domain:lesswrong.com
Shirayuki
2m ago
Fantastic post, you've given me a lot to think about. If couched in those terms, I suppose I am indeed a blackpiller lol.
I’m guessing you’re from a striver background and are on the first or second rung of some or other intense career and feeling pretty lost
Scary psychoanalysis haha, that's pretty much it. Spent a bunch of time striving to "make it" and now I'm having my quarter life crisis I suppose...
I agree completely on the idea that the blackpill is the idea that nothing you do feels like it matters, where you have no traction on something you wish to move.
If I say I'm blackpilled over, say, my ability to beat the final boss of Final Fantasy or improve my deadlift obviously that's silly; everyone who isn't disabled can do that, and there's clear feedback loops on how to accomplish your goals. It's very easy to have "traction" when playing video games and when working out, which is why so many men find themselves drawn to such things.
By the same metric, if I say I'm blackpilled over my ability to beat Lebron in ball or beat Carlsen in chess it's hardly a "blackpill" in any real sense, there's nothing I could ever do to achieve that and my chance of doing either is 0.00%, any blackpill here is just being realistic and I should probably abandon my goal.
Where it gets complicated is for goals that are neither 0% or 100%; I definitely agree that a lot of disaffected guys are cognitively distorted about what they can achieve, but at the same time it's abjectively true that career and dating "success" is becoming harder and more costly, while any feedback loops are increasingly being broken down.
The true percentages of success nobody can really know, an optimist might say they're high enough to be worth trying, while a nihilist might say their chances of finding a partner that improves their life are the same as my chances of checkmating Carlsen, so it's time to check out; two ways of looking at the same picture.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
6m ago
Saying "evidence" and then linking the New York Post is maybe not the most credible way of doing that.
That article did link to better articles, although both of them didn't link or substantiate their underlying data
In a year or two we'll know who's telling the truth on this
cjet79
8m ago
None of those stories clicked with me either. Though usually cradle and worth the candle get people.
I'd second the Mother of Learning recommendation that wayfarer suggested. If you bounce off that as well then the genre just isn't something I think you'll enjoy.
But if you want tighter storytelling and more of the arc story completion then maybe The Perfect Run might be a better entry point.
Supah_Schmendrick
8m ago
I'll quote @gattsuru here:
... the Obama administration issued thousands of work permits under DAPA after the Fifth Circuit [entered an] injunction [blocking the practice], and then said oops. A further hundred thousand reprieves were granted after the Obama administration swore before the court and in written submissions that they would not act on the memo while the court was ruling on the preliminary injunction to start with. During appeals the Obama administration held that it could offer whatever individualized discretion it wanted, so long as no one made those decisions because of the DAPA rule. Nor was this problem specific to DAPA. The Obama admin repeatedly refused to follow both statutory requirements and court orders mandating notice to a state for settling refugees, up to and including directing state charities to not tell state authorities.
To say nothing of how the Biden administration twisted and turned to do anything possible to refrain from enforcing the actual law on the border.
The left has a track record of breaking the law and ignoring court decisions in order to keep the border open, then trying to hide the ball under obfuscatory administratrivia.
Supah_Schmendrick
17m ago
They have all three branches of government
The majority in the House is less than 10, and there are a lot of clowns in the GOP caucus who can and gleefully will screw everything up on their pet issue du jour.
Supah_Schmendrick
18m ago
If we assume 12 million illegal immigrants (range I saw was 11-13), that's a cool 30 years at the current rate with a cost of $200.6 billion (not including 30 years of inflation).
Yes, but overt deportations are not the only thing happening. During the same period, there is evidence that sizeable self-deportation, most likely in the hundreds of thousands of individuals, has occurred.
Soteriologian
19m ago
"Usability research" is not formal theory. It’s psychology, applied to human-computer interaction. And psychology has one of the worst track records of any field ever.
By formal theory, I mean math you can put into a theorem prover like Coq/Agda/Lean.
cjet79
21m ago
I read quickly and nearly constantly, so that helps. Also its been 8 years since I started reading this genre. 25-30 stories a year isn't a hard number to hit. I've also dropped many long stories, I don't feel compelled to finish anything I've started, and if I read 200 pages of a 1000 page story I still consider myself to have "read" it.
Shirayuki
41m ago
Like the supposed truth that men aren’t big spenders and would happily sleep on a mattress in a cardboard box that had wifi
Of course I can't speak for all men, but I think it's a bit more subtle than that; yofuckreddit put it well in the sense that many men's lives are more simple. Sure, I spend money on my home office and gym because I can afford it, but that doesn't really change my day to day life; if I ever went broke I'd still have a computer and be working out.
Obviously speaking in generalities, but I've found women enjoy a more dynamic life and are more attuned to keeping up with the lives of others; new experiences, new toys, new clothes etc. You can see how this might pre-dispose men to dropping out as opposed to women.
I’ve never seen an “average” man have issues with dating (casual sex, sure, but not dating).
I agree in the sense that most people, especially in middle-class+ demographics, could probably find a partner if they put a lot of effort into it and relaxed their standards; a lot of incel/red pill discourse is either fairly lower-class coded (single mothers, criminal chads etc) or wildly high standards for a partner and for a relationship.
The point I'm more trying to make is that it's significantly more difficult and costly than it ever used to be to find a partner, and even for those who do, the incentives for actually having a partner are falling further and further. Having high standards is not wrong, for a lot of people it probably is true that they're better off alone vs partnering with the people they can convince to commit to them; the single life is pretty damn good nowadays!
You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex. People try to set you up with their friends/co-workers/whatnot
You can hook-up with random strangers at a party
And as a man the bar is honestly pretty low and it’s ridiculously easy to set yourself apart
you can tell why from like a 5 min conversation
I will say that this is emphatically not the lived experience of most (straight) young men nowadays [it may be different in queer spaces like yours, I'm not sure].
Others already linked Radicalizing the Romanceless, but in general unless you're significantly above average in looks/charisma/wealth etc you're not getting set-up [especially work relationships are verboten], off-the-cuff hook-ups are not happening unless you're in college and rarer even there, and the primary way most men are going to meet women is through the dating app hellscape.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
1hr ago
The Tea-Party/MAGA Right isn't trying to expand state capacity because a significant portion of the Tea-Party/MAGA right is opposed to expanding state capacity on general principle.
Why would the "don't tread on me" crowd vote to buy the "We will tread" crowd new boots?
As i tried to explain to Anti-populist down thread, the Republicans don't want to change existing laws they want to enforce them.
Shirayuki
1hr ago
Yeah, if put in those terms I definitely consider marriage primarily as an material alliance for childrearing purposes.
I enjoy fiction about romance occasionally, but I suppose I'm blackpilled/realistic/cynical enough to think about romance in Roman terms, as a force that wounds men and drives them crazy; that the initial burst of limerance for someone that doesn't exist will always fade with time, and that it has very significant risks to my health and happiness.
At the end of the day, "romantic drive" is definitely more something that would hypothetically be nice, not something that substantially motivates me day to day.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1hr ago
Good faith doesn't require such petty sneers.
Indeed. I can forgive you for this one instance, though.
pigeonburger
1hr ago
See also, Trump literally said they weren't going to enforce it for farm and hotel labour.
That has been reversed now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/06/16/trump-farms-hotels-immigration-raids/
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
1hr ago
I suppose I can't really relate personally, in the sense that my libido is quite low and I don't have a lot of interest in casual dating or sex.
Do you have a strong romantic drive, or is the concept of marriage for you mostly a material alliance for childrearing? If you lean mostly towards the latter, I think that would absolutely contribute to your feeling that marriage in the modern concept has little to offer.
Also not a fan of casual sex, but my libido is moderate to high. I just enjoy sex with an intimate partner in a romantic context a lot more than casual trysts. I can’t have a tryst without catching feelings — not overwhelming passion or anything, I’m not insane, but I end up wanting to make a connection. I’m probably in the top 10% of men in terms of… romance orientation? Physical affection? Romanticalness? So the incentive for me to date is strong, even if I never wanted to marry, even if I never wanted kids. So long as there’s a woman out there with sweet eyes and a warm smile, I’m going to want to look deeply into them and smile back.
UwU
1hr ago
What I'm okay with: Enforcing immigration laws, deporting illegal immigrants. I'm fine with "breaking up families", arresting people at their workplaces, and deporting parents of citizen children with them in tow.
What I'm not okay with: Masked men in plainclothes forcibly ushering people into unmarked vans. As long as they are unmasked and wearing uniforms, or unmasked, plainclothed and are obligated to give their full name and badge/ID upon request, I'd have no problem with it. Yes they may lose the intimidation factor, but it's a necessary trade-off compared to normalizing mask wearing thugs kidnapping people off the streets.
phailyoor
1hr ago
Do the two options have to be a corrupt neo-lib boomer versus a Millennial wanker?
According to Polymarket Eric adams has a slim but present chance of holding his seat.
As the boomers die off, who will take their place in Democratic power structures?
True believer extremist progressives.
Shirayuki
1hr ago
Yes, you're correct that I'm a materialistic atheist, and that this is where my beliefs have lead me to.
I enjoy reading your posts on theology; in the words of the rationalists, rationality is winning, and I do believe that the religious are winning in a way that secular society increasingly is not. It's pretty clear, however, that society has largely rejected religion as a whole, and so it is for me; I don't think it's possible to convince myself into religion at this point.
Like I said in another post, perhaps the way this ends is that us atheists all die out and the religious end up fighting for control of the planet; it could certainly go a lot worse.
Dean
Flairless
1hr ago
Sounds like a still not happy to, then.
Good faith doesn't require such petty sneers.
ABigGuy4U
1hr ago
I doubt anyone young liberal and ambitious who goes through the modern educational apparatus (especially at the high levels) is going to come out the other side as a middle of the road neo-liberal. The factory that produces that model doesn’t exist anymore.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1hr ago
Main query: Are the blackbagging tactics of ICE a necessary evil, a dangerous overstep, or some nuanced in-between?
It's stupid theatrics. A lazy google shows they've deported approx. 200,000 people in six months, at approx. $17,000ish a pop.
If we assume 12 million illegal immigrants (range I saw was 11-13), that's a cool 30 years at the current rate with a cost of $200.6 billion (not including 30 years of inflation). You could obviously hire more people to speed it up, and maybe that would result in the same (or lower) per deportation cost from economies of scale, etc. Although as you picked the low hanging fruit immigrants, the remaining ones would probably get savvier so unlikely but whatever.
Instead, you could crack down massively on American business owners who I'd like to remind the crowd, GIVE THE IMMIGRANTS MONEY EVERY WEEK IN EXCHANGE FOR LABOR, ALLOWING THEM TO STAY IN YOUR COUNTRY. I truly don't understand how everyone hates immigrants and not also the traitorous Americans who enable them??
Just implement e-verify, it's that easy. Crack down HARD on a few businesses who you catch skirting this (you can even do it in California to whip up the base) and the illegal immigrants will deport themselves once they run out of money and can't get a new job. You could even set up free busses back to Mexico or something.
Once you show businesses you're not fucking around they'll wise up quick. Or even better, their debt and equity financiers will do it for you. Every bank credit risk department is going to start looking really closely at your hiring practices if you want a loan for your farm, because they don't want to risk you going bankrupt when Uncle Sam eviscerates your business for hiring illegal immigrants. There's also way less businesses than illegals, and they're all registered with multiple government bodies, so this is less legwork too.
The fact they're cracking down on a relative handful of illegal immigrants instead of the much higher leverage option of the people who give them money should tell you what the priorities are here. Illegal immigrants are responding to their incentives, which are "come to America, get a job, make way more than you did at home". So take away the job...
If they were serious about this, they'd make everyone use the solution they already invented, e-verify.
I'm not saying you don't need ICE, there will be people who won't leave. But if you don't fix the system of incentives that makes them come here you're not actually serious.
See also, Trump literally said they weren't going to enforce it for farm and hotel labour. "We're super serious about illegal immigration guys but shucks the hotel lobbyists made some great points..." Farms at least feed people, but hotels? Lmao, they're just not serious people.
Shirayuki
1hr ago
I do have fears of tail-risks involving medical episodes that could be fixed by just having someone to call an ambulance or tell me I've lost it
You can always consider getting a roommate or checking yourself early into some sort of supervision program.
I've heard this sentiment a few times, but realistically 50, 60 years is a long time; plenty of happily married couples end up with someone dying and the other being forced to go it alone, the kids end up apathetic/abusive/fuck ups etc.
I'll grant that having a family does give you better odds of mitigating these tail risks compared to being permanently single, but I've seen enough elderly end up alone and abused even with a big family to know that it's no guarantee.
I think this is likely because you have not been exposed to smaller, prettier, and orderly, but still dense town environments.
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