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It seems lately that within the rationalist / post-rationalist diaspora on twitter and elsewhere, polyamory is starting to come into the crosshairs. I've seen a few 'big' accounts in the tpot space come out against polyamory, but the biggest one has to be the recent post that Kat Woods put on the Slate Star Codex subreddit, Why I think polyamory is net negative for most people who try it.
I wont summarize the whole article, but recommend you go read it. The TL;DR is:
Also, a rather hilarious quote from the middle:
In general, I think this is a continuation of the vibe shift against social experimentation within the rationalist communities, trying to push them back a bit more towards 'normal' social standards. It has been happening for quite a while, and I'm not surprised it continues to happen. My basic view is that while the experimentation and willingness to shrug off societal norms led to a lot of fascinating and good new ideas within rationalist groups, unfortunately, as always happens with these sorts of things, issues arose that reminded people why these ideas were fringe in the first place.
For those not steeped in rationalist lore, there have been many 'cult-like' groups that have hurt people arising in the rationalist and especially EA space. Some of the early and notable ones were Ziz, the whole Leverage fiasco, and then of course later on you have the highest profile issue with SBF. But these are just the most notable and even news worthy. On top of these there are dozens, probably hundreds, of smaller scale dramas that have played out in day to day life, similar to what Kat talked about above.
I actually think her point about drama scaling with more surface area in polyamory to be quite salient here. In general one of the purposes of societal norms and rules is to make sure everyone knows how they and others are supposed to act, so that arguments over constraints and less annoying and difficult. When you throw out major parts of societal norms, things get complicated very quickly.
Of course the whole polyamory issue ties into the broader culture war in many ways - notably the push back we've seen against wokeism, and the radical left more generally. I think overall the appetite people have for radically changing social norms has shrunk dramatically over the last few years. Sadly, I am not sure that necessarily means we'll go back to a healthy, stable balance. Looking at the people on the conservative side, the loudest champions of a traditional moral order seem to be grifters, or at least hypocrites where they say one thing, and do another in their personal lives.
That being said, I am hopeful that the uneasy alliance between the new conservative, Trumpian movement and traditional Christians is finally fracturing. To bring in another CW point, Trump recently posted an AI generated image of himself as the Pope. This understandably pissed off a lot of Christians, and led to them ending their support for Trump's antics. (I happen to be one of them.)
To which his response is, basically, "why can't you take a joke?"
Anyway, I am curious to see where all these social norms shake out, especially with regards to relationships and dating.
May I ask why? I'm a Catholic, and not a particular fan of Trump, and I found the picture both inevitable and mildly amusing. I'm seemingly one of the few big fans of the late Pope Francis, and of the papacy in general, but "I should be pope" just seems in the universe of a mildly irreverent joke. In the same way that a local church used to have a sign up saying they were looking for a new pastor, and I joked about applying. If anything, joking about becoming the Pope is, in my mind, a positive in that it places the papacy as a position of value.
I have been increasingly souring on Trump's mockery of the faith for a while, this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. He clearly does not care about Christ at all, and only cynically signals his Christianity in an empty way.
Also, I'm curious for your thoughts on the polyamory debate? I actually considered tagging you but didn't want to call you out hah.
I say this as someone who actually kind of likes Trump as a personality (though not a politician), but ... say what? If you asked me to write down a million qualities about Trump I don't think "cares about Christ" would ever make the list. How did you get here in the first place? I must know.
I remember seeing, at the start of Trump's first term, a meme on Facebook with a picture of Trump walking on the beach with Christ and the caption "Obama kicked you out, but I brought you back in" or something similar, and there have been several preachers of standing unknown to me who have stood on stage with Trump and called him Christ's vessel here on earth. The first item was probably the work of redneck fringe Christians who don't bother going to church or leading lifestyles that could be described as anything approaching biblical, and the second is probably from the wackaloon end of actual practicing Christians, but these poles are far enough apart to suggest that there's a broader element among religious people who think that Trump is doing God's work in a way that they don't attribute to normal politicians. Even openly religious politicians like Mike Pence or Rick Santorum never seemed to receive the kind of awe that Trump does, probably because they're humble enough to realize that such adoration is kind of sacrilegious.
Several of Trump’s inner circle of pastors(eg Robert Jefress is essentially an ayatollah for a certain kind of southern Baptist at this point) are actually a very big deal among the evangelical mega church Protestant set.
Would you mind expanding on this a little? In Pittsburgh everybody is Catholic and the few who aren't are some kind of mainstream Protestant. Megachurches weren't really a thing here until the late '90s and even now I probably know more Jehovah's Witnesses (and a lot more Greek Orthodox) than Evangelicals. The upshot is that anything I know about what the actual "religious right" is getting across the pulpit is more my own interpolation based on media reports rather than the actual cultural experience of living among these people, so it's hard to figure out what's widely believed versus what's overhyped by the media.
It's probably not a shock to you that Protestants in practice tend to reinvent church authority by 'whose interpretation of the bible is the best' or that megachurch Protestantism, whether denominational or not, is an outgrowth of Baptist Protestantism. Baptist Protestantism(and Baptists insist by their own description they are not a denomination- the SBC is a confederation of 'local' 'individual' churches with fairly wide theological variance explicitly tolerated. Other Baptist conventions are very similar- that's why they don't call themselves a church, that's reserved for the 'local' 'individual' churches) in turn separated from Anglicanism through a radical rejection of the more high-church features of Anglicanism- in addition to the radical independence of Baptist churches, they also don't believe in the sacraments. Not 'restricted list of sacraments'- they full blown don't believe there's any such thing as a sacrament. Baptism, communion, marriage, etc are seen as commandments from God to mark a change the faithful have already made within themselves and not as actions that actually do anything. That's why they insist on adult baptism by full immersion; it showcases a commitment made individually which a child is incapable of making, and with that mentality an insistence on full immersion makes a lot of sense because the important thing is imitating what the bible shows and not the minimally effective form which an ex opere operato theology would point to. This is naturally orthopraxic, obviously, and one of the unspoken orthopraxies is that the senior pastor of an independent church needs to be followed in biblical interpretation absolutely(see 'Protestants in practice tend to reinvent church authority').
Enter the megachurch- an extremely large church, often with satellite branches, with a single senior pastor, many of whom are essentially hereditary. This sprung up around the same time as evangelicalism- which is really an approach to soteriology emphasizing the relationship of the individual with Jesus, naturally fitting the orthopraxic and internal-spirituality emphasizing nature of Baptist Protestantism(nondenoms are just Baptists light). But I think they're separate trends. There's lots of tiny Baptist/nondenom churches with a senior pastor who has a day job because the church isn't big enough to cover his salary which have the same soteriological approach. The soteriological approach also allows Protestants having it to reach a truce with Catholics, Orthodox, confessional Protestants, etc- the internal spiritual relationship with Jesus is more important than having a particular theological belief.
TLDR if you go to your nearest non-black megachurch on Sunday there's a decent chance one of the sermons will be livestreamed from the principle church(probably located in the south somewhere). A lot of Trump's megachurch pastors in his inner circle have congregants across the country, not just in their own city- I pointed out Jefress because he's based in Dallas, but there's other examples.
Yes, I have heard the common refrain from people of evangelical upbringing that "it's okay, as long as you love Jesus." As you said, this is almost certainly a huge part of why American evangelicals are much more open to good relations with Catholics than confessional Protestants: for the evangelicals I know, the tension with Rome is less "they believe doctrines I believe to be heretical," and more "I do not believe that Catholics love Jesus Christ."
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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2027%3A6-8&version=NIV
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You might be surprised at the number of evangelicals (I am not suggesting that's where TheDag is coming from) who claim to see Trump as a godly man. I am unsure how, or if it's just because of the bible-holding charade of a few years ago.
There are many evangelicals who believe that Trump is the fulfillment of some sort of prophecy.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FCGfE9yMnXc
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Yes, this is very true. I personally know people like this. Typically there's the belief that he was a philanderer and a cheat, but had a conversion experience.
I guess it's just the vain hope that someone, anyone, will stand up for their belief system in the public square. I believe Trump's views on Israel have also influenced this -- it's hard to overstate how much a large segment of American evangelicals are passionate about the state of Israel and believe defending it to be essential for the fulfillment of Biblical prophesy. The only way I can explain it to non-evangelicals is to say that they view Israel with the same quasi-cultic fervor as many Catholics view Fatima: this is the revelation of the end-times!!!!!
So when Trump moves the embassy to Jerusalem, it's seen as a statement of affiliation with Biblical prophesy.
At the very least, a near-death experience has been known to have that effect before. I wouldn't rule it out.
And this is the logic they use to justify it. Not "here's evidence of it" but "maybe it could be true."
I'm right here, thank you very much. My "maybe it could be true" was based on my hazy remembering that Trump literally said "Now I'm more of a believer" when interviewed a month after the assassination attempt. In general, I'm pretty amenable to the idea that a sudden mortality check may in fact make people reevaluate their lives. "Maybe it could be true", indeed.
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