faceh
20d ago
If you know an estimator is consistently high, you can account for that in your planning.
If the estimator knows that they're consistently high, why aren't they adjusting the model they're using to produce estimates with to account for that?
If the estimator is wrong consistently but in a predictable way... they should be able to be wrong less often?
I'll also make a point that isn't an endorsement but is an observation I've made a lot, especially as I'm approaching real middle age.
"Introducing" a newbie to something, in general, is a very gratifying experience. Using your own deeper knowledge to guide them, give them little tips, and see their own development generates a strong sense of frission, in me at least. Hugely rewarding.
When it comes to sex, there's the double gratification of showing someone something new and then getting to partake in it with them for mutual pleasure.
I am told that many guys do prefer an older woman as a partner because such women have worked out their preferences, kinks, and limits and are quite practiced in their techniques and thus deliver a much more enjoyable experience overall.
I believe it. But taking a younger woman (not necessarily virginal) and showing her certain experiences for the first time and getting her unfiltered, completely unrehearsed reaction to such an intense sensation never really gets old. But the woman herself does, eventually after she's tried everything then the joy of new discovery is blunted. Novelty squeezed out. Then its just sex. Fun, but without the extra layer of finding new frontiers of eroticism.
And its not easily replicable! There's a finite supply of inexperienced (yet attractive) young women. Can't be recycled once they're despoiled. So it wouldn't be that surprising if some men try to collect 'em like pokemon.
So while this:
They don't mean he's literally attracted to her prepubescent body, which would be absurd. What they mean is that this man exploits the woman's unawareness of her potential value on the sexual marketplace.
Is an unavoidable factor, I think there's 'obviously' a mutual gain to an experienced partner reaching out and lending some of their knowledge and guidance to an inexperienced one so they don't have to fumble around on their own or with an equally inexperienced partner and trying things out without knowing for sure if they're 'doing it right.'
Whereas a jaded, cynical, "experienced" woman who doesn't need a man's guidance to discover new experiences doesn't give that extra gratifying sense of "I alone have given her this feeling that she's never felt before." And, more directly, you also have to assume she's comparing you to those past encounters and you'll never really know if you measure up.
On net, you'd prefer to be the guy against whom all future encounters are measured, vs. the guy who has to wonder if she's being honest about her past encounters.
And lest I get hit with the leery, suspicious eye, my own preference is for a woman who I've been with long enough to learn all her sensitive spots, favorite positions, her strengths, weaknesses (and vice-versa) and develop a sincere intimacy so you can read them easily and adjust on the fly and otherwise maximize the mutual joy. That's the optimal setup. A slightly more experienced guy, an inexperienced woman, and a long relationship to grow into each other so both get the benefit of knowing that their shared experiences are unique and they're not being compared against some unknown third parties.
faceh
20d ago
but alas, the mechanism underlying it is even more fictional than anything Avatar has to offer.
Wasn't it very, VERY specifically implied that the "zones of thought" were a mechanism implemented by a (much!) 'higher power' to prevent rogue malicious superintelligences from simply eating the entire galaxy?
faceh
20d ago
Its a hell of a vehicle to create tense action scenes showcasing cool-looking scifi military materiel vs. equally cool-looking fantasy creatures.
And from a writing perspective, coming up with clever-yet-plausible ways for the technologically inferior faction to win over the industrialized and heavily armed invaders (that isn't just Zerg rush tactics) is a fun exercise.
Have to agree with your conclusions, although I come at it from nearly the opposite valence. I want to own my phone on the hardware level, and NOT have it spying on me unless I choose to transmit certain info out.
I have all the extra Samsung AI features disabled on mine, and have yet to hear a single reason to turn them on.
If it is going to be spying on everything, it damn well better be able to figure out how to be a good little servant and satisfy my actual preferences.
This has been my ongoing annoyance with targeted advertising. I should never, ever be exposed to a digital ad that isn't at least somewhat enticing to me, or at least feels relevant to my interests. Yet 99% of the time, I'm simply nonplussed by the offerings that actual get served. Oh, I can see that they're taking educated guesses, they're not completely winging it, but whatever 'consumer profile' or equivalent they've got of me is laughably off base. I could see a me that was shorter on willpower and maybe 15-20 IQ points lower might be engaged with it.
Full disclosure though, I've also used the Firefox browser the entire time I've been on the internet, and I adblock every website by default, so it is just possible they can't get a good read on me.
After decades of data gathering, they aren't any better at predicting my preferences DESPITE ME BEING VERY CONSCIENTIOUS when feeding my preferences to them!
My end thought is "Look guys, if you want my hard-earned money you have to at least display things that are genuinely appealing at a price point I would be willing to consider. Otherwise, maybe leave me be." I can figure out what I want and how to buy it just fine on my own!
And that's kind of the meta-issue with AI products and their integration. "If you want me to opt-in to your digital surveillance panopticon, SHOW ME HOW IT WILL IMPROVE MY LIFE FROM BASELINE, I don't want parlor tricks and corporate marketing jargon, I want tangible improvements in the metrics that I care about with regards to my life quality. If you can't figure out how to do that, I literally do not trust you to run this system wisely."
EDIT: Although, I am waiting in trepidation/excitement for the day I log into one of my accounts and have a conversation with the AI and it becomes clear that the robot has me 100% pegged, it knows precisely what I want and it can offer a plausible plan on how to get those things/give them to me, and demonstrated capacity to assist in that goal. Then, I like to think that I'll have the willpower to put it down and think things over, and try to maintain enough sense of self that I do not just immediately empty my wallet and tell it to do whatever it takes to make my dreams come true.
faceh
21d ago
but I think as you say even if women make equally good or even better (as I think some research suggests) decisions, time is money, faster can be better, and sometimes forcefully imposing decisions on others can also be more effective than we give it credit for.
From an evolutionary standpoint, yeah. Men in a hunting band have to respond a lot quicker to a changing environment than women gathering berries, in general. Slow decisionmaking kills, or lets the prey escape, which is also bad.
So women might have a decent structure for reaching consensus on important matters (do these fruits look ripe? Are these berries poisonous? which section of the forest shall we forage in today?) It will necessarily be more slow and 'sensitive' to feedback from the group members, whereas for men, if the guy leading the hunt screams "GRUG! THROW SPEAR NOW!" better to not talk back and just DO IT.
Have to also account for how that brain is wired up and, maybe most critically, how it responds to stressors and setbacks.
Having two people of equal (and relatively high) IQ but with different neurochemistry you can still find one a neurotic wreck who can nonetheless make good contributions to a group, and the other can be calm and decisive and able to actually take responsibility for the group's actions and inspire the group to follow him.
I'm never going to say ONE factor determines all observed differences, but a brain awash in testosterone will produce far more behaviors we expect as 'leaderly' than one awash in estrogen.
And on the other hand, cortisol is the stress hormone, (see the previous links) which can trigger cognitive disruptions... but also lead someone to be decisive out of pure survival instinct.
I can say that my perception is that women that attain leadership position read to me as high-cortisol style leaders. Constantly stressed, constantly making decisions because they have to and are basically in continual fight-or-flight mode. And if they're high-IQ enough, they are able to navigate those decisions well, but they're never emotionally comfortable with it.
If cortisol is too low, of course, then the response to dangers/threats is delayed so even if they make good decisions, they might come too late to make a difference.
If the majority of women at all IQ levels fall into the low-T/High-C quadrant, it would explain why there's just fewer female leaders overall.
faceh
23d ago
Yeah, the altruism question is interesting, and I've seen what I might describe as "weaponized altruism," where an individual commits an act of self-sacrifice with the hope and intent of convincing someone else to commit to an act of even greater self-sacrifice.
Or perhaps the classical example where someone engages in an altruistic act that leaves them worse off, but they perceive that doing so will let them acquire increased social status in that particular situation, and they'll be able to trade on that social status for greater gains in the long term.
I define 'real' altruism in terms of incurring some material loss that is in excess, ideally far in excess, of the expected gains of taking the action, and that someone else is the expected beneficiary of the action.
On the extreme end this would mean dying or incurring some devastating injury in order to ensure someone else lives.
Even in less extreme cases, I don't now that its possible to live a whole life devoted to this ideal, because your ability keep incurring costs is bounded.
So I see it as only being represented in individual acts, and there are individuals who are capable of committing to such acts when the time comes, and those who will default to whatever is actually in their direct self interest.
faceh
23d ago
There's a hypercapitalism argument for it, I think.
If we can get them to inject their dollars into the system and saddle them with a requirement that they must stay productive for years and years on end to service their debt, in theory the system captures more of the value they produce than it otherwise might.
And its even BETTER if they eventually get married, and now their husband's productivity can be siphoned off to service her debt too.
That is, people who aren't smart/informed enough to use their debt load wisely are probably never going to make good decisions with money, so maybe it's better than they hand a decent chunk of their salary over to their creditors in perpetuity, since the creditors can at least invest it more wisely.
I despise this argument line, but I can see why some might support it, EVEN aside from egalitarian concerns.
faceh
23d ago
It would be nice if the incentives were aligned to teach the nerd some toughness that he is capable of learning along the way,
but it shouldn't come at a cost of putting thugs ahead. That would be a perversion of what I believe a society of legal adults should look like (i.e. it shouldn't look like a hunter-gatherer tribe).
I would certainly make the point that thugs will commit thuggery whether or not we give them the license to do so or not. I think the reason we want to toughen up the nerd is so they are capable of embracing ALL of the responsibility we might expect of an adult, including coming to the defense of their community if a bunch of thugs band together and try to take the things they feel they're being denied.
So yeah, we might want to have a test that exclude thugs from certain legal rights... but the larger question there is what do we do with them after the test, they're still around, and still able to act on their preferences, even if our legal system doesn't recognize their status.
faceh
24d ago
My kingdom for something resembling 'authenticity' in a romantic relationship.
Really feels like we managed to get the worst of both the sexual revolution AND the evangelical movement.
Sex is no longer taboo or 'sacred' in the slightest. Women will wear painted-on clothes at the gym and go around braless in public. Even if she isn't selling nudes on OF, she might be selling feet pics or is at least thirst trapping on Instagram.
BUT, you aren't allowed to stare at her ass or chest. Unless of course you go online and pay for a subscription, then you get to see ALL the goods. But only digital interaction allowed. Can't approach a woman in real life unless she approves, either.
Thanks to cell-phone cameras, women can send nudes to any guy they find attractive. This is not a big deal, "it's their body!" But thanks to cell-phone cameras, women are not as prone to whip out their boobs at a party on the off chance it gets posted online. Oh, and of course if you post a woman's nudes online you can often literally be prosecuted for revenge porn. Because sex and nudity are no longer a big deal, you see.
Of course you get the dating apps that make hookups much more frictionless. Yet you can't ever SAY you're just looking for FWB, and advertising that you're just there to bang as many people as possible is verboten. Unless you say you're polyamorous, then its somehow kosher.
There's like 30 different derogatory slang terms/innuendos to describe being in a noncommittal, ambiguous, and completely sex-based 'relationship,' just don't suggest to someone that they're making things harder for themselves and should try dating for marriage, what are you a prude?
You're allowed to complain about NOT getting sex, but if anyone hears you you're getting called an Incel.
If you try and convince a woman that she should pick a nice guy, settle down, and have kids with him as soon as possible, its exploitation and controlling womens' bodies. You convince her to become an online prostitute the very day she turns 18, though, putting her body out there for any given man to pay to see, you're just empowering her to be independent or whatever.
And now of course they're putting further legal restriction on the access to porn ANYWAY, right as we're getting Titty-based commercials on TV again.
I overstate, but its so annoying to live in a world where sex is both not a big deal thanks to contraceptives and the lifting of taboos... AND its jealously guarded by women (mostly), still stuck behind paywalls and used to extract resources, and people who aren't having it are still targeted with derision.
Its as if everyone knows that that's a critical component of human flourishing, but we're all required to politely agree that treating sex as anything other than a 'boring' commodity to be dispassionately traded makes you a weirdo fundamentalist or something.
Yeah. I'd say it was a tactical error for them to go all in on "Diversity/Minority Representation is a good in and of itself" but I'd guess by their metric they were getting exactly what they wanted.
You promise studio heads "Swap out the redhead for a POC and make the main character gay, and throw in a sassy girlboss on the side, people will absolutely FLOCK to see this movie!" and then the show or movies gets rave reviews from the usual suspects, tons of social media hype and then... does mediocre to poorly upon release.
How's that go over?
Same for ad campaigns. "Don't put sexy folks, or even normal looking humans in your commercials, make sure the people check as many boxes as possible. Make sure all relationships depicted are interracial. This will both show how socially conscious you are AND drive a new customer base to you!"
And it just doesn't materialize. Worse still, oftentimes it torpedoes an otherwise established, popular brand (here's looking at you, Bud Light) for zero gain. I'm actually mad about what has happened to the Pixar brand.
Its not just empirical reality that caught up, profit-motive finally seems to have reasserted itself. If someone else is footing the bill you can afford to showcase luxury beliefs. But with the Quantitative Easing era over and the government is shutting off the money faucet, suddenly you have to think with your wallet.
Vast oversimplification, but yeah, after 5 solid years of unbridled acceleration into identity politic madness, can you point to ANY particular piece of media, or successful ad campaign, or memorable (in a positive way!) pop culture event that got published/released that had any lasting impact?
My honest recollection of popular songs, TV shows, movies, and books released over the past 5 years, its been almost nothing worth recounting or rewatching. The Dune films did win me over, but those weren't notable for being diverse, really. I hear that Andor is good. Better Call Saul is an excellent series.
faceh
24d ago
There was actually a really early portent of this in the Carl's Jr. Super Bowl Ad this year, clearly there's marketing departments exploring the 'sexy' style of advertising again.
faceh
24d ago
And yet there's a whole genre of social media post where a loanholder bemoans the fact that making minimum/interest only payments results in the debt increasing/never going down. or doesn't even bother to check.
(some of these might be playing dumb, but I think most are honest).
I'm genuinely uncertain which percentage of loanholders are literally too innumerate to get what interest and debt ARE. Its more than 1%. I'd bet more than 10%, honestly.
You could put the actual amortization table in front of them and it might not click.
Look at how many people who end up on Caleb Hammer's show are women. (yes, selection effects are in play).
You cannot convince me that these folks should have been entrusted with the ability to take out 5 figure loans.
See also: This recent tweet.
faceh
24d ago
I can't avoid places "people who didn't take or can't pass the sex test" hang out
I mean, yes you can.
This allows any venue to directly filter out people that haven't passed the maturity test.
Go places that bounce anyone that isn't 'sexually mature' from entry.
I'd HAVE to actually check.
I'm unclear why this seems like an ardurous burden to you.
Turns, stares directly into the camera.
I mean IF THE SHOE FITS.
If we're building our notion of consent from a starting point that assumes/accepts that men and women are generally different, this would probably inform many other ways in which we arrange society.
And the thing about children, at least the law attempts to protect them from exploitation.
Consider, math is the one subject that women haven't caught up with men in despite best efforts over DECADES.
Consider Women hold the majority of student loan debt.
And they pay if off slower than men in general.
If it turns out that a lot of women didn't understand compound interest and the actual implications of accepting loans when they signed up, I would 100% be in favor of releasing them from their loans and making the lenders eat it, b/c there was no true 'meeting of the minds' at the time the loans were incurred.
Under my proposed regime, banks could be forced to write off debts made to any persons who didn't pass the 'maturity test' that showed they actually understand how money and interest actually works, if said person defaults on their loan. No actual consent = no enforceable contract. So banks would prefer to lend to 'mature' individuals.
"But that means women aren't able to attend university as easily!"
Maybe a good thing. But the obvious solution is that they can get someone who does pass the maturity test, maybe their parents... maybe their husband to Co-sign a loan. If they think its a good idea.
Isn't that BETTER than saddling them with a debt they'll quite possibly be stuck with forever? Do we PREFER the world where women unknowingly become debt slaves to the one where they have to either actually learn and understand math OR get someone else's help before they can get loaned money?
Secondly, immediate pain is not a well-optimized maturity test for a first-world country regardless. What brings prosperity in first-world countries is long-term thinking and the ability to lock in over months and years. Not enduring physical pain for half an hour.
Fine, include a version of The Marshmallow Test if you want!
There's a plethora of ways to measure a person's understanding of the world and their ability to endure discomfort for future gain.
Under the current regime, the ghetto thug AND the glass-jaw nerd are granted "adulthood" status with all rights that entails by the mere fact of turning eighteen. Do we think this is optimal?
People generally accept that taking a driver's test and passing some arbtitrary standard is enough to get the stamp of approval to operate a 5000 lb vehicle on public streets. I'm mostly suggesting just an expansion of the existing system there.
Under my ideal system, too, anyone is free to transact with a non-adult, but they bear ANY losses that may result if the other non-adult party reneges.
If, for instance, you give $100k in student loans to an 18 y/o who hasn't passed the maturity tests, and they default on them years later, they can't be forced to repay because from a contractual standpoint, they lacked the ability to consent. So they can have the debt dismissed if the lender is stupid enough to give them money.
faceh
25d ago
Actual knowledge in the sense that I've read about the topic a bit. They exist, and they have extensive influence inside prisons.
I have not been to prison.
The main point I believe is that most prison gangs have a ready supply of guys who are in for life and are thus willing to commit murders if ordered to do so, and if not can still coerce someone to do a murder for them.
Most of said gangs have affiliated orgs outside the prison that can act as points of contact. Since criminals outside prison anticipate going to prison in the future, the outside guys really want to stay in the inside guys' good graces.
If you want somebody who is currently in a prison dead, this is the most straightforward approach I can think of, which avoids having to sneak your own independent contractor in and out without leaving much trace.
faceh
25d ago
Is that any different from checking a girl who looks questionable's ID to check the age?
My hypothetical plan for killing the guy would basically be "contact some organized criminal enterprise that has associates already in said prison, and guards already on the payroll, and arrange for there to be a window where those associates can access the cell just long enough to strangle the guy and leave without being observed."
I assume that targeted hits in prison are an order of magnitude or so more common than hits outside of it (in the U.S.). So we just need means and opportunity.
Ironically putting him in prison allows you MORE control over weird variables, rather than having to arrange for him to be suicided outside of prison, where he has some freedom of movement and can set up countermeasures, AND you will have to do a lot more cleanup of evidence.
faceh
25d ago
A decently strong guy with a bit of Jiu-jistu training could do it, too.
Rear naked choke to render him unconscious, then string him up to actually die of strangulation.
faceh
25d ago
Very interesting take on it.
MAYBE if we coordinated well as a civilization we could test everyone before they are allowed access to the free-range internet. If they fall into the slop and gambling and scammy side of things, we restrict them to the Kiddie pool. "You can access Streaming Sites, Facebook, and play multiplayer video games. You can send and receive e-mails and you have access to porn if you're old enough, but you are intentionally unable to ever transmit your financial information to anyone."
(I will grant that this is just begging for a larger censorship regime. Remember I'm already doing magical thinking that we could have civilizational coordination to safely protect kids and the vulnerable)
I mean, the ending of the first book [SPOILERS] involves the protagonists figuring out how to activate a 'weapon' against the Blight, the rogue malicious superintelligence that was coming to destroy them, and the weapon's effect was to expand the slow zones of thought, trapping the Blight in a zone of thought that it couldn't exist in. And condemning many, many other civilizations to doom, incidentally.
So the existence of the weapon (called "Countermeasure") that can expand and presumably contract the zones of thought themselves would be a hint that said zones are an artificial construct, and either came from the person that created the galaxy, or some previous friendly superintelligence ascended to a high enough level to mess with laws of physics, and decided to do the rest of the galaxy a solid in case a malicious intelligence popped up.
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