes there will be more scholarship on this issue in the future, I'm guessing he couldn't find (m)any good studies, either.

I´d say this is not needed, when people say "Snow is white" we know that it really means "Snow seems white to me", so saying it as "Snow seems white to me" adds length without adding information.

Ah, but imagine we're all-powerful reformists that can change absolutely anything! In that case, we can add a really simple verb that means "seems-to-me" (let's say "smee" for short) and then ask people to say "Snow smee white".

Of course, this doesn't make sense unless we provide alternatives. For instance, "er" for "I have heard that", as in "Snow er white, though I haven't seen it myself" or "The dress er gold, but smee blue."

I don't think forcing ministers and priests to perform gay weddings is at all likely. I don't even think it's likely that there will be an effort to pass laws requiring that is at likely in the reasonably near future.

I think it's likely that some on the left will be applying social pressure, but that's short of force, and there's going to be countervailing pressure.

Humans underestimating the chance of being caught seems to beg the question of why they underestimate the chance of being caught in the first place. Why have humans evolved ethical inhibition, as opposed to a better sense of the likelihood of being caught? Still, evolution isn't perfect.

DanielLC said:

They just go around and find people who will either give them money or die in the near future, and tell them that.

I interpreted that as a selection effect, so my answer recommended not paying. Now I realize that it may not be entirely a selection effect. Maybe the oracle is also finding people whose life would be saved by making them $1000 poorer, for various exotic reasons. But if the probability of that is small enough, my answer stays the same.

The knock-on effect is that I encourage the oracle to keep making this offer... but that's good too; I want the oracle to keep making the offer. QALYs for everyone!

I think a key part of the question, as I see it, is to formalize the difference between treatment effects and selection effects (in the context where your actions might reflect a selection effect, and we can't make the normally reasonable assumption that our actions result in treatment effects). An oracle could look into the future, find a list of people who will die in the next week, and a list of people who would pay them $1000 if presented with this prompt, and present the prompt to the exclusive or of those two lists. This doesn't give anyone QALYs they wouldn't have had otherwise.

And so I find my intuitions are guided mostly by the identification of the prompter as an "oracle" instead of a "wizard" or "witch." Oracle implies selection effect; wizard or witch implies treatment effect.

unless the person pays them money to remove the curse the person will die

The OP's description doesn't seem to imply that refusal to pay causes the death. The oracle is simply saying that there are two possible futures: in one, the victim pays the money and survives; in the other one, the victim doesn't pay and doesn't survive.

I guess the difference in our interpretations is what we take the "and" to mean; you seem to see it as denoting causation, whereas I'd say it's merely denoting temporal consecution.

I've come up with an interesting thought experiment I call oracle mugging.

An oracle comes up to you and tells you that either you will give them a thousand dollars or you will die in the next week. They refuse to tell you which. They have done this many times, and everyone has either given them money or died. The oracle isn't threatening you. They just go around and find people who will either give them money or die in the near future, and tell them that.

Should you pay the oracle? Why or why not?

Thanks for your post! Really good to get the feedback.

Do you have a different attitude to fitting in socially now?