Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Gareth Ward,
LOL, I'd go so far as to say it's a slippery slope and we're only halfway up, trying to get to the top. It's been a hell of a battle, and there's more to come, and it could all fall apart in a catastrophe. But every step further up it makes the next one more likely, so it's still a "slippery slope argument". Stupid phrase.
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Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Max Rose,
Ta, that non-monogamy graph you give pretty much sums up why lawmaking around it is a low priority. I pity the fool who tries to sum that graph up in legalese.
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Moz, I'm curious where you draw a line of calling something a poly relationship, as compared to merely causal and non-monogamous. Is there a line?
I'm just trying to find out if poly means more than "sleeps around", in your understanding of the term. Is it a continuum from that to having a polygamous relationship, which presumably involves at least some commitments being made.
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Hard News: On Freedom, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Law students are a fairly tight bunch so a lot of that goes around.
Also, fact checking on the Web was in it's infancy in the early 90s. It's going to be hard to convey to my kids that once upon a time you mostly had to trust people who were specializing in something.
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Cracker: Review: The Oyster Inn, Waiheke…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Watching someone work for you is much more enjoyable than doing it yourself.
Does this explain backseat driving?
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Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to TracyMac,
Anyways, as I have said before, being a queer poly person who is pretty fervent about the whole thing ("activist", meh), this is why I don't actually support marriage as a legal concept, full stop.
I tend to think this is why there's not a deafening roar from polygamous marriage activists. Anyone that is into polygamy, and has made it work, is most likely not about marriage. When they see a need to protect some right or other, they just arrange for that to happen, insurance for the kids, property ownership etc. They're basically people who aren't going to leave it to society to sort out how they should live in the first place. It might not even be legally formalized, just strong agreements made as a group which are generally honored, in a communal fashion.
ETA: At least that seemed to be how the only fully functional, lasting poly situation I know of (and I don't know many) worked. A particularly charismatic and clever woman who was a schoolteacher, some guys, and a lot of kids. They were all just one happy family, so far as I could see. It was just normal for them. I don't know the background of how they got it all to happen, but I presumed they were just idealistic people who mostly liked each other, and their lifestyle, which was very pleasant.
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Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Max Rose,
it might have to wait until after I've had a monogamous 8-hour relationship with my bed.
I hope I won't be judged for sharing my time between couch and bed. One is easier to go to sleep on, the other easier to be asleep in, and much nicer to wake up to. I also share both of them with my partner, although the couch is in dispute, since it doesn't like the whole group thing. We've tried it, but everyone agreed it was uncomfortable.
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Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Euan Mason,
I disagree that marriage between men and women made same sex marriage easier to implement.
I was being facetious, following your lead. I'm not disagreeing with you, just pointing out that even if there are probabilistic connections along the chain of horrors on the slippery slope, it's still not clearly more reasonable to therefore avoid the first step. You might really want what's on the first step.
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One might just as well argue that legalising marriage between a man and a woman is a bad idea because it might make legalising same sex marriage easier.
If there was no such thing as marriage, there could be no same-sex marriage. So it did definitely make it easier. The false step is in saying "therefore, it's a bad idea". The value of conventional marriage would have to have less value in itself than the horror of same-sex marriage for that to be "rational" in the purely utilitarian sense.
One might vehemently oppose polygamous marriage, and even be quite lukewarm on same-sex marriage, and yet still support it, simply because there are that many people who really want to have a same-sex marriage and yet barely any polygamous folk who are serious about getting married. So the greater good for more people outweighs the "harm" caused by the smaller number (in this simplistic hypothetical utility maximizing scenario).
I don't think this is a simple debate, really. It's a discussion of strategy, as much as it is about the morality of the situation - I don't think anyone here is particularly horrified by polygamy, but to the practical end of getting progressive laws passed there are different views on the best way, some based strongly on principle, others seeing pragmatism as sounder. But sometimes principle is pragmatic too, so it's not a no-brainer either way.
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Cracker: Review: The Oyster Inn, Waiheke…, in reply to Sacha,
That's only 1 step away from going in and actually cooking it yourself. After which point the next step is to stay home and save 90% of the cost.
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