You Don't Hate Polyamory, You Hate People Who Write Books | Hacker News Reader

You Don't Hate Polyamory, You Hate People Who Write Books

astralcodexten.com

15 pointsfeross19 comments

The whole concept here is that "you hate polyamory because you read books about it where it sucks and the persons are unhappy, but such books are written by the people who had bad experiences, what you really hate is them". And how he knows "many people in happy, successful, polyamorous relationships".

Well, I also know such people in real life, and they appear to be unhappy below the baseline for regular couples (which isn't that high to begin with).

And of course as memoirs and books need not be involved in the reason people dislike polyamory, the happiness level of the people involved doesn't have to be involved either: one can disapprove of polyamory in principle, just as well, without having read a memoir about it - and regardless if the people involved are happy about it or not. After all, people can be happy while doing all kinds of things that are bad for them, and even more so while doing things that are bad for society, so happiness isn't some ultimate argument.

Now, you can be pro or against polyamory, unhappy or happy in it. But this article is very light on anything substantial, and the who-writes-them-books argument is stretched beyond any reasonable level. Though, in a way he is right. I don't hate such articles: I hate the people who write such fluff (especially if they have the skills to write much better, like SSC/ACT).

> The overall form was: “I read a memoir about polyamory, everyone involved seemed awful and unhappy, and now I hate polyamorous people.” This is a common pattern.

Is it?

I read that article, and it seems a lot more nuanced than hating on one group.

I strongly believe that is mono people would be better served by accepting poly as a sexual identity, why? Because then, given that there is no shame, this incompatibility could be established upfront - thereby decreasing the likelihood of being cheated on.

Unfortunately people might still be swayed to date someone that they are extremely attracted to, and not disclose the incompatibility - the old "they have an open relationship, but only one practices." Or just getting cheated on. Still, I think that the incidence of cheating would be vastly decreased.

It's the old positive sum game, by giving them what they want, we get what we want.

It's not a sexual identity. It's a relationship structure. Poly folks can be in mono relationships and vice-versa.

I agree that being up front about the kind of relationship structure is desired would help weed out incompatibility.

So, what kind of person writes an article meticulously analyzing imagined flaws of book authors?

"Advice is disproportionately written by defective people. "

Apparently, the author believes they themselves are defective (and either narcissistic or unfortunately activistic)

The atlantic's article link for reference https://archive.is/PXqY0

I don't hate poly.

I actually don't even care?

My wife is plenty. I even take pictures or videos of things I experience and share it with her later because I want her to do the same.

And I thought about poly and I discovered that I wouldn't want to have a group chat to share this type of experience just to share it with all my partners equally.

Do people really hate others just because they life their lives different?

“Umm, actually, how does affect YOU?!”

Apart from the obvious reason why it can’t work (jealousy), one problem is that it’s not good for society at large. These groups are probably low fertility for one, and they take partners away from others.

Not to mention that every “polyamorous” society eventually settles into polygamy—-and that’s poison. Expect a reckoning when that happens.

> Apart from the obvious reason why it can’t work (jealousy), one problem is that it’s not good for society at large. These groups are probably low fertility for one, and they take partners away from others.

I don't follow, since the group is not a large cohort of society by any means, how can it affect society "at large"?

> These groups are probably low fertility for one, and they take partners away from others.

It might be, it might be not, that's your assumption. "Take" partners away from others in what sense? Their partners might have other partners as well, it's polyamorous after all, I don't understand your reasoning at all.

> Ummmm achktually, me pissing in your water source only affects a very small percentage of the pool’s overall volume.

> Not to mention that every “polyamorous” society eventually settles into polygamy—-and that’s poison. Expect a reckoning when that happens.

I don’t understand this statement. Is having multiple spouses (which is what polygamy is — husbands or wives) a poison compared to having multiple lovers?

Have you seen what the average poly person looks like? Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried are the most famous poly people I can think of, and this is despite an obscene amount of wealth to make them look good.

So no, they're not taking partners from anybody. I don't see how society is harmed if the absolute bottom dregs shack up together instead of staying alone forever.

Whenever I've seen been subjected to photos of a group of polys, the men seem to have a similar look to the one the protagonist had in the closing shot of Old Boy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0nn-WgLOTY). Certainly their parents do.

> Have you seen what the average poly person looks like? Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried are the most famous poly people I can think of, and this is despite an obscene amount of wealth to make them look good.

Are they representative of the "average poly person," or just one type of person who's prone just go tear down a Chesterton's fence?

> Whenever I've seen been subjected to photos of a group of polys, the men seem to have a similar look to the one the protagonist had in the closing shot of Old Boy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0nn-WgLOTY). Certainly their parents do.

You're going to have to be more specific, because that youtube video "...contains content from eOne UGC, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

This article reminds me of the book Herovit's World by Barry Malzberg. I highly recommend this book to anyone. Anyways, one of the central, but subtle, themes of the book is that anyone who writes anything that they expect someone else to read must be a narcissist.

The ongoing weaponisation of psychological terms such as narcissist by the unqualified is another tiresome step along the euphemism treadmill. It may never stop as it is too simple a form of entertainment to resist.

I think you should read Herovit's World. haha.

I'll maintain a libertarian indifference to whatever people are legally getting up to.

But wisdom is joy over time, and I kinda don't see the wisdom in any of these "modern" variations on the theme of XXXY marriage.

As I raise my children, I'll point out the folly on offer and ask them to think critically over whether any of this amounts to much.

1600 words that are only an update to a paywalled review of another paywalled magazine article.

We're missing all the context, but the part we can read has a strange kind of logic to it. The claim is that you should only take advice on how to build successful relationships from people who don't know how to build successful relationships. This makes no sense, but is padded with so many filler paragraphs that by the time the point is made, the dots one would need to connect to notice the contradiction have almost evaporated from working memory.

The final sentence is good, though: "The people I know from various oft-discussed groups - transgender, super-religious, autistic, rich, etc - are all nicer and more normal than their public representatives would lead you to believe." People who act as "public representatives" are often insufferable narcissists, and that's true regardless of the group they claim to represent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com