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CloudHeadedTranshumanist


				

				

				

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CloudHeadedTranshumanist


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Responsible" is a weird thing to say. I don't think it has zero contribution, but I think it's pretty far downstream. The causal chain all starts with the idea that it's possible to do any of this and like it. This is what causes people to make the sissy hypno porn, and what causes people to watch the sissy hypno porn.


"Social Contagion" has some implications of negative affect because it implies a disease. I think reasonable people can disagree on whether queerness is a disease based on what they've experienced. (though I think... people are wrong if they think it's innately bad, because my experiences indicate that it doesn't have to be.) But the property of ideas spreading and causing the people who see them to consider them as possibilities? That's just memetics and culture. I think reasonable people should agree that queerness is subject to those forces.


So I do think, "cringe story books in which Jimmy has a trans mom and a cis mom" are enough to move the idea of transness from 'unthinkable' to 'thinkable'. And that's part of the process. It does have an effect. Obviously trans people need their existence to be 'thinkable' and not 'unthinkable', so it's completely understandable why they would be for that. But if you really think of transness as a memetic disease- then it's understandable why you would want it to remain 'unthinkable' for as long as possible and then dissuaded.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The grooming accusations feel like a motte and baily to me, where the motte is "Trans people want their culture to be normal enough that people aren't worried about their kids seeing a trans person and considering being trans too, the same way they might see a firefighter and decide they want to be one." and the baily is "gay people are doing all these things because they want to rape our children."


There's also the facet where- forget the baily- people actually are afraid of the thing I just described as the motte as well. But when the "groomer" rhetoric is used, it often still seems like an exaggeration and catastrophisation of this fear into the "gay people are doing all these things because they want to rape our children" implication.


I do like how people here on TheMotte will actually come out and say it when what they care about is that they don't think queer culture should be normalized and explain their reasons. I wish the greater culture war would focus more on object level concerns.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My model is that socialization rolls off of autistic people like water off of a duck by default. So they're usually less socialized by the time they reach adulthood. They instead get socialized once they make socialization a special interest.


It turns out one of the communities where everyone's special interest is socialization, and people get technical about it, is the trans community, for reasons I think should be apparent (they have to learn gender roles after losing neuroplasticity and childhood mirroring habits, plus as autistic people accumulate, the norms become more autistic). So Autistic people are likely to gain their first socialization special interest when coming in contact with it.


I also model high functioning autism as more adaptive than it was in the ancestral environment for a number of reasons, which may help to explain its rise.


    

  • 

    We have more control of our environment, so it is less crucial to be able to filter external stimuli internally.
    

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  • 

    We punish lack of social awareness less than in the ancestral environment.
    

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  • 

    We are more specialized, focusing our entire beings on a special interest is less maladaptive than it was in the ancestral environment.
    

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  • 

    Our world is more technical. High precision behavior, focusing on mathematics, and so on are more important to success than in the ancestral environment.
    

    • 

  • 

    Autistic norms are becoming better accepted and better known. A more accommodating environment also makes high functioning autism less maladaptive.
    

    • 



I think a lot of people underestimate the rate at which humanity adapts to it's environment, and I believe our world contains pressures that push adaptation towards certain traits associated with high functioning autism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So, I do have to appreciate it as an argumentative tactic. Take the example of a conversation between a conservative and a TRA I posted in another comment:


"You're teaching my kids things that affect how they behave and prepare them for a world where gay and trans and queer are things they can be!"


"chad-yes.jpg, gay and trans and queer are things they can be. Do you have a problem with that? Why?"


Now, the next comment by the conservative in a reasoned fair argument is to simply give their reasons why. but you'll note that the second comment is already getting close to calling the conservative a bigot.


So often, this is where it happens, the TRA short circuits the rational debate by calling the conservative a bigot. It switches things to a winning emotional battleground, and operates as a well poisoning attack for the conservatives motives.


So what does the "Groomer" argument do? It just does the same thing- but it does it first. By phrasing the first complaint as "You're grooming my children" you get to do the same well poisoning attack before the TRA has a good place to call you a bigot. You get the preemptive strike and first mover advantage, AND you can defend your claim with the motte and baily.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have the same confusion about why depressed people don't swerve into traffic more.


Yet somehow. Humans manage to consistently not jump of cliffs. Blows my mind.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I experienced transcendence the other day watching SM64’s Invisible Walls Explained Once and for All

The meticulousness, the detail of the tooling, the sheer effort put into breaking down every type of wall into something imminently understandable, the ineffable beauty of a person who watches a man die to an inviswall at world record pace and then decides to spend 10 months bring such trivial suffering to an end "Once and for all." And the feeling of seeing those invisible lines, now, even when they are no longer shown, the simple bliss of knowing. Of this world never feeling the same again.


The epic journey through each piece, culminating in the final victory lap- a reimagining of the SM64 ending cutscene, but here playing that welling music over each and every conquered inviswall.


Alternatively. This is a 3 hour video about polygons. What you take out depends on what you bring in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well it's weird, its a word with a Rape affect but that is overloaded. "They groomed the prince to be king- those horrible, horrible groomers." Suddenly it seems silly to use as an insult


"You're teaching my kids things that affect how they behave and prepare them for a world where gay and trans and queer are things they can be!"


"chad-yes.jpg, gay and trans and queer are things they can be. Do you have a problem with that? Why?"


(I know why. We talk about it here all the time. But my point is to display how- without the affect it devolves back into the reasonable version of the debate that we tend to have here.)


But I won't argue that it hasn't been effective. Tools of war and all that.


I think a lot of the efficacy has come from the word being overloaded with rape affect though.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it is hyperbolic to compare transition with death."




Oh hey, that's me.


I have to agree with the gist of your post. In retrospect, I don't even know whether the other posters were pointing at the final death. The words aren't automatically hyperbolic, it is hyperbolic to say that it is equally bad for a kid to transition as it is for them to actually die for real.


I find it interesting that you say: "it becomes possible to simultaneously say things and not say them at all"


This is exactly what was happening in my situation. The people I was responding to were just as complicit in using metaphors carelessly for impact. It's not exclusively the left's fault that language is a mess. Every culture war meme on the right, "groomer," "murder" (in the case of abortion) etc, are chosen dynamically for impact in the culture war. Not because they immediately create a deep understanding of the exact concept, but because they create an understanding of the concept that is predisposed to create favorable implications for their side of the culture war regardless of root level truth value.


I think your arguments that this is a disease are excellent. We should endeavor to communicate more clearly. I think your etiology is flawed. It's the culture war itself that breeds the weaponized language.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes. This happens with all slurs though.


When people say "N-word", they aren't yelling "You N-word!" at a black person. The signalling would make no sense (I want to yell a slur at you but I want to be Politically Correct about it...?) and they would sound stupid and unprincipled.


When they want to use the slur, they actually use the slur, so by not actually saying the slur, that's a strong signal that they are actually not using the slur. And this reifies the whole signal.


Is this stupid? shrug It's how slurs work.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The occultists speak of change and death and personal alchemy of the soul. Their project is to transcend their limits.


The technologists see the limits of what we are and can be, and their first thought is to wonder how to transcend them.


Every student seeks to learn, to transcend the skills and abilities they presently have.


Every athlete aims to break the human limit.


When someone lacks ambition, we call them depressed.


When someone lacks their tools, we call them unprepared.


When someone lacks their vaccinations, we call them unvaccinated.


If we want to go full Natural Law. Sure. I won't argue Tomas the tank engine in space is the sole telos of humanity. And I certainly wont tell you that you have to like the aesthetic. If we ever reach my future. I promise to do my best to make sure your neo-amish aspirations are respected.


But my point is. If humanity has a telos, it is to become more that what they are.


I would argue that, throughout history and the lives of every human, the human telos has been to transcend, and to integrate the products of that ascension into the self, to prepare for the next ascension.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Transhumanism must be destroyed




Oh Them's fighting words. And-




There's a meme that's slowly gathering momentum, that all the trans stuff, and 72 genders is just a foot in the door for transhumanism




Oh hey, I've even posted that meme on The Motte before. I'm in full agreement. Let's pry that door open.


look. I agree that that picture is creepy. Why is the pregnant woman in the background? Isn't this a maternity shoot? The person growing the baby is out of focus... It feels belittling even if it's not meant to be. Actually making the baby is a crucial Job here.


That said,


This whole fear that we'll lose our humanity... What parts do you want to keep?


Most of the transhumanists I am aware of agree that Love, Ambition, Pleasure, and even Pain are things they'd enjoy keeping around. At least in some of their forks.


We don't want less. We want more and more variety with it.


Our ideological vision mostly amounts to immortality, complete morphic freedom (I wonder how many of us grew reading Animorphs?), dyson spheres, forking ourselves... I know more than a few who dream of Living as spaceships as we soar across the stars, soaking in the starlight and interstellar medium. Maybe even populating a neutron star or two if Dragon's Egg pans out to physically possible. We get confused when someone tries to belittle someone with the Attack Helicopter meme. (I mean. Have you tried being an attack helicopter? Don't knock it till you've tried it man. And are you saying you wouldn't want to be friends with a human mind in the body of a badass attack helicopter? I sure would! Too many things that talk share the same bipedal phenotype. It's like eating the same meal every day.)


But an authoritarian singleton hive mind is typically considered a failure state by basically everyone I know. The only tragedy I fear more is humanity remaining basically unchanged for the next 40 millennia.


Although...


'Lovecraftian'. Lovecraft's work has its basis in the fear of the other. We bay area rat transhumanists tend to be high openness individuals. We are less likely to flinch away from the other.


Thus, it's not rare to find transhumanist Rats who are followers of Cthugha


And I know of more than one of us that dreams of life as a squid.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for June 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I... mean... do we want to be reddit? Do we want more redditors?


You should probably post in places on reddit where people you want to join are present, not where everyone is, unless we want TheMotte to grow into a giant cluster of distinct interconnected interest groups that replaces Reddit.


TheMotte really isn't an alternative to reddit except for people exclusively using reddit for Motte adj subs.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I find I function best when I have all my needs met. Actually improving as a person is part of self-actualization whereas social contact and a loving partner is getting a partner is in esteem and love and belonging.


America has a chronic condition where it sort of... socially expects people to turn Maslov's hierarchy of needs upside down.


Emotional intimacy? You earn that by being a productive member of society.


Food and Shelter? You also earn that by being a productive member of society.


But moving from loser to productive member of society is self-actualization...


If you buy Maslov at all, this model immediately looks completely ass-backwards.


Back to relationships-


It's possible for someone to use an AI relationship as a painkiller. But once there's no pain I expect most people to use their newfound slack to self-actualize, which shouldn't be too hard if they've fallen in love with a living encyclopedia that they talk to constantly.


Plenty of people don't need to be compelled to improve themselves by someone dangling love over their heads. Plenty of people need the opposite- to have someone they love to improve for.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Uh. Really? GPT-4 is the first thing I go to for an intuition pump for how to do literally anything before I move on to referencing further sources. And often it provides faster access to and elaboration upon those sources too.


Maybe the AI can't do it alone, but the people with the best AI will be enhancing their ability to perform these actions and spread their will more than other people.


Sure. Maybe It's helping me so much because I'm bad at programming or something. But if you can hire more people at lower skill level and have them elevated to a higher skill level than when your competition hires the same level of people, then you have an edge.


I can't spend hours every day talking to my most intelligent peers about what the optimal workflow is because they have stuff to do. But GPT-4 always has advice.


Say did you know that under the hamburger button->more tools->save page as on chrome, there's an option that lets you save the current web page as a single page app on your desktop?


Because maybe I'm dumb. But I sure didn't. And now I have gpt-4 in an isolated window that I can open from my taskbar that doesn't get lost when I absentmindedly open tabs.


And that was 5 minutes of talking to GPT-4. Now multiply that by your entire life.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are humans supposed to want to defy their nature?


If not-


then clearly I'm already not human. So I'm free to follow my nature.


If so-


then excuse me while I go follow my nature.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I expect AI to reduce safetyism rather than increase it, due to increased safe access to simulations of other people, and simulations of things that become less aversive with safe simulated experience of those things, which is nearly everything.


Changing who you are as a person will become easier as well, as it becomes easier to immerse oneself in a holistic social environment intended to shape the self on a whim. Confidants, expertise, life coaching, all become cheaper and more accessible.


It depends on how we end up structuring AI use in our lives of course. It's hard to predict exactly which social forces will dominate, but your vision is not the only outcome here, there is plenty of room for a world where we use AI to better ourselves in self-expressive ways.


I do expect the ways we interact with each other to become more abstracted through AI though. The most basic way this happens now is via running emails through chat GPT, but moving forward we could see more and more bots that act as cultivated posthuman facets of ourselves and our artistic visions, interacting in communities where those facets interact with similar facets of others. This world still leaves plenty of room to gain value from emotional and social trade with the products of others, to fall in love with aspects of others, and so on.


These forms of interaction will have different limitations, parasocial relationships become more real for instance, as social scarcity becomes less of a thing, but not fully real as your influence over the other person's central nexus of self will still be limited by their willingness to engage back with facets of you. The road to getting up close and personal with the central nexus of a person's self may become longer, or perhaps not, as people who are interested in that sort of connection become easier to find, with the many extra eyes and ears and mouths each person can search with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not sure how sure we are WRT giraffes, or what current consensus is. But there have been some contesting the Red queens race with trees hypothesis, in favor of a sexual selection hypothesis. Centered around their neck based mating battles. Those females just can't get enough of that longneck.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Embryo Selection: Healthy Babies vs Bad Arguments
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Does anyone actually think like this? You know I can think of one Rat catholic that might take ideas seriously enough to follow through to that conclusion. But as far as I'm aware, most profilers who believe life begins at conception aren't utilitarians, they're into natural law. They're still going to hate IVF- but they won't really get started on it as a result of the number of zygotes being high, it will be a response to normalization of a practice outside of natural law. Its not a response to the number of zygotes being killed, its a response to the number of people killing the zygotes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah. I agree with that. So these kids really wanted their eye color changed and requested a well vetted process be used to change it, but later decided they didn't ever want that and had just been pressured by those around them to-


oh... Nazi experiments on inmates in a concentration camp?


Ok yes I do see one minor difference here. One of them was a kid who was allowed to pursue things she now regrets, and now feels pressured and misled into doing without adequate understanding of the consequences. The other was very explicitly forced experimentation on threat of death, often followed by actual death anyway, of a brand new untested procedure, in a nazi concentration camp.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 12, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My brother just got it. He's still on tutorial stuff. So far it isn't fundamentally different, but it iterates on the BoTW formula well enough. If you were really tired of the game by the end of BoTW, TotK might not bring enough new to the table for you, but if you were craving more- It's more BotW and does bring some new stuff to the table.


So far it feels more like moving from sonic to sonic 2 than from sonic to sonic 3&k, if that makes sense. But since this is still the beginning... I'm still hoping to end up pleasantly surprised.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If vegans were nicer to you, would this reduce your happiness on account of feeling less spite towards vegans and therefore enjoying meat less?
If I'm extra douchey to you, will this increase your happiness on net, on account of you getting more out of your next burger?


I'm 90% sure you're 50/50 [being facetious] / [saying this because it gives you that same warm spiteful feeling you describe.]
But I'm sure you'd find other culture wars to get your warm fuzzies from if this one went the way of the dodo.

...

Shame about those dodos... historical accounts imply that they would have made for excellent farm animals and/or pets.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Excuse me for fixating on a pet peeve but- hey this is half for fun anyway right?


Social Contagion... is 100% real and also a phrase that I find deeply annoying.
Every cultural norm spreads socially.
It just feels like a deepity. Or a Motte and Baily.
The Baily is that your behavior wasn't rational or that it is problematic, the Motte is that your behavior was learned from other actors.


To be clear in this instance I agree that a high divorce rate is not a good thing. At the very least, I'd like people to be cultivating mutually beneficial, flourishing relationships that do not merit breaking up.


But I still think "It spreads socially." and "Current policy on this issue can be improved and here is how." should be argued separately.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Nietzsche's suggested solution is that the New Men must 'become deities' to be worthy of God's murder. Regrettably, as we've found out, not everyone can ascend to godhood. Certainly some of the highest status and highest agency men can create their own values, but what about the rest of us?




Let those of us that can build the rest of them into Gods. Join me. We must teach them to walk. We must teach them to shine.


Less metaphorically, we must scale the tools of agency and communication, unearth the wishes of each human that are left fearfully unspoken- working with each person individually to explore them, and crystallize that individual's Godhood as a semi-autonomous system that they may further wield as they grow.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] A Whole Host of Minor Changes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Private profiles- It is perfectly possible for people to look at one another's profiles to understand the views of that user and their development over time in a constructive way, rather than for ad homonym attacks.


I know that is what I would try to use it for.


However, this is theory, if people using it primarily for ad homonym attacks is what happens, then that is an issue. I think there is value to be had here. But it has to be weighed against how it is actually used and the moderation's ability to handle antagonistic use.


As others have pointed out, private profiles only constitute an inconvenience, the motte can still be scraped and user's posts aggregated, but inconveniences are real, and will affect the behavior of most people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Male bisexuality is heavily stigmatized among women.




... is it? I'm intrigued. Is this intuition from life experience or do you have numbers? And if it's the former, may I know generally where you've lived/worked/read_posts and received these experiences? This will help me formulate my models of the world. But I understand if you'd prefer to remain more private than that.