The Alignment Problem: First Principles and the Courage to Stay

We often treat relationships like renovations: we find a structure with "good bones," and we assume that with enough effort, compromise, and framing, we can remodel the interior to fit our needs. But there is a structural integrity to human connection that feels immutable. In engineering, this is an alignment issue. In relationships, it is a First Principles problem.

I have been grappling with a difficult question this week: Does a relationship require total alignment on first principles to survive, or is my demand for total alignment actually a defense mechanism in disguise?

In the early stages of dating (or in my case, the negotiation of a power exchange) infatuation acts as a softening filter. We see points of friction not as dealbreakers, but as "stimulating differences." When my foundational views conflict with the person I desire (and the people surrounding him), my instinct is to suppress. I try to "code switch," softening my language to fit a cultural and political dialect.

But suppression is not a solution.

Psychologists Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor described this process in Social Penetration Theory. As we move from the superficial layers of interaction (hobbies, tastes) toward the core of the private self (values, fears, worldviews), the stakes get higher. Eventually, you hit the center. And if the center of my worldview cannot hold against the center of his, I fear it triggers a dissimilarity cascade.

The dissimilarity cascade is the moment the illusion breaks. It is the fear that one fundamental misalignment illuminates a thousand others.

I have operated largely on a philosophy of radical self-ownership. I believe I am in complete responsibility for my life. I refuse to blame the world for the negative aspects that life throws my way because pain is the natural state of existence. I worry that if I yield my choices to a Sir who operates on a different framework (perhaps one that emphasizes systemic determinism or collective responsibility) my submission wouldn't be trust. It would be cognitive dissonance.

My fear is that no matter how much framing we use, the ecology of our lives will inevitably clash. First principles determine the communities we foster and the networks we belong to. If I cannot stand on the foundational truths of his reality without betraying my own, can I ever feel safe?

But I must apply my own philosophy of radical self-ownership to this fear. If I am honest with myself, I have a history of running.

When the "depenetration" stage begins and the intimacy gets deep enough to reveal the inevitable scratches and dents of conflicting worldviews, my instinct has always been to eject. I spot the potential for pain, I calculate the trajectory of the "dissimilarity cascade," and I leave before the crash. I frame this as wisdom. I tell myself I am saving us both time.

But is it wisdom? Or is it cowardice masked as pragmatism?

I am realizing that I have often used "incompatibility" as a shield to protect myself from the hard work of resolution. It is easy to love someone who is a mirror image of yourself. It is incredibly difficult to love someone who challenges your foundational assumptions.

I am trying to find a way to take control of the situation unfolding, but perhaps "control" doesn't mean leaving. Perhaps control means choosing to stay in the pocket of that discomfort.

There is a concept in philosophy called the dialectic. You have a Thesis (my view), an Antithesis (his view), and the goal is not for one to conquer the other, but to crash together to form a synthesis. Resulting in a new, higher truth that contains elements of both.

Maybe the "Alignment Problem" isn't about finding someone who is a carbon copy of my political and philosophical DNA. Maybe true submission, the kind that actually leads to growth rather than just comfort, requires submitting to a logic that challenges my own. If I only submit to someone who agrees with me on everything, am I actually serving them? Or am I just serving a mirror image of myself?

I don't know the answer yet. I am terrified that the dissimilarity cascade is coming. But I am tired of running. I am tired of letting my fear of future pain dictate my present happiness. Maybe the "counterargument" I am struggling to find is simply this:

Safety is not the absence of friction. Safety is the capacity to resolve it.