self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
Friends:
A friend to everyone is a friend to no one.
User ID: 454
I would like to, but I already felt uneasy about the potential dox, and Dase has specifically edited his post to ask me not to share further, albeit not because he seems concerned about doxxing. I'm sorry about that.
P.S. (given the length of the ban, btw thanks for FINALLY dropping this blat and treating me like a normal user as I've been requesting, I feel the need to say this in an edit:) I would very much prefer it if @self_made_human did not disseminate my contacts on any external platforms, for many simple reasons, not least being fed up with condescension here, and also not having any valuable thoughts to share with mottizens. I'd rather you treated me as braindead
Noted. It was just one person over DMs, but my apologies nonetheless.
The primary saving grace about experiencing emotional shocks is that they seem to have a half-life. Not in a dismissive sense - the underlying facts don't become less real, and the things that warranted careful thought still warrant it - but the brain's alarm systems appear calibrated for novelty, and novelty is, almost definitionally, temporary. By yesterday I had gone most of a day without the intrusive guilt-spiraling I'd described before, which I'm counting as a positive update. I genuinely do not think it's taken me very long to come to terms with what by all rights is a rather earth-shattering revelation about my near and dear ones.
I want to be clear, again, that my distress was never about any moral objection. I have approximately no moral intuitions against homosexuality that survive five seconds of reflection. The worry was more diffuse than that - a kind of anticipatory anguish about social repercussions, about what I should have done differently, about whether my brother had been suffering in ways I'd failed to notice. The answer to the last question is probably yes, and there's not much to do with that except file it away. Eventually, my subconscious will tug at that drawer and will discover that we've lost the keys.
Then my brother came home and introduced a complication I hadn't fully anticipated: his boyfriend was upset. Not at me, exactly - at the disclosure itself, at having been, in some meaningful sense, outed without consent as a side effect of an unplanned coming-out. This seems to me like a legitimate grievance. These things happen, but the fact that something was inevitable doesn't mean the person affected has to be cheerful about it.
I offered to intervene, partly because I'm on reasonably good terms with the boyfriend, and partly because I suspected - maybe correctly, maybe not - that absorbing some of the relational friction myself would make it easier for my brother to have the subsequent conversation. That's the benefit of being a third party in someone else's relationship conflict: you have less skin in the game, which makes certain kinds of reassurance easier to deliver credibly.
I called him. He was eating, so he called me back. I tried to strike a tone that was somewhere between warm and matter-of-fact - acknowledging that his frustration made sense, explaining the psychological weight my brother had been carrying, reiterating that my knowledge of all this wasn't going anywhere (you lot don't count). I told him nothing had changed between us, that I didn't intend to handle him differently, that he'd been a good friend and a good boyfriend. He sounded somewhat annoyed, but I had the (possibly self-serving) impression that the directness was landing okay. People often respond better to being treated as if their distress is ordinary and manageable rather than as if it requires elaborate delicacy.
They're going to talk it out themselves, which is correct. My most substantive tactical suggestion was that my brother bring sweets and perhaps a flower. I'm moderately aware that this advice is imported wholesale from the tactics I've developed for apologizing to women, and may not transfer perfectly. I'm not sure how much of romantic repair-making is universal and how much is culturally specific to particular relationship configurations. I'll update based on evidence, maybe angry gay/bi men would, like me, prefer a beer.
(My brother is pretty good at calming things down when I've argued with my girlfriends, even if he takes their side at a distressingly high frequency. I lack the same experience when it comes to him, because as far as I was concerned, he'd spent his life in celibacy. Oh well, I'll learn. The skills transfer.)
I didn't expect the response to my previous post to be as generous as it was. The rationalist-adjacent internet, and the Motte in particular, has a well-earned reputation for a certain kind of adversarial argumentation, which I participate in as much as anyone. But people gave real, considered advice when it mattered, and I'm genuinely grateful. That's worth saying plainly. Thank you guys.
Is it public knowledge? I don't know. I figured it out by accident while using X normally.
I'm quite loathe to share by default, even if I don't think he minds. If you really want it, I can DM you.
Edit: This wasn't intended to be an offer to DM it to everyone who asks.
I didn't want to get into his Twitter, but yes, I agree. After he became a reasonably big name and a sort of authority on AI/ML (which is justifiable), the boost in popularity only encouraged him to spout far less technically grounded hot-takes on topics like politics.
Twitter moderation is not The Motte's moderation (lol, lmao). I know I code-switch a little when switching context, I'm more polite and formal on LessWrong than I would be here. But most of the time, I speak exactly as I would on our platform.
That's the thing. Some people are innately in tune with our ethos, our rules don't strike them as unreasonable because they're inclined to act that way by default. Others don't agree, on an instinctual level, but follow the rules because of the value the forum provides them.
This is hardly a binary, on one hand we have we have consistently polite effort posters, and on the other side trolls and shitposters. I hope I land pretty left on that spectrum.
And now that I contemplate it, the main reason that I lurk and rarely comment or post on my Twitter account is because the pressure towards being concise or dropping zingers isn't my style at all. I could probably do it, but I don't want to. You can do long-form text and intelligent analysis there with some success, but it's clearly not the default.
So we have Dase, who is clearly smart and talented, but has an abrasive personality, displays clears impatience for those he considers fools, and holds a few rather questionable and strongly held opinions. When he started here, with minimal X clout, he was in an environment that encouraged the the good stuff and came down strongly on the bad.
But X? The negative feedback mechanism is nowhere near as strong. Some of his insults and hot takes took off, or caused him no real harm. And sometimes, he does have a point when he's mad, the number of idiots or hostile interlocutors here is not zero, let alone on X.
Further, he's shifted mostly to posting there, only rarely visiting our site. I don't begrudge him for this, not at all. But that makes the relative impact of a ban or a warning far less meaningful to him. He knows he can pivot to X completely (and I doubt he's the kind to make an alt and scurry back, he's too proud for that).
In other words, we're less important to him than we used to be, our validation and our negative feedback means less, and he's got a fallback at hand. Shame, I like him despite all of that, and that includes tolerating him despite his anti-Indian bias. I wish he'd clean up his act, I can't defend him anymore.
Thanks!
Can I recruit myself into your accountability scheme? I want to commit to going to the gym at least once a week, unless I have a very good excuse (exam pressures, sick etc).
I think someone asking me would help, but I would also be willing to ban myself for a week per infraction to make it sting (I'm too cheap to put money on the table).
I don't want to specifically condone or encourage people advertising here, but we do tolerate it as long as people contribute back. It's a grey area. Since you're asking for something and offering to pay, I'd say it's fine and I suspect the other mods will agree.
Eh, we're in the very early days when it comes to AI video. Sora was a pretty big leap forward compared to prior models, so I think it's reasonable to assume that came at significant cost to train and deploy, which also accounts for the short length of video output and other restrictions. I had the ability to use it, but barely bothered after the odd initial experiment or two.
AI video isn't going anywhere, don't get your hopes up. I can't remember which Chinese company recently came out with a model that matches or exceeds Sora a few months back, but the output was solid. Some of the videos gave me stitches. The demand is there, and the cost curves will continue trending downwards.
I was inclined to go lighter on him, but then you already acted and I remembered that Dase had specifically rejected special consideration and demanded that he be treated like the average user.
So be it. He can take his ball to Twitter if he's unwilling to play along with rather basic civility standards.
I am aware. I talked about in the relevant thread.
Sure. I've literally had an argument a few days ago with Throwaway05 where I said that there's scope to make it easier to train more doctors even if it comes at a cost of quality.
Bit of a tradeoff where the strength of other connections can make it hard to grok, rather than merely believe, when someone close says that they trust them.
Fair enough, and my brother was very convincing when he lied/mislead me before. Not that I hold it against him, I understand, even if I'm a little hurt.
I think a lesbian going after yuri only gets the title weeaboo, if that. Fujoshi are pretty much defined by the M/M bit, lesbian or straight woman alike
After intense and dedicated research (asking ChatGPT), I must believe you. But holy fucking shit. What the hell is going on here??
I'm not kidding, this is probably the most perplexing thing I've learned in years, I genuinely do not understand why a lesbian woman would enjoy watching media about two men making out. I understand why straight or bi women like yaoi, but lesbians?? I'm half tempted to dedicated my life to research into the topic, but I do enjoy making money.
While not as emotionally shaken as I was when my brother came out, on an intellectual level this is far harder to parse. Whatever, I'm a psychiatrist, I've heard some really weird things. I had a dude tell me he was dead while sitting there, talking to me, and he absolutely meant it.
It will be normal again, some other day. It'll be something you don't really think about, no more than you think about his birthday or hair color or his favorite drink. Today, and maybe this week, your pattern-matching side will be oversensitive.
You're right. I'm still coming to terms with it, and wondering about all the things I missed. But not to a degree that's debilitating, so I hope that reo was wrong when he says it might take months or years to process it. Either way, the fact that I'm fully supportive and don't see my brother in an entirely different light was established to my satisfaction the moment he told me, and that's what really counts. A few drinks, a few drunken chats with my gay friends in Scotland? I'll be as right as rain. I want to talk about this with my closest friends in India, but I promised my brother I wouldn't share with anyone who poses even a meaningful risk of outing him. You guys thankfully don't count, but even then I felt obliged to ask first.
Heh. It is a weird decision. To be fair, as much as the old Blue Collar Comedy Bit was as much written for its politics as for its accuracy, there do genuinely seem to be some actually-straight guys that do seem to fetishize parts of porn scenes that involve and focus around the men, if only as some way to center themselves within the media.
I suspect they, like Clavicular, are best described as being male-to-male trans. Autoandrophilia for men who are already born male. Whatever, I've heard of weirder kinks, and I prefer man on women porn to the solo female/lesbian stuff, even if it technically has infinitely more times the men.
Thanks again, and I mean it strongly. You could make a killing as a coach for conflicted gay/bi men or even their relatives trying to come to terms with it.
Huge numbers? I don't think so, I was in the country and our media is not so compromised that this would have gone unnoticed. Maybe a few hundred people at most in a country of billions, and I'd be surprised if the numbers were that high. India is poor, but not so poor that people regularly starve to death with no recourse, not even during a pandemic.
This was in part a bait post for the thoughts of local enthusiast and medicine man, cheers
Very good bait. Reminds me of the time this hot Romanian chick slept with me so that her brothers could rob my house. It was so convincing I succumbed to impulse on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. I keep her on speed dial just in case I need some decluterring. Please keep baiting me, some fish are hungry and never learn, and the bait is often delicious.
Eh, personal identity is, as the name suggests, highly personal. I'm just not particularly wedded to my human body, it's nice, but could do with a few million upgrades. If biological immortality is an option, I wouldn't be too averse to staying recognizably human for a while, even if it's not my ultimate preference.
Did I infer correctly that Nectome's crosslinking method is intended for the simulator end game, and fundamentally further or mutually exclusive with the "maybe someday medicine gets really good" revival hope of traditional cryo? The LW discussion didn't seem to talk about it as a pivot. I guess if you're in the market for cryo it's more like hedging and that's why it is presented and discussed this way.
It's an open question. It really depends on the state of medicine and chemistry when there's any scope for a revival. I suspect that it will be incredibly difficult to undo the changes at a molecular/cellular level while also regenerating tissue. I'd be so bold as to say that scanning and uploading might even be an easier or an earlier option, but don't mistake my take for an authoritative one. I would be happy with either option, they both beat being dead by a margin large enough to pass for infinity.
Not as familiar with them as I am with Alcor and now Nectome, but I've heard of them. It's just good to have legitimate options other than Alcor, albeit the options are scantier in the UK and nonexistent in India. I keep a finger on the pulse, cryonics is great for those at serious risk of death in a decade or two, just less pressing for me
I'm not saying I like them, but now that I think about it, the examples that Google turns up are rare. I think I've only seen one dude with perfect pearly whites with even edges in my entire time up there.
I was really struggling to figure out what possibly could be the context behind you replying to me with "turkey teeth?". Did you mean teeth done in Turkey (and not teeth on a literal turkey)? Yup, that's common enough, but I don't find overly white teeth repulsive. Hell, I've been accused of/admired for getting my teeth done there. Brits really can't deny the stereotype here, I just have decent teeth without taking especially good care of them.
I think Clavicular is a very handsome dude, even from my perspective as a very straight (and not remotely as handsome) man. I have little doubt that most women would go for him, he's Henry Caville-lite, which is quite up there. That being said, I suppose that his antics turn away a large number of women, but you don't need to appeal to everyone to be overwhelmed by attention from the opposite sex.
Taking notes, but substitute transhumanism for communism. Unfortunately, I don't happen to have $250m to spare, but I can manage something at a dive bar and bribe the local bar bunnies to show up.
I'd invest all the money in tech, focusing on AI companies. Look, AGI is our best for fully-automated luxury space communism (with optional homosexuality), if we don't have that, then communism ain't for me.
Thanks for sharing, and for the advice! I remain very glad for everyone who came here and shared both advice and support. It's good to know that my situation is far from unique, even if I already knew that on an intellectual level.
I've seen this pattern with high agency people. The more they care about something, the more effort they want to put into fixing it. To them, everything is a problem that can be solved. Find a problem, break it down, chip at it, repeat until solved. It's horrifying to learn that there will be problems that both keep them up at night and they can't do anything to solve. But yeah, end of they day, it's is someone else's life. It becomes intrusive, real fast.
I am pleased to have been mistaken for a high agency individual. Medium agency? Now I can accept that, haha. But yes, my instinct to show care manifests as trying to solve problems for those I care about. But I am, somewhat fortunately, more emotionally aware (and less autistic) than the average man, I'm pretty solid at just... being there. Hearing people out. Being a shoulder to cry on. Talking things through. None of my exes have ever called me emotionally unavailable.
I think my brother genuinely needs both forms of help. I was sensible, and first declared my very real desire to provide unconditional support while telling him I loved him, and that nothing he says or does could change that, let alone something as... unimportant as being gay. Then I asked him about his future and helped him brainstorm ways to make it happen. If he needs my heart or my head, I've got him covered.
If it wasn't obvious already, for reasons, I've became a surrogate father of sorts, and am struggling to separate myself as my brother comes of age. Your sibling relationship may not be the same as mine, so YMMV
Not quite the same dynamic here. My brother has most of his life together, barring the academics. I have my shit together when it comes to studying, but there are certain aspects of being an independent, functional individual that I struggle with. It's a work in progress. I scold him for not studying enough, he yells at me for being a slob and not doing {many things}. We don't mind, our dad is good at being a dad for the both of us. Our relationship is pretty close to the norm for siblings, at least siblings in a happy family.
I'm glad your girlfriend did you a solid here, God knows some men really need a few nudges from women to do certain things they really ought to. Been there myself.
On personalities of gay men - Anecdotally, I found that many less-flamboyant & monogamous gay men come out of STEM. Not sure why, maybe it's just the general introversion and fixation of things over people. But yeah, if he's in Mumbai, then breaking into those circles may help him find that kind of guy.
Agreed. STEM gay men tend to be more reserved, masculine or... autistic. Even the ones who become trans don't act in the manner of a catty gay man or a twink. God knows I'd lose my hair if I was into twinks, they're like women but with the drama dials turned all the way up, generally speaking.
On non-monogamy - My girlfriend's best friend is a married gay-man living the idyllic suburban life, with selective non-monogamy. From the sounds of it, it's closer to being swingers than the kind of eyes-wide-shut reputation that the media associates with gay men. Non-monogamy is a spectrum, of sorts.
My brother really seems to be set on actual monogamy, not even the grey area that is swinging, let alone a paper marriage. Good for him, God knows that while I don't cheat, I am sometimes chafed by the constraints of a serious relationship. I wish it were easier for me to fall for a single person and never feel discomfort or desire for others. But I manage fine, and if he's like me in that regard, I hope he finds a like-minded person. I just regret that gay men are overwhelmingly unlikely to be as-into commitment and exclusivity as the average woman.
Thank you again, this was very helpful!
Driving exams? Flight certs? Medical training? The Bar?
You are conveniently eliding the fact that the current system has its own mountain of skulls.
I am grateful for you taking the time to share your experience and thoughts, but I have strong reservations on how far your arguments generalize.
Straight men (or women) are both heterogeneous and heterosexual. I have very reason to assume that gay men are just as heterogeneous, if not heterosexual.
Sticking to the generally accepted taxonomy: we've got bears, twinks and everything in between. Some gay men want more masculine partners, others are attracted by some degree of femininity in their (male) lovers. Many/most do not see the strengths or desirable traits present in their partners as a form of weakness in themselves.
I would love to marry a woman who is smarter, more focused and more driven than me. I would not let that make me feel insecure or believe that I'm dumb. I rarely meet women who are more rational or logical than I am, because I already consider myself well above average on that front even by male standards - but if I did, I would like that.
My brother is perfectly masculine, even by straight standards. He likes masculine partners too, not dramatic twinks. So be it, he hasn't displayed any degree of insecurity that I would consider abnormal or concerning. He's sometimes a little insecure that I'm more academically talented than he is, and I'm sometimes insecure when comparing how well he has other aspects of his life put together, and how handsome he is (as I've already noted). That is normal, even expected among siblings.
He doesn't go around judging himself in an unhealthy way. He has said or done nothing that would preclude a normal, happy life in the most important sense.
In homosexuality you find no comfort in this way. If your partner is more masculine than you are, is bigger and stronger and braver, you can only see in yourself someone less masculine and less big and strong and brave. If your partner is less masculine than you are, you can see yourself as bigger stronger and braver than him, but it is at the expense of your partner's ego.
I genuinely doubt that this is anywhere near as big a deal as you make it out to be. I don't say this as an insult, you might feel justified in your stance, but it doesn't align with the experiences shared with me by other gay men or even people replying in the comments.
I've had plenty of shitty relationships with women, and seen even more around. It is not as simple as saying that straight men are innately more satisfied in their relationships with women. Sometimes, people can and do love each other despite their insecurities and sense of competition.
Thank you nonetheless, I'll think over it, even if I think that your concerns are (probably) not applicable to my brother. He's my little brother, I know him, even if I just found it's not as well as either of us would have liked. But sexuality means little when I consider everything else. I don't/can't "fix" him, but I am prepared to do what I can to make his life easier, and I can't ask for more even from myself.
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It's not really a new thing, IMO. Even back on the subreddit, you can see a lot of once very popular names and faces either vanish into dust or go out in flames. When I go back to the very earliest CWR threads - the ones that predate my entry altogether - I often found out that many of them were later casualties of suicide-by-mod.
Eh, I would have always said that Dase was at high risk of this happening. While he disagrees with my armchair psychoanalysis, I stand by it. He's always been crotchety, and he's struggled to keep himself in check.
Once upon a time, an informal warning got him to rein it in. Then it started taking formal warnings. Then short bans, then more short bans where we had to explicitly acknowledge that we treat valued contributors with more leniency. Some of the things he said would have gotten him banned for months if he had been a new poster, or even perms-banned.
He said that he didn't want special treatment. Fair enough, that's his prerogative, and we took it seriously. So 3 months it is, and I would say it's 50:50 if he ends up permabanned in a year, or if he even bothers to come back when the ban expires.
I would say the decline coincided with the beginning of the war in Ukraine, when he had to flee to Argentina (and perhaps Turkey along the way can't remember). That's an understandable stressor. I wouldn't blame the current war in particular, he was already this... bitter last year. Oh well, good luck to him nonetheless. I've done everything I can to help, and he doesn't see himself as being in need of help. That's the Russian way.
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