I agree that the article moves between several situations of issues of hugely varying severity without acknowledging that, and this isn’t very helpful. And I like that EA is able to be a welcoming place for people who enjoy relationship structures that are discriminated against in the wider world. But I did want to push back against one particular piece:
Polyamory is a morally neutral relationship structure that’s practiced happily by lots of people. It doesn’t make you an abuser, or not-an-abuser.
In figuring out how we should view polyamory a key question to me is what it’s effects are. Imagine we could somehow run an experiment where we went back to having a taboo on non-monogamy regardless of partner consent: how would we expect the world to be different? Some predictions I’d make:
People who enjoy polyamorous relationships would be worse off.
Some people would be more productive because they’re less distracted by partner competition.
Other people would be less productive because getting a lot done was part of their approach to partner competition.
Some people would have kids who otherwise wouldn’t, or have kids earlier in life.
...
There would be less of the kind of power abuse described in the article because most high-status men would be married and this would be riskier for them (argued above).
Imagine a similar article talking about how it’s common for people on college campuses to drink and then assault people. While I would agree that drinking alcohol is morally neutral on its own, if it predictably leads to people assaulting each other more than they would in its absence that is one consideration among many for whether to discourage it.
[EDIT: see my response to Kelsey, below—I’m not advocating EAs avoid polyamory]
[this is partly also responding to your response to Kelsey below]
I think I view this differently because I prize personal freedom (for everyone) really highly, and I also think that the damage of community disapproval/the norms being ‘against’ you is pretty high, so I would be hesitant to argue strongly against any consensual and in-principle-not-harmful relationship style, even if there was evidence that it led to worse outcomes. In that situation, I’d try to mitigate the bad outcomes rather than discouraging the style.
To get a sense of why poly people are upset about this, imagine if someone was like ‘there are better outcomes if people are celibate—you save so much time and emotional energy that can be spent on research! So you should break up with your partner’. You’d probably have a strong ‘uh, no, wtf, I’m not doing that’ reaction. And maybe you’d say ‘oh I would never say anyone would break up with their partners’, but depriving someone of future potential positive relationships is also bad, and… like… maybe I’m just neurotic or not assertive enough or something, but if someone says ‘X is bad’, and I do X, I am inclined to take that seriously.
I also think advocating against polyamory wouldn’t be very effective at curbing abuses that stem from abusers being exposed to less risk, because I think if you’re brazen and sociopathic enough to do some of the things described in the article, and also high status, you’re not really going to care about whether your relationship style is vaguely discouraged. Like, stuff like grooming and hitting on young people you have power over and assault is already more-than-vaguely discouraged, and that didn’t help!
To get a sense of why poly people are upset about this, imagine if...
I’m confused by your analogy to celibacy because the analogous statements seem really different from anything I’ve said or think? I don’t think there are better outcomes if people refrain from polyamory, haven’t told anyone they should break up, and don’t think polyamory is bad.
if you’re brazen and sociopathic enough to do some of the things described in the article, and also high status, you’re not …
This is getting deeper into a hypothetical (“what I think I would do in an alternative world where I had strong evidence that polyamory was harmful”) that I don’t think is very helpful? If you really want to know what I would do in this situation I’m willing to continue, but I’m nervous about people misinterpreting and thinking that I’m talking about a non-hypothetical.
I’m sorry to have misinterpreted you. I guess I’m confused by what your broad point is now—where do we disagree? I think I don’t understand why you disagree with my comment that ‘Polyamory is a morally neutral relationship structure that’s practiced happily by lots of people. It doesn’t make you an abuser, or not-an-abuser.’
Please mentally reimagine this comment for some other ‘chosen’-stigma subgroup—being gay, trans or whatever.
You’re not wrong that in some abstract sense there’s a fact of the matter about having more people be that way makes the world better or worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s +EV to do armchair speculation about. And raising such speculation in response to someone saying they feel targeted by prejudice seems like particularly unempathic timing.
I agree that the article moves between several situations of issues of hugely varying severity without acknowledging that, and this isn’t very helpful. And I like that EA is able to be a welcoming place for people who enjoy relationship structures that are discriminated against in the wider world. But I did want to push back against one particular piece:
In figuring out how we should view polyamory a key question to me is what it’s effects are. Imagine we could somehow run an experiment where we went back to having a taboo on non-monogamy regardless of partner consent: how would we expect the world to be different? Some predictions I’d make:
People who enjoy polyamorous relationships would be worse off.
Some people would be more productive because they’re less distracted by partner competition.
Other people would be less productive because getting a lot done was part of their approach to partner competition.
Some people would have kids who otherwise wouldn’t, or have kids earlier in life.
...
There would be less of the kind of power abuse described in the article because most high-status men would be married and this would be riskier for them (argued above).
Imagine a similar article talking about how it’s common for people on college campuses to drink and then assault people. While I would agree that drinking alcohol is morally neutral on its own, if it predictably leads to people assaulting each other more than they would in its absence that is one consideration among many for whether to discourage it.
[EDIT: see my response to Kelsey, below—I’m not advocating EAs avoid polyamory]
[this is partly also responding to your response to Kelsey below]
I think I view this differently because I prize personal freedom (for everyone) really highly, and I also think that the damage of community disapproval/the norms being ‘against’ you is pretty high, so I would be hesitant to argue strongly against any consensual and in-principle-not-harmful relationship style, even if there was evidence that it led to worse outcomes. In that situation, I’d try to mitigate the bad outcomes rather than discouraging the style.
To get a sense of why poly people are upset about this, imagine if someone was like ‘there are better outcomes if people are celibate—you save so much time and emotional energy that can be spent on research! So you should break up with your partner’. You’d probably have a strong ‘uh, no, wtf, I’m not doing that’ reaction. And maybe you’d say ‘oh I would never say anyone would break up with their partners’, but depriving someone of future potential positive relationships is also bad, and… like… maybe I’m just neurotic or not assertive enough or something, but if someone says ‘X is bad’, and I do X, I am inclined to take that seriously.
I also think advocating against polyamory wouldn’t be very effective at curbing abuses that stem from abusers being exposed to less risk, because I think if you’re brazen and sociopathic enough to do some of the things described in the article, and also high status, you’re not really going to care about whether your relationship style is vaguely discouraged. Like, stuff like grooming and hitting on young people you have power over and assault is already more-than-vaguely discouraged, and that didn’t help!
I’m confused by your analogy to celibacy because the analogous statements seem really different from anything I’ve said or think? I don’t think there are better outcomes if people refrain from polyamory, haven’t told anyone they should break up, and don’t think polyamory is bad.
This is getting deeper into a hypothetical (“what I think I would do in an alternative world where I had strong evidence that polyamory was harmful”) that I don’t think is very helpful? If you really want to know what I would do in this situation I’m willing to continue, but I’m nervous about people misinterpreting and thinking that I’m talking about a non-hypothetical.
I’m sorry to have misinterpreted you. I guess I’m confused by what your broad point is now—where do we disagree? I think I don’t understand why you disagree with my comment that ‘Polyamory is a morally neutral relationship structure that’s practiced happily by lots of people. It doesn’t make you an abuser, or not-an-abuser.’
I’m not sure we disagree all that much, and I’m sorry for giving the impression otherwise!
Where I think we disagree is that I don’t think we can just take neutrality as an assumption? Instead, it matters what the effects are.
Please mentally reimagine this comment for some other ‘chosen’-stigma subgroup—being gay, trans or whatever.
You’re not wrong that in some abstract sense there’s a fact of the matter about having more people be that way makes the world better or worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s +EV to do armchair speculation about. And raising such speculation in response to someone saying they feel targeted by prejudice seems like particularly unempathic timing.