Its the direction of movement that would concern me. I assume that in the future there will be fewer believers.

Excellent article by Paul Graham that's at least tangentially relevant.

This Keynes quote has long bothered me. Why not just practice better bankroll management? Just keeping shorting bubbles with a small enough percentage of your net worth that you can't go bust or only if the bubble persists for much longer than any historical bubble ever did.

People who object to gay marriage should at least give it a shot.

This. Opponents keep trying to lump gay marriage in with completely different things like polygamy, or sometimes even further extremes like bestiality and pedophilia. Slippery slope arguments are usually pretty stupid to begin with, but the ones making those comparisons are an entirely different level of dumb.

As far as people worrying about how the future will view their positions, I think that matters more to young politicians, bankers, and tech analysts than the average person (relative to their convictions anyway). Just the same, it seems like small-minded people are especially unconcerned about the long view.

As far as this goes, I hope it's true long-term because it's badly needed. The only way I see it happening is though a net loss of teachers, with some lesser-qualified teachers being displaced by advances in online learning. Everybody wants better educators but they don't necessarily want to pony up the tax dollars needed to attract them. More so now with liabilities increasing (in the US at least).

There are clear parallels between polygamy and gay marriage. Probably most of the arguments that support gay marriage also support polygamy.

Sure you can, but so what? You can find parallels and common arguments in lots of issues if you're actively looking to equate A to B. The problem is that there are usually some significant differences that you need to overlook, the kind that make them completely different topics.

For example, I could just as easily swap out polygamy from your post and say, "There are clear parallels between conventional marriage and gay marriage." And there are. Both require exactly two people, both consenting, of legal age, human, and not presently married to another party.

Change just one of those terms, and you are talking about something very different, regardless of whether your starting point is conventional marriage or gay marriage. But I never hear anyone saying polygamy is a slippery slope from conventional marriage.

As gonso stated above, this is a bs objection, but also for another two reasons: the first is a numbers game. the idea behind equality is to not to marginalize people; it's impossible to avoid marginalizing some people, but developments in social attitude allow the possibility of marginalizing fewer people. Gay people who would like the option of regular marriage massively outweigh the number of wannabe polygamists.

The other is a simple moral calculation, and is somewhat subjective to our own culture. I guess this is taking the opposing sides 'slippery slope' argument and just stopping it in the middle. Right now our western culture, as a majority at least, seems to find gay marriage morally acceptable, but polygamy not; thus we should not legislate against it.

no

vael is right, you guys not so much, or at least you're missing the point, as far as I can see

the compelling moral kernel that makes gay marriage a defensible and worthy cause is this: that it is a valued and profound union, a kind of special social contract, that two consenting adults wish to undergo

the pivotal concept here is 'consenting adult' -- lose sight of it, and your thinking on issues like these loses its coherence; keep it at the forefront, and it's trivially easy to refute fear-mongering about "anything goes! men and dogs! fish and trees!" by reminding idiots that consenting adults are required, or it isn't (as far as you're concerned, and any sane moral reasoning is concerned) a meaningful marriage

but this does entail that other would-be marital arrangements between consenting adults, like polygamy or whatever else, need to be sanctioned and defended in principle, unless you can show some greater moral harm if you allow it (and good luck with such a demonstration) than if you prevent consenting adults from entering into these various alternative unions

In principle, there's no reason why polygamous marriages shouldn't be allowed. In practice, next to no-one wants them, so the issue is moot as far as I can see. Almost everyone knows at least one gay person, but to my knowledge I've never met a single would-be polygamist.

For the objection to work, you need to first of all be opposed to polygamy, and then to believe there's this massive polygamy vote lurking in the background, waiting for gay marriage to materialise so they can have their moment. Kind of silly IMO.

lagdonk, when you say that we're not right, you mean that we're missing the point, not that we're wrong? because the point is whatever we need it to be when we're arguing down the idiots, when they raise an objection. the issue at hand is the 'slippery slope' objection - that because there are parallels between gay and polygamous marriages, and that polygamous marriage is deemed by society as wrong, even if polygamous marriage is further down the line than gay marriage, gay marriage should be banned. that is implying that neither as individuals nor as society are we capable of setting a line in the sand and saying 'this is fine, this isn't'. we then need to add on to that argument 'and we deem that, as marriage is defined as being between consenting adults, and it doesn't affect anyone else around, we deem it morally acceptable, therefore the line needs to be moved'.

TBH I don't see any reason why polygamous marriages shouldn't be legal along with gay marriage. I know it's extremely unlikely to happen, however.

I've known a few different couples that considered themselves polygamous, but they were more than happy to basically be "open marriage where our additional sex partner is usually the same one or two other people." It's kind of like, they're so far on the fringes that asking for things like the right to marry doesn't even occur to them.

I feel like this is a bit off topic and will not rant about why I think gay marriage should be legal. I will, however, recommend following George Takei on Facebook and probably twitter as well - that guy is hilarious.

The OP should be able to answer the question himself, unless the future is already perfectly in line with his morals?


I think this is key for our society to learn how to change and how to deal with it. We have to bring an end to war without looking on past soldiers with disgust etc.


I see marriage being about taxes, state, religion, voting, economy etc. When we separate it from these things we can debate about which groups should marry, but if we view them together I think its just democracy not being able to let itself go.

I figure it would now equal 87, just like the world actually was flat.

Animals cant consent, and yet we can slaughter them, eat their flesh, lock them in cages, and euthenize them when we get tired of taking care of them. We can forcibly interbreed them as we see fit, train them to follow our every command.

People marrying animals has nothing to do with consent, and everything to do with making people squeamish.

Basically the same as homosexual marriage.

I don't think just because idiots bring up polygamy in opposition to gay marriage it makes it a bad argument. And I don't view it as a "slippery slope" argument either. I think it's just a logical one. The fact is marriage has always been defined as exclusively between two adults of opposite sex. If we change it for homosexuals just because they are a bigger and more vocal minority than polygamists I think it would be unfair and hypocritical actually. It kind of reminds me of when I meet a homophobic black person.

Anyway, I'd support legalizing both for reasons stated above about consenting adults... though I don't know why anyone gets married anymore anyway.