The whole “it’s too expensive” thing is kind of nonsense. There are billionaires. We would get something for the money. It’s not like Zohran is proposing building a 500 solid gold statue of himself, or a ballroom that would only be used by a handful of people. Healthcare, buses, grocery stores, those all actually help people and will lead to more good stuff later.

People who stay healthy later go out to concerts and spend money, or whatever.

This is broadly true, but given the low level of rules mastery I’ve seen I say “shared understanding of the rules” is a generous description.

Still, like a national fast food chain sometimes you just want something familiar even if it’s not as good as other options. You know it’s not likely to be worse than your expectations

I pay in cash for a handful of things. Pizza from the corner shop. Tips for the bartenders at my local bars. Sometimes food from the smaller groceries.

Everything is an option according to them but it’s ultimately isn’t.

It really is a more restrictive system than people think. If you have a concept that’s like “psychic batman” you can’t really make that concept go in DND. Trivial to make in the other games I play the most (fate, CofD).

D&D is not as good as it is popular. It’s a very idiosyncratic game that’s mostly focused on a particular kind of play, but people treat it like it’s a general purpose tool.

Clearly people can have fun with it, and that’s what really matters. I’m still convinced many of them would have more, easier, cheaper, fun if they picked up a different game.

I briefly toyed with some of the early image generation stuff. It was a fun toy for making NPCs for RPGs.

But now it’s everywhere and being used as an excuse to squeeze labor harder and deliver dubious value. If it just stayed as a toy I wouldn’t mind it much. I get annoyed at the aggressive “do you want me to rewrite that for you??” shit that pops up now.

Big sigh. Every time this topic comes up, the same kind of questions come up. Usually there’s a lot of ignorance and some malice, and it’s kind of tiring. But, most people are probably talking in good faith , even if they’re firing from the hip.

First off, not all non monogamous relationship types are the same. Swinging tends to just be about the meat. Open relationships often are hierarchical and have some people as secondary “fun but not serious”, and often have one “primary” relationship. Polyamory and relationship anarchy tend to be less about hierarchy. But also sometimes people will use the same word and mean different things.

Common questions and responses

“This sounds exhausting”

Cool. So does rock climbing and marathon running. Don’t do it if you’re not interested.

“I don’t have time for that”

Cool. I also don’t have time for some things , so I don’t do them. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to post on a topic about baseball that watching all those games takes up too much of my day.

“It’s just cheating”

No. Cheating is when you break the agreed upon rules. If your rules say “you can fuck other people” and then you fuck other people, you have not cheated.

“It’s just dating. I dated a few people before I met my spouse.”

Not really. It’s common for people to go on multiple dates before they go exclusive. In those cases it’s typical for the emotional connection to be more shallow. You’re just getting to know someone.

With some forms of non monogamy, people can form meaningful emotional bonds with multiple people.

Note that a polycule doesn’t have to be a closed shape. A can date B, B can date C, but A and C can have any or no relationship to each other.

“I want an emotional connection”

Many polyamorous people form emotional connections with their partners.

“This all sounds complicated”

Many things in life are. Pathfinder is a complicated tabletop game, but you don’t have to play it. Don’t engage with it if it doesn’t sound worth the effort. You can play simpler games instead and be perfectly happy.

“I knew a couple that did this and they broke up”.

Cool. I knew a monogamous couple and they broke up.

“But they broke up because of the open relationship!”

Did they? Or were they unhappy for other reasons? Also, I knew a couple that broke up because of WoW. Does that mean WoW will doom a relationship?

“I’ve never seen one work”

I have. Also many poly people don’t talk about it with strangers. You might know people who are happily non monogamous and they just never told you.

“I can’t even find one relationship”

Yeah it’s hard out there. It’s mostly a numbers game, and location is a big factor. Don’t believe incel or manosphere mythology.

Counterintuitively, pursuing non monogamy for me meant fewer dates. It’s a smaller pool of candidates.

“I’m too jealous for this”

Thank you for sharing your character flaw. The first step towards addressing a problem is usually recognizing it.

That said, most people experience jealousy sometimes. A mark of maturity and strength is recognizing it and handling it well. Talking about how you feel insecure when your partner doesn’t text you for a few days is fine. Stalking them to see what they’re up to is not.

"What about STDs??"

Use protection. Single people dating get by. If you feel the risk is unacceptable, don’t engage in non monogamy

“What about families? Kids??”

Kids are pretty flexible. The poly familes I knew, the kids were doing great. Everyone in the polycule loved them. It was like having extra aunts and uncles, mostly.

“But what if there’s a breakup??”

When my aunt divorced Uncle Steve I was sad because Steve was cool, but my parents explained to me that sometimes relationships end. It’s not different.

“You’re being really condescending right now”

Yeah. It’s one of those eternal September / for me it was Tuesday topics for me.

“But you made me feel bad, so I’m not really reading your content”

Yeah, that happens. Read this comic about it: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Ok, I think I got all the common ones.

You shouldn’t be allowed to do such environmentally destructive nonsense as running a “bitcoin mine”.

LinkedIn is so blandly bad. There’s a lot of formulaic slop, but apparently it’s effective enough that people don’t stop posting it.

Also I thought all reasonable people agreed that unconscious bias is bad and we should minimize it in the job process, but then LinkedIn goes and says “Everyone have a profile picture! This definitely won’t unfairly benefit some kinds of people!”

Also people who try to use it as a dating service need to be banished from the land.

This should be a climate crime and the management responsible forced to pick up trash or some other appropriate punishment

Then do universal basic income. Now people are free to spend a couple hours scooping ice cream without risking their safety. Assuming your basic income is enough to cover a dignified life

There’s that bit in Baldur’s gate 2 where some NPCs decide they can take you on, die, and then reload the game.

It’s like when people say they hate obamacare but they love the ACA. They don’t know what they’re talking about, but they have a well worn heuristic of “what does my in-group say?”

Or it’s like that spongebob meme with patrick and the wallet

“So you want workers to be treated with respect” : “Yep”

“And they should be paid a fair wage for their work”: “Sounds good to me.”

“And vital services like health care should be provided to everyone” : “Of course”

“So you’ll vote for the left wing candidate” : “No, I don’t like left wing policies”

Probably max out all skills by spending time in appropriate settings. If I can learn magic as per, say, mage the awakening, then I’m doing that as well.

Then I’m coming back here and fixing the world with extensive application of five point Mind and Fate magics.

Easier maybe, but less likely to have the best outcomes. I’m sorry dating has been bad for you, and the apps are absolutely predatory, but there’s always hope

Emotions are unfortunately tied to certain political issues, thats the way it is.

Does that mean the topics that elicit emotions are invalid? What does it mean?

Ok, let me amend my position: body mass is not a universal deal breaker. There are people who will reject someone on appearance or weight, but there are many people who would find that same person attractive.

What does this mean exactly?

If your an average Joe like me, there is no reason your identity should be extremely political.

I feel like you almost discovered the concept of privilege here.

If you consistently become emotional about political issues, you might need to take a step back and re-examine yourself.

But then kind of whiffed here.

Someone’s identity as a gay person or black person should not be “political” (whatever that means. Care to define it?). But it is.

Like, it was in living memory that black people had to sit in the back of the bus, and couldn’t buy property in certain places. Women couldn’t open checking accounts of their own until like 1974. Trans people are routinely subject to hate and danger.

Why do you think people are “regurgitating propaganda” rather than describing their experiences? Why is your baseline cool and normal and theirs is “led by the nose”?

And it’s extremely lossy to compress all of politics down to “sides”. There are details. People experience and believe things. It’s not just like rooting for a baseball team (though for some people it can be, admittedly).

I know plenty of larger men who are happily dating. The problem isn’t the body mass.