I need some relationship advice. I suggested 125% but my wife won’t budge from 10%. Is this normal? How did it go when you had this conversation with your romantic partner?

  • UziBobuzi@kbin.social
    952·
    9 months ago

    Playing hypothetical games like this are poisonous to a relationship. My advice is to not do that kind of thing anymore.

    • Signtist@lemm.ee
      60·
      9 months ago

      You can never be sure on the Internet. Plus, I know there are people who think like this; my mom did something similar to my dad when I was a kid. When they were first dating she told him she didn’t want to be tied down, a sentiment that he thought was long over by the time they got married. Much to his surprise, she was angry that he wasn’t more accepting when he caught her cheating. Decades later, she still claims that she was entirely justified, and that my dad is an asshole for getting angry at her.

      • PanoptiDon@lemmy.world
        13·
        9 months ago

        People need to communicate these things. If either myself or my partner wants to be with someone else, it is discussed. It allows everyone to make an informed decision going forward and no one is betrayed. Only time this ever happened with us, we were with the same person

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        I wish people who thought like this were just upfront about wanting non-monogamy rather than sneaking around and causing pain and strife for those around then.

        Like, my wife (and partner) practice ethical non-monogamy and have fire years. If one of us wants to stay outside of our thruple, we talk about it and discuss how we feel, and then make a decision everyone is happy with. There are times where something is denied (last one was because of a bad partner she ended up breaking up with a month later, who went full ‘you can’t fire me I quit’ on her), but we all work through it.

        Communicate is not that hard…

    • byroon@lemmy.world
      33·
      9 months ago

      If this tweet is real then I would 100% expect something like this from this guy.
      Edit: I mean I think Yudkowsky is being sincere. The lemmy OP is clearly a joke

    • Fisch@lemmy.ml
      28·
      9 months ago

      Someone else commented that this dude often posts stuff like this and it’s not satire…

  • Ekybio@lemmy.world
    63·
    9 months ago

    I find the quantification of very emotional topics not very helpfull in the long run:

    What counts as “10% better”?

    Do you know if the number, should it even exist, stays consistent? Or that you got the “correct one”?

    My advice:

    Find out what you seek out in a relathionship, what you want to avoid, and then talk about it.

    Because “10% better” could just mean the other guy is driving more carefull with the family-car, doesnt chew with an open mouth or shaves more often.

    • Khrux@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      31·
      9 months ago

      Yeah the idea that somebody has a percentage rating of quality is genuine lunacy. It’s also sociopathic to overlook that being fond of someone despite their flaws or “lower rating”.

    • ivanafterall@kbin.social
      21·
      9 months ago

      This seems to be the whole point. Neg the other person and make them question their own worth. “Oh, no! I’d better keep them happy. Is THAT GUY 10% better than me!?”

    • HopeOfTheGunblade@kbin.social
      141·
      9 months ago

      If they chew open mouthed and are not amenable to change that is a straight up deal breaker, sorry not sorry, my misophonia doesn’t leave room to compromise on that.

  • YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub
    492·
    9 months ago

    Wow this guru of AI and rationality is a dipshit. Makes me wonder about all those Silicon Valley folk and vc people that take him seriously. 🤔

    • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      11·
      9 months ago

      No kidding. Anyone who thinks the hallmark of a good relationship is being able to determine the point at which they would dump their SO for someone “better” and somehow distill that down to a concrete (yet still highly subjective) number should just avoid relationships altogether. At least until they’ve consulted a proctologist about removing their head from their own ass.

      • monko@lemmy.zipEnglish
        331·
        9 months ago

        No, I know this dude’s deal, he is 100% for real (or trying to get a reaction, but that’s not satire on its own). His posts are often like this.

        • Fisch@lemmy.ml
          9·
          9 months ago

          Wait what?! Not for one second did I think that this could be anything else than satire

          • monko@lemmy.zipEnglish
            22·
            9 months ago

            Yudkowsky is well-known for his work in AI. He occasionally makes jokes, but it’s usually about AI (not relationships). I know that on his profile, it says something like “when I don’t use punctuation, it’s a joke,” akin to Reddit’s /s.

            And yeah, he left off a period on the first post, though not the other two. But that said, he rarely makes multi-part jokes. It’s pretty clear to me, having read his posts and articles for a while, that he means this.

            To further clarify that this is a “rationalist” of the highest order, consider that he wrote a half-a-million-plus word fanfic of Harry Potter, but with Harry studying science instead of magic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

              • monko@lemmy.zipEnglish
                13·
                9 months ago

                No shame in that! It is actually pretty well-written, and it has some engaging points. I’m not “anti-rationalism” or anti-this-guy or anything like that. LessWrong did more for global altruism than I ever will.

                I’m just pointing out that a person who has dedicated their entire public persona to an ideology (or lack of one) is probably not joking when they start evaluating romantic partners with supposedly objective percentages.

  • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
    441·
    9 months ago

    I honestly enjoy seeing people like this with batshit insane but logically consistent views. Makes things much more fun

    • TurtleJoe@lemmy.world
      332·
      9 months ago

      This guy essentially founded modern “rationalism.” He has millions of literal followers, not just the Twitter kind. His dumbass is the one that spawned the Effective Altruism cult that has become extremely popular with tech bros. Sam bankman-fried, Sam Altman, Elon musk all subscribe to this “philosophy.” It’s all batshit insane and incredibly stupid.

    • Fawxhox@lemmy.world
      151·
      9 months ago

      As an autistic dude, I feel like I know that it’s weird too say, but I also feel like it makes sense. Like it’s hard to quantify x% better, but I’m sure there is a number, for me at least, where if someone is that much better and would date me, I’d do it. It’s not romantic to say, but it’s true. And I’ve been dumped for other people twice so the same must have been true for them.

      It just feels like one of the thousands of unspoken rules you’re not allowed to talk about out of politeness. But honestly I would like to know that number for my SO.

      • Flumpkin@slrpnk.net
        14·
        9 months ago

        If you’re curious about an alternative view, I suggest The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Relationships are about growing your own and the others natural abilities, something you do and not about trading something you have. The OP post is a materialistic view and a belief in inequality. YMMV.

        • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          9 months ago

          He’s also the psycho who founded a movement which designed to let insane billionaires justify spending their money however they want, no matter the people they hurt now, as long as it’s ‘for the greater good’ long term.

          The OOP needs to kiss the business end of a wood chipper if you ask me

          • Flumpkin@slrpnk.net
            1·
            9 months ago

            Interesting, I haven’t heard his name. I do like Nick Bostrom though. I started reading about this Effective Altruism, on paper it sounds all very nice, but this OOP materialist nonsense bodes very bad for any ethical AI lol. It also seems to be focused on donating and solving everything with billionaire money instead of on governance. Do you have a link to some good critique of this EA stuff?

            EDIT: Never mind, found lots of it lol !sneerclub@awful.systems. These extremes growing out of longtermism and TESCREAL should be a laughing matter but apparently they are well funded gaining access. A good article summing this up.

            I’m very much aligned with these sci-fi ideas except the first thing we should teach an AGI is to love (see my book recommendation). Which seems something OOP has little capability for. Extinction might not be the worst case scenario with these guys at the helm lol.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        9 months ago

        sure. just codify the human experience of love, marriage, sex, relationships, family and their interpersonal connections and the entire population into a single integer in a way that the difference between 42 and 43, and 1 and 153, is meaningful to everyone regardless of race, culture, creed, ethnicity, language, class, location, age, upbringing, wants, needs, desires, hopes, dreams and in a way that remains meaningful for up to 8 decades as well as the first meeting of a relationship and encourages people to feel safe, confident and happy to leave a relationship based on a relative number to their assigned integer. It should keep you busy for a little while but I look forward to seeing what number you assign to, for eg a Liberian refugee in Sierra Leone or a Changar itinerant harvesting travelling village, or Prince Harry of England and when I see it I can say “ah, yes, an 81, of course.”

        • Fawxhox@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          This is a weird attempt to put me down?? Obviously this is a personal number, I have no idea why you think I’m implying there is one formulas that fits every person in the world other than you just wanted to fight.

          • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 months ago

            I didn’t intend it to be personal, but you did say you see the appeal, so I was doing a bit on the concept. But not really dedicated to you. After all, we’re all just usernames to each other at on here.

  • squid_slime@lemmy.world
    39·
    9 months ago

    Ive no plan to meet second best nor be second best and I wouldn’t want to put someone through that nor go through it.

    We live in a world of consumption and throw away culture, we should have more respect then to inflict these ideas on living breathing and feeling people.

    Fuck that guy and his creed.

    • Tyfud@lemmy.world
      72·
      9 months ago

      I seriously doubt that’s his creed.

      It’s clearly meant as a parody of the way relationships end, but said out loud, in advance, to show the absurdity of exactly what you called out: “trading up” out of a relationship.

      The whole point of his post, was to get people to realize how shitty it is to think of people that way.

      • squid_slime@lemmy.world
        21·
        9 months ago

        No this guy is a guru and has influenced a lot of silicon valley with this type of “parody” look him up if you haven’t already.

        • Tyfud@lemmy.world
          10·
          9 months ago

          Oof, fair enough. I just ran head first into Poe’s law. Thank you for the added context. Yeah, he’s a piece of shit then.

  • monko@lemmy.zipEnglish
    33·
    9 months ago

    “Is this normal?”

    No, it is not normal to state what percent-better-person you would leave your romantic partner for. It’s cynical and narcissistic.

    What if your partner is in an accident that changes how they look or live? Now that they’re X% “less” than what you signed on for, you can just dip?

    Like I get being upfront about stuff, but this is just transactional. It’s not about your commitment to another person, it’s about maximizing your return on investment.

    • Christian@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      13·
      9 months ago

      You could have answered my question a bit earlier, I broke my nose this morning and now her divorce lawyer has informed me that my neighbor across the street has gone up to 12% better than me.

      EDIT: I just went over and broke the guy’s kneecaps and am now happily married again.

      • DaGeek247@kbin.social
        3·
        9 months ago

        This Eliezer Yudkowsky. He wrote a bunch of nerd fanfiction, and is apparently mostly famous for his takes on AI. He is a public figure.

  • harry_balzac@lemmy.world
    271·
    9 months ago

    I’m pretty sure the ROI for relationships with people who quantify abstractions is in the negative.

  • pachrist@lemmy.world
    211·
    9 months ago

    Tell me you’re a 44 year old man with a Messiah complex who spends his Friday nights trolling college bars for girls his estranged daughter’s age without telling me.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
    15·
    9 months ago

    I have had this easy with one simple trick: be naturally worse than literally any other person out there and you’ll never need to worry about someone trading up because they won’t take you to begin with!

    Checkmate logic dude!

  • Quik@infosec.pub
    13·
    9 months ago

    I’d like to actually discuss the problems I perceive with Yudkowsky‘s take for a moment, before everyone can go on with telling each other how crap his opinion is.

    First, quantifying emotional states is hard, if not impossible at the moment. This could easily lead to misconceptions and misunderstandings, as it is not clear what x% “better” means.

    Second, people probably don’t always want to live in constant fear of getting dumped by their partners. I mean, I get it, if you are in a relationship where you would leave your partner for someone else it’s definitely not a bad idea to be clear about that, but I don’t think that is the norm at all in relationships “even” apart from marriage. So his tweet about marriages being an agreement to ignore other options is not wrong itself, but he seems to lack the understanding that many relationships outside of marriage include this social contract as well.

    Especially in a monogamous relationship, this view does not seem to make sense to me as it’s just a possibly emotionally hurtful way to tell your partner about your fear of commitment.

      • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
        1·
        9 months ago

        Pick the minimum amount that you have felt.

        Presumably your partner is not going to say, “You said that you would leave for a new person if they were 35% better, and Alex is clearly 70% better than me for you!” If for some reason at that time you felt your amount was 75% better so you stayed.

  • nifty@lemmy.world
    142·
    9 months ago

    I understand why someone would say this, it’s just acknowledging your own shortcomings in a way and realizing that you can’t be everything that someone might want. But so what? If someone is willing to do this math with you, then they’re not really appreciative of you as a person. Imperfect is fine, insecure is not.