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An article is making the rounds on rat-adjacent twitter entitled "The Nerdy Escorts Cashing In On Silicon Valley’s AI Boom."
I can't bypass the paywall, but someone posted on X:
I know that aella, the famous rationalist whorelord, popularized this niche of pseudo-intellectual prostitutes appealing to rationalists and other tech nerds for extreme amounts of money. It's obvious that aella has become obscenely wealthy and gained a ton of social status from her pursuits, but I'm still somewhat shocked at the sheer amount these women are making.
I work a pretty boring, standard corporate marketing job, and apparently these prostitutes are taking home almost my entire after-tax yearly income in one weekend.
Even regardless of the moral aspect of the situation, the fact that a prostitute can make so much money is a huge slap in the face to people working hard for a living. That, combined with the fact that close to 18% of the economy is now in healthcare, has got me a bit depressed on the economy.
Also, Tyler Cowen had a bit of a viral moment yesterday saying he wouldn't be surprised if 15 to 20% of all jobs in the near future are elder care. This of course sandwiched in a talk where he insists AI is great and making jobs not losing them!
Anyway, all of this recent discourse combined is making me feel more and more like a retarded schmuck for working a 'real job,' as opposed to just leeching off the government, doing some sort of NGO/media grift, or even just getting a random remote job and going to live cheap in Thailand or some other extremely cheap country. And this is someone who has a pretty chill office job where I don't have to work too hard, and get to work from home a few days a week. I can't imagine how people who actually bust their asses in physical labor and make less than me feel!
Either way, the optimism from the pundit class around AI and the economy is feeling more and more hollow to me by the day. If the numbers keep going up but everyone is employed wiping the asses of boomers and sexually pleasuring tech AI millionaires, have we really improved society? How will things go otherwise without some sort of relatively radical disruption? I try not to be a 'doomer' about AI, but I'm increasingly finding it hard to be optimistic on the impact of it on society.
Everyone else seems to be pushing back with varying amounts of sarcasm and vitriol, so I want to chime in and say that I actually really feel you man. It is disheartening and demoralizing to be young working-age man in a feminized and rapidly aging society, where the only subject that appears to be up for debate is if our daily sacrifice-quota to the Boomer-Emperor on his Golden Stool should be 1,000 or 1,100 Psykers. My protestant work ethic was once strong, but lately when I look around me that motivation to doggedly pursue duty has diminished. Why do we work? The fortune you need to catch even a semi-pretty girlfriend today (which is one of the main benefits of such fortune, as it ever was) is vast indeed if you aren't a natural with the ladies, and the money one does earn is increasingly siphoned to sustain pensions and elderly care in the World's least subtle Ponzi scheme. And many times that care goes to those so marred by sickness that it is doubtful if their lives is of benefit to anyone, least of all themselves.
I don't believe in surrendering to sadness, but it's a sign of health to be distraught about a future where a small number of capital-owners live like kings while the rest of us are relegated to the saddest jobs in existence. I would in my heart think less of any young man who felt otherwise.
I sometimes feel the same way until I look at it from the other side. If I had no dignity and was completely willing to sell out any self-respectability I had, I could accomplish the same end. I truly don’t envy the lives these people lead. They’re hollow on the inside and can only live a psychologically comfortable life, living in the most supreme level of ignorance one can possibly imagine. Never believe these people when they put so much energy and emotion into telling you how happy they are. They aren’t trying to convince you, they’re trying to convince themselves. True happiness isn’t performative, it’s quiet and content.
I’ve also had the same opportunity to make much more money than I currently do but one thing I always come back to is “what am I doing this for?” I don’t need that much money, and I don’t have a family of my own to support. I was never one of those guys who if I had a billion dollars I’d be living the high life, chartering private jets to Dubai and dropping hundreds of thousands on gold chains. Even at my greediest I’d just be doing more of the same. Ordinary people don’t really envy the rich, they envy the lives they ‘think’ rich people live.
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