Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife • Hacker News Board

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#151

Post by ams6110 » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:06 PM UTC

atmz wrote: post #143

dalke wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your comment to be belittling. The amount of chores one does is inversely proportional to the amount of money brought home? "If my girlfriend did not work" is a shorthand for something else. I think it's shorthand for "sit around being lazy all day", which is an emotional decision and not the overt economical one. If your girlfriend is going to school full-time, then that's not work. Would you expect her to pu…

He never mentions money when talking about their pre-seperation life. The post you're replying to is clearly a discussion of time , not money, and you've somehow twisted it into "The amount of chores one does is inversely proportional to the amount of money brought home?". Stop trolling.

Agree. s/girlfriend/roommate/ and it doesn't sound "unreasonable" at all

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#152

Post by theorique » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:07 PM UTC

klepra wrote: post #102

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #33

As the resident Serb here I should point out a Wikipedia page on Mileva Maric who was a brilliant scientific mind in her own right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mileva_Maric There are even some theories that she helped him early on in his career although there is no strong evidence to support that theory. As part of the divorce agreement Einstein made with Mileva, his Nobel Prize money was transferred to her and in t…

Why are Serbs always pointing out their nationality?

Because Serbs are awesome!

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#153

Post by theorique » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:09 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #84

noonespecial wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think of it backwards; If I knew that I had a contribution to make to humanity as great as Einstein's, would I willingly sacrifice my relationship with my family to make it?

That's an extremely difficult moral problem. It's akin to asking yourself if you would rather rescue the child on the left or the 3 people on the right when given the choice. And then with various permutations for the child being yours or a stranger and/or the people on the right being your parents and / or strangers. We are not well equipped to make such decisions.

Easy answer.

If it's my child or someone I know, save him/her.

If they are all strangers, save the greater number.

If I know both the child and one or more people among the set of 3, prioritize based on genetic or family proximity.

The point is, this can be solved algorithmically and/or game theoretically.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#154

Post by dalke » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #135

dalke wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your comment to be belittling. The amount of chores one does is inversely proportional to the amount of money brought home? "If my girlfriend did not work" is a shorthand for something else. I think it's shorthand for "sit around being lazy all day", which is an emotional decision and not the overt economical one. If your girlfriend is going to school full-time, then that's not work. Would you expect her to pu…

This is the kind of reasoning that drives me insane. When most men say "if my girlfriend didn't work, she should do more chores" that is exactly what they mean. That's it. As for studies, nobody was talking about that, so it is irrelevant. This isn't even a man vs woman thing, the same logic could be replied in reverse if I were staying home with the kids and my wife was bringing home the bacon.

And I'm saying that the view should be "if my girlfriend doesn't help maintain the relationship, then I'm leaving, and if I'm too demanding in what I need from the relationship then she leaves." This only works if there's no stigma associated with breaking up, which is the modern view. (Not only that, but I support nationalized health care in part so that each person in a relationship can leave without being dependent on the other person's insurance or other medical coverage.)

Therefore, I do not think it's proper to reduce the issue to a trade-off between working vs. doing more chores, because that provide no insight into the underlying complications of a relationship.

I gave some clear counter-examples for why that simple viewpoint may not be reasonable: non-work based income (e.g., disability pay or trust fund), going to school, or simply that the other person is making enough money that they can easily hire people to do the work. My wife, btw, gets disability from the Army and is going to school full-time, so I can easily relate here.

I can give more examples. Suppose the wife has a take-home pay of $45K and the husband wants to be a concert pianist, but there are no jobs open in the area. So the husband practices 6+ hours a day (in the expectation of a job for the future). Is that non-paying practice "working"? What if that husband also does occasional piano lessons at $15/hour, bringing in $150/week? Are chores now exempt because there is some paying work?

Let's say that the wife has a take-home pay of $88K, which is easily enough to support a couple, only the wife wants a larger house while the husband wants to volunteer full-time at the local animal shelter. The wife could demand that since she brings home the family income then he should do more chores around the house. In that way they wouldn't have to pay the house cleaner to come in, pay for laundry services, nor buy as much take-out, and so save up in order to buy a bigger house (which the husband would then need to clean). That she can demand such is clear.

But it's also clear that the underlying issue here isn't "doing chores" vs. "bringing home the bacon." So saying that "If my girlfriend did not work, I would ask her to take care of all the chores and meals" is a uselessly simple statement. And I don't even think it's true for you or for the original poster.

Suppose you become seriously ill and can't work for a year. Your wife gets a job, while you're unable to do all but the most basic of chores at home. Would your inability to do the rest of the chores be sufficient justification for your wife to divorce you? I didn't think so. Though in truth, it is stressful and quite a few marriages don't survive this sort of incident, I don't think the main reason is that one person couldn't do all of the chores while the other works.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#155

Post by dalke » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:16 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #151

atmz wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He never mentions money when talking about their pre-seperation life. The post you're replying to is clearly a discussion of time , not money, and you've somehow twisted it into "The amount of chores one does is inversely proportional to the amount of money brought home?". Stop trolling.

Agree. s/girlfriend/roommate/ and it doesn't sound "unreasonable" at all

s/girlfriend/mother/g and is it still unreasonable? Your widowed mother lives with you, and doesn't have job or enough income to live on her own - do you kick her out if she doesn't make you meals three times a day?

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#156

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:25 PM UTC

georgeorwell wrote: post #88

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If mental illness is involved, you'll need more than just therapy. Treatment, patience, and...luck? Anyways, this isn't the place for relationship advice, and we are hardly qualified to give it.

When someone makes what I perceive as a thinly-veiled cry for help, I tend to ignore whatever rules there may be and do what I can to point them in the right direction towards getting some. The guy registered the account to write that. You don't need to be qualified as a mental health professional to recommend psychotherapy. If a man here complained of symptoms that made it sound like he was having a heart attack, we…

Yet your advice is very typical. Its like telling a guy whose talking about the heart attack he had last week to go see a doctor. The guy has probably already done that!

As someone who has some experience here (on the past kid side), results from professional help come slowly if at all, and especially if there are kids involved, drastic hard choices need to be made that we shouldn't talk about here.

The best advice I would give here is preventative: carefully evaluate the mental health of your potential partner, including their family history, you really don't want any surprises later even if you are OK with it. This is in addition to checking for lifestyle compatibility; e.g. if you are a scientist obsessed with your work, make sure your potential partner is really really OK with that. And do you require extreme order in your life to function effectively (e.g. some autism)? Ya, that is something you also need to take up with your partner.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#157

Post by jiggy2011 » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:31 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #154

3pt14159 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of reasoning that drives me insane. When most men say "if my girlfriend didn't work, she should do more chores" that is exactly what they mean. That's it. As for studies, nobody was talking about that, so it is irrelevant. This isn't even a man vs woman thing, the same logic could be replied in reverse if I were staying home with the kids and my wife was bringing home the bacon.

And I'm saying that the view should be "if my girlfriend doesn't help maintain the relationship, then I'm leaving, and if I'm too demanding in what I need from the relationship then she leaves." This only works if there's no stigma associated with breaking up, which is the modern view. (Not only that, but I support nationalized health care in part so that each person in a relationship can leave without being dependen…

You seem to be inserting a lot of hypotheticals here. I don't remember the GGP saying anything about "chores will be distributed inversely proportional to % of household income provided".

Since we have no reason to believe that the poster was rich enough to hire somebody to do all the chores and that neither him nor his spouse had a disability that would prevent them from performing chores we can assume that he simply meant "if she would otherwise be idle I would expect her to help with chores".

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#158

Post by bguthrie » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #130

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are talking past each other. If I knew Einstein, if he were alive today, then certainly what you say is true. Additionally, if I were trying to impeach him or his works, such as the attacks that Thomas Jefferson gets when we talk about slavery, then you would also have a point. But I'm not trying to slander the man, I'm trying to understand him. When I was a kid I used to be interested in General Patton of…

> I'm trying to understand him. You may have to simply live with not being able to. Both because of a lack of cultural connection and because you weren't there when it happened.

Understanding other human beings is the primary goal of biography. Of course one can never live entirely in another's shoes, but humans were then much as they are now, and we can gain much from trying to understand them more fully. A hundred years within the same culture and language is not so vast a chasm.

It would be a mistake to use this one letter to judge this one man through the lens of our times, which is what I think you're objecting to. Certainly that's not good history. But viewed within the context of the other things we know about him, it is much more revealing, and an interesting counterpoint to the hero/villain-narrative we reflexively grant famous people.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#159

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 3:01 PM UTC

theorique wrote: post #153

jacquesm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an extremely difficult moral problem. It's akin to asking yourself if you would rather rescue the child on the left or the 3 people on the right when given the choice. And then with various permutations for the child being yours or a stranger and/or the people on the right being your parents and / or strangers. We are not well equipped to make such decisions.

Easy answer. If it's my child or someone I know, save him/her. If they are all strangers, save the greater number. If I know both the child and one or more people among the set of 3, prioritize based on genetic or family proximity. The point is, this can be solved algorithmically and/or game theoretically.

Ask a mother.

Re: Einstein's list of conditions for staying together with his wife

#160

Post by dharmach » Tue, Nov 27, 2012, 3:02 PM UTC

theorique wrote: post #153

jacquesm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an extremely difficult moral problem. It's akin to asking yourself if you would rather rescue the child on the left or the 3 people on the right when given the choice. And then with various permutations for the child being yours or a stranger and/or the people on the right being your parents and / or strangers. We are not well equipped to make such decisions.

Easy answer. If it's my child or someone I know, save him/her. If they are all strangers, save the greater number. If I know both the child and one or more people among the set of 3, prioritize based on genetic or family proximity. The point is, this can be solved algorithmically and/or game theoretically.

Add race/nationality/religion/culture and see if your algorithm changes.