Capitalization and Polyamory
Jana Lembke of NYmag.com has an article up about capitalization in relationships: When something great happens in our personal lives, it’s exciting to share the event with people close to us. But at...
View ArticleNot-So-Radical Honesty
“If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy.” – Eliezer Yudkowsky I. Radical Honesty Radical Honesty is a philosophy developed by psychiatrist Brad Blanton, which has as its principle...
View ArticleEthics and Philosophy: A Defense of Egoism
In my previous post about ethics, I explored the normative question through the works of Christine Korsgaard. I concluded that ethics are not normative, or at least that ethics have no collective...
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Stop Telling Fat People to Be Thin
source: fiercefatties.com Last month, Harriet Brown published an article on Slate comprehensively laying out the science around weight loss and showing how (a) diets don’t work long-term; (b) weight...
View ArticleWhat Rolling Stone Can Teach Us About Creating Ethical Poly Communities
[CN: Rape] In November 2014, Rolling Stone published an article by Sabrina Erdely entitled “A Rape on Campus.” Wikipedia has a summary of the article and the subsequent fallout. For those who haven’t...
View ArticleExpectation Damages and Reliance Damages
What do we do when our relationship expectations aren’t met? What happens when someone breaks a rule, violates an agreement, or otherwise doesn’t do what we legitimately expected them to do, and it...
View ArticleCompatibility is All That Matters
Good dating advice usually has one unifying feature: it stresses that relationships should be entirely consent-based. That means that every part of a relationship is genuinely desired by all parties,...
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The Creation Museum is Horrifying
So Gina, Amber, and I are on a road trip from Jersey to Colorado and back. Today we passed through Kentucky on our way to Nashville, and we figured we had to stop at the Creation Museum. For those of...
View ArticleAvoiding Nice-Guy Fantasy
I’m writing an urban fantasy novel, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the genre. I’ve always been a fan of fantasy/sci-fi stories, but there are some unfortunate tropes in the genre that reflect a lot...
View ArticlePolyamory vs. Relationship Anarchy
I have mixed feelings about Louisa Leontiades’ recent post entitled “The Mass Exodus of Polyamorous People Towards Relationship Anarchy.” My first thought is that it’s silly. Relationship anarchy and...
View ArticlePolite Poly
This post grew out of a conversation with my friend Heina Dadabhoy, who writes Heinous Dealings at the Orbit, a new blog network focused on social justice minded atheism. Heina has a companion blog...
View ArticlePolitical Responsibility
This past weekend, a North Carolina Republican field office was firebombed, with the words “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” and a swastika spraypainted on the walls. In response, within hours, a...
View ArticleRational Relationships: The Illusion of Transparency
The illusion of transparency is a common cognitive bias wherein people overestimate both the degree to which their internal thoughts are apparent to those around them and the degree to which they...
View ArticleNewcomb’s Problem and Relationship Rules
In my defense of egoism, I discussed Newcomb’s Problem, summarized in the Less Wrong wiki as: a superintelligence called Omega shows you two boxes, A and B, and offers you the choice of taking only box...
View ArticleI Wish That I Knew What I Know Now When I Was Younger
My dating life really started in my late 20’s. I grew up fat and unpopular. I had some nasty skin conditions. I was generally low-status in my social circles. My dating pool was small. Up until age 21,...
View ArticleNobody Deserves to Suffer
A few days ago, I posted this on Facebook: So much of the worst of humanity comes from our seemingly intractable sense of outrage at the idea that other people might get things they don’t deserve It...
View ArticleAutism and Polyamory
Today, June 18, is Autistic Pride Day! This year, I found out that I am on the autism spectrum – basically what used to be called Asperger’s. It wasn’t terribly surprising, but it explained a lot of...
View ArticleBill Maher is Wrong About Fat Shaming
Bill Maher promoting science-denialism This past Friday night, Bill Maher used his popular HBO show to declare that “fat shaming needs to make a comeback.” During his closing “New Rule,” Maher mixed...
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