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Comment by Moshe_Silnorin | Hacker News Reader

I'm almost certain widespread polyamory will degenerate into polygamy approximately instantaneously.

Your “widespread” modifier gets you off the hook, who can say how social contract adjustments play out when they go mainstream.

But the polyamory community doesn’t look anything like polygamy. Like, not at all. More like polyandry, but most polyamorous folks I know have a single primary (and that primary lasts way longer than the average married couple, in my personal experience) and the rest of the business sees women finding multiple partners much more easily than men.

But it’s a complicated and open scene, YMMV.

A Brave New World!

BNW had a stable polyamory, that was the appeal. And a wonder drug to alleviate the few residual atavisms to boot.

But close enough.

Most modern polyamorous relations end up with the women having more partners than the men. Women have a far easier time finding sex partners than men do, on average.

But this is only a recent trend because of the advent of birth control technologies, which shifted the balance of risk in having multiple partners. Prior to this, high status males had consistently high partners than females.

No, not always. There were matriarchal societies in ancient times where women had multiple partners. You're looking at thing through the lens of western history.

Besides, what does it matter? We're talking about the future here, not the past. Contraceptive technology isn't going away.

>You're looking at thing through the lens of western history.

So? As you said, "What does it matter?" Those societies didn't survive. I don't really get how to treat the quip "you're looking at thi[s] through the lens of western history", other than as an attempt do disqualify what's literal fact by saying that it was observed by "westerners."

>Besides, what does it matter? We're talking about the future here, not the past. Contraceptive technology isn't going away.

I'm never going to understand this sentiment. "It matters" because, like it or not, evolutionary biology is a thing and attempts to subvert it are introduced at our own peril - at least until we actually have total command of controlling said biology.

To claim that those societies didn't survive solely because they weren't monogamous, patriarchal societies is either profoundly ignorant or intellectually dishonest. Societies don't survive for many different reasons, usually become some other foreign society with natural advantages (due to their geography) outcompete or conquer them. Go read "guns, germs, and steel".

>"It matters" because, like it or not, evolutionary biology is a thing

You're missing the point that contraceptive technology is here now, and not going away, so what may have worked in the past is no longer applicable because of this. Contraception changes everything.

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