HereAndGone2
No bio...
User ID: 4074
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
It just requires you to adhere to traditional business practices, and unfortunately all the Silicon Valley/Bay Area types are infected with the whole "move fast, break things" ethos and with EA you get "we are so smart, we have Bayes!" on top of that, which encourages "those darn brakes are holding us back, just rip 'em out, accelerating down this hill is what we need to do!" views.
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
Or maybe, as mentioned by @Tractatus, they're fucking and she gives extraordinary head.
I don't think that, but I do think (whether you consider this to be worse or better than the above possibility) that there's a definite trace of "Excellent, let me hire on someone personally indebted to me, anxious about losing this job because they know they won't get anything comparable to it, and proven to be malleable under pressure of personal relationships into doing criminal acts" about this, almost as if "I got a suitcase of cash, a Swiss bank account, a fake passport, and a plane ticket to someplace without an extradition treaty to the USA, so long and thanks for all the free money suckers" is a possible future outcome for Manifold/Manifund/Mox and all that regranting cash. Especially given that he's hanging on for grim death to the 500 grand of dodgy FTX funding his organisation already received and damn the bankruptcy lawyers suing to get it back.
Not that being in the Bahamas helped SBF, but maybe Chen is smarter and a better planner?
At the very least, he's hiring on nepotism grounds, and I watch several Youtube channels of fictional revenge stories about why this is bad for companies to do 😁
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
Going by the book, the entire personnel list and turnover of same in the intertwined entities was nuts. People were joining, moving around, resigning, being replaced, by the new time. Ellison ended up as CEO of Alameda more or less as "the only person still around" and she was pushed into a position that she was not prepared or suited for, but Sam convinced her.
Sam seems to have been able to convince a lot of people to trust him and do this crazy thing, and the crazy thing worked out, so next time he proposed something crazy people's barriers were lowered over "well he was right last time". Also the EA jargon he was spouting was believed in by a lot of the people, and when you have a cult going on that is convinced it's making huge money by being smarter than the normies and using that money to save the world, nobody inside wants to rock the boat by pointing out the Emperor has no clothes.
The Sequoia Capital article on it all (right before it went belly-up) is fantastic for the kind of moondust he was selling and how otherwise (you would imagine) smart people disbursing funding who should have been a lot more cynical just bought it by the bushel.
The first 15 people SBF hired, all from the EA pool, were packed together in a shabby, 600-square-foot walk-up, working around the clock. The kitchen was given over to stand-up desks, the closet was reserved for sleeping, and the entire space overrun with half-eaten take-out containers. It was a royal mess. But it was also the good old days, when Alameda was just kids on a high-stakes, big-money, earn-to-give commando operation. Fifty percent of Alameda’s profits were going to EA-approved charities.
“This thing couldn’t have taken off without EA,” reminisces Singh, running his hand through a shock of thick black hair. He removes his glasses to think. They’re broken: A chopstick has been Scotch taped to one of the frame’s sides, serving as a makeshift temple. “All the employees, all the funding—everything was EA to start with.”
His answers to queries about it were all primarily "I like her, my kid likes her, I owe favours to FTX from back in the day" and not "as a business decision this is good sense because X, Y and Z" (he then gave a second set of 'this is why it's a good idea' reasons). Not very inspiring of confidence.
This is just my own personal view and I'm probably as wrong as a clock striking ninety, but I get some kind of aura of "she is now very grateful to me for this second chance which nobody else would give her and that obligation of gratitude is going to be very useful to me going forward" from the whole thing. I do think Ellison is vulnerable in that she's radioactive right now, she probably could only get hired on as low-level admin in a one-man-band operation in Podunk, and if she gets on the wrong side of Chen she could get booted from Manifund and that's her only new chance gone up in smoke. So she has every incentive not to get on his wrong side, and unfortunately that includes going "yes sir no sir three bags full sir" if he ever expresses a view on "Don't you think that maybe we should do A not B? Just think about it, Caroline, but I'm not saying you have to decide that, just that I personally feel it's the right choice" when it comes to her research on grant-making and the rest of it.
I'm not saying this is what is going on, just that the perception is that she now owes him a big favour (and seems to be well aware of it*) and that the view formed of her from previous actions is not reassuring that she would have the confidence to say "No" when or if that favour gets called in.
*From Chen's Substack announcement:
But I’m very grateful to Austin for giving me a second chance, and judging me on my current work performance rather than my past. I feel very lucky not only to have a job, but to be working somewhere that I think is doing great work and has a mission I believe in.
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
What's interesting is that in his replies Chen seems to be very strongly "I'm the founder, ergo I can do what the heck I like, I am not accountable to anyone". Which, as you say, were I an investor or someone with money in his different iterations of Manifold/Manifund/Mox would have me immediately padlocking my wallet and looking into any ways of clawing back already disbursed funding.
That attitude, coupled with what some commenters have pointed out about the $500+K funding received from FTX which he is refusing to pay back even as the bankruptcy lawyers sue for it, would seem to indicate that his view is "It's my money now". If you give money to his organisations, now it's his and no take-backs. And as the founder (he admires Paul Graham's "founder mode") he is the one deciding what happens to it, and you can just butt out with your "compliance" and "due diligence" Boomer dusty antiquity.
I don't know anything about Austin Chen. He may be honest as the day is long! Or he may not be. Not just EA, but charity work in general is ripe for exploitation by scammers and embezzlers because people want to donate to good causes, and it's way easy to gouge money out of people for "this is to help the wide-eyed orphans", even if you wrap it up in "we need to research AI alignment - in order to protect the wide-eyed orphans" than if you are stating up front that this is a business and the main end is to make you rich. And that's before we get into the incestuous little bubble of EA (another FTX funding and Chen case is about a former FTX employee who was also, or later, on the board of one of Chen's vehicles, wanted to steer a nice chunk of his bonus money to that vehicle, and was embroiled in the bankruptcy 'give us that money back'/'no I earned it fair and square' case where eventually the compromise was he would give it to a different charity).
Someone who exhibits "what's yours is mine, what's mine is my own" attitude in relation to FTX money, hired on someone from FTX deeply involved in murky transactions, and putting her around decisions on "where should grant money go?" after putting that hire under personal obligation is not resonating with me as someone squeakier-cleaner than Dudley Do-Right. It starts giving off intimations that if perchance he feels that as a hands-on 'founder mode' guy he should be the one steering funding to what he feels is the 'right' grantee, he might put some pressure on employees to do what he wants, even to the extent of "just lodge that to my account, I'll pass it on" orders. And Ellison's record is that when personal relationships are involved, she is malleable by that sort of pressure.
I'm not saying she should not get a second chance. I'm not even saying she shouldn't be hired on by Manifund. Just not in that sort of position, Austin!
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
She probably doesn't believe that fetuses have an inherent right to life in general, just this one is hers and so she wants to choose to let it live.
No more irrational than the couple who hired her as a surrogate, after the results of the scan told her "kill it before it grows", but are now:
In a previous court hearing, Gilkar said the baby - whom they named Rumi - was "our child" and "the love of our lives", according to the Associated Press.
"The love of our lives" whom we wanted dead before it got expensive to treat the medical problems sits uneasily with me, but I'm not pro-abortion in the first place.
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
It seems if the optic gland is removed in females, they abandon the eggs, start eating again, and survive longer. Some even mate again!
I imagine Octopode slasher horror genre is along the lines not of "masked unkillable monster at Camp or Lake TeenDeath", but "the mother who... mated again!!!!" "She Who Lived!" "Mommy had two clutches!" 🤣 That last one could get very Oedipal along the lines of the original "Psycho" - young Octopode is out there, in his prime breeding years now he's turned two, looking to find a honey. There's an older Octopodette around which is unusual, but hey, some females mate later. Yeah, she's a bit odd compared to other Octopodettes, but then again, she is way older than his clutch mates and their peers (an entire four years of age!). After a string of rejections from his age cohort, he finally gets a chance to mate with her - and it turns out in the final twist that she is his mother! (which he only finds out as she devours him after mating). The very last scene is her laying her second clutch of eggs.
You could get an entire franchise out of that one 😈
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
If I could write! Seriously, though, leaving out the "women - aren't they terrible?" parts, it could be very interesting as worldbuilding for "suppose all our talk of intelligent octopi did in fact go somewhere, and they used their tentacles to start building things, how would they overcome the difficulties of being underwater? how would they structure their society, when an entire generation dies after producing the new one?"
You'd have to have a guild or religious order for that last one; Octopodette priestesses, sworn to holy celibacy, living an entire decade - or even more years! - passing on the accumulated and hard-won wisdom and knowledge of their society. Eunuch(? removal of the optic gland seems to increase lifespan) Octopodes, in high status government positions, guiding and guarding the institutions of governance. Confucianism amongst the molluscs?
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
I don't unfortunately, but I hope you do find a compatible person and have a brood of squalling (but not too squalling) offspring to annoy and delight you over the years!
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
Austin is married with his wife only days away from popping out the sprog ("...and my wife is due to give birth ~5 days and didn't want to worry about the announcement while on paternity leave"). Let's hope for the sake of all concerned that there is no workplace romance going on, always a terrible idea and Caroline should be well aware from what happened the first time round that it's even more of a terrible idea.
(Also this is the second time I've seen "paternity leave" mentioned online in the context of a female, is this a Californian thing?)
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
Poverty is a long-standing problem. A lot of well-meaning do-gooders have gone "we have tons of money, if we just throw enough at it by our clever plans, surely we can solve it once and for all!" and then they find out no, you can't.
Plus, this is the kind of bread-and-butter issue that gets boring. The new shiny issue comes along, be it shrimp welfare or AI existential risk, and this is so big and exciting and novel, it's much more fun to talk about than "more bednets for malaria, yes malaria is still happening, no there isn't a cure yet, yes we're still working on different approaches, no I can't tell you when it will finally be gone".
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
Yeah, you have to imagine at least some neurodivergence going on there where he could not understand the notion of "you have to do what the judge says" because 'but Mom, I'm so smart and these are dumb normies and I need my online access!'
Kept going online, commenting on the case, presenting his excuses, and would. not. shut. up. So of course the judge threw the book at him.
I was simultaneously interviewing for a job at three companies at once: Alameda, FTX and some crypto product.
From the CFTC filing:
Samuel Bankman-Fried (“Bankman-Fried”) co-founded Alameda Research LLC (“Alameda”), a digital asset trading and investment firm, in Berkeley, California in 2017. In May 2019, he and others launched FTX Trading Ltd. b/d/a FTX.com (“FTX Trading”) and various subsidiaries, affiliates, and related entities, collectively doing business as “FTX.com” or simply “FTX,” a centralized digital asset exchange.
I think the crypto product must have been FTT their own "in-house digital token" which Alameda used and relied on heavily, so when it went "kaboom" that started the dominoes falling.
Interestingly, one of the SDNY charges was "Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Violate the Campaign Finance Laws" because they were backing candidates and getting involved in party donations, all in the cause of getting crypto regulated and putting FTX into a favourable position under the new regime.
These kids felt in over their head and I didn't want to be part of the shit show.
That is the impression I got both from the Michael Lewis book and reading the initial trial depositions: the boring men in grey suits with all the red tape rules around fiscal responsibility were dumb and stupid and we were so smart and so cutting-edge and knew better. The original sin of EA, in fact: we can do better than how it's always been done because we have such big IQs.
The jumping around between Alameda etc. was "well it's all one big pot of money we're handling, so long as we're making massive returns does it really matter if we take some from pot A and put it into pot B and then draw it out for pot C?" liberally seasoned with "anyway, this is only dumb red tape, we're tryna save the world here!!!"
John J. Ray III's testimony in the Chapter 11 declaration in Delaware gives a good sample of the exasperated reaction of old-school business types to the shenanigans (and his televised appearances to committees etc. were very funny):
- Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.
My own personal take is that part of SBF's problem was he wanted to buy Mommy's love by making tons of money and donating it to all her pet progressive causes, and get a big name for himself so he could live up to the "son of two Stanford law professors" family mantle, where he was smart but one amongst a lot of smart, mathy, geeky kids so he didn't particularly stand out, especially in the milieu of "His parents raised him and his siblings utilitarian—in the same way one might be brought up Unitarian—amid dinner-table debates about the greatest good for the greatest number". I got the impression that he was regarded with some indulgence by his parents, especially Mom, as "well bless him, he tries, not quite the top drawer academically though" in their circle of liberal academics who liked to talk about how to put the world to rights.
As a complete outsider, what this sounds like to me is "This guy has got his fingers in the till". He's hired on someone who, demonstrably, is easily persuaded to go along with dodgy decisions, particularly where a personal relationship is involved, under the aegis of "but think how much good we are doing! can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, the end justifies the means, so on and so forth".
She is now in a position where she feels personal obligation to him*, a sense of gratitude, and maybe fear that this is her only second chance and if she blows it then she's finished. How much pressure would he have to exert to get her to go along with "Now, Caroline, I'm not saying you should do this, but wouldn't it be really the best decision all round for everyone if...."?
And then three to five years later we have another FTX type scandal on our hands, and all the mealy-mouthed piety about "I’d like to give her the opportunity to contribute back to the world" will sound like the hypocrisy it was, when the real rationale was "I wanted to hire on someone I could manipulate".
I am not saying this is what is happening, I'm giving the "moron in the street" view of how it will be received. "Bad optics", indeed. Yet more EA "we are so much smarter than the average bear, what could possibly go wrong?/how were we to know you shouldn't push the big red button?"
*In her own words from that link:
But I’m very grateful to Austin for giving me a second chance, and judging me on my current work performance rather than my past. I feel very lucky not only to have a job, but to be working somewhere that I think is doing great work and has a mission I believe in.
EDIT: Whooops, guy got funding from FTX which he has not returned (and is apparently being sued over returning fund). When even politicians were publicly giving back the gibs they received, in order to reduce the stink of criminality, this is a very bad look and reinforces my view "this bloke has got his fingers in the till and in a couple of years there will be another blow-up about missing/misappropriated/the money was only resting in my account funding".
In fact, there were two disputed Manifold donations: one was when Manifold Markets applied to FTX Philanthropy and got a total amount of €508,000 via two grants for the launch of a charity prediction market and prize payouts for a forecasting tournament. This is what the FTX bankruptcy lawyers are suing (since 2024) to get back, and Mr. Chen is saying "Nuh-uh, and my lawyer tells me to zip my lip about anything else".
The second was more convoluted, seeing as how a guy named Ross Rheingans-Yoo was recruited in 2022 by FTX Foundation. His contract said half his $1 million discretionary bonus would be paid to a charity of his choice. "In September 2022, after about five months of working with Rheingans-Yoo, SBF told him that as a bonus for the first half of 2022, he will receive $650,000 in cash, plus an additional $650,000 in targeted grants "to any effective altruism-driven charity of your choice."
Then later in 2022 FTX went kablooey, and like any decent EA philanthropist, Rheingans-Yoo immediately sued for what he claimed he was owed. Bankruptcy judge ruled okay, he should be paid, and "Rheingans-Yoo initially chose to donate the money to Manifold for Charity—the charitable branch of the prediction market platform Manifold Markets. This choice was not surprising, as Manifold is closely connected to the effective altruism community, and Rheingans-Yoo herself (sic) serves on the board of Manifold for Charity." FTX bankruptcy lawyers then went "Wait a minute, we're already suing these bozos for money, you can't give them more!". Rheingans-Yoo then went "okay, as a compromise, give it to a different charity". FTX lawyers went "nope" but eventually in 2025 the judge said "let him give it to who he likes". However, the FTX lawyers fired in an appeal, and God knows what will happen in the end, particularly as they're also suing Rheingans-Yoo over different funding for different organisations he also got from FTX.
Oh, and Rheingans-Yoo's younger brother also got in trouble over FTX funding, including 'his business partner was a former squeeze of SBF'.
This entire FTX/SBF débacle just never ends. This is why Chen hiring on Ellison for Manifund is really bad PR for EA causes, amongst everything else.
Chen does not seem to want to explain his position (he falls back a lot on "my lawyer says I can't comment"), but the impression I'm getting is a combination of "this is our money, it was given to us!" and "well it's all spent now so tough luck" which does not cause me to trust him more. Definite whiff of snake oil in the air, and as Emerson says "the louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons".
So this is not just "nice guy gives second chance to former EA starlet", this is "guy who benefited from FTX funding glommed onto the money and is refusing to pay it back, then hires on one of the people who was involved in the business of dodgy dealings". That's a much less noble version of events!
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
This is yet more of "being smart is not the same as being wise".
Oh, that was last year's scandal. Further back than that, even! Now we're all worried about climate change roasting us alive and/or AI taking over the world, giant embezzlement schemes under the guise of doing good are so 2022.
EDIT: I have to agree that hiring someone whose CV is most notable for "easily persuaded by guy in charge to go along with massive swindle" is not looking good for Manifund as to what kind of organisation dealing with lots of funds and the leadership of same it will be. "So what are you looking for in a CFO?" "Someone who will shut up and sign the cheques as they're told to do".
I see that this is more back-scratching, or to be charitable, gratitude and repayment of favours:
I felt a keen debt to the FTX Future Fund. They provided seed funding for Manifold. They funded the retreat which drew me into the EA community, and the conference where I met my wife. Much of Manifund’s work today is directly inspired by the Future Fund’s approach.
On FTX itself, I remain conflicted. It was their money and spirit that enabled the Future Fund, and I still admire many aspects of FTX and the individuals who worked there. But also: FTX did wrong. Its collapse harmed users (myself included), and damaged the movement which I deeply care about. I may write more about this in the future, but in any case:
I believe in redemption. Caroline has admitted her faults, worked to make creditors whole, and served her time in prison. I’d like to give her the opportunity to contribute back to the world; I hope that the world will concur.
Redemption is good. But you don't do it by giving the job of "develop[ing] our funding platform and research how to effectively direct philanthropic dollars" to someone whose last job ended in "Ellison pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering". Give her a job with Manifund as helping her get back on her feet and return to society, sure. But not a job where she is handling money or decisions around money.
This makes EA look gullible at best and corrupt at worst.
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
My train of thought has many cars, they can't all be corralled into one big car.
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
Thinking about it further, traditional Octopode society only functions (somewhat) peacefully if polyandry is the rule. Tradwife Octopodette is married off as soon as, or as shortly after as possible, she becomes sexually mature. But that's not the end of it! This is her primary mate, the suitable one both families agree is stable and bringing a good bride-price with him, able to provide a home for her and the hatchlings (when they come). But they're not coming just yet, as (like the blue-ringed octopus) Octopodette can store spermatophores. Over the course of the next couple of years, she takes other husbands. If she wants to marry for love or just have a toy boy as she gets older, sure! Eventually, when she is facing "reproduce now or lose the chance forever" timing, she uses all those stored spermatophores to fertilise her eggs, lays them, guards them, and dies. Her relicts now raise the hatchlings jointly and this improves survival rates for the young, since now they have homes and co-parents instead of being left to the mercy of predation and environmental stresses. Every Octopode has at least a chance of being mated, so there is much less social discontent around "the old guys are taking all the women".
Draupadi is the model for the virtuous tradwife Octopodette, with her five husbands representing the five excellences she wanted in one man (not possible) 😁
What's truly terrible is that now has me thinking about Octopode society 😁
How long do these Octopodes live? If we take real world deep sea octopus species, it could be 10 years (possibly, though not probably, anywhere up to 16-18 years). Other octopus species live anywhere from eighteen months to five years, so let's go with a decade lifespan.
Next thing is, when do Octopodes become sexually mature? This is very relevant to the Octopodettes, because if they are going to mate once, get pregnant, lay eggs, and die, then their life span depends on how early in Octopode society they are considered mature enough to marry and have spawn. Again, real world examples of giant octopus species would be around 2 to 3 years.
If the male Octopodes survive their mates and have a longer lifespan, we could see a society developing along Ancient Roman lines of "thirty year old man marries twelve year old girl". That wasn't the rule, but men tended to marry later because they were building their careers etc.
I think you can see that if Octopodettes reproduce once and die, then the gender ratios are going to get skewed within a few generations. I'm not smart enough to run the maths, but think about it: we start off with 100 Octies, 50 male and 50 female. The females mate, reproduce, and die. The males survive. The population has increased to 50+ however many hatchlings survive (for the sake of simplicity, let's say every clutch of eggs is sized 50, divided neatly between males and females) - clutch sizes can be "50 to upwards of 400,000 eggs at a time in a single reproductive cycle, depending heavily on the species."
Next generation, once they become sexually mature, we have the original 50 males plus the (for the sake of simplicity) 100 newly mature males and 100 newly mature females. Now you have 150 males competing to mate with the females.
Rinse and repeat for the next generation, you see where this is going?
This would explain how this happens:
They conquered North and South, East and West, and spread their molluscan monarchy over the globe. All marine life, and all other Octopodes, were cast down to become their chattel or cattle.
Of course, because now you have a surplus population of young male Octies with little to no chance of obtaining a mate and reproducing themselves. In human society, we're used to talking about how the aggression of young, unmarried males who cannot hope to successfully compete for mates has to be channelled, and war (especially aggressive, expansionist war) is one way of doing that. Can our Octies mate with other Octie species? War brides in that case! If they can't, then perhaps success in war is one way of rising up the ranks and getting enough status to be considered in with a chance for an Octopodette (once the older Octie males are now grandpas and too old to mate or dead).
Hey, looks like we've re-invented the patriarchy! and hierarchical society! Older, high-status males send the young/lower-ranking Octie males out to fight their wars, while hogging the females for themselves. Um, maybe we've also re-invented the Theban League and obligate homosexuality? Males that don't seek out females because they just ain't interested may or may not have an advantage. They certainly have a better chance of booty time than their straight but sometimes facultatively homosexual brothers.
Something will have to give, and unless the Octie King wants to look down the barrel of the Octo(ber)pode Revolution, then...
... it's the Sexual Revolution.
It is now in the interest of the Octopodes, not the Octopodettes, to break tradition. The invention of contraception and its widespread adoption will do work here. Now you can have sex with your female mate/spouse (roofies aside) multiple times! She can live as long as you do! Just so long as you don't knock her up which will be fatal (literally).
Imagine that: as much sex as you want (or that she will tolerate) for as long as you want! The dream of all the single male Octies!
Even better is if you break the restrictions around "mating is for marriage". When extra-marital sex becomes socially acceptable, when Octopodettes can have boyfriends (instead of being married to the mate of their father's choice like The Good Old Traditional Days) and when sex does not automatically mean reproduction, then you - single male Octie - have a much better chance of getting your ashes hauled at least once in your life. You do not want the tradwife Octopodette, she's no good to you because you have little chance of ever getting one. You want the Sexually Liberated, Empowered, Feminist Octopodette who thinks she is sticking it to The Man by sleeping around. In fact, getting your hectocotylus into one of those good-time Octopodettes may well increase your chances of reproduction, when she does decide it's time to do the whole egg-laying thing:
A recent study on blue-ringed octopus sex found that females will lay eggs that were fertilized by multiple males in one clutch! Females have the ability to store spermatophores and use a mix of sperm when they are ready to lay their eggs.
Octopus sex is fascinating, and slightly wince-inducing. It's often not much fun for the females, but the males are not having swinging bachelor fun times either:
The mating ritual for the blue-ringed octopus begins when a male approaches a female and begins to caress her with his modified arm, the hectocotylus. A male mates with a female by grabbing her, which sometimes completely obscures the female's vision, then transferring sperm packets by inserting his hectocotylus into her mantle cavity repeatedly. Mating continues until the female has had enough, and in at least one species, the female has to remove the over-enthusiastic male by force. Males attempt copulation with members of their own species regardless of sex or size, but interactions between males are most often shorter in duration and end with the mounting octopus withdrawing the hectocotylus without packet insertion or struggle.
Blue-ringed octopus females lay only one clutch of about 50 eggs in their lifetimes, towards the end of autumn. Eggs are laid and then incubated underneath the female's arms for about six months. During this process, the female does not eat. After the eggs hatch, the female dies, and the new offspring will reach maturity and be able to mate by the next year.
In the southern blue-ringed octopus, body mass is observed to be the strongest factor that influences copulatory rates. Evidence of female preference for larger males is apparent, although no male preference for females is shown. In this species males possibly expend more effort than females to initiate copulation. Additionally, males are not likely to use odor cues to identify females with which to mate. Male-male mounting attempts are common in H. maculosa, indicating that no discrimination occurs between sexes. Male blue-ringed octopuses adjust mating durations based on the females' recent mating history. Termination of copulation is not likely to happen with a female if she has not yet mated with another male. Duration of mating is also found to be longer in these cases as well.
Hence the roofies:
Think your love life is complicated? In a 2025 Current Biology study, researchers discovered that male blue-lined octopuses (Hapalochlaena fasciata) don’t just mate—they immobilize. During mating, the male mounts the female from behind, latches on with all his suckers, and delivers a targeted bite with his beaks straight to her mantle—specifically, her aorta—injecting a precise dose of tetrodotoxin (TTX).
So what happens after the bite? The female’s breathing slows, her body turns pale, her pupils stop reacting to light—and she remains paralyzed for nearly an hour. Once toxin wears off, she regains control and literally shoves the male off, often with swollen bite marks left behind. All females observed in the research survived suggesting they’ve evolved resistance to their own deadly venom. Butttttt the margin for error is razor-thin! This toxic bite ensures males aren’t eaten mid-coitus by the significantly larger, hungrier females.
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
You were only a poor little sparrow? Okay. But it was still a false story, and repeating it years afterwards doesn't help.
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
these Octopodes were semelparous – meaning their females reproduced once and died immediately postpartum.
That's an interesting strategy, though. How did the Octopodes grow their population? Because at first glance, either they need to produce tons of little Octopode hatchlings at one go (and who takes care of baby Octies? if we're talking about intelligent, technologically advanced species, 'oh we just let them fend for themselves in the wild and the survivors grow up' won't work; are all the daddy Octies childminding their brood of fifty hatchlings?) or it's a very skewed gender ratio where females outnumber males by a huge margin (say out of ten Octies, nine are female to one male).
I see that it works in nature, but not with intelligent species. And it generally seems to be both sexes die after spawning, or the males die off while females sometimes survive to return and spawn again:
This form of lifestyle is consistent with r-selected strategies as many offspring are produced and there is low parental input, as one or both parents die after mating. In semelaparous mammals, all of the male's energy is diverting into mating and the immune system is repressed. High levels of corticosteroids are sustained over long periods of time. This triggers immune and inflammatory system failure and gastrointestinal hemorrhage, which eventually leads to death.
Also, if you want this to be seen as a bad fate
Then a description of "But I personally have six wives and twenty kids (not counting the current pregnancies) that I fully support in a middle to upper middle class style, I'm fighting the TFR rate collapse with all I have, join my army of lovers!" would be more sympathy-triggering than "Me? Married? Horde of squalling brats? Over my dead body, but I think women should have no choice about getting knocked-up. Just don't ask me to do it, I want to spend my money and time on my toys and leisure activities" just-so stories.
EDIT:
Explain how the kingdom becomes a stand-in husband to the octopodettes, and why this in particular makes them not want to have kids.
Well, lessee:
Year by year the Octopodettes were emancipated from every social constraint that had once bound them and from every aspect of what they once were; and the Kingdom and its treasury became more of a husband to them than their own husbands ever were or could ever be.
Sure, because Husbando expects to only be Husbando to Wifey Number One until he knocks her up. Then he's a merry widower after she pops her clogs having laid the eggs and moves on to Wifies Numbers Two to Unlimited, as Bluebeard as Bluebeard can be, unless he refrains from knocking up a Wifey and thus having a marriage that lasts longer than one year.
I think in that situation, State Husband that is involved with Octopodette for more than one year, as long as she survives in fact, is more of a husband to the Octopodette than Husbando 😁
Fascinatingly, it appears that in nature, this is not how it works for octopi, and both parents pop their clogs after doing their reproductive duty to the species:
While octopuses prefer a solitary lifestyle, males are generally the ones to seek out a female when they reach sexual maturity. Males must proceed with caution and be tactical in their approach because some female octopuses have cannibalistic tendencies.
...Octopuses have a lifespan lasting 6 months to 5 years depending on the species.
Like many animals, the most important part of an octopus’s life is arguably sex! That exciting moment where the promise of passing along their genetic material is realized.
Octopuses are semelparous which means that once they have mated, they die. This process is called senescence. Females have the additional step of laying eggs and caring for them, but they eventually meet the same fate as their male companions.
It seems female octopi stand guard over their eggs and hatchlings, but stop eating during this period and eventually starve to death. The males just seem to die after mating.
If you’re thinking octopus dads fare any better, they don’t. After mating, if a male octopus isn’t quick enough, they are eaten by their mate!
Once the female has what she needs, the male just becomes a big juicy steak in her eyes. To be fair, the female octopus could probably use a protein boost to help fuel her egg-laying and brooding future. Even if the male does manage to escape, they also die shortly after, thanks to their optic gland.
Gosh, I really learned a heck of a lot more about octopus reproduction than I ever thought I would want to!
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
Hang on, didn't we read something like this before? Marine species (crabs or something) on a tidal rock?
I don't get the obsession with marine species and 'we need to get women pregnant until they literally die' but go Mother Hydra and Father Dagon I guess?
HereAndGone2
1mo ago
I'm flaunting on open display all my prejudices here, but mostly it's the crazy eyes (or expression that can be read as same). Deep-set, strangely dark and luxuriant eye lashes, and light coloured eyes together.
Even in a good photo of him, I still get vibes of "trying too hard to look normal" and sorry, yet more "future serial killer documentary" vibes.
This is all subjective! My reactions are not (necessarily) those of the normal female! But I get a loud siren noise and flashing lights in my head when looking at photos of him, like this.
I admit, if his writing hadn't put me off so much, I'd be more forgiving of his face. But both together are too much.
Plus the transparency only happened after she worked there for two months under a pseudonym. That's not as transparent as it might be.
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