toosigma

(originally part of an email discussion with my friend Josh)

I agree that commitment in any relationship is important - but the terms of that commitment need not be defined by a centuries old system of supporting male primogeniture. For instance, as you said you and I are committed to one another as friends. I can honestly say that you could ask me for just about anything - up to and possibly including a heart transplant - and I’d almost certainly do it. I trust you implicitly, and share things that I don’t with anyone else. In my mind, that certainly qualifies as commitment. I have other commitments to friends, family, jobs, society, and even myself. The trick is making sure all the commitments are mutually compatible. If I were in a semi-traditional long-term relationship with a woman, I would almost certainly be monogamous and highly committed - but not because that’s what society expects. In a relationship, I make the commitment to the person, not to societal convention - likewise, I expect the commitment another person makes to me should be based on our relationship, and not necessarily how society views things. In the case of a long term relationship, I would probably communicate (in a manner similar to this discussion) that my trust would not violated if the woman has sexual relations with someone else. Other things would betray my trust - lying about such an affair, stealing money, infecting me with an STD, or any type of abuse.

This is mostly because I realize that not everyone thinks or acts the same way I do. For my part, even if I found a woman who was equally permissive in her relationship requirements as I am, I’d most likely be completely monogamous and only rarely even contemplate having an affair, let alone follow through. Simply put, I have very low needs for companionship - I’m much more comfortable alone, especially in the longer term - and the idea of maintaining multiple relationships (even ones without the full level of long term commitment) just sounds exhausting to me. On the other hand, I also realize that I am most certainly not the norm. Most people require more emotional contact, social interaction, and/or sexual intercourse than I am readily able to provide. I don’t see any compelling reasons why my significant other should need to have ALL of her relationship needs fulfilled by me (or vice versa). As an illustration, consider what the world would be like if everyone were forced (by societal convention) to have only one friend. You’re free to change your friend whenever you choose, but you’re only allowed one at any given time. While it might not bother me so much (I’m quite content with my current best friend, thank you very much), most people in the world would probably be shocked and horrified at the idea. Asking them to apply that same rationale to sexual relationships, however, seems perfectly natural.

This sort of commitment (anything non-strict monogamy) also addresses one of your primary concerns - namely the fear of commitment and the “grass is greener” effect. In a standard situation, a married man falls for a gorgeous secretary, and they sleep together. Until the wife finds out, both man and mistress suffer with guilt over betraying her trust. Once she does find out, she has to deal with the betrayal and decide how to react - forgive him, divorce him, cut off his johnson, kill the mistress, etc. In my broader view, everyone would be aware of the situation at the outset - man and mistress sleep together a couple times, he gets the urge to cheat out of his system, and everything goes back to normal. Or, maybe man and mistress find out they’re more compatible, and eventually go off and be happy together, and he stays friends with his ex. Admittedly, this sort of scenario requires that everyone involved share a highly non-traditional view of relationships and sex. It’s certainly not common today, but I think it’s more common than it was 100 years ago, and I believe it will become more common in the future (especially as more efficient means of contraception and disease prevention are implemented).

The traditional paradigm of male-female monogamy is largely a construct of society to support a system of male primogeniture. While determining the mother of any given child is usually a pretty simple matter, until very recently determining the paternity of that child was impossible without some sort of societal construct in place. Because men largely controlled power (again, until recently), the system of monogamy (or sometimes polygyny - the practice of one man having multiple wives) was implemented to ensure uncontested paternity. Given that we are now blessed with the means of testing paternity relatively cheaply, we don’t technically need the construct any more. In a way, it’s kinda like the human appendix - at one point it served an important purpose, but now it just hangs around and occasionally blows up in your face.

By the same token, the primary purpose of marriage is to signal the level of commitment of the involved parties. Without going too much into signaling theory, marriage basically serves as a way of showing your partner how much you care. Back in the days where marriage vows were taken very seriously, this definitely meant something - you could be sure the other person really would be with you through thick and thin. These days, with more than half of marriages ending in divorce, the signaling effect is somewhat lessened. From my perspective, I’d rather use some other method of showing my level of commitment. To me, the current purpose of marriage is more to provide the wedding industry a steady stream of income, and maybe to give the folks involved an excuse to throw a big party (or go into severe debt). The fact that marriage is also inextricably intertwined with religion is beside the point.

Commitment also means different things to different people - even when that commitment is defined in traditional terms like marriage or monogamy. I consider myself a prime candidate for basic monogamy - even if the option of other women was available, I don’t think I’d avail myself of it. I also have a tendency to think of myself as cheating on someone even when there is no implied monogamous relationship. If I’m going out with more than one girl at a time, I feel a little uncomfortable, and an urge to make clear (verbally) that the relationship is definitely not monogamous, even though the societal convention implies as much. But while monogamy is not a big deal to me, I’d have a much harder time if my commitment “contract” required that I spend 6-7 days of the week with someone, or give up my pre-relationship friends, or had to have sex more than 1-2 times a week (or less than once a month) on average, or give up pornography, or give up ever thinking about another woman, or (heaven forbid) give up ever looking at another woman. While I’d definitely consider agreeing to any of those terms for the right woman, they each seem (to me) at least as arbitrary and unreasonable as requiring monogamy. It’s also possible the someone else might have a very hard time with monogamy, but one of the other requirements might not be so onerous. It may sound overly clinical, but my idea of establishing a long-term commitment with someone means laying out the terms of the commitment in a somewhat like this. The societal convention of monogamy does have some advantage as a convenient bundle of these terms that most people already agree with - which has the added benefit of avoiding the potentially awkward discussion of terms - but does one size really fit all?

To some extent, I get the impression that your idea of commitment is somehow equated (or at least correlated) with your idea of monogamy - i.e. having one necessarily implies having the other, and the lack of either implies the lack of both. I contend that it is entirely possible to be committed without being monogamous, and vice versa. As an example of the former - consider a relationship that hasn’t quite gotten to the fully monogamous stage. Partner A suffers a severe emotional loss, yet Partner B stays with him through the trying time. Or consider a polyamorous or group marriage - just because they’re not strictly monogamous doesn’t mean they won’t be there. Or in a non-relationship example, consider a good friend - they’ll be there for you through thick and thin, even if you’re not their only friend. As for the latter (monogamy without commitment), I think the divorce rate should be evidence enough - or say the trophy wife who hangs around as long as she can keep shopping, or the trophy wife who murders her aging husband so that she can get his money and start fooling around. I think the two concepts should be uncoupled - they’re not synonyms, and there are plenty of examples of having one without the other. It’s similar to the idea that morality and religious faith should be uncoupled - I think you’d agree that it’s entirely possible to be a moral person without being religious, and vice versa - yet there are still plenty of unenlightened folks who believe either such condition is impossible.

I’m not totally dismissing traditionalist views, nor am I saying that I would never commit to a relationship based on them. Quite the contrary, in the exceedingly unlikely event that I meet a appropriately attractive woman willing to tolerate my eccentricities and commit to a long term relationship, I’ll almost certainly agree to whatever terms she lays out. I’m quite capable of living with a traditionalist monogamous relationship - I just don’t think that’s the only way to live.

If you’d like some reading on how I came to some of these conclusions, I recommend reading the polyamory entry on wikipedia, The Ethical Slut, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover books, and anything by Robert Heinlein (with the sole exception of Starship Troopers - which is still a good read, just doesn’t cover these ideas)

For my purposes, I’m going to define jealousy as: “the fear and other negative emotions resulting from the belief that his relationship, property, and/or skills are being compromised or interfered with by an outside source”.

From an evolutionary psychology perspective, jealousy in the males of a species is considered an evolutionary advantage. Basically, men want to be sure that “their” women are monogamous, to ensure that any offspring are the result of their genetic heritage. This prevents the possibility of “cuckolding” (which, interestingly, is a reference to the cuckoo, a species of bird who plants its eggs in another bird’s nest, leaving it for them to raise). In order to be evolutionarily successful, a man wants to spread his seed as widely as possible, and to ensure that he does not expend scarce resources raising offspring that don’t carry his genes. Jealousy effectively evolved to ensure that men did not get cuckolded - those men who were jealous tended to have more genetic offspring that those men who were not. When a male is successful enough not to require a monogamous (or polygamous) relationship, and can instead impregnate females without needing to provide for the care of offspring, then jealousy is no longer necessary. (Un?)fortunately, modern laws typically prevent highly sexually successful men from shirking their parental responsibilities in this manner.

From the same perspective, women are not nearly as prone to jealousy of sexual infidelity, but far more prone jealousy of emotional infidelity. From a female perspective, a mate is not only chosen for his genetic potential as a father, but also as a caregiver to assist in the expensive process of child-rearing. A male who demonstrates frequent emotional infidelity would be perceived as a poor caregiver - i.e. he would be more likely to abandon the woman and any children. That feature tends to dominate sexual infidelity - the worst that can happen with a case of pure sexual infidelity is that the man will conceive additional children with his “extra marital” conquests, who will consume at least some of the man’s scarce resources devoted to child rearing. In some cases, the genetic profile of a man is so appealing that the woman will ignore the caregiver requirements - e.g. extremely powerful married politicians or super-famous celebrities. On the other hand, if a woman finds a man with excellent caregiver qualities but less than stellar genetic traits, she may attempt to cuckold him by having illicit intercourse with a better genetic specimen, and rely on the caregiver to raise the resulting children.

From my perspective, I can appreciate and understand the evolutionary drives that create jealousy. The feelings are basically hard-coded in everyone, and they go back millions of years. That said, I try to take a more enlightened approach. While I have some decent genetic traits that would probably be worth passing on, I also have some hefty deficiencies that would also be passed on - something I have basically decided not to do. Since my goal is no longer procreation, the need to sequester my “breeding partners” is no longer necessary, and with it, the emotion of jealousy to enforce sexual fidelity. For me, that leaves only jealousy over emotional infidelity. This I’ve basically short-circuited with a few case examples:

• A woman is slightly unfaithful - spending time with other friends instead of with me. Given that I have extremely low emotional needs, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll feel abused. If I’m not harmed in the situation, I hardly have any recourse to feel jealous.
• A woman is mostly unfaithful - spending sufficient time with other friends/boyfriends that my emotional are not met, but she still wants to “be” with me. In this case, rather than fly into a jealous rage, I feel it would be much more rational to approach her and express my needs, and hopefully come to a mutually acceptable compromise. If that’s not possible, then we should go our separate ways.
• A woman is completely unfaithful - to the point that she no longer wants to be with me. In this case, why on earth would I want to be with her? To be fair, I’ll admit a level of carnal or aesthetic attraction to some women who have no interest in being with me, and that occasionally this manifests in a jealousy-like emotion (closer to envy), but I find it much more rational to improve myself (possibly making myself worthy of one of those attractive women) rather than wallow in an unproductive emotional funk.

There’s also my belief that everyone should be free to make their own choices. If a woman makes a choice that doesn’t involve me and does me no harm, what logical reason do I have for interfering with that choice? I do admit that I’ve never actually experienced a situation where my partner had sex with someone else - so it is possible that I will feel harmed in that event, and all this mumbo-jumbo will be for nothing. On the other hand, I’ve run through numerous thought-experiments, and given the capabilities of my imagination, I feel confident that my intuition on how I would deal with the situation is correct.

All that said, I cannot ensure that any potential partner has made the same rational (?) decisions as I have. Quite the contrary, it’s highly unlikely that any given woman would consciously forgo any thoughts of procreation. It’s also unlikely that she would undergo the ethical calculus on emotional infidelity and arrive at the exact same solution as I have. As such, it would be extremely irrational of me to demand that she allow me the same latitude that I allow her. Given that rationality and logic are the fundamental basis of my entire existence, I can’t make that demand. I could discuss everything I’ve outlined above with her, and it’s possible she’d come to the same conclusion (and indeed more likely than a median member of society, given that she’s interested in me), but I can’t require that she come to that conclusion. Doing so would undermine her freedom of choice - another of my fundamental (and thus inviolable) principles of existence.

Of course, this particular set of beliefs is not entirely without pitfalls:

• I have to make clear to my partner that any children conceived with other sexual partners are definitely not my responsibility. Unfortunately, given my propensity of assuming too much responsibility, I don’t know how effective I would be in carrying through with this decision. My worst case scenario would be a woman whose baby-daddy disappears after conception, and with whom I am still emotionally entangled - giving me 100% of the paternal responsibility, or the requirement to cut off emotional ties with both woman and child.
• The decision to avoid procreation leads to a not-insignificant degree of sexual dysfunction on my part. Even if we practice maximum non-surgical protection (condom + birth control pills), there’s still a roughly 1 in 500 to 1000 chance that pregnancy will result. Given my moral opposition to personally participating in abortion, and my subsequent need to claim responsibility for any children I father, that makes every sexual encounter a 1 in 1000 chance at betraying one of my core decisions in life. And while I could theoretically have sex every day for nearly 3 years before I could reasonably expect to face this scenario, my statistical brain always reminds me that I every time I participate could be that 1 in 1000.
• I’ve noticed that most women seem to like it when their men are jealous - even to the degree of violence. I believe that’s because insane jealousy indicates to a woman that her man is strongly emotionally invested and attached to her, which subsequently increases her attraction to him. Given that I don’t seem capable of that level of attachment, women are more likely to perceive that I would be emotionally or sexually unfaithful, triggering their jealousy (or simply convincing them to seek elsewhere).

… so take everything I say with a big ol’ grain of salt.

I started a diet back in March. I didn’t want to post it here cause I’ve had commitment problems in the past, but now that I’m pretty close to my goal and well in the groove, I feel a bit more comfortable sharing a few details.

Starting Point

I started on March 17th, at a weight of 245 pounds. I’ve weighed more at a few points in the past, but this was pretty close to those maxima (250). I’ve been on three yo-yo diets in recent years, with a low point of 205, but most of the time I hover around 218. On the BMI scale, that puts me solidly in the overweight category, and my high points are at the lower end of obesity.

Incentives

I decided to maximize my chances of success with as many methods as I could find:

• Money: Fortunately for me, my high point coincided with the weigh-in for a company sponsored weight loss initiative, offering to pay $10 per pound lost by February 2011. Given that my financial conscience is a LOT stronger than my dieting conscience, this has definitely made an impact.
• Peer Pressure: I recruited my best friend, Josh, as a workout partner. Even though we’ve missed a few days together, I think the partnership has been a strong positive factor in getting us both off the couch.
• Lots of Feedback: I weigh in every morning and chart the data by a number of different criteria. This has proved invaluable for keeping me on track, and now I actually get anxious when I can’t weigh in.
• Lots of Exercise: Exercise is usually relatively important in any diet, but doubly so for me because it keeps my mood up. I tend to eat as a mood stabilizer, and having a replacement for that has been critical.
• Progressive Rewards: I’m allowed one day a week where I can screw up - both to keep my sanity and to keep my metabolism up. I also get a major screw up once every ten pounds I lose. This helped a lot more in the beginning, since I could still eat the foods I was craving, but now I’m to the point where I usually (but not always) skip the rewards to get to my goal a little bit faster.

Hurdles

• Bipolar: The biggest contributor to my weight problems is my bipolar disorder. As I get stressed or depressed, my weight goes up. It’s no coincidence that every time I’ve been over 240 has been at the end of a particularly long bout of depression.
• Free Food: As stated above, my financial conscience is a lot stronger than my diet conscience. Anytime there is free food available, I’m almost certain to eat it. Mostly this is leftover catering at work, or when the boss brings in donuts, or my RPG game nights (when we share the dinner role). I’ve been getting better at eating less and occasionally abstaining entirely, but it’s still an issue.

The Routine

• 04:00 - Daily Calisthenics: I’ve been using the “Ladder” from the Hacker’s Diet, minus the running in place. The current rung gets listed as part of my statistics, and I haven’t missed a single day since I started.
• 04:15 - Daily Cardio: I run on a treadmill every morning for at least 15 minutes (up to 35 currently). I’ve missed a few days, but mostly because either A) I didn’t have a treadmill or other machine available, or B) I took a rest day to avoid injury.
• 05:15 - Breakfast: Oatmeal - 1/2c oatmeal, 1c water, 1/2tbsp honey, 1/4c applesauce. 230 calories, $0.20.
• 05:45 - Walk to Work: It’s a little over a mile, adding a little more cardio to the routine.
• 09:00 - Snack: A bag of trail mix (see previous post) - 240 calories, $0.34.
• 13:00 - Lunch: Varies - I cook 1-2 big meals on Sundays, separate them into single serving tupperware, and freeze them for later use. Roughly 500-750 calories. Lately, though, I’ve just been substituting a bag of trail mix.
• 15:30 - Snack: Another bag of trail mix or a yogurt (only if I’m hungry)
• 16:30 - Weightlifting: Tuesday/Thursday (and Saturday morning), I meet up with Josh for an hour-long full body workout.
• 17:30 - Dinner: Unless I’m starving, I try to skip dinner. Other than splurges, I haven’t had dinner in almost two months.

While it’s certainly not the most healthy diet, there are some days where I manage just oatmeal and a bag or two of trail mix - 500-750 calories and less than a dollar a day.

Results

I’ve lost an average of 2-4 pounds a week every week since I started - leaving me at 192 currently. My target weight is 175, which I should hit sometime in late July or early August (assuming I can keep up my pace.) Even if I don’t lose another pound, I’m still the same weight I was my freshman year of college.

Of course, the biggest challenge will be staying there, instead of letting the rollercoaster slide back up. I’m hopeful that the combination of Josh’s watchful eye, the long term financial incentive (I don’t get paid if I don’t keep it off until February), and continued vigilance at my feedback statistics will keep me at the target level indefinitely.

I’ve been making my own homemade trail mix for a few years now, mostly because I like it better than the store bought choices. I sat down this weekend to make up a new batch, and thought I should analyze the details a little bit closer.

Walmart sells a bag of trail mix similar to mine for $4.98, yielding a cost per serving of about $0.20. It’s mostly raisins, peanuts, and M&Ms, with a smattering of other nuts.

My ingredients:

• Peanut M&Ms - $6.98
• Pretzel M&Ms - $6.98
• Unsalted Dry Roasted Peanuts - $4.56
• California Raisins - $4.96
• Smoked Almonds - $8.96
• Total - 32.44

It takes me about 30 minutes to fully mix everything and bag each serving individually in snack baggies.

Aside: Putting the trail mix into individual bags is a HUGE benefit for me. If I leave the mix unseparated, I tend to eat significantly larger portion sizes, and go through it in a few days to a week. By splitting them into bags, I eat no more than 3 bags a day, making the mix last almost 3 months.

I ended up with 96 servings - yielding a cost of $0.34 per serving. If I include approximate labor costs, it jumps to almost $0.44 per serving - double that of the store bought. (Of course, the labor can easily be done while watching TV, and I’d also have to bag the store-bought, so I usually don’t count it)

Given that my mix isn’t any more healthy (and probably less so), there isn’t a compelling reason to keep making my own, other than the fact that I like it better. I’ll admit I was hoping I was making some substantial savings. I may have to look into more bulk-food options - I may be able to shave my costs a little.

In the ongoing war between ISPs and the big network content providers over net neutrality, a new weapon has been unveiled. Apparently, the ISPs (who don’t want net neutrality) have accused Google (their primary adversary in the war) of the same things they are guilty of, and that Google must accept “search neutrality” as a consequence.

This is stupid. Here’s why:

• Market Regulation by the government should only occur when there is a definite market failure.
• ISP services, like many other utilities (power, water, gas) is a perfect example of a natural monopoly. It is generally inefficient to run multiple networks when a single one is all that will be utilized.
• A natural monopoly is a type of monopoly, which is a type of market failure.
• Ergo - regulation is a viable option to correct the market failure. Q.E.D.

The same is not true in the case of search engines. There is absolutely nothing preventing me from utilizing any of the many search engines available on the web - Google, Bing, Yahoo, Dogpile, Altavista, etc. There is nothing preventing a new player from entering the market and upsetting the status quo - a feat Google itself accomplished not so long ago. Compare that to the de facto monopolies and duopolies throughout the country in the ISP market.

Admittedly, Google may one day step over the anti-trust line by bundling its various services too tightly (ala Microsoft and Windows + Internet Explorer) but that’s a totally different ball of wax.