Comment by norswap | Hacker News Reader

Comment by norswap | Hacker News Reader

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I knew this was going to turn into a debate on polyamori lol. I'm not going to answer your comments, but it suffices to say you probably don't suffer from your open-mindedness :)

(Agreement or disagreement on open relationships being immaterial to open-mindedness. The open-minded attitude is to consider what might make a stance true. Instead, to preserve your priors on open relationships, you're forced to assume a bunch of things, such that I am lying, and that I am unhappy, etc...)

Your comment about the social zeitgiest is interesting. Where I live (in western Europe) open relationships are quite unpopular (despite being more popular than they've ever been). I actually expect the same to be true in the US, outside of some affluent circles (if we're talking about in-the-flesh relationships).

How would you define conservatism?

(I don't consider my definition as negative btw. I have a conservative mindset on quite a few things where I think improvement is hard, or we're stuck in a local optimum and the cost of getting out would be currently unbearable.)

You described conservatism as moving on and breaking things, that seems to be turned on its head. I would think it is more about gradual changes instead.

Open relationships is a fun topic to discuss, especially on the internet.

For many such relationships are out of the question, perhaps due to insecurities and not being aware of their self-worth or for other reasons. Personally I don't think I want to be engaged romantically with more than one person at a time. Why? Because I do would get jealous and I likewise want to commit myself to someone. For myself and my partner. I also don't really feel a desire to romantically engage others.

But those that advertise open relationships it often comes with some patterns. For once that is mentioning the required emotional maturity and attributing it to participants. That is interesting because I perceive this as fishing for confirmation for personal choices. But perhaps my skepticism has the same motivation. But where do you think you need maturity? I assume it means to accept compromises? Where is that needed in such a relationship?

> You described conservatism as moving on and breaking things, that seems to be turned on its head. I would think it is more about gradual changes instead.

No you've got that backwards. I wrote "conservatism thinks it's easier to break things than to improve them". If you think a change is more likely to break things than to have a positive impact, you don't do the change. Hence, conservatism.

As for the rest, I'm not especially keen on debating or even discussing open relationships. I'll humor you for a sec, but won't reply further:

Of course everyone says it requires maturity, because it does. It's so obvious, I agree it's not a very interesting point to make, but I think the point is to acknowledge that open relationships often fail, and are not for everyone.

> That is interesting because I perceive this as fishing for confirmation for personal choices.

Man I was making an example in answer to a question lmao.

> But where do you think you need maturity? I assume it means to accept compromises? Where is that needed in such a relationship?

Jealousy is a naturally-occuring feeling. And it's quite natural to have some insecurities too. The maturity part is the ability to acknowledge them (first and foremost, to yourself), and to be open and talk about them, in a very open way, i.e. not loaded with assumptions and what the other person thinks/wants/feels.

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