faceh
3mo ago
Re-upping the one piece of advice I have on this.
It has to be effortful, uncomfortable, and entail (friendly) conflict.
Videogames sublimate this urge easily, especially in PVP modes, but lack the physical strain.
Men have to learn to fight. They have to have something to capture, some opponent to beat, and some promise of reward for taking risks.
Otherwise, they flail around without purpose, the urges get released in distinctly destructive ways, they fall in with anti-social crowds who will use them as a weapon, and they start taking really ill-advised risks on the promise of spurious rewards. Crypto-gambling is arguably the best case scenario there.
Not a cure-all, in the least, but its a START, which is more than a lot of guys get. Coach knew.
And what happens when the rewards for all that effort are, rationally, not worth the effort and expense?
More to the point, after a guy goes through the painful efforts of making himself better, can he expect to achieve a loving marriage, have a kid or two with a loyal wife, and see these kids to adulthood in an intact home?
The stats on that are bleak, as of now.
If not, then what, truly, is the point? Why does he do what he does if not to preserve his status and pass on his genes?
faceh
3mo ago
Yeah, my experience is that once you're able to fully articulate your problem and request to them, with specificity and supporting documentation, they get like 80+% of the way there on the first shot, and then you correct them in the places where it wasn't able to quite get your intent.
Which, yeah, that's the same issue you'd have if you hired a human to help too.
faceh
3mo ago
This is the take I pretty much endorse.
Thinking "AI is going nowhere and will be prove to be a waste" a la the Tulip or NFT craze is wrong.
Thinking "A lot of people/companies are going to get wiped out before the final winners are clear" seems inevitable. Lot of blood on the streets before we're done.
Especially with this:
here’s extreme cross-ownership / circular dealing in the market where Nvidia is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI companies and data centers who buy its chips
blatantly occurring. NVidia seems to think they're so dominant as to be unassailable, we'll see if that works out.
But every single company is in it to win it, despite this point:
Big AI companies have no moats.
Hard to predict who is going to make it out.
faceh
3mo ago
Yeah I see your point there.
I'm just pointing out that you've got the messaging from the boosters and all the money being spent to sell people on it, and then there's the other side where there's messages from the doomsayers AND messaging on the political side and then there's the market's response to tall this, with evidence that spending related to AI development is propping up growth right now.
It is questionable what the real goal of all that is, if we take everything being said at sheer face value.
I don't think you need to conclude there's a 'conspiracy' to notice that the messaging around AI is a bit schizo right now.
You've got anyone who is deeply invested in the industry constantly vaguely implying that the next big improvement is going to be "THE ONE" that makes it able to replace almost any knowledge work, and that this is inevitable and good.
BUT those same people will try to downplay the actual power/risks of their product. "Sure we're trying to build GOD here, but c'mon don't impose oversight, that would be lame!"
And the AI Doomers who are kinda helping the hype by suggesting that the AI is going to go FOOM sooner than expected and completely upend human society (in the best case) and end us all in the worst.
But they're not very good at arguing for more oversight for various reasons, since their case demands a complete pause or shutdown, rather than merely regulating and monitoring it.
And then the part where the rubber meets the road is in a very odd state. Some people saying that "vibe coding" apparently works but the products coming out there are pretty subpar as far as I've seen. And some industries seem to be integrating AI pretty readily whereas others (like yours) are finding it to be a hassle that might justify the costs but isn't impressive on its own merits.
Consumers can use it for a lot of things that aren't directly productive and capabilities are increasing there but not necessarily towards "able to do all jobs everywhere." Fun distractions on offer, though.
And obviously there's massive capital outlays going into datacenters and power to run them. And you would expect that the smart people spending this money wouldn't do so unless there was some expectation it would return on their investment.
But right now it looks like they're bleeding money that has to constantly be replaced by infusions of VC cash.
Which hey, that's fine if its an actual growth industry. But the capabilities have to grow pretty rapidly if they'll live up to the hype. And then you've got the Oroborous of companies producing the chips investing in the companies selling the compute investing in the companies buying the compute. Either everyone has a lot of faith in where this is going, or they're desperate to keep the train rolling as long as possible and maybe something surprising happens or they can line their pockets and hop off before disaster.
So its really starting look like the goal is "Functional AGI or bust," with 'bust' being the literal implosion of the industry, even if the tech continues to improve.
faceh
3mo ago
Never said they had to frame it as opposition to women.
Andrew Tate surely doesn't. He frames it as opposition to "The Matrix."
What is a young man supposed to do when he's hobbled from the start by educational programs that favor women, college admissions that favor women, jobs programs and diversity mandates that favor women, and a general social environment that favors women?
He doesn't have to say women are the problem, if the problem is in fact the policies that create the outcomes he experiences.
If those policies don't change, he's at a disadvantage for life. One that he's forced to pay taxes to support, no less.
Who can point out that this is an obstacle that one can't solve by 'self improvement' alone, and demand policy change?
If there is no such person, where do we think this ends up?
Surely there is some guy, somewhere, who is already in a position of high status, who can act as the mouthpiece or advocate for disaffected males without implicating any individual man as the complainant. Someone who can beseach the egregore on behalf of his brethren by amplifying the words they are individually scared to mouth.
Just one dude, somewhere, who has the necessary 'clout' to say "no, many men are suffering under current norms and these norms should shift, and men should demand much, much better treatment (while still being worthy of it)."
Oh wait. That's Andrew Tate.
Once again I point out that the fact that Tradcons have largely failed to provide the men they want to step up and "lead" with either a viable path to becoming worthy, or a proper incentive (i.e. an appealing pool of marriageable women) for doing so. They could at least provide a realistic and admirable role model to provide the inspiration and advocacy men crave.
Oh wait, that was Charlie Kirk.
In principle I agree with your point entirely.
In fact, I think this dynamic, mixed with the fact that the internet grants a massive advantage to those who are able to freely type out their complaints and form (the appearance of) a massive public consensus by finding other people who are also typing out their similar complaints and then form an 'interest group' that types out their complaints en masse to ultimately steer the debate to their preferred outcome.
i.e. we get dozens of articles from women discussing womens' grievances, whereas men are mostly commiserating amongst themselves, so on a social level the average normie assumes women's complaints are much more important because they're that much more salient.
And this dynamic is amplified by the fact that the internet rewards grievance and rage farming with more attention.
So basically because men aren't rewarded at all for speaking out about their struggles, especially in the medium-form article format, and women not only find that format more intuitive they are continually rewarded with attention for raising it, the feedback loop is pretty predictable from there.
faceh
3mo ago
Belligerent nutbars can more easily be thinned out if we're allowed to shoot them under the right circumstances.
I think we're in an arguably worse equilibrium where public harassment and 'fighting words' can be thrown around willy-nilly, degrading the general discourse because there is no legal means of reprisal that doesn't also expose you to possible legal liability.
faceh
3mo ago
Yes, but at least you can be held to account for failing your commitments.
If you never commit at all, then best we can do is punish what we view as misbehavior and hope it changes your behavior.
faceh
3mo ago
I don't think it's a good idea to chuck people into volcanoes because they didn't have PTSD when you thought it appropriate.
Not quite what I mean.
More that if someone doesn't have the requisite cognitive wiring to consider children a particularly 'special' class in terms of moral weight (that is, they are genuinely 'innocent' and have a heightened need for protection) it ups the odds, in my eyes, that they have other sociopathic traits that make them an overall undesirable neighbor, whatever their other values. Wouldn't want them around my kids, for sure.
What other types of vulnerable individuals would they feel comfortable exploiting? What moral code, if any, DO they follow, if 'killing kids' is easily permissible?
But as we've established, one can't really know another's heart or their true feelings so I accept that we have to make do with the circumstances we're given.
To make my position 100% clear, I do have a very particularized wariness of abortion doctors and the docs who push gender transition surgeries and puberty blockers on kids.
faceh
3mo ago
When is the last time, genuinely, you've seen any article published in any mainstream new media that was written from the perspective of a disaffected male where he was able to express what his perceived grievances were, and explain what he might want from a political party?
Or even something less direct: what about an article that takes men's complaints in good faith, listens to them, doesn't immediately blame them on the men in question, and considers that they're actually being honest about what they want and that we should devote some resources to addressing their concerns.
I've seen like a dozen from the past few months where a woman tries to explain why she thinks men have gone missing, or entreats them to 'come back' (here's a hint, don't publish it in the 'style' section), or an explicitly female perspective on how male's politics are concerning. Literally, read the article about how women having the desire to be with men at all makes her the actual victim.
Oh, remember that controversy over the "Tea" app that would let women anonymously report on alleged male misbehavior. Women of course were the victim of male rage in that whole debacle.
And we intermittently see articles like this, written by "Helen Coster" that handwrings over it as if its an intractable problem that we simply lack the technology to understand let alone address. But at least notes (correctly) that this is going to be catastrophic for Dems over the longer term.
Here's the only recent article I could find that even tries to consider the male perspective (and written by a dude) but it stops very short of elevating any possible proposals and of course balances the male perspective with the female.
I'm so. so. SO tired of there being literally only ONE side on the microphone, screaming the same 3ish complaints and then trying to entice men into solving the problem by compromising on everything they actually want and voting Democrat against their own instincts.
I'd say this is all proof by demonstration that the Democrats don't actually want to reach young men. It would be trivial to give them a platform to explain what they're actually looking for, to publish their words directly, rather than a third party puzzling about their internal processes and proposing half-baked 'solutions' that don't actually cede anything.
But they do not give men such a platform. The implication as I read it is that they really want men to just shut up and follow 'instructions' rather than voice concerns that, from the Dems perspective, don't matter, aren't actually concerns, and would require compromising on their various policy goals (and rouse the ire of their other interest groups) to actually address.
And this is all you would need to realize they will never, EVER actually make traction with the men, so place your bets for future political outcomes on that assumption. Also notice how J.D. Vance is quite adept plugging in to male cultural touchstones and echoing certain male concerns in a way that encourages them to engage with the GOP politically. CUE THE HANDWRINGING. Don't listen to J.D. Vance, the guy with the wife, kids, whose whole life is basically a male-coded success story. Listen to "Leila Atassi" instead, she sounds like an ideal commentator on masculinity.
faceh
3mo ago
I'm comfortable saying that if someone IS comfortable shooting a child, I would rather they be launched into a volcano by trebuchet than continue co-existing with them. Much less they have political power over me.
Sure I can think of justifications for possibly shooting a kid, but a person who does should be pretty repentant and broken up about it, probably to the point of having PTSD. Incidentally the apparent callous disregard for children as casualties is why I'm not really rooting for a "side" in the Israel Palestine conflict.
So I do NOT want to accuse this guy of being okay with kids getting shot, lest I also have to suggest he get launched into a volcano.
But the casual ability to joke about a specific person's children that way is definitely irksome. Its fair to demand much, much better of public servants.
faceh
3mo ago
Very manly, yes, but not very helpful unless you're sure A is an abject coward.
I am DEAD CERTAIN that A is a coward in this case.
If they don't want to kill or die over words then they can simply recant. Most people do not want to kill or die over words.
Of course, we can make the duel less than lethal if needed.
Agreeing in general.
I just note that these are both sort of outlets for "enjoying" pain inflicted on the outgroup that allow them to conclude the recipient 'deserved' it.
I generally don't think any bystander deserves to be victimized by criminals or that suspects deserve to be excessively brutalized by cops. There is a more straightforward relationship between light-on-crime policies and victimization by criminals, and resisting arrest and being beaten by cops, of course.
faceh
3mo ago
That and they're in the most radical bubble with the most sophisticated justifications for doing violence.
faceh
3mo ago
Mr. Todd Gilbert is the subject of the "Two in the Head" comment, isn't he?
Maybe he challenges Mr. Jones to pistols at dawn. Two bullets each. Or Mr. Jones can drop out.
No I don't think our elected officials have the fortitude for this these days. But its more to the point there should be actual consequences on the line for making such comments.
faceh
3mo ago
Oh yeah.
Lets leave aside how he's in a central 'position of trust' for the State.
I feel vaguely hypocritical on this point because I generally support the idea of using political power to make your ideological opponents uncomfortable enough to leave (I mean implement policies they don't like and would want to get away from, rather than policies specifically targeting them for their political associations) but having your state's executive branch have an unstated policy of leniency on violence against political opponents is a genuinely terrifying thought to me. Doubly so if your state's self defense laws are weak. Virginia is Stand Your Ground, at least.
Thankfully one that IS pretty handily solved by moving away and/or organizing a campaign to oust the problem candidates. But it does harken back to my Skin in the Game rant. If you want to support the idea of political violence against opponents, in the abstract, I would prefer if you, personally, or people you care a lot about, are at risk of getting targeted by it. Instead, what always happens is the political class circles the wagons and ups their levels of security and leaves everyone else to fend for themselves.
Would it be wrong to suggest that a Gentlemanly duel between the parties in question here might be a way to resolve the grievances?
faceh
3mo ago
This man isn't going to commit violence against anyone. Give him a gun, a bag of candy, and unfettered access to those kids and the worst you'll get are some tummy aches.
I will push back on this and suggest that if you give him a gun, access to a high-value political opponent, and approximately zero chance of being caught and punished for it, he is somewhat likely to pull the trigger.
That's closer to how I measure the virtue of a person. What they will do when given an opportunity to inflict harm under the belief they will not suffer consequences themselves. That is, how strong are your personal principles, and can you hold yourself accountable for following them.
I think we end up arguing over how much the person has the personal capacity to inflict violence vs. whether they find violence actually reprehensible. The former is a bit of a misdirect from the latter. That is, just because someone lacks the fortitude to pull the trigger themselves doesn't mean they don't want to see that trigger pulled.
Now the scenario I proposed up there is far from realistic, and will not come to pass, so I accept all the various objections and caveats to my argument. My position is best articulated as "in my experience only people who have a stated commitment to avoiding violence are serious about not wanting it. In contrast, people who can excuse violent acts easily are usually just in want of an opportunity commit it themselves."
So I don't think this guys 'private' texts reflect well on him at all.
As I said, these are not folks I want to share a country with.
I want the temperature lowered and I want there to be pretty swift consequences for those engaging in and fomenting political violence.
I do not think that is possible, I do not think that is going to happen, while Trump is in office.
Nor do I think it would happen if literally any Republican is President and the GOP grasps Congress.
Because the source of the problem appears to entirely be due to the behavioral tendencies of lefties when they're out of power.
And I've observed 'normal' people gin up justifications for enacting violence on random bystanders for, e.g. Wearing a MAGA hat, saying the N word (esp. within earshot of a black person), or expressing an anti-abortion position. (The righty version of this tends to be ginning up justifications for why someone's behavior warranted police brutality or being victimized by a criminal. "Your policies created this" is a common theme there).
We have some amount of evidence that Democrats in power at least tacitly approve of randos taking potshots at their political opponents. And a little evidence that they desire it.
And this isn't really limited to the States as far as I can tell.
I'm barely old enough to remember when Margaret Thatcher died and her opponents made Ding Dong the Witch is Dead a top-playing song on the radio in the U.K.
Regardless of how distasteful it was, I can commend at least waiting for someone's natural death of old age to celebrate it.
All the reliable-seeming sources I look at has it clear that political violence aimed at advancing one's agenda is more accepted the more left/liberal the respondent, generally. Variations by age and sex, but a clear contrast remains.
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll
https://research.skeptic.com/support-for-political-violence-agreement-by-political-orientation/
This one was revealing, support for political violence is higher among the most educated class. Which we know skews liberal, but these are also the people who are probably least able to carry out such violence. Maybe its merely an artifact. https://research.skeptic.com/support-for-political-violence-agreement-by-educational-attainment/
Note: I think this actually makes the lefties fairly consistent. If you actually maintain the belief that your ideological opponents are authoritarian genocidal maniacs who will create the Fourth Reich the very instant they acquire full power, then yes, you kinda have to approve of any and all methods of stopping them.
And while I do not accuse ALL liberals of wanting me dead, by a long shot, the evidence is also showing that they're far too milquetoast in restraining the ones who do, so they're not very useful allies for the decreasing the temperature. It reads like they are getting bullied by their own extremists and are folding due to Taleb's Dictatorship of the small Minority. To the extent liberals are ambivalent towards political violence by their side, they will continue to permit it.
I really do want those who are actively ginning up violence and the relatively small category of crazies who are most likely to act out violently to be removed from the country. Ideally, voluntarily. I don't want them dead, although I approve of acting in self-defense against those who attempt to kill others. And the fact that BOTH those variables seem to correlate with Democrat voters is very much coincidence to my desire here. I live around mostly righties, and if I thought they were likely to support outbursts of the old ultraviolence, I wouldn't live around them and would want them removed too.
Caveat that I'm pretty sure the strongest mediator on support for violence is whether your 'side' has political power. It is also hard to find as much good data prior to 2020, and I'm also guessing that most of this is downstream of the deepening overall political divide, so its not that this can't be repaired... its just been more tolerated recently.
I don't like that I'm basically holding my breath as I wait for the next incident of targeted political assassination to occur, and hoping that its not a bomb this time. I might be overreacting in general, but I feel pretty detached as I remain confident I am not a target of any kind.
Speak for yourself, I want my output to be part of the machine god.
Its funny, for years and years, even before LLMs started to speak to us, I was mindful of the digital footprint I was leaving, lest some future intelligence (human or otherwise) radically misjudge the type of person I was.
I've been extremely selective about the content I engage with on the internet and the sort of records about myself that I leave behind on these sites. I don't give out 'likes' or 'upvotes' or similar flippantly. I wouldn't "like" a piece of content unless I could see myself enjoying that type of content for eons in a digitally simulated afterlife. I take 5 star rating systems seriously, would never give something 5 stars out of custom or convenience (same reason I wouldn't give out 1 stars that often). I want 5 stars to mean I REALLY like something, and I hope that's how it gets interpreted.
I sometimes go back to my record of old movie ratings and reviews just to check that I still hold certain movies in the same esteem. I almost always do. So if the AI is either force-feeding me all the old media it thinks I like or generating new entertainment for me endlessly, I can be sure it got my preferences right.
My preferences in general seem extremely metastable, even if my interest in something or other waxes and wanes in a cycle.
People like to joke "if I die, delete my browser history." I might say something more like "If I die, scrape the entirety of my browser history and all of my account data from every website I used with any regularity AND the entire contents of all my hard drives and phone and use that to create a digital facsimile of me."
I wonder if the many people who consistently falsify their preferences (or never figure out their actual preferences) might end up getting shoved in personal dystopias for a while while the AI God is trying to figure out how to maximize happiness for everyone.
faceh
3mo ago
Game theory problems only emerge at scale. Smaller communities don't suffer from them nearly as much for this reason.
That's probably the only reason this community in particular can maintain some level of integrity in its core mission, in fact.
On the other hand, the internet means EVERYTHING social happens 'at scale' now.
Of course our coordination is getting worse. We're also becoming more lonely despite being "more connected" than ever. The reasons are more obvious the less educated one is.
Yeah. And the only big coordination 'win' that we've achieved lately is Bitcoin and cryptocurrency allowing trustless, decentralized transaction of currency.
And we've even turned THAT achievement into a casino full of rugpulls and fraud.
faceh
3mo ago
Burning billions on the cutting edge doesn't give you any lasting advantage against 11th hour entries who spend 1/10th the amount to produce something 90% as good at half the price to their customers.
This factor has surprised me completely. The assumption was that any company that got an edge in AI would probably be able to use that edge to speed up its own improvements, and competitors would have to burn a TON of money to try to catch up. So the first mover advantage would be potentially insurmountable.
And its worked about that way in a lot of other industries. With Uber itself, sure there's Lyft and Waymo and a few other small competitors, but the network effects it achieved have kept it out in front, handily.
In the AI space, I guess the fact that its working entirely with bits rather than atoms means the cost of 'catching up' is much lower, especially once a particular trail has been blazed.
What this does seem to reveal is that the player placing bets are REALLY assuming that whomever wins is going to win REALLY BIG, big enough to justify all the previous burn across all the losing companies.
It is hard to imagine (for me) a world where more than, say, 3 AI companies are standing once all is said and done.
The duties remain, but the actual structure that supported and encouraged performance of those duties have atrophied.
Guys don't have an innate urge to uphold their society or even their neighborhood. Their drive is not to just accept a crappy status quo simply because its "normal."
Especially when there's clearly a class of male who is accruing all the benefits and status and women, and enduring much less of a sacrifice. I can't think of any stable, highly civilized society that survived long with such an imbalance.
Saying "men have a duty" rings utterly hollow. They need "buy-in." Stakes, if you will.
I'm not even criticizing the point that being the male protector is a thankless role. That is part of the game, sure. I'm criticizing your implication that men will just cast aside their own interests to become a protector, unless they identify something they need to protect.
A society that values them, or a genetic legacy that will survive them. Or, AT LEAST, the promise that they'll earn their way into a blissful afterlife. Valhalla works as a reward for a society that wants men to go forth and pillage and die in battle, and even that society promises rewards to their men.
The promise of Western Society was that the men would drop everything to repel invaders or catch and kill a criminal or rescue people from a natural disaster.
And then, when the crisis passed, they could return to their farm, with a wife and kids they were relatively sure were their own, and would otherwise have significant leeway to run their own affairs. If they survived the crisis.
That promise has been eroded and replaced with nothing, the duties have no real attachment to any underlying purpose whatsoever, and the previously stableish equilibrium has been wrecked by unpunished defectors.
How can you not expect rebellion at that point?
"What's the penalty for failing to carry out my expected male duties?"
"Get screeched at by harpies for having toxic masculinity, rejected by any moderately attractive woman, and the spoils of your efforts captured by foreigners and sociopathic male rivals."
"OH. Whats the reward for carrying out my expected male duties?"
"Get screeched at by harpies for having toxic masculinity, rejected by any moderately attractive woman, and the spoils of your efforts captured by foreigners and sociopathic male rivals."
"Well then."
They ain't going to fight for a civilization that doesn't at least pretend to work in their favor.
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