omw_68
3d ago
I understand your point perfectly -- my point is that if only the first of those is something that a species can do vis a vis space exploration, which certainly seems to be the case, then they will not do the other things.
If your Von Neumann probes are star-hopping around the galaxy, they really only need enough resources from the solar system to hop on to the next few stars in your path -- where they will do it again. That doesn't seem like a lot of resources, and burning more resources than you need is wasteful, which is also something that most species are evolved not to be.
Well can we agree that (1) it would cost essentially nothing to have your Von Neuman probes lay claim (or attempt to lay claim) to the solar system; (2) it would cost essentially nothing to leave messages for future inhabitants; and (3) in a lot of cases, there is a good chance that a colonization wave would follow behind the probes?
omw_68
3d ago
The same website contains photographs of a plethora of jade-like beauties that the brothel claims to have on tap. If it hasn't been sued/prosecuted into toning those photographs down, how false can they be?
Even to my untrained eye, a few of those photos are pretty obviously heavily filtered/altered. That being said, even taking that into account, I concede that the prostitutes are far more attractive than what I would have imagined is available for such modest prices.
omw_68
4d ago
If AI is going to increase volatility, it's probably also going to increase returns right?
I would guess that the answer is "probably yes," but perhaps not. Because we're in for a wild ride (IMO). I'm 95% sure that there will be a lot of volatility. I'm 80% sure that overall returns will increase. So if there were some way to bet on long-term volatility, I would be interested.
Why not ask ChatGPT or Claude to write you a simulation? Ask it to create a simulation with 2 funds: bonds and stocks. Plug in default volatility and return expectations. Find the highest median return. Then adjust volatility and run again.
Not a bad idea.
omw_68
4d ago
It won't. But having sex with reasonably attractive women once in a while is nicer than not, even in the absence of validation or status boosts or what have you.
That may be for some people (personally I would prefer masturbation over hiring a prostitute) but I think that especially in the case of a lot of incels, they would feel like hiring a prostitute just confirms that they are not able to attract women.
omw_68
4d ago
I'm disputing the assertion it's a productive framing and asserting the hypothesis is inherently smuggling an isolated demand for rigor.
(I asked how it worked, you said "magic", so I interpreted the "porn means desensitization" copypasta was deployed in its standard "man bad" form and moved to a position questioning why "man bad" is a relevant or productive way to think about the question.)
I don't understand this, but in any event I'm pretty sure I didn't use the word "magic" I know I didn't reproduce a copypasta and I didn't say anything to imply "man bad."
It seems you are not responding to what I have posted but rather to something or someone else.
Based on that, I think that further discussion would not be productive so I am bowing out of this exchange.
Cheers.
omw_68
4d ago
Some people just... need a boss
Being a dancer would satisfy that, no? Heck, being a bartender or a bottle girl would satisfy that.
I don't know what the actual dynamics of sex work are, but I suspect not-reasonably-attractive women will be unemployed in short order- even if standards of attractive are rather low.
I disagree very strongly with this. In Las Vegas I've seen some VERY unattractive prostitutes.
omw_68
4d ago
Consider the boomer who pays cash. He is not affected by the interest rate so a lower interest rate does not cause him to buy a more expensive house. These buyers are actually a large segment of the market.
I'm kinda skeptical of this. Maybe if we are talking about vacation houses or houses in retirement communities? Do you happen to have a source?
housing is not a static commodity in every place. Lower rates will make construction of new houses more viable.
I think you may have a point here. I was thinking about where I live (Northeastern United States) where housing prices are heavily driven by the value of the underlying land. If there is an affordability crisis in some area with lots of land (Georgia? Texas? I don't know), then yeah, I agree that higher interest rates would tend to make the problem worse. From what I hear, there is a housing glut in those types of places but I don't follow it very carefully.
We're measuring raw inflation. What we should be measuring is the "true feel" of inflation which includes interest rates. If inflation were 4% and mortgages were 4% that would "feel" a lot more affordable than 3% inflation and 7% mortgages like we have now. This is what I am claiming the Fed gets wrong.
To reiterate, I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that mortgage rates will necessarily be higher than the rate of inflation. Because otherwise, the banks are facing a high likelihood that their loans will be paid back with dollars worth significantly less than what's necessary to make a profit. Do you agree?
omw_68
4d ago
I would assume she's merely in the large class of people who are unsuitable for normal white collar office work or entrepreneurship due to personal unreliability, unintelligence, temperament, etc.
I don't know about that, but even assuming it's true, if she's reasonably attractive why not work as an independent escort or sugar baby or dancer at a gentleman's club?
omw_68
4d ago
Yeah, that's what I said. I don't think it's a valid/fair thing for a sexuality's target to be angry about.
I'm not sure what your point is here. Here's what I said:
Here's a hypothesis: People who get seriously into pornography get desensitized and so they have a tendency to get into weirder more taboo-violating stuff.
Are you disputing my hypothesis?
Death grips degrade sensitivity and the damage is self-reinforcing- the less sensitivity, the harder one tends to grab; toys are effective at mitigating this but are inconvenient and require cleanup (which is further contraindicated if you're abusing the fact the process serves as an exceptionally effective sleep aid).
This is more a physical thing than anything else though.
What I'm saying, more or less, is that many people quit viewing pornography and report a reduction in the amount of visual stimulation they need.
Do you agree that this is a common experience?
omw_68
4d ago
How so? There's plenty of content out there, enough to arguably last more than a lifetime.
The risk is that the combination of the need for variety combined with desensitization will lead you towards things which are more and more taboo.
I think this is called "aging". It's happened to me as well over time- it's just that it requires more effort to blind your mind to stimuli you don't like.
I tend to disagree with this. A lot of people quit pornography and report that their sensitivity increases with time.
omw_68
4d ago
That's $180/hr. Which is a billing rate well in the professional services range in the US.
Adjusting that for the brothel's cut and the fact that there will be inevitable down time, I would estimate that's about $60-$80k a year. Not much different than what you would make in an office job and far less than what an attractive young woman could earn as an independent escort or sugar baby. Or even as an exotic dancer in a gentleman's club who limits herself to lap dances.
I'm not familiar with sex work, but I think it's pretty likely that the kind of woman who's willing to prostitute herself for that kind of money is not that attractive at all.
omw_68
4d ago
But will AI being transformative result in Anthropic and the like profiting? Or will they fail due to competition, increased competency of open source and local models, the transformer technology being well documented, and distillation of frontier models?
Every human job could be replaced by a LLM-controlled robot and Anthropic could still be wiped out.
I agree, but it seems very likely that some companies are going to make a lot of money. Let's suppose competition takes most of the gains away from AI companies. It still is likely that society as a whole will get a lot wealthier. Where will the money go? Who knows. Maybe the big winner will be Las Vegas casinos after they are flooded with peoples' UBI money.
FWIW my strategy has been to diversify.
omw_68
4d ago
Incels are a misnomer. In many cases they are voluntarily celibate because the women actually available for them to date or sleep with are beneath them (in their eyes). The correct term for incels are "people with status dysphoria." The incel's problem isn't "not getting laid," which is why he doesn't visit a prostitute. His problem is he is a loser, he knows it, and all his acquaintances (not friends, of course) know it.
As a side note, I think that there do exist men out there who are in a situation where either (1) literally zero women in the world are sexually attracted to them; or (2) any woman who potentially might be sexually attracted to them are already with other men who are more attractive to those women. That's just the basic math of the situation -- at any moment, there are significantly more men desirous of sex and relationships with women than vice versa.
To be sure, there are also men who are incels due to a mismatch between what they desire and what they can attract. And also people who are incels due to social anxiety or other mental problems.
I would guess that in most cases, it's a combination of being undesirable; having too high standards; and having mental issues.
No amount of business transactions are going to solve that.
I generally agree with this, although I think in some cases involving social anxiety, hiring sex workers might help.
omw_68
4d ago
Legal brothels in Australia advertise prices as low as 90 US dollars (specifically, 130 Australian dollars) for 30 minutes.
I shudder to think what USD $90 would get you in a developed country like Australia.
omw_68
4d ago
Ok money gurus, what's an investment to make based on the prediction that over the next 5 years, market volatility will be significantly greater than expected?
You could call it an AI hedge, I suppose.
omw_68
4d ago
High rates are a major cause of the affordability crisis. At 3%, inflation is honestly no big deal. But 8% mortgage rates absolutely are a big deal for people who are trying to buy a house.
But perhaps people bid based on what the bank will lend which in turn is based on what monthly payment they can afford? I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that high interest rates should make housing prices lower than they otherwise would be, especially for first home type properties.
You hear stories about Boomers who bought houses dirt cheap back in the 60s and 70s -- perhaps part of the reason was that mortgage rates were relatively high back then.
omw_68
4d ago
it won't work for everybody but hell, i've gone through dry spells where just getting laid was all i needed to get into a more positive headspace about meeting women. I imagine for most younger incel types just breaking the illusion of unattainability of sex would do a lot to motivate them improve their desirability.
Yeah, I do think there may be something to this. Also, some incels have a habit of pedestalizing women, which is arguably a counterproductive attitude. Paying a woman for sex might help break this habit.
omw_68
4d ago
I continually hear claims of this but what's the actual mechanism of action?
I have no idea what happens in the brain, but there really are a lot of anecdotal reports out there of desensitization. And given the natural instinct to seek variety, I can see how this could become a big problem for a lot of people.
omw_68
4d ago
The argument sort of shifts though -- "sending probes to explore is normal, we've even done it" moves to "sending probes for conquest/destruction is normal, anyone would do it".
I think maybe you misunderstood my point. I'm saying that exploring, conquering, and extracting resources is pretty normal. That's what most species do if they can.
Exploratory probes do seem pretty likely for sufficiently advanced civilizations, but unless the probes are remarkably inefficient at replicating you should be able to explore the galaxy pretty effectively without harvesting every scrap of energy/matter from every star system you visit
I agree, but the question is whether every last species would choose to be Unobtrusive. To both (1) not leave any messages; and (2) to not ruthlessly extract all available resources. I tend to doubt it.
Historical examples of grabbyness involved a lot more "grabbing stuff will make you super rich" than "you will probably never even know what you've grabbed; better destroy it just in case somebody else grabs it".
"Destroy" isn't quite the right word. Destruction (in a general sense) is of course the natural consequence of aggressive grabbing.
omw_68
4d ago
But you'd have to be one seriously in demand guy to constantly be dealing with women who want to keep seeing you, badgering you
Well I think that as a man, it's much easier to go out and get laid if you give the woman the impression that you are interested in a serious long-term relationship. But if you use that strategy and you are in fact not interested in such a relationship, then sooner or later it's going to lead to real trouble. Especially if the man is already married or otherwise in a committed relationship.
That being said, I would guess that there are other more salient reasons why men see prostitutes: To save them the time, expense, and uncertainty of pursuing regular women; to allow them to be intimate with women who are way more sexually attractive than they could otherwise pull; to be with someone who will accept the fact that he's married or otherwise in a committed relationship; to get the opportunity to do kinky or unusual sex acts. These all come to mind.
omw_68
4d ago
I think if you were to make prostitution legal, you'd find that the porn-addicted incel would not participate. Too much social anxiety.
Well I think there's another issue, which is that being an incel is low status and hiring a prostitute doesn't fix that problem. In the eyes of society you are still a basement-dwelling loser.
To put it another way, hiring a prostitute won't get you female validation.
omw_68
4d ago
The thing is that all of this stuff depends on exactly which values you wanna plug into the Drake equation -- any options between "we are alone" and "spacefaring intelligent life is pretty rare but not that rare" seem on the table based on what we can observe.
Well the scenario I was addressing involved a Renassaince Italy level civilization located 150 light years from Earth. In that situation, it's reasonable to infer that intelligent life is not rare at all (for any reasonable definition of "rare.")
On the other hand, let's suppose the likelihood of intelligent life developing is such that any galaxy has a 1/2,000,000 chance of developing intelligent life. In that case, one would expect about a million intelligent species in the observable universe. Which is quite a lot, but one would reasonably expect the nearest intelligent species to be so far away so as not to see any evidence of them in our solar system.
So if "pretty rare but not that rare" means about 1 million species in the observable universe, then yes, I agree with you. That's on the table.
In other words, the Fermi argument is pretty strong for the proposition that we are alone in the Milky Way, but much weaker for the argument that we are alone in the observable universe.
The assumption that Von Neumann probes would necessarily/likely be maximally grabby paperclip maximizers does seem like reasoning from sci-fi to me -- like, would you design a system that just goes around raping every star system it encounters? Why would the aliens?
I can think of a couple reasons:
First, it's reasonable to assume that, just like us, they are the product of an evolutionary process which rewarded organisms for being "maximally grabby" as you put it. And in fact, history shows that people are pretty grabby. (Keep in mind that all it takes is for one faction of one species to decide to be "maximally grabby.")
Second, a lot of hypothetical species (or factions within species) are going to realize that they need to be "maximally grabby" as a defensive measure. If they don't do it, they are vulnerable to another species (or faction) which does do it.
omw_68
4d ago
But how would we know if a probe had come and mined a bunch of asteroids (or sucked Mars dry, or something) some millions of years ago, then moved on?
Well there are two motivations why extraterrestrials might leave unmistakable evidence:
First, they might want to leave a message for the sake of connecting with any intelligent species that might arise. (This would be trivially inexpensive to do and it's certainly something we humans have attempted to do.)
Second, there's a lot of free energy and resources lying around in our solar system. Why leave that on the table?
For the sake of discussion, let's say that an extraterrestrial species is "Unobtrusive" if for whatever reason it leaves no messages and leaves our solar system largely intact.
Ok, if the likelihood of intelligent life developing is high enough that likely to produce a Renaissance Italy level civilization 150 light years away, it follows that (probably) there have been thousands if not millions of intelligent extra-terrestrial species who have had the opportunity to send a probe and/or a colonization wave through our solar system. And it seems highly unlikely that every last one of them would have been Unobtrusive.
omw_68
4d ago
I've heard that before, that they think it's an easy way to just add an extra tag. But doesn't it also detract? Like, a lot of people are going to be sketched out by that, even if it's just thrown in for a few lines. It seems like an extremely weird niche that for some reason they all went for.
Here's a hypothesis: People who get seriously into pornography get desensitized and so they have a tendency to get into weirder more taboo-violating stuff.
Is this broken down by type of purchase (e.g. vacation house; multi-unit investment properties; etc.?) My guess is that for your typical modest home in the suburbs of a large city, the percentage of buyers who finance is significantly higher than 73%.
Right, so it seems to me that raising interest rates might effect mortgage interest rates one way in the short term but another way in the long term, right?
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