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Alright, folks, I'm out.
Consider me the first Motte casualty to AI. No, I'm not planning on any self-harm. Quite the opposite, in fact. But reading about this shit is so depressing and anxiety-inducing that it's giving me a premature mid-life crisis, so I'm going to do the reasonable thing and take the grill pill.
As part of that reevaluation of how I've been spending my time, I've taken a look at the 15ish years I've been "Very Online And Politically Aware". Since the financial crisis in 2008, really. And I have to conclude that the investment of 10's of thousands of hours of my life has been basically a wash. I don't think I can point to a single tangible benefit to my life, it's all just sunk opportunity cost. Maybe a few memes pushed out, but thinking I inspired them is probably just arrogance. My lazy, slacktivist involvement almost certainly didn't matter for anything at all. Being Politically Aware is arguably the worst thing I've done with my life; I would rather have played more video games.
Even the insight porn is getting stale.
So combining these two epiphanies, I'm going to block TheMotte and SSC, and ACT and Instapundit, and unsub from any remotely political or AI-interested subreddit and block /all. Anything else I can think of or that comes up, I'm just gonna dip. (I would like some advice on how to block websites on chrome mobile for Android. The recommended apps seem to not really work the way they're presented.)
Because if this is the beginning of the end, of us becoming either obsolete or all dying, I would rather go out in a eudaemonic frenzy than wasting my time whining and worrying. I would rather double-down on being an amazing dad, and son and brother. I'll double-down at the gym, and run the best D&D campaign my friends have ever seen. I've had fantasy novels fermenting in my head for decades, I'd like to write a couple before GPT-X makes human creativity obsolete (and then I can have GPT-X churn out countless sequels!) Maybe I'll even try dating again.
And if and when the nanite disassembler swarms come for me, I'll go down on my feet knowing that I was a pretty kick-ass human, back when that mattered.
If anyone has suggestions for other things worth doing or being, or that satisfy that "check my phone while waiting in the line to pickup the kids" nudge that avoids my new no-nos, I'm all ears.
I've enjoyed this community a great deal, and think fondly of many of you. Thank you for contributing to making this a place where I felt at home. Maybe we'll have a grand meetup if humanity wins, and spend a subjective eternity having AI-moderated arguments about who was right.
And if any of you are in a position to do anything about the future - godspeed. We're all counting on you.
Thank you again. <3
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take this empty propane tank to ACE for a refill.
Best of luck to you.
The traditional exit post spends more time complaining about witches, so this is kind of an inspiring change of pace. I've been avoiding the Wellness threads for similar reasons; if I notice that I'm not getting anything valuable out of the others, I suppose I'll do the same. It's nice to imagine that, when I leave, it'll be a pull instead of a push.
Do you play an instrument? Learning the banjo has been remarkably satisfying, despite my complete incompetence. It doesn't speak to the "check my phone" niche. For that I can only suggest fanfiction. I'd shill /r/rational, but I'm pretty sure I've seen you around there before.
Luck to you, too.
What's wrong with the Wednesday threads?
I would say that I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but it's possible that an AI could possible attain true agency, and upon hearing my attempts at music, decide the human species was irredeemable.
Yeah, though that place lost a lot of my attention naturally. Anything worth checking out in the last couple years?
Looking into the Wednesday threads was basically providing only anxiety. I’m enough of a hypochondriac on my own.
As for rationalfic…where to start? Alexander Wales has consistently put out amazing work. You may have seen early Worth the Candle, which I highly endorse to a certain type of reader, but his next big project, This Used to Be About Dungeons, is a completely different and much fluffier work.
Mother of Learning remains more or less unsurpassed in its niche. Not for lack of trying, either; the roadside is littered with mage progression fantasies and the occasional timeloop. There’s also been quite a lot of LitRPG/SystemApocalypse, which I feel share some of the ethos, but I’m not really qualified to give recommendations on that front.
On the fanfiction side, the long-running r!Animorphs story finished in spectacular fashion. Pokémon: OoS is ongoing, and most every chapter continues to be packed with detail. Both stories lean into the LW-rationalist-sphere a good deal, which may be a pro or con. So does Chili and the Chocolate Factory, a shorter story which I can only describe as completely deranged. I don’t know whether it would actually be enjoyable to read in hindsight. As each chapter released, the sub really came alive trying to figure out what the fuck the author was calling out.
If I threw in more normal fanfiction, I’d be here all day. I can put something together if you give me genres or settings you liked. Or you can browse a few of the monthly rec threads and bookmark/epub stuff you find interesting.
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