Omar

How old are you?

Muggi, if one day you stopped being satisfied with poly, what would you do? Flawless argument!

^What's the issue exactly? Muggi, if you didn't desire relationships for happiness, then why would you even pursue them to begin with? Do you at least agree that there is a difference in happiness between a state when poly satisfies you and when it doesn't? Do you think that in such a state, you would be satisfied with no relationship at all?

nvm

@Muggi: your whole reasoning stems from the idea that there is one best way to produce happiness. Empirical evidence gives you a great understanding of how relationships in general work, and that supports the idea that alt relationships should be allowed. What it doesn't do is allow you to formulate a judgement about how one specific couple will behave. It allows you to have a lesser chance of making a mistake given a lambda couple, but no one's forcing you to judge.

Marriage isn't stupid. You're still thinking one should consider themselves to have an 87% chance of failure. In marriage, one should not assume the chances are on one's side. One should take concrete action to ensure they are, and that starts by choosing the right partner. Some ideas are listed in the link in my previous post. Examples of people who are still madly in love after 20 years also included; their brains, when presented with a picture of their partners, behaved the same way the brains of people who just got in a relationship did, except areas linked to fear and anxiety were inactive.

The 13% aren't in the type of relationship that most people fantasize about-- the people in that group are very low-sex drive and very low-maintenance. Nothing too exciting there. No, those are in the 87%. 87 might seem low to you, but that's irrelevant--point is it's not 100%. "The couples in [Dr. Aron's] study who were still madly in love after two decades together had sex an average of 2.2 times a week" But again, why would you choose monogamy when the odds are drastically stacked against you, when you could choose polyamory which has zero risks or chances of failure, and yields at least the same (usually higher) amount of happiness? In tripsis' case, she's in a healthy relationship already. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. When I refer to social benefits, I mean benefits to society as a whole; i.e. if everyone adopted it, then society would benefit because of increased overall happiness/wellbeing, or better family bonds when conceiving children. I don't have any moral qualms against either forms, but I can definitely see commitment issues arising as sex and emotions are not mutually exclusive. This isn't the issue. Alternative relationships should be an option, but what I'm saying is you should give the benefit of doubt to existing monogamous relationships.

Actually, your empirical evidence is a little more complicated than you make it seem. There are studies out there that show romantic love can last and include sex. I've told you this in the past: on average, few people in monogamous relationships make it, but whether you do or don't isn't simply a matter of luck. If you want to, you can. Circumstances and biological "laws" aren't the only factor; you are also a factor, and one which is within your control. Indeed, most monogamous relationships are set to fail, but that doesn't mean yours is. You're not most people. If you don't want a monogamous relationship, that's neutral. But you know too little about a specific relationship to predict the way it'll work out. If you consider the people involved to be your average guy and girl, you can say they have 87 chances out of 100 to fail, but if they both happen to be full of qualities which make for a healthy monogamous relationship, their chances are a lot higher. And since we are, to a certain extent, what we decide to be, you can't predict one single couple to have an 87% chance of failure.

Muggi, we're all conditioned differently and we all inherit different genes. This is a little bit like arguing over the beauty of a painting with a colorblind person.

Unless the project in question is entirely reliant on luck (it rarely is), blaming its failure on circumstances should only be an option if it's not your own failure. This isn't a question of whether you'd be right or wrong; it's a question of which approach will allow you to succeed. Either you stop wanting things to work out, or you do something about it. Complaining about your nervous system, your relatives, the shape of your nose, the country you're in, etc. will get you nowhere.

Answered your own question. Point is it's not 100%.

Seems like a bad gamble... Keep in touch, and see what grows it out of it, but don't hold your breath.

How long have you know this girl for? You don't know for sure if she's insecure--that's a pretty big hint that she's not travel-the-world material yet.

We all agree that pedophilia has nothing to do with this because you can't get true consent from kids, right?

There's no need for a deeper drive to have sex, just like there's no need for a deeper drive to sleep, or, more accurately, to masturbate. That being said, it's different in that it can have a deeper dimension, because it involves someone else, unlike sleep or masturbation.

You're right, and it's terrible. But it's legitimate to wonder if it's not symptomatic of a flawed model. It's not a justification, it's an explanation.

Backstabbing and cheating are inadequate words. Muggi is advocating honesty.

There we go. Trying to elaborate standardized guidelines to relationships through logic is a waste of time because not every individual wants the same things. [Edit] All I was trying to say about Bonobos was that non-human animals are irrelevant.

Actually, obfuscator, Bonobos do the deed for fun all the time. Besides, just because most animals do it one way, doesn't mean we should do it that way too. I'm not even into the whole polyamorous/polygamous thing; I would just expect more suspension of judgment. Muggi isn't calling for the end of monogamous relationships, just a larger system which regards every relationship in the same way, so long as no lying is involved.

He's saying lying is bad, and if we could have alternative relationships in an honest way, then we would be happier.

I think you're confusing morals w/ instincts. Our instincts usually override our morals because our instincts show us how to prosper as individuals, whereas our morals usually force us to make personal sacrifices in order for society to prosper-- with or without us. Biological wiring (instincts) trumps societal programming (morals). Nobody is completely capable of following their morals and logical mind 100% of the time-- we're emotional beings capable of logic, not the other way around. That's why we often sacrifice long-term well-being for short-term gratification. Or, in this case, sacrificing a long-term "healthy" relationship for a one-night-stand. Monogamy/marriage is based around the ideal that we'll follow our morals within the context of a relationship 100% of the time. Sadly, that puts restrictions on urges which are just too powerful for us to resist for that long. I'm only really addressing the idea that self-control is (becoming) a lost art. I think there was never much self-control to begin with, only control by the other through principles which don't make sense to everyone anymore or never really did. In this case, the article shows a case where morals don't lead to self-sacrifice for the well-being of society, which is why they're all the harder to follow.

A) That's a big claim for someone who's been alive for this long. B) Does this lack of self-control stem from the decline of artificial moral codes (especially religious ones, which for some/many were fetters rather than wholeheartedly followed values, à la "death of God"), or are people nowadays less likely to have internal moral principles?

...you thought the lawyer was affiliated with the company he's supposed to defend the artists from? Pass the kouchie! Actually, they would either be clueless and fall into the trap or be smart about it and find alternative means. And since the music industry is so bad and people are becoming more aware of this, they're going towards alternative means of publishing their music, and that sucks apparently. Nope. Nope. Nearly no revenue goes to the artist. Besides, I already don't pirate from major labels, not out of principle but rather because most of what they put out is shit. And finally, when I do pirate, there is literally no negative consequence. If I didn't start pirating, I would have dropped my guitar, never really gotten into music, and would never have started buying music. Now I buy albums once I've listened to them several times and I know they're my essentials, and fact is that wouldn't have happened otherwise. The rest, I often delete or never listen to again. It's not activism. It's something I do so I can listen to music. I don't need to find excuses to pirate because I (still, sorry obfuscator) don't think it's wrong. I'm not painting the music industry in a bad light to justify what I'm doing: I'm doing it to point out how ridiculous their anti-piracy campaigns are.

Minecraft too, IIRC.