a Mary Sue is an idealized or perfect character in a fiction story, often a fan fiction.

Mary Sue's have lots of amazing traits and success, and often are the author inserting themselves in the story (falsely).

the TV show Royal Pains is similar to many, many other TV shows. the main character doesn't really do things wrong. he's a doctor, he always solves cases, usually with hardly any bumps along the way. (compare with House M.D. where there were always a bunch of mistaken guesses before the correct answer)

but it's not really that Mary Sue. he's not perfect. he doesn't have a million good traits. he's just a doctor and when it comes to the medical cases he always cures his patient. it's kind of like a lawyer show where he always wins his cases. it's kind of an optimism and happy endings thing. and anyway it's a social show more than a medical show, so they focus on that. girls do kinda fall into his lap in the first episode. but the rest of the season 1 isn't especially like that, he mostly tries to date one girl and there's ups and downs.

and i don't think the writers are trying to insert themselves into the story.

but i think the show is worse than a Mary Sue. and many other TV shows work in a similar way.

he's so damn passive and generic and everything happens to him, without him having to go get it. he gets all this success with very little initiative.

the first episode actually starts with him getting fired (unfairly is the narrative, but it's not actually obvious and the show doesn't bother arguing its point there). and then his fiancé dumps him because she wanted to marry a successful doctor (actually that was a bit ambiguous too). and then the hospital that fired him supposedly makes it impossible for him to get any job in medicine. and he bums around his apartment and watches Netflix.

so then his brother comes and gets him to go outside and go to a party in The Hamptons. and then success promptly happens to him. a person at the party has a medical problem. and the rich dude throwing the party has a doctor on call, who misdiagnoses. so the main character gets it right and ends up taking over as the rich guy's doctor. and word immediately spreads so other people start hiring him. a career just falls into his lap. and then someone knocks on his door asking to be his underpaid top-quality physician's assistant, before he's even decided he wants to stay in the area and be a highly paid doctor for rich people.

off topic, the show really tries to avoid the issue of money and payment. and kinda treats him like a regular guy dealing with rich people, kinda ignoring how much he could be charging and how much money he could have how quickly in his position. and lots of services he provides it's kinda ambiguous if he's even charging for them (this is extra problematic because the people receiving the services would want to know that clearly).

i think all the TV shows that portray success as happening by luck to passive characters are really bad. it's doing such a disservice to the world, and their viewers, to fake reality so badly. real life requires initiative. real success requires a go-getter attitude. real success requires effort, it doesn't just come to you.

It's worse than a Mary Sue because he isn't perfect, but the writers give him the benefits and rewards a perfect person would earn.

Edit: Another point I want to add is how the world keeps acting in unrealistic ways convenient for the main character. I have a good example. The main character often takes patients to hospitals, or calls ambulances with EMTs, or otherwise is around other doctors. And they basically always just do whatever he says, immediately, as if they were his assistants.

The main character has none of the traits that could make this conceivable. He doesn't have amazing charisma and leadership skills. He doesn't do anything awesome to make people react this way. They just do, contrary to reality.

Another example of faking reality is how he gets hired by Boris, a rich guy with a serious medical problem. He basically does a bad job, is annoying to Boris, has nothing special to offer ... and is hired anyway, and then repeatedly (informally) promoted, for no apparent reason.

Knowledge is not justified, true belief. What is it?

David Deutsch has said that knowledge is, loosely speaking, useful information.

I propose, instead, to think of knowledge as problem-solving information.

Knowledge is information adapted to a purpose. In other words, it solves a problem.

Knowledge is information with the appearance of design (for a purpose). In other words, it solves a problem.

What kind of information is useful? Information which solves some problem worth solving.

http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/06/06/a-conversation-with-justin-kan-of-justintv/

JEFF: Do you ever want to unplug?

JUSTIN: That's a very common question. It's just like anything. There are times you want to and times you don't.

He's saying that everything in life involves compromise.

Justin wore a camera on his head and live-streamed his entire life to the internet for months. Did he like having the camera filming at all times? No. Sometimes he didn't. But, he says, that's just how life is. Whatever he was doing with his life, sometimes he wouldn't like it, just like everyone else. He's saying his problems weren't worse than regular life.

He doesn't think that all problems are solvable. He thinks you just have to put up with bad stuff in life. And what he's expressing is the dominant, mainstream view. Everyone believes it.

You can't get everything you want in life, people say. You have to compromise.

I disagree.

Most things are within human power to improve.

There are some things people cannot control or change. Like the speed of light in a vacuum. Or that non-genetically-modified roses need to be watered to grow.

But if we can't change something, that doesn't mean we have to put up with unsolved problems. Why are these things problems? Why do we want them to be different? Why not adapt ourselves to the few parts of reality which are actually completely unchangeable? What's bad about that?

A compromise involves accepting something bad. That's why compromise is bad. But if a person is wise enough that he doesn't have an impossible preference (or changes one), there is no compromise there, nothing bad is happening.

If someone wants to have live roses and have them grow, but not water them, and not have anyone else water them (including not using automated sprinklers), and doesn't want genetically modified roses that don't need water, and so on... That is their own fault. They are created a problem out of nothing by having a bad preference.

If people don't form bad preferences (or change the ones they do form), then no compromises are necessary. Compromises like, "I guess I'll put up with watering my roses" aren't necessary. The compromise comes from blocking all solutions (sprinklers, hiring a gardener, not wanting live roses, etc).

There is no need to want the impossible. And anything besides the impossible is possible. So all problems can be solved. Either there is a possible direct solution, or there is a possible solution of not wanting to do the impossible.

Sometimes the only possible ways to accomplish something are immoral, but it's possible. The solution here is to change one's mind about wanting accomplish this. People don't have to have immoral preferences, and if they do they can solve the problem by changing their mind.

Compromises are non-solutions to problems. They are ways that no one involved gets what they want. Compromises are ways of proceeding which no one thinks is a great idea. Most people accept this terrible concept, compromise, as a routine part of life. It shouldn't be, and doesn't have to be.

If you recognize all compromises as areas to improve, instead of accepting them, then you can have a better life.

I think evolution is true. But many of its fans don't understand it very well (and some are mean to people with doubts). So I'm going to help explain it, from a philosopher's perspective.

Evolution is a general purpose idea about how knowledge can be created. Think of knowledge as useful, good information.

When something appears to be designed for a purpose, there is knowledge there. For example, hawks' eyes can see far – they seem designed for the purpose of long range vision; there is knowledge in a hawk's eye. And a wrist watch keeps time; it seems designed for the purpose of keeping accurate time; there's knowledge there.

There used to be a great mystery about how knowledge could be created. Some people thought the answer must be a designer. It's easy to understand how knowledge can be created by a designer because he already has knowledge and uses it for his creation. A watch does have a human designer, and that isn't mysterious. So people thought hawks were designed by God.

But where does a designer's knowledge come from? Even if you say human designers were designed by God, then where did God's knowledge come from? If designers are the only source of knowledge, God must have had a designer, and God's designer must have had a designer, and so on. Which doesn't work.

Evolution solves this mystery of where knowledge can come from without a designer. It's the only idea which has ever solved this mystery.

Replicators

A big idea of evolution is replicators. Some things make copies of themselves. It's in the context of this repeated copying that evolution happens.

Replicators aren't simple, but they aren't a huge mystery like knowledge creation. It's not that hard to imagine building a robot which is programmed to construct more robots using the same design as itself (assume that people come by periodically and give it raw materials).

Some types of crystals, placed in the right circumstances, create more crystals of the same type. If there was no crystal there, none would be created. But if the wind blows a crystal to a place with the right circumstances, or a human places one there, then it creates more crystals. (If you're curious about this, look up the idea of a "seed crystal" to get started.)

Variation and Selection

Replicators aren't enough for evolution. Variation and selection are also needed.

Variation is easy. Replicators aren't perfect. Errors happen. Some copies are a little bit different. This can be random or accidental. The result is some amount of change, some new things are created.

Selection is more interesting than variation. The general principle is that replicators which are better at replicating end up existing in larger numbers. Replicators which are inferior end up existing in smaller numbers, even zero.

The better something is at making copies of itself, the more copies of it will exist in the future. (On average. It could get unlucky.)

When you put variation and selection together, evolution happens. Lots of different replicators get made (due to copying errors). Because they are made randomly, not designed, most of them are inferior replicators. They make fewer copies of themselves. But a few variations happen to be improvements, and make more copies.

Inferior at what? An improvement by what standard? The standard of making more copies.

And not just immediate copies, but also copies of copies. And copies of copies of copies. In other words, great grandchildren count. In fact, it's better to look at great grandchildren than regular children. That's a good rule of thumb: the more great grandchildren a replicator creates, the better a replicator it is.

What if we aren't dealing with people or animals? Then instead of "children" think "copies". And instead of "great grandchildren", think "copies of copies of copies". I'll speak of great grandchildren for convenience, but the more general concept is copies of copies.

Death

With genes and animals, the replicators die off regularly, and decompose, and the resources (like the atoms they are made out of) get reused. So a replicator which doesn't do very well ends up at zero copies, and better replicators use its resources. But this is just one possible scenario.

We could also imagine replicators which aren't living creatures, which don't die, and which don't have the ability to take resources (like building material) from other replicators. Then the inferior replicators wouldn't die off, there'd just be fewer of them compared to superior replicators. Over time, better replicators will create way way more copies.

Suppose a replicator is able to create 10 copies per year (they all take the full year to be created). But another replicator can do 20. After 20 years with no replication errors, do you think the better replicator will have twice as many total copies?

It's actually far more. The better replicator will have 413,554 times as many copies after 20 years. Over time, better replicators dominate, even if they're only a little better and nothing ever dies or runs out of resources to keep making copies. Direct competition between replicators is not required.

Knowledge

So, replicators have copying errors and then over time there are more replicators that are better at replicating, and fewer that are inferior at replicating. Where's the knowledge? Where's the useful information, the appearance of design?

Well, over time these replicators get good at creating lots of great grandchildren. So, they appear designed for (approximately) the purpose of creating lots of great grandchildren. So there is knowledge there. There is useful information that's able to achieve a specific purpose.

It's not just any purpose. It's not knowledge about anything. It's knowledge specifically about (roughly) replicating great grandchildren. But that is knowledge.

So how are other types of knowledge created? Like a hawk's eyesight.

Knowledge About Other Topics

So where does knowledge of a hawk's long distance eyesight come from? Or a tiger's sharp claws, an ant's scent trails, a cow's ability to create milk, a fly's ability to land softly.

The general principle is that creating knowledge about one topic often creates knowledge about other topics too. If I want to be a good physicist, I'll have to learn some math too. If I want to be a good doctor, I should know some chemistry. If I want to be a good lawyer, I should learn how to read. Pursuing one topic leads to knowledge about many topics.

Getting great grandchildren is a complicated problem. Let's consider animals. They don't just have to have babies. They also have to get food, and not become food. Animals do not have knowledge about just anything. But they do have knowledge about many things relevant to having great grandchildren besides fertility.

Hawk eyes and tiger claws are relevant to their survival, and survival is relevant to having children. That's why evolution was able to create these eyes, claws, and so on.

Randomness

Some critics portray evolution as randomness, and question the ability of randomness to create knowledge. And some of their opponent's laugh in their faces and call them ignorant. But, actually, there's an interesting issue here. It's a good topic to bring up.

The variation part of evolution is random. (Actually not exactly, but that's complicated, I'm not going to get into it.) And randomness doesn't create knowledge. Randomness doesn't design things (like eyes) for purposes (like seeing).

Although part of evolution is random, part isn't. The selection part of evolution isn't random. It designs replicators (like genes or ideas) for a purpose. What purpose? Roughly, to have a maximum number of great grandchildren.

How can something designed for one purpose (great grandchildren) be good at other purposes? This is an important question which some intolerant anti-religious evolution-proponents do not understand, let alone have an answer to. I discussed it above.

Genes

Animals are not replicators. And an animal's offspring are not copies of the parent animal.

What's actually copied are genes. Genes are tiny little sequences of information (made out of DNA). What they mainly do is something like control proteins to build baby animals. Genes are copied to child animals pretty much perfectly (except for infrequent tiny errors).

If you want to know more about genes, a good place to start is by reading The Selfish Gene.

Memes

A "meme" is a word that means an idea which is a replicator. It's used for talking about the evolution of ideas.

If you want to know more about memes, you can look at my archives, or ask at the Fallible Ideas discussion group.

lots of gendered interactions involve roles for both the male and female, which go together.

for example a female dresses sexy and a male looks at her.

sometimes people complain about one half of the interaction, but not the other half, even though they are an integrated whole.

e.g. females complain "why was he staring/leering at me??? who gave him permission???" and then continue to dress sexy. (btw, if she does not complain and shut it down immediately, it's harder to resist later.)

the same female will not complain when a guy looks at her and she's single and finds him attractive. she does not object to gender roles in principle, nor to this one when it benefits her.

another example is flirty touching, which i'll call kino, for kinesthetics (PUA terminology, and shorter). this is another stereotyped behavior pattern involving both male and female roles. "blame men" is a stupid response to a mutual interaction.

people pretend like the woman didn't do anything because her role is more passive, and the man is responsible and blamable because his role is more active. if anything this is backwards, since initiative is a virtue and passivity is a sin. but really it's stereotyped behavior, they are both just playing social games, they are equal participants.

it doesn't really matter what the specific content of the male and female roles are. Are you really going to condemn someone for the happenstance of being born a particular gender (and therefore being pressured into the corresponding gendered behavior, which s/he had no choice about the content of)?

the only person with a moral high ground would be one who rejects social games. in which case he'll be rejecting the stereotyped behavior patterns done by both sexes, rather than taking sides (feminists take sides).

kino is part of courtship (including marriage-track dating, one night stands, flings, etc). if a guy likes a girl but doesn't do kino, he puts their relationship at risk. she may reject him, even though she likes him enough that she would have continued the relationship if he did kino. if he does kino especially well, she may even especially like him, significantly more than she would if the kino issue didn't exist and wasn't a factor.

guys are under pressure to do kino. some guys do kino even though they don't want to. they may be scared of it, and force themselves to do it anyway. it's a mistake to see them as aggressors who are touching innocent women without consent. many guys are just trying to conform to gender roles and play social games well, so they can get somewhere with women.

there are some bad apples. i don't deny that. there are overly-aggressive men. there are flawed women too. i'm focusing here on most people.

kino is, as far as physical touch goes, not a big deal. people routinely get touched in crowded places, and don't really care. and they get touched in kino ways by other people and like it.

when people react negatively to kino, it's because of the social meaning of the touching. it's not really, actually the touching that's very important, it's the attached social meaning. people don't like being touched in a courtship way by people they don't like to court. make sense?

women touch their own breasts. they check for breast cancer, or adjust them in their bra, or wash them. and they think nothing of this. b/c the physical touching really isn't important at all. these examples involve the same physical touching a woman would freak out about, but without the social meaning. and kino doesn't even involve touching breasts. it's milder than that.

the thing is, sometimes people will say they were being sexually harassed or abused by being touched. receiving initial courtship attempts from a guy you aren't into – even if they involve mild touching – is not abuse or harassment. it's just a normal behavior pattern which he's a victim of as much as the female is.

whenever you encounter gendered behavior you don't like, try to be fair and considered any corresponding behavior from the other gender. you (or the person you think is a victim) may be an equal participant in the gendered interaction too!

I liked the article Kudos to Israel for Taking Steps to Defend Its Citizens Against Hamas from The Objective Standard.

It ended by saying:

Israel deserves not only our moral blessing for defending its citizens, but our unequivocal encouragement to do whatever it can to destroy Hamas once and for all.

Seeing it with zero comments, I figured I would offer moral blessing and encouragement to Israel. I didn't want to see an article of this nature have no positive comments. So I quickly posted this comment:

I agree and support Israel too.

Then I noticed they moderate comments, and I thought it was sad that a bunch of readers would miss my comment due to moderation delay. And I thought it was lame because there might already have been positive comments I didn't see. Then I checked back a bit later and saw my comment was no longer pending moderator approval. Nor was it posted. They deleted it. So I posted this:

You guys say Israel deserves our encouragement but then block my encouraging comment saying I support Israel? I don't get it.

Which they also blocked. The article still has no comments as I write this.

What an awful experience and awful approach to moderation. I've never before found a blog where you couldn't post "I agree". Let alone where you couldn't post "I [...] support Israel" in reply to a blog post which concludes by saying people should support Israel.

If you're going to have a moderation policy that violates user expectations and surprises them by deleting what they write, you should at least clearly explain what the policy is and warn people. But they don't do that. They just write:

Comments submitted to TOS Blog are moderated. To be considered for posting, a comment must be fewer than 400 words in length. If accepted, it will be posted soon.

This fails to communicate the comments are super serious, let alone explain what standards are used. Nor does it link to some explanation of what's going on, or how to write comments that will be approved. And it actually communicates the comments aren't very serious by imposing a length limit which is pretty incompatible with serious discussion.

Oh, and they made me register an account before I could comment have my comments deleted. (At most blogs I've seen, including my own, you don't have to deal with registration to post comments.)

What a horrible experience. But I liked the article and think the content is important. They could do a lot more good if they wouldn't mistreat friendly people so badly.

If you ask people what their preferences are, and follow those, often they won't like you. Because what they say their preferences are doesn't match their real preferences. They have some preferences which they don't want to say, and others they don't understand well enough to say.

If you not only ask people their preferences, but also ask "Why?" when you get answers, then what they say will match their actual preferences less well. Because they will be less willing to say preferences if they don't have followup reasons prepared. Because they have some reasons for preferences which they don't want to say, and others they don't understand well enough to say.

(If you follow only preferences which people volunteer to tell you, without being asked, that will match their real preferences even worse.)

You might expect that if you ask people their preferences and follow them, you're being super nice and treating everyone wonderfully. And then find they don't think so. I think it's an interesting issue.

people don't argue whether to have an affair. to prevent one they shut down discussion. "you can't say that, we can't discuss that, i won't think about that, i'm so offended, go away."

if someone allows it to be a topic of discussion, and says no, that's a lot of the way to them giving in.

there are other social rules where you're not supposed to do something, and a lot of the social mechanism to stop you involves refusing to think about or discuss the issue in the first place.

once the ice is broken, once there is a foot in the door, it's much harder for ppl to resist the social sin. they don't have actual arguments to resist with, and the social rules don't give them much help cuz they focus on blocking things off at the start without considering the issue.

it's sorta like if you say something taboo, then if you aren't immediately shut down (e.g. told to STFU) then just having said it makes it less taboo. even if you're just like "i wonder if the taboo about X is a good idea" and then you consider some args on both sides and end up concluding it's a rational taboo, that still kinda messes up the social prohibition that makes it a taboo.

an example is sending an elderly parent to an old folks home. that's not exactly taboo but there's pressure not to do it or even consider it. it's hard to bring up. it could offend ppl. when you say it, ppl might react immediately negatively, like "oh we could never do that". if no one reacts immediately negatively, then it's just become socially acceptable to consider it, and that's already a bunch of the way to doing it (even if u merely wanted to consider it, u've now helped it happen, esp if you don't have all the relevant decision making authority).

or consider ppl who are shy about sex. if someone asks "do you want to have sex?" and the other person isn't immediately offended, and is actually willing to discuss the topic, then they're already a lot of the way to having sex. breaking the ice is one of the hardest parts – or in other words lots of the pressures are front-loaded.

or it's similar with sexual fetishes. if you ask your spouse to do one of those, then the way it works socially is s/he has to be like "no way" immediately without thinking about it. otherwise it gets significantly harder to resist and say "no". even if they think about it and discuss and say "no", now that the topic has brought up you can just keep asking and giving reasons or whatever and wear down their resistance. their resistance isn't as effective once past the initial reaction.

or doing an intervention for someone. that's really awkward. and if you suggest it, ppl might say immediately "no, that's too drastic and mean" and shut down the idea. but if no one shuts it down then it's become socially acceptable to your little group of friends who were talking, and it's got a good shot of happening.

or committing someone to a mental hospital against their will. this might be a thing some relatives are considering but no one wants to say. and if someone says it outloud too early, ppl will shoot it down like "no way". but if someone manages to suggest merely considering it, without getting the idea immediately shot down, then they are a bunch of the way to actually doing it.

another example: pulling the plug on a spouse in a coma at the hospital.

one that is NOT an example is atheism. maybe it was in the past? (or is now in some countries like Iran?) but now questioning God's existence in the West is so well known and socially acceptable that allowing it to be a discussion is not dangerous to God believers. believers have developed knowledge of how to deal with challenges from non believers. they don't just rely on avoiding the discussion or maintaining some sort of taboo.

or both capitalists and socialists can socially-safely treat the other side as legitimate to discuss. they don't rely on just refusing to discuss. they're used to debate and don't consider the other side's ideas taboo. their resistance to switching sides is not front-loaded. breaking the ice like mentioning capitalism could be false doesn't really matter.

environmentalism, like recycling or global warming, is more front-loaded. they try to shut up debate more than socialists or capitalists, though not entirely. there's a lot of effort currently going into trying to make environmental skepticism an unthinkable taboo.

what are other examples and non-examples?

btw this stuff doesn't just affect discussions outloud with other people. it works fairly similarly with self-discussion. like if the example is an affair, just making pro and con lists in your own head is damaging to your ability to say no to the affair. it stops feeling like a taboo or illegitimate non-option, and starts becoming more possible to think about, discuss, maybe even do. or like consider if you've made pro/con lists in your head and then the other person suggests an affair. now it's harder for you to be like "wtf? no way! don't ever ask that again. how dare you?" cuz if you say that you're lying. and the person might guess that (or just hope it on general principles – nothing to lose for trying this tactic even if mistaken) and be like "you've thought about it, i can tell, don't pretend this is just my own deviant idea that never crossed your mind". if that's true, it's much harder to just be like "omg you're a deviant, what a bad idea" and block discussion entirely.

The Fountainhead illustrates the affair example:

“Your wife has a lovely body, Mr. Keating. Her shoulders are too thin, but admirably in scale with the rest of her. Her legs are too long, but that gives her the elegance of line you’ll find in a good yacht. Her breasts are beautiful, don’t you think?”
“Architecture is a crude profession, Mr. Wynand,” Keating tried to laugh. “It doesn’t prepare one for the superior sort of sophistication.”
“You don’t understand me, Mr. Keating?”
“If I didn’t know you were a perfect gentleman, I might misunderstand it, but you can’t fool me.”
“That is just what I am trying not to do.”
“I appreciate compliments, Mr. Wynand, but I’m not conceited enough to think that we must talk about my wife.”
“Why not, Mr. Keating? It is considered good form to talk of the things one has—or will have—in common.”
“Mr. Wynand, I ... I don’t understand.”
“Shall I be more explicit?”
“No, I...”
“No? Shall we drop the subject of Stoneridge?”
“Oh, let’s talk about Stoneridge! I ...”
“But we are, Mr. Keating.”
Keating looked at the room about them. He thought that things like this could not be done in such a place; the fastidious magnificence made it monstrous; he wished it were a dank cellar. He thought: blood on paving stones—all right, but not blood on a drawing-room rug....
“Now I know this is a joke, Mr. Wynand,” he said.
“It is my turn to admire your sense of humor, Mr. Keating.”
“Things like ... like this aren’t being done ...”
“That’s not what you mean at all, Mr. Keating. You mean, they’re being done all the time, but not talked about.”
“I didn’t think ...”
“You thought it before you came here. You didn’t mind. I grant you I’m behaving abominably. I’m breaking all the rules of charity. It’s extremely cruel to be honest.”
“Please, Mr. Wynand, let’s ... drop it. I don’t know what ... I’m supposed to do.”
“That’s simple. You’re supposed to slap my face.” Keating giggled. “You were supposed to do that several minutes ago.”

Merely allowing a discussion of the topic is a large social concession. Slapping is the kind of action which can shut this down, socially.

If the discussion were more rational, with serious arguments, it wouldn't change the social meaning of being willing to consider the topic in a discussion.

merely treating a topic as discussable has social meaning.

the social rules block paths forward. you can choose: block the discussion or defy the social rules.

you may doubt that affair discussion is an important path forward, b/c you have a low opinion of affairs. but i bet you have a higher opinion of something else which involves similar social dynamics.

also even if no affair is ever a good idea (past or future), discussion of affairs would still be an important path forward. because sometimes people want to have affairs, or think it's a good idea. even if they are always wrong, discussing it is still good. they could learn they are wrong and why, and then be happy to not do the affair. (but the social game rules are incompatible with this approach.)

one question is: how do you have such discussions without the social meaning? if you just want to talk/think about it but not change the social landscape. can you? it could be impossible since social rules are flawed, so they may not be compatible with this; the only solution might involve rejecting some social rules stuff. but maybe there's other solutions. post your thoughts in the comments!

---

on tangent, what do you think of Ayn Rand's affair? one notable thing is it wasn't secret. on TV affairs are usually secrets. (one reason is if you ask your spouse if having an affair is OK, that's one of those things where the socially acceptable response is to freak out and immediately shut down discussion)

Rand's affair was secret from the public, but not from her husband. I wonder how common non-secret affairs actually are in real life. Or affairs where a spouse knows about it without being told but doesn't say anything.

another issue is Rand was mistaken about how good a thinker Nathaniel Brandon was. is that a coincidence? did lust play some role in this mistake? or was she not mistaken at the time, and he changed later? (btw just merely raising the possibility that lust played a role in the mistake – not a nice thing to consider – has social meaning. it's harder to bring up that unkind possibility initially than it is to discuss it afterwards. the resistance is somewhat front-loaded.)