It’s surprising to me that polyamory continues to be such a sacred cow of EA. It’s been highly negative for EA’s public image, and now it seems to be connected to a substantial amount of abuse. There’s a number of reasons our priors should suggest that non-monogomous relationships in high trust, insular communities can easily lead to abuse. It’s always seemed overly optimistic to think EA could avoid these problems. Of course, there have been similar ongoing discussions in the Berkeley Rationalist community for a number of years now.
This seems like one of the most important community issues to reflect on.
I don’t think it’s a “sacred cow” in EA and I don’t think there are a number of reasons our priors should be that way. I very strongly don’t think it can be generalised to that extent. (Background: I’ve been on the receiving end of some bad social dynamics in which polyamory kind of played a role. Think unwanted attention of a person with more social power, not knowing what to do about it, etc. So I think I know what I’m talking about, at least to a small extent.)
I think the main negative prior should be “is there a distinction between professional and romantic/sexual relationships and do people feel pressured/unsafe”.
In the Time piece, in every instance, this has been problematic. I think once social groups remove too many barriers between “professional” and “romantic/sexual”, you can run into problems (i.e. become more “cult-like”). Unhealthy interplay between romantic and professional connections is exactly one of the big things what the community team and people like Julia Wise are concerned with (and what they are for), and I personally think they’re doing a good job.
I think it’s perfectly okay (and extremely possible) to be in polyamorous relationships while not violating those boundaries. I think most people do this! (This also shouldn’t matter, but I’m not polyamorous myself.)
I think one can make an argument that goes like “but polyamorous relationships make it more likely for these borders to fade away”. I think that’s not a terrible argument. But again, the job of the people in polyamorous relationships is to not make people uncomfortable and violate their boundaries, especially in professional settings, irrespective of the relationship style they choose! Polyamory itself does not mean “violating people’s boundaries is okay”. So it’s up to the individual people to not behave unethically.
I think if we were to somehow try to intervene in people’s personal lives (i.e. try to discourage or ban polyamorous relationships or try to “inform” people how bad they are), it would go terribly. It’s exactly the kind of lack of separation of professional and romantic spaces that usually leads to problems.
We should let people live their personal lives as they wish, as long as they don’t harm anyone. And an insufficient lack of separation between professional and personal spaces (power dynamics making people feel romantically/sexually pressured) counts as harm.
(Edit: While trying to steelman your argument, I came up with this:
I think one can make a very good case for why social groups (like EA) should be really cautious about “are we encouraging people to become poly even if they might not want to”. I think this could be quite bad, and I think it can happen quite easily, even without it being intended. (E.g. most people in one social bubble being poly, it seeming “cool” because it’s modern and open, etc.).
I think that is a dynamic we/EA should be cautious with, and I think it does sometimes play a role in interactions like the ones described in the Time piece, although I absolutely have no idea how often. I’ve also felt small amounts of pressure in that direction myself. But I also see that almost nobody actually intends for that pressure to happen. It’s just a really tricky subject to navigate! But I think “being conscious of that dynamic” is highly likely to be a good thing. And I think your comment is making that argument in a way, which I agree with.)
Jeff was probably not asking what “sacred cow” means; more likely the question was asking in what way polyamory is a sacred cow of EA.
I will grant that EA is more tolerant of most personal traits than society typically is, and therefore is more supportive of polyamory than other groups just by not being against it, but it’s not anywhere in any canonical EA materials, and certainly not a sacred cow. Plenty of EAs are criticizing it in this very thread.
Could you clarify what concretely you do want to happen, then, if not less tolerance of polyamory? What would be different, if polyamory was not a sacred cow? What are the possible conclusions we could come to after reflecting on this?
I don’t have a particular agenda about “what should happen” here. I’ve said we should scrutinize the ways that polyamorous norms could be abused in high trust communities. I’m not sure what the outcome would be, but I would certainly hope it’s not intolerance of poly communities.
I would readily agree that some—perhaps most—of these problems could also be solved by ensuring EA spaces are purely professional, but it does seem a bit obtuse to not understand that someone could feel more uncomfortable when asked to join a polycule at an EA meet up than simply being asked on a date.
I think an ideal outcome would to reduce the association between EA and poly—such that poly is not a major cultural touchstone within EA—while keeping EA a welcoming and respectful place for poly people.
I’m very surprised by this. There are number of anthropological findings which connect monogamous norms to greater gender equality and other positive social outcomes. Recently arguments along these lines have been advanced by Joseph Henrich, one of the most prominent evolutionary biologists.
Isn’t the research on this almost all comparing monogamy to polygyny? But polyamory, especially as practiced among EAs and adjacent groups doesn’t seem very similar to polygyny to me?
I certainly don’t think it’s conclusive, or even strong evidence. As I said, I think it’s one thing among many that should inform our priors here. There’s also a different vein of anthropological research that looks at non-monogamy and abuse in cults and other religious contexts, but I’m less familiar with it.
The alternative—accepting norms of sexual minorities without scrutiny—seems perfectly reasonable in many cases, but because of those reasons I don’t think it should be abided by here, especially in light of these women’s accounts.
I emphasize there shouldn’t be any hostility or intolerance to polyamorous people, just the way polyamorous norms might create the potential for abuse in EA spaces (or generally in high trust, insular environments).
In suppressing intrasexual competition and reducing the size of the pool of unmarried men, normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses. By assuaging the competition for younger brides, normative monogamy decreases (i) the spousal age gap, (ii) fertility, and (iii) gender inequality. By shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, normative monogamy increases savings, child investment and economic productivity. By increasing the relatedness within households, normative monogamy reduces intra-household conflict, leading to lower rates of child neglect, abuse, accidental death and homicide.
This doesn’t seem very relevant to the kind of issues discussed in the Time article, though?
It’s surprising to me that polyamory continues to be such a sacred cow of EA. It’s been highly negative for EA’s public image, and now it seems to be connected to a substantial amount of abuse. There’s a number of reasons our priors should suggest that non-monogomous relationships in high trust, insular communities can easily lead to abuse. It’s always seemed overly optimistic to think EA could avoid these problems. Of course, there have been similar ongoing discussions in the Berkeley Rationalist community for a number of years now.
This seems like one of the most important community issues to reflect on.
I voted disagree & want to explain why:
I don’t think it’s a “sacred cow” in EA and I don’t think there are a number of reasons our priors should be that way. I very strongly don’t think it can be generalised to that extent. (Background: I’ve been on the receiving end of some bad social dynamics in which polyamory kind of played a role. Think unwanted attention of a person with more social power, not knowing what to do about it, etc. So I think I know what I’m talking about, at least to a small extent.)
I think the main negative prior should be “is there a distinction between professional and romantic/sexual relationships and do people feel pressured/unsafe”.
In the Time piece, in every instance, this has been problematic. I think once social groups remove too many barriers between “professional” and “romantic/sexual”, you can run into problems (i.e. become more “cult-like”). Unhealthy interplay between romantic and professional connections is exactly one of the big things what the community team and people like Julia Wise are concerned with (and what they are for), and I personally think they’re doing a good job.
I think it’s perfectly okay (and extremely possible) to be in polyamorous relationships while not violating those boundaries. I think most people do this! (This also shouldn’t matter, but I’m not polyamorous myself.)
I think one can make an argument that goes like “but polyamorous relationships make it more likely for these borders to fade away”. I think that’s not a terrible argument. But again, the job of the people in polyamorous relationships is to not make people uncomfortable and violate their boundaries, especially in professional settings, irrespective of the relationship style they choose! Polyamory itself does not mean “violating people’s boundaries is okay”. So it’s up to the individual people to not behave unethically.
I think if we were to somehow try to intervene in people’s personal lives (i.e. try to discourage or ban polyamorous relationships or try to “inform” people how bad they are), it would go terribly. It’s exactly the kind of lack of separation of professional and romantic spaces that usually leads to problems.
We should let people live their personal lives as they wish, as long as they don’t harm anyone. And an insufficient lack of separation between professional and personal spaces (power dynamics making people feel romantically/sexually pressured) counts as harm.
(Edit: While trying to steelman your argument, I came up with this:
I think one can make a very good case for why social groups (like EA) should be really cautious about “are we encouraging people to become poly even if they might not want to”. I think this could be quite bad, and I think it can happen quite easily, even without it being intended. (E.g. most people in one social bubble being poly, it seeming “cool” because it’s modern and open, etc.).
I think that is a dynamic we/EA should be cautious with, and I think it does sometimes play a role in interactions like the ones described in the Time piece, although I absolutely have no idea how often. I’ve also felt small amounts of pressure in that direction myself. But I also see that almost nobody actually intends for that pressure to happen. It’s just a really tricky subject to navigate! But I think “being conscious of that dynamic” is highly likely to be a good thing. And I think your comment is making that argument in a way, which I agree with.)
I’m not sure what you mean by this?
Something that is above question or criticism or question (see here), in this case because discourse is often cast as intolerant or phobic
Jeff was probably not asking what “sacred cow” means; more likely the question was asking in what way polyamory is a sacred cow of EA. I will grant that EA is more tolerant of most personal traits than society typically is, and therefore is more supportive of polyamory than other groups just by not being against it, but it’s not anywhere in any canonical EA materials, and certainly not a sacred cow. Plenty of EAs are criticizing it in this very thread.
This seems a bit obtuse. In any local EA community I’ve been a part of, poly plays a big part in the culture.
This is sort of true, but most of them are receiving a lot of downvotes. And this is the first time I’ve seen a proper discussion about it.
It literally is intolerant. Like if you are saying “we shouldn’t tolerate this in the community”, that just is intolerant.
Ok, fortunately that is not what I am saying.
Could you clarify what concretely you do want to happen, then, if not less tolerance of polyamory? What would be different, if polyamory was not a sacred cow? What are the possible conclusions we could come to after reflecting on this?
I don’t have a particular agenda about “what should happen” here. I’ve said we should scrutinize the ways that polyamorous norms could be abused in high trust communities. I’m not sure what the outcome would be, but I would certainly hope it’s not intolerance of poly communities.
I would readily agree that some—perhaps most—of these problems could also be solved by ensuring EA spaces are purely professional, but it does seem a bit obtuse to not understand that someone could feel more uncomfortable when asked to join a polycule at an EA meet up than simply being asked on a date.
I think an ideal outcome would to reduce the association between EA and poly—such that poly is not a major cultural touchstone within EA—while keeping EA a welcoming and respectful place for poly people.
I don’t see why priors should make us suspect non-monogamous relationships would lead to more abuse than monogamous ones.
I’m very surprised by this. There are number of anthropological findings which connect monogamous norms to greater gender equality and other positive social outcomes. Recently arguments along these lines have been advanced by Joseph Henrich, one of the most prominent evolutionary biologists.
Isn’t the research on this almost all comparing monogamy to polygyny? But polyamory, especially as practiced among EAs and adjacent groups doesn’t seem very similar to polygyny to me?
I certainly don’t think it’s conclusive, or even strong evidence. As I said, I think it’s one thing among many that should inform our priors here. There’s also a different vein of anthropological research that looks at non-monogamy and abuse in cults and other religious contexts, but I’m less familiar with it.
The alternative—accepting norms of sexual minorities without scrutiny—seems perfectly reasonable in many cases, but because of those reasons I don’t think it should be abided by here, especially in light of these women’s accounts.
I emphasize there shouldn’t be any hostility or intolerance to polyamorous people, just the way polyamorous norms might create the potential for abuse in EA spaces (or generally in high trust, insular environments).
What’s the mechanism whereby it leads to greater gender equality?
The article burner linked has:
This doesn’t seem very relevant to the kind of issues discussed in the Time article, though?