I find the quantification of very emotional topics not very helpfull in the long run:

What counts as "10% better"?

Do you know if the number, should it even exist, stays consistent? Or that you got the "correct one"?

My advice:

Find out what you seek out in a relathionship, what you want to avoid, and then talk about it.

Because "10% better" could just mean the other guy is driving more carefull with the family-car, doesnt chew with an open mouth or shaves more often.

Wow this guru of AI and rationality is a dipshit. Makes me wonder about all those Silicon Valley folk and vc people that take him seriously. 🤔

What a business degree does to a mf

I honestly enjoy seeing people like this with batshit insane but logically consistent views. Makes things much more fun

Ive no plan to meet second best nor be second best and I wouldn't want to put someone through that nor go through it.

We live in a world of consumption and throw away culture, we should have more respect then to inflict these ideas on living breathing and feeling people.

Fuck that guy and his creed.

"Is this normal?"

No, it is not normal to state what percent-better-person you would leave your romantic partner for. It's cynical and narcissistic.

What if your partner is in an accident that changes how they look or live? Now that they're X% "less" than what you signed on for, you can just dip?

Like I get being upfront about stuff, but this is just transactional. It's not about your commitment to another person, it's about maximizing your return on investment.

Can you post some bikini pics of your wife? I think I'm at least 11% better than you.

I'm pretty sure the ROI for relationships with people who quantify abstractions is in the negative.

Tell me you're a 44 year old man with a Messiah complex who spends his Friday nights trolling college bars for girls his estranged daughter's age without telling me.

I have had this easy with one simple trick: be naturally worse than literally any other person out there and you'll never need to worry about someone trading up because they won't take you to begin with!

Checkmate logic dude!

Unhealthy fear of committment

I’d like to actually discuss the problems I perceive with Yudkowsky‘s take for a moment, before everyone can go on with telling each other how crap his opinion is.

First, quantifying emotional states is hard, if not impossible at the moment. This could easily lead to misconceptions and misunderstandings, as it is not clear what x% "better" means.

Second, people probably don’t always want to live in constant fear of getting dumped by their partners. I mean, I get it, if you are in a relationship where you would leave your partner for someone else it’s definitely not a bad idea to be clear about that, but I don’t think that is the norm at all in relationships "even" apart from marriage. So his tweet about marriages being an agreement to ignore other options is not wrong itself, but he seems to lack the understanding that many relationships outside of marriage include this social contract as well.

Especially in a monogamous relationship, this view does not seem to make sense to me as it’s just a possibly emotionally hurtful way to tell your partner about your fear of commitment.

Be glad she didn't insist on -10%.

I understand why someone would say this, it’s just acknowledging your own shortcomings in a way and realizing that you can’t be everything that someone might want. But so what? If someone is willing to do this math with you, then they’re not really appreciative of you as a person. Imperfect is fine, insecure is not.

"Legibility" 😆

How has no one else screamed "HE MEANS ELIGIBILITY!" ??

I fucking hate this guy

So the idea is you set the playing field with this subject, with zero intent to actually play ball.

Become inscrutable. It's hard to find the percentage of an unknown quantity.

They're off thinking about percents but you're about to become the equivalent of Andy Kaufman. One minute they're convinced you're Elvis, the next they're wondering if the breadcrumb trail you've left about faking your death is a joke or something you're real about.

This is a stupid measure. I say that because every person I've dated, which isn't a short list, puts their best foot forward when they start seeing someone. For some, that's just who they are, they stay consistent, but IMO, this is rare.

For most, the "mask falls off" at some point and you get to see the seedy underbelly of who they are. All the "warts" in their lifestyle, personality, decision-making etc. Usually after you're committed to a relationship with them and they get more conformable.

This, in and of itself, denotes a certain uncertainty in dating. The person you meet is not the person you will end up with after a few years. I recognized this in myself and decided for myself not to do it. There's still parts of my personality I kind of restrain in spite of this policy because some of my darker humor can be rather off putting on the first take, and usually makes a bad impression if said so early into knowing someone that they don't take it as a joke, which it was intended to be. It doesn't help that I usually joke about things very deadpan, so new people tend to doubt when I say "it's a joke" and jump to the conclusion that I'm just saying that because I'm trying to save face. Which I'm not, but that's another matter.

My point is, even for me, you don't meet the person, you meet their idealized view of what they want you to know of them. So someone who seems 10%/25%/125% better than your current partner, isn't really a valid comparison. You're comparing someone who you know their "ugly" side, to someone who you have only met their representative personality. Their % "better" may be artificially inflated because you don't have the whole picture.

The other issue I have here is that while he's correct that "not everyone sees marriage like that" or whatever, they should. Marriage is a vow. A vow is simply a commitment to uphold into the future, regardless of circumstances. During a wedding ceremony, you vow, before your friends, family, the officiant (a legal representative) and God (if you believe in such a thing), that you will love, cherish, have, hold, another person, in sickness, health, good times and bad, until you die. You're making a very serious promise to do those things forever until your death, in front of everyone you hold dear.

Divorce breaks that promise, and a legally binding contract.

Personally, I couldn't give any shits if others break their word with their marriage vows/contract, but the purpose of the vows is clear. This is a promise that should not be broken, and can only be terminated by death. Vows are supposed to be the highest form of a promise, one which cannot be broken. But people do it.

That's the theory at least....

People's misunderstanding of what that means, IMO, is mainly a lack of being educated on what the words are spelling out. People don't take vows anymore except in marriage. It's fallen out of fashion to commit yourself to something with a vow. Because of the relative scarcity of such vows, they're only used in marriage now and the misunderstandings of what a vow should represent is staggering. The only other person's who take vows in the current era are doctors. They take the Hippocratic oath, which is, in essence, a vow to "do no harm", yet, it can easily be argued that harm is actively inflicted during every medical procedure. Whether placing an IV, taking blood, or doing surgery, you're actively harming your patients; but it's generally understood that such things are a requirement to help people. It's still committing harm for the benefit of the patient, but it is harm nonetheless.

I'll step away from that aside since it's not relevant to the core point, that all of these comments made in the image posted by OP are a demonstration of this fundamentally short sighted thinking and poor understanding of the commitments you make.

Yeah I've had this conversation but percentages are too hard. I said if it comes down to where they need to tabulate and weigh pros vs cons then I already lost. I don't want to be in those kinds of games.