Gaashk
1d ago
On the one hand, I do want to know whether I'm talking to a human or to a machine. Sometimes I do want to talk to a machine, and there are easy ways to do that. Sometimes I do want to talk to a human who lives rather far away, and I would like there to be reliable wash to do that as well.
On the other hand, if I care that much, I can go talk to a human in person, where I can (at the current tech level) definitely not be misled about who they are. I am not extremely serious about wanting to know what people think about what's going on in Minneapolis, or I would directly message people I personally know in Minnesota, and ask what people they actually know think about it. Or visit, but it would have to be awfully important to visit Minnesota in January over.
Not that people can't be shills in person as well, but then they get direct feedback of other people glaring at them, so it's not as likely to spiral as it does on social media. I'm not an anti-social media absolutist, but it seems best not to take it too seriously.
Gaashk
1d ago
The people of Arizona spend a surprising amount of time discussing each degree between 100 and 120, and they do actually matter for "eh, pretty hot, the metaphorical ice has broken on the sand river" and "get in a pool or inside right now before you faint."
That makes sense. I like about confession that it's assumed that all sins are serious enough to confess, whereas Abigail Shrier seems likely true that small psychological problems might become worse with therapy.
This is one of my favorite priests, talking about one of his favorite parables: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JN04LnmRfYs (but maybe I've posted this before?)
Gaashk
2d ago
How much confession is like therapy depends partly on what the specific priest is like. I've only seen a few, and some simply listen and pray, others offer advice, and at least one conducted something more like confessional therapy. The therapist style one was my favorite, he was a great homilist as well and a generally thoughtful person. He said that if he hadn't believed that Christianity was true, he would have become a Jungian therapist.
I haven't tried therapy, though, and don't know if I would have anything to say to a therapist if offered a free series of sessions. I tried asking an LLM to be a fake therapist, and am unsure whether it was helpful or not.
Gaashk
3d ago
I mean that agreeableness, in the Big 5 sense, is a core personality trait, which affects things like
- How likely is she to let her baby cry it out, vs practice gentle parenting?
- How likely is she to get involved with trying to protect immigrant families from ICE, and shame people who disagree (more likely if agreeable in Big 5 sense)
- Is she going to have sex with men even when she doesn't want to, then feel upset about it afterwards (more likely if agreeable)
- Will she stand up for herself at work? Why would you think this is only a striver concern? Plenty of people have to negotiate with their bosses, or they'll end up terribly stressed out over trivial stuff. There are plenty of bosses in low end service jobs who will abuse their servers or cashiers it the employees allow it. Will she quit if she needs to?
- In some cultures: will she become the slave of her mother in law?
- Once married, will she tell her husband what she really wants when their interests conflict, or will she just do what he wants but quietly be upset about it?
In the short term, perhaps these traits are "rewarded" with more romantic interest and attention. But in the long term, women who are very agreeable need to learn to be more assertive, or they become the kind of person who's always taking shit in person, then writing self pitying screeds behind your back.
I man can "reward" her with romance, but then in the medium to long term fail to reciprocate by guessing her true desires and responding accordingly. Having to guess all the time can be frustrating.
Gaashk
5d ago
That any specific woman would get a lot of attention, dates, and probably a relationship? Yes, I agree she probably would. That any given woman could find a well off man to marry through the apps in her early 20s? Not with high confidence. I would guess about even odds, worse than a chubby young woman would have by not working out but going to church events. Good enough to try out, not good enough to be planning her entire life around.
Gaashk
5d ago
I don't have a very clear image of either a 2nd percentile female face, or of what the app scene is like, but the latter sounds pretty dire from reports, so sure, she might get some serious interest there. Or LLM approximations thereof. And then if she generally behaves well, doesn't ghost serious men, makes good choices, is actually compatible with a man who wants marriage, then she might in fact find a well off husband. Or maybe he would string her along for a few years hoping he could do better but still enjoying the sex, and eventually they would break up, and they would be both be a couple of years older, but it would mean more to her than to him.
It's not that the marriage and family version of the story never happens. It's just that there are a lot of ifs and uncertainties, a lot of places where it might not work out, after investing quite a bit of effort. Which happens to men as well, but I'm not arguing that men have it easier.
So my argument isn't that she won't get interest, or even a relationship, but that many of those 99 thin but ugly women will just end up in a relationship that wastes their youth without obtaining a commitment, unless they have a lot else going for them. Especially if the man is sensible and realizes that if they marry and have kids, her body will change, and she will probably become fatter and more sedentary over time.
Gaashk
6d ago
No. Young, thin, athletic women with excellent social skills, in an economically vibrant area might, I suppose. I've never known anyone like that, the tech bro is probably lucky to have her.
Gaashk
6d ago
In places with functional matchmaking systems. In America, they're just as likely to end up old maids.
Gaashk
6d ago
99% of women can obtain a lifelong financial commitment from a man of substantial means.
This is, of course, untrue. 99% of women can probably bang a man of substantial means, but that's not the same thing at all.
agreeable and submissive: these are all completely within the median woman's control. As they say, manners cost nothing.
This is untrue. Agreeableness is a largely fixed Big 5 trait, like extroversion. Many, perhaps most, classic women's and children novels are about this. Female writers tend to be more introverted, disagreeable and high openness than average, and are always writing about that experience.
But more than that, agreeableness is a trait with more utility for a woman's parents, husband, boss, and babies than for the woman herself, so it's only worth cultivating if circumstances reward it. Circumstances do not currently reward it. They often punish it. If you've got to work a job on the open marketplace (as most women do, even once married), best not be too easy to get taken advantage of. Also, very high submissiveness invites abusive relationships.
Gaashk
6d ago
You say that now, while surrounded by fat women, but clearly in times and places where most women were thin, they weren't all equally attractive.
Gaashk
7d ago
Not in a principled way. I got a real adult job and a house because of the children, otherwise I would be working a more chill job, traveling more, and still not saving very much.
The Youtube algorithm has gotten much worse for me lately, and the thumbnails, specifically, have become terrible even on good channels, I assume for SEO reasons. I might actually start asking Gemini for recommendations more instead.
Gaashk
9d ago
Do you live anywhere with cheap plane tickets to somewhere warm? Go on a long weekend trip somewhere. One of my very best trips involved getting cheap last minute flights with my husband, getting trapped in Florida during a polar vortex, and just wandering around, kayaking to see manatees and whatnot, finding a different place to stay each night. One person I knew went on a long weekend vision quest with some friends in White Sands, which sounded interesting. Maybe we'll hike up a mesa to see an ancient defense tower this weekend. Logistics have become considerably more difficult with kids, though.
Gaashk
11d ago
It's certainly not due to the overwhelming number of skinny hispanic women in wealthy countries. The TFR of hispanic countries are also now pretty similar to the US.
Gaashk
15d ago
I haven't observed that. The only places I'm hearing about Minneapolis are here and DSL. I think I saw one thing on Youtube, but didn't click and it went away. There was a Facebook and Instagram storm in 2020.
What "you" are you thinking of here. The people who have strong feelings probably already wanted soft borders and lots of refugees.
Gaashk
16d ago
I've only seen the Sora Instagram ads, which I kind of like. Especially the one with the huge cat running through a house, destroying it, and then they replace the cat with other funny creatures.
I've also heard good things about Claude Code, but mostly from Substack and Youtube (from content creators, not pre-roll ads), and it does really seem to be the kind of thing were it's more effective to hype it that way than on an NFL ad.
Gaashk
19d ago
I think it has a lot to do with HereandGone's point: the pop star is modeling something that might be fun for a woman and her romantic interest to role-play, while the porn actress often is not.
Gaashk
21d ago
He said he went out and played ball anyway, despite bing annoyed about it, so his wife is presumably mostly annoyed that he's complaining in public about it, not that he's actually negligent.
Do you say "celsius" every time you do? Because I wouldn't expect you to. If someone said "it's 40 degrees out! I'm sweltering!" I could infer what they mean.
Both systems seem to provide about the same value as far as I can tell, more than for length measurements, where metric has clear benefits.
I do like that 100 is a nice round number, and have always been a bit disappointed that in human terms it represents a mild fever, not the baseline human body temperature.
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