There's a reason I do expect someone (or a very small team) to produce a feature-length film on a shoestring budget using AI by year's end.
The different modalities were already demonstrated, the only thing that was needed was someone to combine them into an extended, coherent end product.
This one makes it probably an order of magnitude easier. In my previous post I speculated that they could produce 1 minute of usable footage a day and pull it off. Well, now you can get a minute or so of 'usable' footage in two hours, apparently.
Won't be long until you can type a sufficiently detailed prompt into one of these things, pay a couple thousand dollars worth of credits, and it can spit out a whole movie for you.
Yeah, a lot of contradictory thought patterns emerge if I ruminate about the future more than like 2 years out.
Should I live as conservatively, frugally and healthily as possible to ensure I make it to there in good shape, or should I be more reckless and try to enjoy life as much as possible since it could all end? (obviously if EVERYBODY does the latter, we might not make it there at all).
Assuming we survive, are we bound for a future of exploring the stars and colonizing new worlds, or do we get stuffed in VR experience machines that satisfy every psychological desire we have without going anywhere? Will I even have a choice?
Is there any point in breathlessly following every notable development in the AI/Robotics space to try and guess when the big moment will arrive, or would it be more constructive and mentally healthy to divorce almost entirely from it and just read escapist fiction all the time so I don't worry about something I can't really control?
Should I continue to behave as though I expect society to persist into the next century and thus be very concerned about e.g. birth rates, pollution, government's fiscal policies, and/or immigration policies? Or does none of this matter in 10-15 years, and thus I should just do the bare minimum to keep things running but hey, let the kids do what they want in the meantime. The AI can fix the mess later.
It is in my nature to prepare, both mentally and financially, for things to go south. I don't buy the hype and promises without skepticism, but I can't deny that every 6 months for the past, what, 3 years? The SOTA models have demonstrated new capabilities that check another box off my "is it smarter than humans?" list. The temptation to just give up 'trying' and go with the flow is strong.
A bit of optimism, I do believe that I'm young and healthy enough that I'm likely going to be around when we reach Longevity Escape Velocity, if the AGI stuff never fully manifests we've got all the pieces to fix most age-related problems in humans so as to give us functional immortality by 2050. Which will create a whole host of new and exciting issues if the AGI isn't already in charge.
faceh
14d ago
Money.
Their experience with the actual act of parenting is probably good.
Their experience with the difficulties this adds to every other aspect of life is probably not representative.
Same reason we get those articles about "how I bought a million dollar property at age 24!"
The secret sauce is the parents gave them a ton of money, which is not replicable by 90%+ of people in their situation.
faceh
15d ago
As the oldest child, I was often put 'in charge' of the house with the younger ones for most of a day if needed.
I was given instructions and restrictions by dad (sometimes mom), and I just had to make sure nothing really caught fire, and know what to do if some emergency DID happen. I took a class centered around first aid and CPR for children when I was, I think, about 13 years old? Had a kit and everything.
My younger cousins lived around the corner from us for a while, so I also helped out there sometimes.
Helps that we lived in a safe neighborhood, with neighbors who would have helped out if something went very wrong.
The daughters of the family across the street were also available for babysitting regularly. Tragically, I'm pretty sure neither of them married.
When I got my driver's license and had about a year of experience under my belt, they would trust me to shepherd the younger sibs around too.
In short, I'm certain that I'd make an excellent father.
faceh
15d ago
It's a 'yellow flag' at the very least.
It also occurs to me that she could 'return' the scarf to the hotel at the end of the night, thereby mitigating the possible harms.
I guess I'm trying too hard to read motives, but this is not what I would say a high conscientiousness person acts like.
Sorry, edited it after posting.
That being said the lady's family is a little more spry but... have their own problems. Man this whole thing is scaring me off of having kids not gonna lie.
It really shouldn't if you have a worthwhile community to draw on.
My roommate from college and his wife have popped out 5, and while he makes enough money to support them all, easily, he puts in his fair share of effort, and he and his wife are VERY CATHOLIC so there's a deep well of local experience to draw on.
I think the fear of having kids is really just the projection of having to raise kids all by yourself. In an atomized society that's terrifying. If you have the support network, its very doable. Every single generation before us was able to do so, to varying levels of competence.
faceh
15d ago
Or more precisely, colleges don't count childcare as 'extracurricular activity.'
faceh
15d ago
That's some high-powered advice distilled down to a single page. Makes you wonder why writing a full on book was really needed.
faceh
15d ago
I think the blues vision of parenting is having 16 year olds instead and the relentlessly unpleasant nature of it all is by trying to make it more like tiger parenting a late teenager
Interesting point. Perhaps for the blue tribe the portion of the kid's life where they're 'useless' and have to learn all the basic stuff just to function at all is very tedious (and distracts from more 'important' pursuits) and feels like a pure cost center, then their post-adolescence of finding a passion, learning 'real' ideas, and finally being able to have an impact on the world seems like an 'investment!' Under that model, they would 'tiger parent' their young child solely to ensure they're prepared to launch as early as possible, then pull every string they can to get their kid into the elite circles and to boost their status since the parents are acutely aware of how 'important' that status is to outcomes. Which is why they don't like to hear:
‘you don’t have to do that. Major state schools are fine and your kid probably is not getting into Harvard anyways’.
Oy, yeah. Funny enough I did in fact get an interview for Harvard, but did not get in, and went to a State School and had a fine time.
But I was brought up not being certain I would go to college at all so this was not a major disappointment for me!
It wasn't until years later that I finally realized that the Ivy league is just the "budding elite factory" and that if I had optimized harder for getting in, and I managed to attend, my life trajectory would have been MASSIVELY different. And not in all positive ways, I think.
Power laws rule everything around me, and Blue Tribe is probably HEAVILY aware of that, whereas Red tribe may sort of understand it but to them it at best seems a fact of nature, rather than a game to be played.
I think it goes underrated how helpful it is, when it comes to raising kids, to:
A) Come from a mostly intact family, and
B) LIVE NEAR that family.
Some of my best/earliest memories are being dropped off at my grandparents house. My dad's parents had a really cool pool and waterfall and a boat. My mom's parents had... well they had some cool birds who could sort of talk to you. And my step-grandfather taught me chess at an early age. Either way, they were more than happy to pitch in with caring for and raising us, which is to say taking massive cognitive, physical, and financial load off my parents.
My brother has a <1 year old child now, and both his parents and his wife's parents are <20 minute drive away from them. My mother is ECSTATIC to look after the kid regularly, and that kid will have a large extended family (myself included) looking out for her as she grows. My brother has had to make some sizeable sacrifices, but even if he lost his job and home there's several fallbacks because someone would absolutely take his family in on a moment's notice.
Also, he's not going to lose his job since he works for my dad's (the child's grandfather) company, so there's another layer of security.
I think this general arrangement of "living very close to parents who are actively supportive of you raising kids" was extremely common just a generation ago and before, and any advice around raising kids aimed at someone who is not independently wealthy should specify "live near your parents, and lean on them to the extent appropriate" to reduce the stresses that come with it.
Anyway, I think Bryan and Scott suffer from the glaring weakness many elites/intelligentsia have and don't even notice. They aren't exposed to the direct impacts of their own policy ideas or the ACTUAL outcomes of their thinking. Sure, they're aware of it on an intellectual level, but they're far enough removed that they don't feel the impacts enough to truly account for them.
I note the same thing about Bryan's stance on open borders.
Bryan does not live around or interact much with the modal immigrant to the U.S., he pretty much solely gets to reap the benefits of immigrants and doesn't have to, e.g. endure the friction of language barriers, the competition for housing, the notable decrease in social cohesion, and often the increased crime that comes with being 'forced' to live in such communities.
He's a college professor, and he admits happily to staying inside his carefully maintained bubble. That's fine! Indeed, he's an anarcho-capitalist, so he can readily point out that under his preferred system the world would look very different, so his internal consistency is maintained even if it wouldn't interact well with the existing (sub-par) system.
But the reality on the ground is relevant, and those of us making decisions while in contact with that reality probably possess some important information that alters the calculus. You can argue that makes decisions 'more biased' than when you do it from the 10,000 foot level, looking at raw numbers without an emotional connection. Sure.
But as I say often, there needs to be SOME cost for being wrong, especially in ways that harm other people.
Love his clarity of thought when it comes to the world of pure theory, but decades inside your bubble is going to leave you without the tangible tie to 'the real world' that helps you viscerally understand the impact of a given policy.
faceh
16d ago
I think I know what you're talking about, and I, too, have seen it more often than I'd like.
People get some deep sense of unease or a feeling of 'impending doom' that doesn't seem to be caused by any one factor in their life. They feel tired and 'stuck' and feel like IF ONLY they could figure out what the cause was they could finally break through and be happy.
And so they start to assume its because of their job, or their location, or their significant other. SOMETHING that is omnipresent in their life, just as the feelings are.
Couple it with some existential "What am I doing with my life/where am I going?" angst.
I saw something similar with me Ex. She would pick up a new hobby or distraction or obsession and, like clockwork, abandon it without hesitation at about the six month mark.
Any given thing she took up, unless external factors forced the issue, she'd eventually just stop doing it when it became too stressful or difficult and she would then zero in on a new thing to try.
And of course eventually ditched me, too.
Tend to agree that it manifests in people who have an internal locus of control, but very bad model of other people. They THINK they can enact the changes that need to happen, and they aren't really considering the impact on others when they do it.
faceh
16d ago
Sometimes you just roll a bad woman, I think she wasn't the right class for him.
Problem is she presented mostly green flags.
A lot of anxiety lurking under the surface, but she carried herself well, was active in her Sorority, held down a job, had a decent education background, and close family too.
I spent a lot of time with both of them over Covid times since it was very hard to socialize otherwise and we lived close to each other. I would have judged her as a woman with a "good head on her shoulders" and generally "responsible." Slightly antisocial but was not unpleasant to be around.
She's pushing 30 now, and I have it on very good authority that she spends most of her evenings playing MMOs and other video games, no social life to speak of. Its very much a damn shame. Just never gained maturity?
Its not clear what she was 'fleeing' from in the marriage, other than perhaps the ultimate expectation that they would have kids and raise 'em together.
faceh
16d ago
It actually sounds like it would be a viable business model for a side hustle.
It looks like Gucci scarfs can sell for $60-$150(!) on ebay. Spend two hours hotel hopping and that's a pretty good return if you find some good ones.
A) I don't think the impact is going to be very large. Scarfs are a commodity. Harm is small. Arguably it was going to get thrown out anyway. Maybe there's a small net benefit in the world where that scarf helps bolster a relationship.
B) That said... scarfs are a commodity. Wouldn't it be just as thoughtful/romantic to pop into the nearest store and buy one? Does the fact that she broke a mild social taboo make it a more meaningful act? Either one demonstrates 'agency.'
C) Its surely less bad than something like going around to all the hotels in the area and collecting nice scarfs to resell on Ebay, since she can at least claim altruistic motives. But then there's the question: if we 'approve' of her doing this one thing in this one instance, what precisely lets us object when someone else exploits this for more direct personal gain.
At any rate, my COMPLETELY UNWARRANTED speculation is that this is Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory. It was so TOTALLY RANDOM and it introduced some harmless spontaneous fun into his life which means he'll overlook the more troubling implications.
Well that's the first time I've read the term "goombling.'
But yeah, and the second course does at least offer a small (vanishingly small, but present) chance that you actually hit it rich and can, if you're halfway smart, parlay that into some semblance of 'happiness.'
The former course has a lot of fringe benefits, yet the task of convincing another human being to come into and stay in your life for the long term does NOT become much easier the more effort you put into it. The social pressures you're fighting are simply beyond what any one person could oppose. Hence even billionaires don't bother.
Yep.
There's a 'clumping' effect on the bottom end when there aren't strong incentives to stay in the middle road (due to that not getting you what you want, and STILL carrying the risk of losing it all) and its too hard to climb to the top rungs (without a ton of help).
You either have so much wealth that you can afford to lose tons of it, or you have like NO wealth, and don't give a single care due to having nothing TO lose.
And as you indicated (and as young men are noticing...) if you can't catapult yourself to the former position of fuck you, then it starts making MORE sense to drop down the to latter, lower position, because at least you can do what you WANT to do, rather than play by rules you can't change and punish you heavily.
If the middle position is the only one where punishments matter, very few will want to stay there, even if its overall best for the collective.
faceh
17d ago
Its MORE likely that Gen Z guys are "inadequate" because
A) They've grown up in a society that both teaches them they're worthless AND that women are inherently better than them. (also gives them almost no real 'purpose' to contribute to)
B) The women they interact with have ALSO ingested that same message, and will reinforce it to those men.
C) There's literally no reward for resisting this message, and fewer women are worth BECOMING adequate for.
I dunno, I think that's the basic causal situation. There's literally no other way you can spin it.
Porn and gambling addictions, for example, are much more widespread in this generation than in the previous ones, and male employment is often less stable.
And this just swept up young guys on its own? A bunch of guys just UNILATERALLY, for no reason whatsoever, decided not to become worthy? Just like that?
Why?
The end result being that women are unhappy seems incidental to the devaluation of masculinity.
faceh
18d ago
But I’m sympathetic to your worries, and hope you find a woman who allows you to lay them aside.
I'M not the one you have to worry about.
The Zoomers are not okay.
And the women are not happy.
Your platitudes appear to be missing something LARGE, and it really isn't explained by men being inadequately reliable.
faceh
18d ago
The mainstream rejoinder would be that your buddy must had been No True Trustworthy Husband or his wife would never have left him—that he must had become lazy or neglectful after marriage-trapping her, was financially or emotionally abusive behind the scenes, or thought of her as a broodmare for the family business.
Yep. But I spent a lot of time hanging out with him in a variety of circumstances and I have not gotten an INKLING that he was anything other than what he presents himself as. Never heard a whisper of an accusation of abuse.
If there was ever a paradigm of the "non-toxic" masculinity that feminists proclaim they want (I know, I know), he was it.
The biggest critique you could level against him is that he is a bit of a manchild when it came to hobbies. But he had his life completely in order otherwise, he was REALLY GOOD at his hobbies (Magic: The Gathering is one of them) and perhaps most importantly: his wife was into nerdy hobbies too!
While they were married his wife went and got her Master's Degree, so I could have ascribed their split to her getting 'overeducated' compared to him. But shortly thereafter Bro went and got his MBA so he was matching her beat for beat.
Learning what happened to them soured my last bit of optimism for forming relationships in the current era. She was a 6 at best, raised in a traditional family, had a relatively low body count (i.e. they met while she was in college, around age 21, so she hadn't had that much time to sleep around), she was a sorority girl (and not the blonde bimbo stereotype), he had tons of money, was willing to spend it on her, no red flags, and while they were together they pretty much presented as having everything they wanted. And it wasn't enough to make it even 4 years into a marriage (they dated for about 2.5 before they got engaged).
My one theory is that she watched a few of her friends go through breakups and complain about their men and got incepted with the idea that either she could do better if she left him (i.e. she married too early) or that he was going to become an abusive monster at some point and she better get out before then.
Yup.
I happen to think being trustworthy will in fact help you find a good woman.
But it won't hope you attract women in general.
Which is a necessary step in most cases.
I've realized that the 'cheat code' is buying a motorcycle and getting ostentatious tattoos and at least one (1) subversive piercing. Nips, large gauges in the ears, Prince Albert, I think even nose piercings 'work' for guys these days. Its an old, OLD trick but it still works if you're willing to at least LARP the part.
This signals enough riskiness to get the initial interest going.
Meanwhile, if you're good looking AND you work as hard as you can to be perceived as 'safe' and 'reliable' you're effectively squandering that natural advantage, and you're more likely going to be defected against when she realizes there are no consequences for doing so, you won't even raise your voice to yell at her.
I watched it happen to a buddy of mine. He was the literal pinnacle of 'ideal' hubby. Successful (heir to a large regional chain of interior decor stores, pulling down six figs), charming and witty, even though he's not an Adonis, popular among his friends, takes the wife on trips, indulges her whims, but also makes sure he has time for his own (nerdy) hobbies. Not a pushover, but would never dream of striking or upsetting her. Marries a very mid but definitely cute wife. They have an expensive fairy-tale wedding, honeymoon, etc. etc.
And three years into the marriage, for no reason that I can even decipher, she just up and leaves him, he tries counseling, gives it every single try for reconciliation, and no dice. THANKFULLY it ended up being an 'uncontested' divorce with no kids (despite him being VERY CLEAR up front that he wanted kids, remember that family business he's got).
In an 'ideal' world this should never happen, he played everything 'by the rules.' And still lost.
A good woman, of course, won't do this, but if you're a safe, 'boring' type of guy then you won't have your choice of woman to even try and zero in on the 'good' ones.
If you choose a couple stats to max out, trustworthy probably shouldn't be one of them.
faceh
18d ago
I would add the caveat that women hold most of the power over the majority of men WHILE a particular class of man is still able to ultimately get what he wants and ignore the consequences at will. So women can still CLAIM that men are privileged and running things b/c at the very top levels, this is still true.
And this is the lesson I 'fear' young men are learning. If you're an average man, your life is going to be subjugated to female whims from birth until almost death. If you piss off, harm, or otherwise insult a woman you will be pilloried and probably locked out of the reproductive success game entirely.
UNLESS you're in the top 20% of males by status. Wait now its 10%. Now its 1%. Now its .1%. Those guys can flout social rules, laws, and ignore female complaints to just take the thing they want at will. Its good to be the king.
Guys who grow up being viscerally aware of the game and their place in it are either going to compete AGGRESSIVELY to take one of those top slots, and thereby keep raising the level of competition to even higher levels, or will drop out entirely rather than support the 'rigged contest.
but that many people ignore one or the other or the third condition. There are simply fewer Mr and Miss good enoughs than there used to be
This seems like an unavoidable but broadly ignored factor.
The rough numbers really suggest the supply of 'marriageable' women is shockingly low. The demand is as high as ever. A young, stable, fertile woman is desired by men of almost all ages, even if they have no intention of marrying her.
And I'm sure its also the case that when it comes to sheer reproductive fitness, men have become lower quality too.
I don’t have a good solution on a society wide level.
I do have some, but they're not politically viable (until they are).
I have wondered if we could create a new version of the marriage contract: "Enhanced Marriage," which both parties can opt into that makes it MUCH harder to get divorced AND adds additional legal duties on both sides (and presumably some additional benefits) so that they are tied more strongly together. And maybe this starts to shift the equilibrium.
But this probably doesn't address the fact that there are just fewer relationships forming in general.
I think this is leaving out another viable life path that satisfies all the criteria you're ascribing to women:
Have a kid with a man who has proven wealth/means, then demonstrate his paternity or marry him. Then have a court of law require him to pay for the child's upbringing until age 18. If married then you can get some alimony too out of the divorce. And a bonus there is you can then find another man who might be willing to pitch in some support too and 'double dip'. For some reason the term 'divorce' doesn't appear anywhere in your original post.
And from the man's perspective, either of those is probably a worst case scenario.
Either the man is a cad who doesn't WANT to support kids and is now tied to them for years on end.
Or it was a man who really wanted to have a family for the long term, would have supported them anyway, and yet gets them ripped away on the say of the woman he trusted, with no real recourse.
Woman gets her support and control, man gets...
And we're seeing the emergence of a strange additional option as well:
Pop out a billionaire's kid on the downlow and he pays a very generous amount to keep you and the child in comfort even if he's not particularly involved, as long as he thinks it is actually his kid. I won't pretend this path is all that common, though.
This really goes AGAINST your point here, though:
If you want to fix this on a personal level, as a man, be trustworthy and the whole reproduction thing will come pretty easily.
The 'reproduction thing' seems to come easiest to men who are the least trustworthy, most ruthless, most wealthy, and generally most 'aggressive' about what they want. Yes, some of them can ACT like they're trustworthy, but only as a means to get what they want. And this works about as well as being 'actually' trustworthy.
Being 'trustworthy' just makes you an easier mark. You'll accept a woman you believe is committed to you, do EVERYTHING you can to prove your commitment, and she can still leave on a comparative whim and hang support obligations around your neck on the way out.
The game theory here is not favorable to being the guy who truly commits, when the risk is the woman has no reciprocal investment and can defect at will, and 'retaliating' against her is legally forbidden.
In short, I think you're arguing as though women shoulder most of the risks in the current romantic equation.
When there's a serious argument that it works the opposite way. Society is built around protecting women from any and all threats.
This includes the threat of homelessness and poverty. Men, generally, foot the bill for all this protection, and yet are also forced to pay out to the particular woman who defects from them on top of that.
And so the man is risking HUGE sums of his personal wealth (bought by his own time, efforts, sweat, etc.) to TRY to keep the woman around.
And men have to offer some extreme value ON TOP of that protection (because the protection is provided as a baseline by society) to acquire a woman's commitment, and even then he has no recourse if she decides she doesn't want to stay anymore. And if he married her, she gets to siphon off resources from him to support herself and her kids ANYWAY.
Leaving out this side of the equation makes your overall argument here more dubious, in my opinion.
(and I will surely admit that women DO risk being severely injured or killed by their partner, but this is strongly mediated by factors that she can also control).
faceh
19d ago
What does this have to do with anything? They'll keep importing soybeans from Brazil and iron from Australia.
Will they?
Population decline isn't limited to China.
https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/birth-rate-continues-decline
Lot of countries in the same boat. Every country wrangling with population decline at around the same time means they all have to handle internal economic strife, and may not be able to maintain productivity needed to export as much.
Do you just operate on the assumption that China is a land of mobilized peasants gluing sneakers by hand, and when peasants get old, the gig is over?
I operate on the assumption that China relies on international trade, and the PRIMARY value they provide to trade for is cheap skilled labor and, concurrently, massively industrialized manufacturing.
Both of which rely heavily on their population remaining steady.
I operate on the assumption that China has no fallbacks if they lose the ability to provide cheap labor and manufacturing to the world.
Add on that there's so many people I care about who are just living life without much awareness of what appears to be on the horizon... and it feels literally impossible to explain to them why they should perhaps care a bit about what we're seeing. There's so many disparate chapters of lore I'd have to catch them up on so they can see the whole picture like I do, I'd look like the crazed conspiracy theorist with red thread until they finally got up to speed and it clicked for them too... if it ever does.
Bit lonely being unable to bridge the gap on a topic that I find important. Hence why I'm here.
There's wisdom in that, but I can think of certain things I could be indulging in that would ABSOLUTELY make me happier, and I would do more of them if my time preference where about 5-10% higher.
One thought that springs forth recently: If I quit my job and sold my house and everything in it, I could afford to buy a decent camper van and then take a year, maybe two to drive around the Country with my dog. And why not? It won't hurt anybody, and I'll rack up a pretty fulfilling experience that will take my mind off the pending event. And that's without touching my own (modest) retirement savings. Which reminds me: What the FUCK am I supposed to with with a 401(k) as someone who is under 40?
Seriously, although I understand the benefit of having a money stash that you can't easily touch, the idea that I will want to keep adding to this pile of money that I will be unable to draw from until I'm in my 60's feels farcical under current expectations. Like, I just do not believe that the future is one where I diligently tap away at a series of steady jobs, watch my savings grow over a couple decades, and then have to draw on that money in old age for a peaceful retirement.
Can someone lay out the path to 2050 where the most likely outcome is that the market grows about 5-7% every year on average, we don't have a debt crisis, or catastrophic event, OR an AI-fueled industrial revolution that pushes things parabolic for a bit, and I, when I hit 67, will be SUPER grateful to my past self for diligently squirreling away U.S. Dollars (rather than betting on BTC, for example) over that whole period.
I will grant, if I cash in all my chips now and the "NOTHING EVER HAPPENS" brigade is right, I'd look very stupid later. And the Gods of Copybook headings have been undefeated for centuries.
But even if 'NOTHING EVER HAPPENS,' there are still enough small happenings that keep piling up that it really seems like the standard assumptions that go into the ol' "Put aside 15% of your pretax income in an index fund and never touch it" advice are not going to hold over the future. I don't think there's a reason to give up on saving entirely, but it suggests one should be taking wilder risks and being much less concerned with historic returns as a guideline for future probable outcomes.
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