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Goodguy  3d ago (text post)   Edited 3d ago   9734 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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I guess all the "voters are stupid for caring about gas prices or a wrecked economy, destroying Iran is for our eternal glory!" talk does not actually win elections for Republicans.

Hopefully Republicans overcome their Israel fetish.

I’m just thinking back and chuckling to my post a few months ago where I said - indexing my life on my parents 30 years ago, it’s obviously way less affordable, and I was met with a chorus that I was wrong.

It’s the economy stupid. Nobody can afford a house. Burritos cost 20$. Sure sure ackshully that all you want, then lose elections

Sure but this is a macro issue across the vast majority of the developed world right now and Left-leaning parties in charge are relying on essentially the same comms. Left-side parties might be able to promise more gibs than Right-side but still gotta actually fund them.

Nearly every party in power is suffering. The right is winning in Europe maybe primarily because the left is in charge.

Eh... There's truth to the argument that the problems the west is struggling with are bigger than either party or political options, and real solutions are not feasible in a democracy... but come on, that war was retarded.

…specifically because it hurt the US economy, no?

I think almost every gripe boils down to not enough resources, and every serious gripe boils down to not enough basic resources. People want food, housing, medical care, and some luxuries, without spending the majority of their awake life on an intolerable job.

This is obviously not easy, but I’m sure we could do a better job allocating resources than now. We have LLMs automating white-collar work and robots automating blue-collar work, though not eliminating, making workers more productive, so they should be able to work less. We could maybe direct corrupt beneficiaries and aspiring entrepreneurs to robotics, logistics (reducing food waste etc. with cool new AI to make it more interesting), and encouraging people to live…not sacrificing anything they really care about (eating meat is OK)…more sustainably.

(…but no, every party in power has to focus on the more direct route of boosting their culture, which backfires as it gets associated with the stalled economy…)

People want food, housing, medical care, and some luxuries, without spending the majority of their awake life on an intolerable job.

IMO this isn't a complete take. Material needs like these certainly exist, but I think the real crisis is that happiness isn't really related to them. I don't feel qualified to speak for the entire human condition, but people want to feel valued, and that is much harder than "3 hots and a cot". I don't think NEET-dom is the pinnacle of existence, but at the same time some jobs really do suck and we'd be better off mechanizing them.

Everyone wants to make lattes on the commune, but automated baristas exist, but we still have humans driving trash trucks. Maybe our AI overlords can fix that, but how do we build a world with meaning for everyone?

Yes, people want to feel valued, but I'm sure the majority would still be happier with more leisure time. If we achieve UBI and automated everything, I'm sure many people would still work e.g. as baristas and artists, and others would order from them, because we desire human connection - and that would be enough for most.

People even want shape the world to their image, which is fine...but everyone has a different idea, most of them cancel out, and the remainder differ from my image (and yours), so we should dedicate some effort to common goals. Right now it seems like the economy is sliding backwards, in contrast to the majority of history, and current/aspiring like Trump (and the IDPOL left, like Hasan at least from what I've heard of him) appear to be almost pure conflict theory.

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