astrolabia
5mo ago
I think we can make a more concrete claim, which is that deontologists are doomed in the long run due to competition and natural selection. Their rules will consistently be used against them. Today it's asylum seekers, tomorrow it will be ultra-charming machines that will claim moral primacy over whoever has resources.
astrolabia
6mo ago
I agree with all this. I guess I don't expect it to be in anyone else's interest to run even an uploaded and upgraded version of myself. Perhaps there will be some sort of affirmative action or mind-scraping such that some small vestiges of me end up having any influence. So I would consider your upgrading plan to be an instance of "crushed by competition", though it may be slightly better than nothing.
astrolabia
6mo ago
I have a pretty much identical outlook to you, including the kids thing. The biggest question on my mind is which kinds of futures we could plausibly aim for long term in which humans not crushed either by competition or the state.
astrolabia
6mo ago
This is why I'm afraid of AI. Once most humans are economically and militarily obsolete, and can't go on strike, we will leak power one way or another, and it will eventually end up in the hands of whoever controls the value-producing robots and chip factories.
astrolabia
6mo ago
Like Mewis said above though, you might encourage extortion if you pay off anyone who raises arms against you.
astrolabia
6mo ago
I think that's why they required the defectors to bring a very expensive MiG with them.
astrolabia
6mo ago
To be fair, when I started learning math + stats, I found the use of greek letters intimidating and confusing, especially rarely-used ones like ξ. Of course there's nothing wrong with them besides their unfamiliarity, but I try to start with English letters in my own math writing and only reach for greek letters when I'm running out of those.
astrolabia
6mo ago
Hmmm, are you just saying that you need to "choose your pain", and also accept that trying to do things will sometimes turn out badly? Or something more specific to romance?
astrolabia
7mo ago
I read the article, and was surprised to find I agreed with most of what she said. Every one of her opinions is about as manosphere/redpilled/motte-ish as you could imagine being printed in the NYT in 2023.
The new book being discussed is about how modern feminism has not just failed men, but effectively forbidden productive discussion of their problems. Bravo!
astrolabia
7mo ago
I broadly agree, but I think "if she's still a feminist, you're not the guy" is too strong. My wife had a long enough history of outspoken feminism when I met her that it would have been ridiculous for her to pretend not to be one. But I also never pretended to agree with something I didn't. It worked out fine and she eventually became a stay-at-home-mom.
Most political convos start with her thoughtlessly repeating some slogan, and if I can't reframe the convo immediately, usually instead of saying she's wrong or being dismissive, I ask what it means concretely, as Gaashk suggested above. This usually makes her mildly upset and embarrassed when she notices she hasn't thought about it much at all, and so she's learned to not to do that as much. But in terms of day-to-day life or child-rearing decisions, even though politically we're worlds apart, we usually almost entirely agree on the concrete steps to be taken.
On the few times when something completely beyond the pale (from her point of view) has come up ("you really believe ___!?"), I tell her she needs to talk to me respectfully even if she disagrees, as I am doing to her, even though from my point of view, she's equally misled.
I used to have a trad girlfriend who said something like "if a man is taking a love interest's political opinions seriously in the first place, he's doing it wrong."
astrolabia
7mo ago
Why is she friends with them?
I like your advice overall, but I don't know how I could ask this particular question without making the other person feel like it's an attack.
astrolabia
7mo ago
Okay, but I guess the question is how crappy it can get before there is a viable alternative.
I think ChatGPT is rapidly becoming that alternative. Its politicization is probably the most important front in the culture war right now.
astrolabia
7mo ago
So they'll eat their own, but then continue to operate mostly the same?
astrolabia
7mo ago
Interesting thesis. Perhaps this is part of why some people find things like kids, homeownership, getting degrees, getting promoted at work as meaningful, since those all fit in between "easy" and "almost impossible".
astrolabia
7mo ago
I agree, and this is something I've been thinking about for a while in terms of our larger culture. In the presence of any sort of incentives for growth or change, it's not clear how anyone or anything can meaningfully survive without first paying a huge one-time cost to conquer everything around it, then kill itself to some degree by removing its own ability to grow and change.
astrolabia
7mo ago
I apparently have not been cynical enough with regard to sovereignty in the middle power Western nations.
It sounds like that makes two of us. I agree with the rest of your comment, too.
astrolabia
8mo ago
With more acts like this there will be more pressure to limit immigration.
Maybe it's just learned helplessness, but I can't imagine the Canadian federal government ever reducing immigration. It's never happened in my lifetime. Even when they shut the borders due to covid, they made up for it by granting free permanent residency to almost all foreigners who happened to be working in Canada.
I'm not saying it's impossible, just that my naive model of the world would have predicted a reduction years ago, and I don't have a good model to replace it with.
astrolabia
8mo ago
What's the difference between "trust but verify" and "don't trust"?
astrolabia
8mo ago
Thanks for quoting, yes that's most of what I was referring to. But I maintain my characterization of what he said. I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't know how to create new values, and is just saying it would be great if we could.
astrolabia
8mo ago
I'm curious about what makes your life a living hell these days. I went through a similar "fun believing period" (not as intense as yours) that was very rich and rewarding. And losing that life was painful. But I guess now I see it partly as withdrawl from a "spiritual superstimulus".
I'm sure you've heard the arguments that God is perfectly shaped to fill the hole in our hearts because the memes evolved to. Kind of like how porn is optimized, now that I think of it. In any case, after a while I re-equilibriated emotionally, and now moral non-realism is just priced in, and doesn't depress me any more than say, being mortal and fallible does. Plus, I don't have to hear terrible philosophical arguments from people I otherwise respect as often.
astrolabia
8mo ago
I love Nietzsche, and maybe I missed the point, but on dealing with the death of god it seemed like he mostly said "Wouldn't it be awesome if someone came along and gave us new values?". Kind of like "my plan is to come up with a plan".
astrolabia
8mo ago
I've heard that in the Israeli Defence force, young conscripts are generally treated with kid gloves (e.g. not ordered around much or expected to suffer) to the point where boot camp is referred to as "summer camp", apparently because even the children of the powerful have to do it.
astrolabia
9mo ago
Oh, thanks for clarifying, I didn't realize Hughes was talking about West Indian blacks, I was thinking more like Bangladeshis.
astrolabia
9mo ago
I think that the CRT zeitgeist is evolving in response to this, focusing more on "anti-black racism".
Can you give some examples of these crazy views and goals?
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