Yep, that’s right!

It might put California on the track to surviving Trump’s destruction and becoming a civilized country opposed to Putin, unlike other US states.

Just to be clear, I see polygamy as bad only because of the women oppression aspect. But the world is a big place and history is long, so I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point there was some system that allowed for polygamy without oppressing women. Mentioning mormons - don’t you think they can be seen as another weird different group - and therefore be also object of xenophobia? Notice I intentionally didn’t use the word racism, what I mean is just the sentiment that people doing things differently than my group must be deadly wrong.

I think normalizing having more partners even in a stable relationship with one partner would make it much easier to actually talk to your partner and discuss it openly, because the percentage of partners that see it as something terribly wrong would be much lower and people wouldn’t feel like speaking about such things is risky. That would reduce the need for cheating, although it wouldn’t make it disappear (as it’s not the only cause, as someone’s correctly pointed out).

I agree with the part that it’s really up to people. I don’t agree it’s ok to want people to hide their relarionships. And they do have to hide them or face problems. People who decide to live in uncommon relationships are a target for others. They often get questioned uncomfortably even by rather liberal people and attacked and bullied by conservative ones. It’s really hard to do this openly. In such circumstances, I do think it’s oppression. It’s also not really about me. But I have eyes and empathy.

I thought the small one was a parasite - wanting the sugar. It would work as a joke with specific taxa.

But the probability you get wed to a guy who sets you aside because bored and then marries your girlfriend out of pure respect to you is very low.

I think in western culture it might be a bit of both, and also a bit of xenophobia - it’s different, so it must be bad. I’d be interested in knowing more too. Very good question.

That’s just not true. Open relationships do exist (I’ve seen several work out nicely) but the overall opinion on them in most cultures is they’re weird, doomed or plain wrong and evil. Unless it is normalized that sex is not something fatal, it’s ok among consenting adults, we won’t move to a really sexually tolerant society.

Infidelity is widespread, because it comes from human nature. Instead of vilifying it we should strive to find and normalize forms of relationships that allow for more liberty without the necessity of lying and cheating.

Ok, now try with hawkweed.

I don’t, I’m guessing.

Recomendations from others?

I agree fully. If you were not allowed to eat other life, you would be left with licking salt. But that’s not what I meant. What I meant was people use the “thing” label to make it easier to drop empathy - to do shitty things to both humans and other animals.

They hire people to do that for them, don’t they?

Violence is not the basic force driving life and decisions. It’s just one of the basic factors that helps to structure our society (and all societies).

It’s not their theory. If someone explains basic theory of relativity to you, will you call it their theory?

First I was sure these were kitchen sponges.

I think recognizing what is alive and what is not is a question of basic science education. I agree animals shouldn’t be treated as smartphones.

By treating animals like people, do you mean respecting them and not killing them or letting them work as senators?

IMO treating animals like things is definitely wrong, in the same way treating people like things is. Neither of them is a thing, all us animals are alive.