Nerd
I had sex with a vacuum, it sucked.
User ID: 1024
Nerd
6d ago
I get what you're saying, obviously, but you are comparing the imperfect reality (sometimes a machine is better than nothing) with an IMO overly-positive could-be (everyone or nearly everyone starts interacting more in person and becomes less lonely and gets into a happy, healthy relationship). A change in ideology can move the tipping-point of misery but only so far. As far as I'm concerned, the ability to mass-manufacture companionship and something as close to genuine care as makes no odds is genuinely miraculous, and makes me more optimistic about tech than I've been for a long time.
As a general rule, we should accept authenticity over bullshit. No machine can love a human in the same way a human can, and dying alone is superior to a false fantasy. But that aside, I don't think there is a great way to guarantee that only relationship challenged individuals get their hands on it. People are probably gonna try and get their hands on an android partner by either purchasing used or gaming the system. The drawbacks outweigh the positives.
I fell like much of the current discourse around social trends, such as birth rates & loneliness, need to do a better job at taking the current environmental constraints into consideration. My favorite video surrounding this topic of how environments produce cultural outcomes comes from the now defunct 1791L. (Honestly it sums up my views of current society)
On its face, this makes sense,(In response to an article by Ben Shapiro saying American spiritual ills are caused by culture) but it isn’t as though those cultural forces emerged from nowhere and spread purely by word of mouth. As argued before, it is not difficult to see how skewed incentives have developed not only through government influence, but also through market forces. This may be reflected in phenomena like pornography, which offers the convenience of sexual gratification without the associated effort, as well as media conglomerates broadcasting cultural messages into every American home. Additionally, the sexual liberation that has more recently reshaped society was facilitated in part by innovations such as birth control and the automobile, both of which were enabled by capitalist development.
After all, the number of men women can find desirable shrinks, (As women excel in the workforce) and men who are either unable or unwilling to attain those positions will grow resentful, bitter, and depressed. Whether they lack the willpower or the cognitive horsepower, the outcome is the same. “Will grow depressed” may not even be the most accurate description, considering that process is already well underway. Fundamentally, this is attributed to the cult of market success overtaking earlier moral foundations—the idea that raw economic gain nourishes the human soul rather than something higher. In their push to adopt traditionally male forms of competition, some women may find that status and excess income do not deliver the meaning they were led to expect. As some men perceive it becoming more difficult to meet standards of attractiveness, they may disengage, especially given the abundance of alternative habits available. Video games are progressing rapidly and transitioning toward virtual reality, while pornography’s exaggerated depiction of human sexuality can strongly engage the brain’s reward systems. In that context, there may seem to be less incentive to develop personality or skills if easier, more immediately rewarding alternatives are available—after all, the human subconscious has not fundamentally changed from the one shaped by evolution.
So, what might help if people are beginning to engage in actions that (I personally would consider to be) bad. Is finding a way to effect environmental structures. If one is a conservative , who values marriage & children and general human connections, you'll probably want to do this. I've talked about some solution previously. But not really targeting the environmental variables enough. I've also taken various other past critiques into consideration.
First
There needs to be a massive reconsideration of the current technological advancements. Here is a women falling in love with an AI. In Japan, this is notably worse - people paying for companion ship, and marrying dolls. Im gonna sound authoritarian here, but this shit needs to straight up be banned. There is no social positive for computers and humans to emotionally intermingle in this way. Its only emotionally harmful, for basically all involved. Same deal with "Only Fans" and any other technology that seeks to make an easy way out of human face to face interaction.
Second
Get men, especially those without a degree, into a decent paying job. I've been on the market, I Have a degree, Its fucking brutal. Ive only been able to secure a Network Engineer Internship (Paid with benefits) and a 21 an Hr job with no benefits, after about 7-8 interviews. I havent gotten an full time job with benefits offers yet. Its not fun. I can't imagine what the men who lack my experience & degree are going through. There are two sub problems with this one, mainly:
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Actually getting an interview to begin with
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Getting a good, well paying job after that
Both of these can be discussed at length. But im gonna give what I think is a good course of action. Make more vocational schools cheaper, and perhaps even free. Many states have done this. There also needs to be a cultural push to get men & boys to actually stay in these programs, and ensure an internship or entry level job after training is complete. I've been made aware of legislation to increase these jobs, Id like to see more of it.
Third
I think a lot of past discussions I've had miss an important piece by not really examining how incentives are affecting women differently.
There’s been some talk about shifting incentives away from women’s education:
So I'd suggest this has a number of impacts:
Women start attending college more often. Which has them burn more of their most fertile years, and the added debt load makes them less appealing as partners and less able to support kids.
Men start accruing more debt too, which stunts their personal wealth acquisition in their 20's and thus makes them less appealing to women... and just less able to support a partner/kids in general.
Obviously this allows economically nonviable majors like "Women's studies" to grow, which has some clear downstream impacts. Probably causes women's standards to rise, they wouldn't accept a partner without a degree if they have one.
Of course turned College into the 'default' life path rather than hopping into a career and getting married as the best practice for advancing socially. So putting us back to the status-quo ante of 1990, and NOT expanding access to loans for college, we might be able to avoid the worst excesses of Feminism entering the mainstream. I dunno.
Unfortunately, that framing skips over a few structural realities:
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Housing has become a much higher barrier to entry. Access to good housing in good neighborhoods is significantly more expensive than it used to be. That raises the threshold for economic stability. In this environment, the college wage premium matters more, not less—it’s one of the most reliable ways to clear that bar. This also makes single-income households harder to sustain, regardless of preferences.
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Women have fewer viable non-degree paths to stability. As the economy has shifted away from industrial and physical labor toward knowledge and service work, many of the historically male-dominated “no degree required” paths (e.g., trades, manufacturing) haven’t translated as easily for women at scale. That makes higher education a more central route to security.
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The modern economy rewards the traits women are, on average, better positioned to leverage. The college wage premium exists for a reason: today’s economy places a high value on a mix of cognitive ability and social/interpersonal skills. As demand has shifted in that direction, women—who on average tend to score higher on certain social skill dimensions—are relatively well-positioned to benefit.
It’s not that education is arbitrarily driving behavior. The causality runs the other way—economic and environmental changes have increased the returns to education, and women, given the available pathways and comparative advantages, are responding rationally to those incentives.
The easiest way around 1 is to just, well (clears throat): BUILD MORE FUCKING HOUSES. Yes, politically difficult, but If I had it my way, I'd adopt a similar housing policy on the state level, like Japan does.
I'd love for someone to add Ideas for how to deal with points 2 & 3. I'm not a well versed economists, so solutions are lost on me. Feel free to add your own thoughts, please!
Nerd
8d ago
Every now and again, im in my late 20s now. With my friends especially. It helps me relax.
Nerd
8d ago
Yes. I would rather adulthood be granted by IQ test. An optimized by-race system would just use racial IQ means instead of the test itself.
Thats interesting, so this girl could be 25, but not be an adult, ever?
That kinda works sort of, but has another problem, your essentially saying that a 14 year old with a higher IQ should be an adult, with all that entails. I dont think many people would accept that.
Nerd
8d ago
I don't really care if some high IQ, but emotionally immature people get to be adults at the age of 14. It's not a big deal.
Meh for you maybe, but I feel like a lot of people would reject a 130 IQ 14 year old dating someone who is in their 30s. It just seems intuitively wrong on many levels, even if someone has a really high IQ.
Nerd
8d ago
Are they black? It may depend on the race. Steve and Maddy don't sound black, but 4 „teenagers“ with guns going carjacking sounds black. I think it's hard to talk about this without race. r/K selection theory says some races reproduce under an earlier, lower investment pattern than others. Different races also have different levels of adult neoteny, different developmental timing, and so on. It's not impossible to consider that the average black person becomes adult-in-their-race earlier than the average Asian or white person.
Im honeslty curious for your answer here, because this reply is unique in taking race realism into consideration. For our car-jacking situation, we'll say they are poor white kids. Steve (Black) & Maddy (Hispanic) are in an interracial relationship.
On a side note, It probably be rather difficult to set maturity levels into law based on race as well, but im guessing this is a moral judgement, rather than a legal implementation.
So its no secret that people, particularly zoomers, like to bitch and moan about age gaps in relationships. Should someone who's 30 date someone who's 18? Does it make you a pedophile if you do?
A lot of this discussion hinges on whether or not these people are actually "adults" that can make logical decisions. I've been pondering this myself so I'm going to run by two hypotheticals (Both for and against 18 year olds or "teenagers" being adults) and see what you guys think:
Case 1
Suppose you are on your way to work and are at a stop light. A convertible pulls up beside you, in it, 4 boys, all 18 years of age. One has a shotgun, two others have a glock. They tell you to hand them your wallet and the keys, or you die. Here is a clip for reference. Now, lets say that you have your own gun here, and instead of a wallet, you open fire, and successfully kill one of them as they drive off.
Is it fair to say that you killed a child? Probably not. You killed teenagers? Technically. Did you kill some grown ass man thinking he could jack you? Many would say yes! On top of this, many people would judge these boys as adults, and have them take a prison/jail sentence as adults. It seems that in the eyes of many, if you do adult things, and are expected to take accountability as an adult, we should rightfully call you an adult. Make sense? Maybe lets consider case 2.
Case 2
Two teenagers, Maddy (16F) & Steve (15M) are in a relationship, and are maddly in love. One day, Maddy finds herself pregnant, and gives birth to baby boy. Steve decides to marry her, and get a job at a factory to support her and the baby.
Now, both Steve & Maddy choose to do an adult action (have sex) with an adult consequence (reproduction), and took responsibility as "adults" (getting married and getting a job). Would we say these 2 are adults? It seems the answer here, for many is no. You shouldn't want teenagers to be having kids: that's what adults are expected to do. That fact that Steve & Maddy have done adult things, and are now taking on adult responsibilities, doesn't make them true adults in the eyes of many.
So far, Im what I'm thinking with both of these cases is that the cognition needed to make adult decisions perhaps simply lie at different ages, based on said decision. Maybe its easier at 14 to know that car jacking & killing is wrong, than it would be to have the knowledge and maturity neccessary to handle a sexual relationship. And that the whole "lets have one universal age of adulthood" is looking at it wrong: Different actions simply have different complexities to them, and thus a universal set age of adulthood ignores those complexities. But assuming this is true, where does sexual relationships lie on the age scale? Is a 16 year old really too immature to date some one who is 19? 20?
If we should have universal age of adulthood, that tracts onto everything (alcohol, crime, sex) where would it be? Currently, all of these have different ages (21 is for alcohol if you are in the US). What do you guys think?
Nerd
12d ago
I gotta say, Im really fucking disappointed in Trump for this. Alienating his base and attacking his own supporters, and then starting a insane war for what seems like no particularly good reason. And to top it all off, the blockade? Why? Seriously?
Its one thing to not like the Iranian government. Fine. But going all out and attacking them in the way he has been doing is really goofy, and is making many on the right utterly regret their vote, and making blue tribe go "I told you so".
The only thing I can hope for is that the public has a short memory and that this all comes under control during midterms. But chances are looking quite slim that that happens....
Nerd
13d ago
Consider it a blessing if this is how they lead with things. This company clearly failed your test.
A shame too. They were late with both the phone screening and the initial in person interview, I had to email them to get an update on what had happened. I was actually curious about the role.
@pigeonburger @YoungAchamian @The_Nybbler @bolido_sentimental @Tretiak @cablethrowaway
Updating Job Search again. Bitter Sweet news:
1.) All the jobs posted on the previous post fell through, minus IT Support for the school. The Building maintaince company gave me a really unprofessional and sad email, Saying that they filled the role, despite promising me a final interview previously (this was like, 3 days after the 2nd round interview) EDIT Network Engineer Internship pulled through. Im gonna get a call Monday.
2.) I've technically been given an offer, however, its 21 an hour with no benefits. Better than 17 an hour part time. Not ideal (but i accepted anyway).
3.) I had an excellent interview for a Tier 2 position at a Mortgage company. Dude tried to sell me on the company for atleast half the interiview, he really likes me! Its 27 an hour with benefits. Im crossing my fingers and hoping it wont be another "we filled this role" situation. He says HR should hook me up with a final interview early next week.
I have to say, its really fucking frustrating to be getting to the final round, only to be given the no. Its happened to me 3 - 4 times during my entire job search. Either Im doing something at the end that fucks everything up, or my competition is just insanely good, and they are edging me out in most cases. Its nuts that i could get to the final round and get the no that many times.
If i get the school or the mortgage company, im ditching the 21 an hour gig. I've been broke my whole life. I am tired. EDIT Ok, Now I have to choose between Network Engineer Internship and 21 an hour job at a hospital with no benefits. Better position than before. Still hoping that something fulltime with benefits pulls through.
Nerd
14d ago
At this point we're into at least a second or third generation (probably more, it's not like I was around to observe between the 70s and the 90s) of libmarxist teachers doing their thing.
I think its something else entirely, but ill wait till next week to flesh this out. My hypothesis is that as societies become richer and more technologically advanced, there becomes less of need for conservative rules. This allows for more liberal morals to flourish.
Nerd
15d ago
It wasn't that long ago that the evangelical religious right were an extremely powerful political force in America, with their own champions, cultural icons, shibboleths, set of not-entirely-related-beliefs-that-served-as-tribe-signals and bespoke rituals.
I wasnt there back then, but wasnt this kinda how Britney Spears started out, from what I heard?
Nerd
15d ago
There's also little to no developmental difference between a 17.99 year old and an 18.01 year old person, but there's a vast difference in legal status. You can argue about development all day long, but birth either happened or it didn't.
I mean, yeah. But even thats not cut and dry is it? There are plenty of places where age of consent is 16, compared to 18 or 19 else-ware. The Netherlands will even let you commit infanticide, if the child is sick enough. & Most countries with legal abortion have some kind of gestational limit, minus the good old US of A (to my knowledge). I don't think the birth canal is as magical a line in the sand as one would think.
Nerd
15d ago
Why? The vaginal canal is literally just 3 - 4 inches in length. There is little to no developmental difference between a 28 week old premie and a 28 week old fetus, besides a 3 - 4 inch move.
Nerd
15d ago
"I consented to having sex, I didn't consent to getting pregnant".
I've always found this reasoning to be weakest of all possible arguments, for the simple fact that is doesn't follow on the male end of things. Can someone get out child support payments purely because they didn't "consent" to fathering the child? No! We give them the old adage of "Man Up" and "You play you pay", and rightfully so.
Nerd
15d ago
Yeah, i definitely miss his older content! Dude incredibly intelligent and a goldmine!
Nerd
15d ago
gay marriage
I was around when Obergefell v. Hodges was ruled on. What happened in a nut-shell was that there was an entire campaign to convince people that being gay was ok. It took family members coming out to each other on a personal level, the whole "born this way narrative" trying to indicate that this wasn't a choice. I especially think the fact that friends and family were gay really made the issue salient: should I really be against my brother, uncle, etc. Marrying another man if thats what they like? In particular, I also think most of the arguments against being gay or gay marriage itself are kinda ass.
But another factor that is likely worth taking into consideration is demographic shifts. We simply are a less religious society as we were before, and younger generations tend to be more liberal than older ones. Its just plain old demographic replacement. As to why the young are more liberal than the old - I couldnt tell you.
Nerd
15d ago
Then we can see which one is better in the long run
I still think this would be fundamentally subjective, no? Is Japan "worse" for being an ethno-state compared to Canada, which is cosmopolitan? From just the outside looking in, they both are functional countries, with functional governments.
Nerd
16d ago
The more I think about politics, I always end up coming back to this quote from a very good video (from a very good youtuber!).
A common bait-and-switch happens so quickly you might miss it, and it occurs very frequently. Pinker lines up a number of things that involve good fact-checking, methodological research, and asking questions, but these are not the reasons why we have core disagreements about values—they simply aren’t. There isn’t a scientific problem that is going to convert a Democrat into a Republican, and the insinuation that we can just “use science” to solve these problems is misleading.
A great example is abortion. This is largely a question about choice, life, and volition. While science can show developmental details about what a fetus is, or whether it has certain cognitive abilities, the core belief revolves around whether there is a responsibility to preserve that life, whether it has inherent value, and whether society recognizes a duty toward it. That is what governs the debate—not the microscopic details. So regardless of how much information we gather about the fetus, the abortion issue does not fundamentally change. It won’t be resolved by higher-resolution data; the question is about the value we assign, and science alone cannot determine that.
I think in most cases, politics are about values. To piggy back off the abortion example. The go to argument surrounding this typically is bodily autonomy, and although one could argue that this isn't really consistent on a factual, legal level. If I were in the room debating a pro-choice person on the issue, here is how it would go.
PC Person
The fetus is not entitled to its mothers body, consider the court case McFall v Shimp: McFall suffered from a life-threatening bone marrow disease and his cousin, Shimp, was a compatible bone marrow donor. Shimp refused to donate bone marrow. McFall requested Shimp be compelled to donate. The Court considered Shimp’s refusal “morally indefensible,” but still ruled in Shimp’s favor, explaining,
“For a society which respects the rights of one individual, to sink its teeth into the jugular vein or neck of one of its members and suck from it sustenance for another member, is revolting to our hard-wrought concepts of jurisprudence. Forcible extraction of living body tissue causes revulsion to the judicial mind.”
Judith Jarvis Thomson tackles the issues of bodily integrity and moral obligations in her essay, “A Defense of Abortion.” Thomson asks us to imagine a famous violinist with a fatal kidney ailment. One day a bunch of music lovers kidnap you and hook your kidneys up to the violinist’s circulatory system. In nine months the violinist will have recovered, but if you disconnect yourself prematurely the violinist will die. Thomson asks, “Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation?”
When you drive (have sex), you know there’s a possibility you could crash into someone (conceive). Even when you drive very cautiously (use contraception), there is still a chance of a car accident. Should you be in a car crash in which the victim’s life is at stake, the law does not compel you to donate blood or organs to save the victim. While it would be admirable for you to donate, you are not required to do so."
Me:
"Thats cool. Lets say you, for whatever reason, are a psychopath who enjoys taking children, draining them of their blood, hospitalizing them and or possibly killing. If I was king for a day, and assuming your blood was a match, I would sentence you to life in prison, and then order that your blood be drained and given to the remaining children to save them. Fight Me"
I don't find this to be unreasonable, given that we would already use lethal injection for these kinds of people (also a violation of "bodily autonomy"). Draining someone of their blood would be no less worse than forcefully injecting them.
You are free to think I'm a crazy person, fine. But that's not my main point. The same problem exists for issues like nationalism & immigration. You can scream all day about how immigrants are a net gain to the economy, or how they commit less crime. But a ethno-nationalist will simply go "No, I value the culture and heritage of the green people, and I'd rather them go extinct than to have our way of life polluted by the purples.".
Another explicit example of what im talking about is race. A black person does not vote democrat because they are factually good for the economy (whether or not they are is besides the point). If you asked average black voter to produce a study about specific policies that cite this, they would come up short. Support for democrats comes from the idea of racial solidarity, and the fact that black people value the black race, and would like to advance black interest.
I have no clue how one would even go about resolving this. Morals & values are not empirical - you cant prove bodily autonomy and cultural heritage are good in the same way you can prove what foods are and aren't healthy. These things are based on moral intuitions that are fundamentally subjective. I don't think I could ever change my personal mind on that issue to be completely honest, but on a societal scale, this is obviously not sustainable. There needs to be some way to reconcile a difference in moral values.
@quiet_NaN @coffee_enjoyer I'm gonna do a defense of @Poug argument.
The original tweet is very poorly worded. However, i think if we exam other aspects of trumps behavior aroundthe whole conflict, there is probably are good reasons to think that trump doesn't have any real desire to wipe out Iranians.
Here is trump telling Iranians to get really excited for a positive future. & wanting to continue talking to Iran to work something out afterward the initial "genocide threat"
Here is my take: I don't think trump unironically desires to genocide Iranians, even in the original tweet, he blesses the people. He is using hyperbolic language to try and get Iran to capitulate and work with him for some new deal. This is a poor strategy, but its also important to remember that there are plenty of crazy out there stuff trump has said in the past that never came to fruition. As far as I can see now, this has failed, and he is now blocking the strait. Not good, but not what i would call genocidal either. I think Iranians are gonna stay with us.
Nerd
19d ago
I am intentionally comparing prejudice against men to prejudice against Muslims because both often stem from fear-based logic.
My critique focuses on the specific progressive argument that prejudice against men is "valid" because women’s fear is backed by the reality of male-driven misogyny and violence. By accepting this "valid reason" as a justification for sexism, one inadvertently creates a logical pathway to justify prejudice against specific racial or religious groups based on similar statistical or anecdotal fears. Afterall this is the reasoning given for the different treatment of sexisms that you suggest.
The core of my point is this: if we validate differential treatment of men based on their collective actions, we undermine the fundamental argument against racial or religious profiling, as the same logic of "justifiable prejudice" could then be applied to any group.
Nerd
19d ago
I mean yeah that might be her message overall, but I cant help but feel, intuitively, that there would be a deliberate avoidance to dating black men on her part, just based on the 1st NYC video, even if she wouldnt encourage her audience to think in this way directly. It is harder to date black men as a black women, she knows this, and she very likely avoids dating black men because of it. I think that this is ok for what its worth. But I dont think she is entirely free of non-discrimination. Besides that, sexual selection is the one aspect of life that is always discriminatory, and people have the right to do it, based on race or whatever characteristics, because someone has a right to decide who they want to sleep with, period.
Nerd
19d ago
I think the flaw with this explanation specifically is that pretty much everyone on the planet has a close relationship with the opposite sex by default, due to the fact that everyone has a mother and father, and has had at lease one romantic relationship. Plenty of men have close relationships with other women like a sister or a mom, that doesnt mean that anything a particular man is saying wouldnt be called misogyny, just because they have those connections. Andrew Tate probably has had his fair share of girlfriends and has a mother, lots of people think he is a misogynistic douche. Its not like he is just telling the truth about women because he has had personal relationships with them.
Nerd
19d ago
If she were to follow up her statement with “and so as a rule I don’t date Black guys” then we have a problem. That’s discrimination because it ignores the humanity of individuals (and also creates hard feelings that are often counterproductive on a societal level). I realize this is not always cut and dry (what if she says “and so I’m reluctant to date Black guys?”) but I strongly believe we should save the vast majority of the moral approbation for this kind of specific individualized behavior. Kindness is a bit of a skill.
I mean, if you watch the video, she basically admits to to most of her boyfriends being white, partially for stereotypical reasons. She actually has a whole video in depth talking about the issue dating black men as a black women.
How about we focus on policy to help them be functional individuals, instead of condemning them? Many black people used to get and stay married, the chaos we see now in the community is, in my opinion, a resulting combination of the sexual revolution, the war on drugs, and perhaps some perverse incentives from the welfare state.
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