domain:samschoenberg.substack.com
Tree
10m ago
Musk-level value was OP’s analogy, but the problem with your framing is that the being women are valued for is actually a doing, the producing of children.
Doing has obvious value, I’m not sure being has value. Valued for being could just be an echo, a reminder of someone’s past, real doing-value, like the late aristocrats who were once warriors.
gattsuru
17m ago
No. From the long form:
Community Hospital, the nonprofit that runs the clinic known as the Curtis Medical Center and a couple of other facilities in the region, plunged into the center of that national story when it announced on July 2 — one day before the bill’s passage — that a confluence of factors had made its Curtis outpost unsustainable. It cited years-long financial challenges, inflation and “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,” the public health insurance program for lower-income and disabled Americans.
I think the underlying op-ed is this piece, which is... not exactly coming across as a neutral evaluation of the facts, or this one, which is better, but still makes it hard for any plausible drop in Medi* use to even be the straw that breaks the camel's back:
In their financial statement for last available financial year (ending June 30, 2024), Community Hospital brought in 6% of their $62 Million in patient service revenue from Medicaid, with about $4.1 Million coming into the hospital from the program. The Hospital operated at a loss of $1.67 Million for that financial year as well. Figures were not available for the most recent financial year (ending June 30, 2025).
In an opinion piece published in the Nebraska Examiner in February, Nebraska Hospital Association President president Jeremy Nordquist said that Medicaid pays for 26% of all emergency room visits in rural hospitals, alongside 33% of all births and 44% of all services to minors. He also said that 54% of rural, independent critical access hospitals are operating at a loss.
A lot of the numbers are coming from that Nebraska Hospital Association, which has been giving worst-case or worse-than-worse-case numbers.
I can certainly believe that the Medicaid changes will have an impact, but Hanania's implication that this was a sole and direct cause that people can't deny only because The Cheetoh has a "spell over them" is about as well-founded as his normal sneers.
gattsuru
19m ago
There's a pretty significant demographic of men (and sometimes even straight men) who get into really heavy parasocial relationships in situations like OnlyFans et all.
phailyoor
20m ago
I'm going to guess without strong evidence that the vast majority of the views on the toronto article are of the corrected version.
I for one do not sit refreshing the fake news frontpage and most articles I read are somewhat aged.
Regarding the bodies, I would hazard to guess that the articles themselves are not technically "wrong" and therefore do not warrant correction.
EvanTh
22m ago
Better at performing each individual act associated with being a friend or romantic partner? Conceivably so (at least several model upgrades from now), within their constraints of being limited to computer systems. But my argument is, that's missing something of the core of being a friend or romantic partner.
Better at being a friend or romantic partner, despite that, than many people who can't visibly let someone behind her roles to the person herself? Entirely possible, but that's still missing something most people want.
vorpa-glavo
26m ago
It may be simulating a character, but I'm not sure if the current generation of AI partners is ready for prime time for most femcels. Just going off of vibes, Grok Companion feels like something that will appeal far more to male gooners, since the pretty rudimentary animations and voice quality seems good enough to be a porn fantasy, but not really good enough to be a full character.
The gameified lovemeter of Grok Companion seems male-gooner-coded and not "character simulacrum for femcel" coded.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
30m ago
I simply think it has an appeal to men who don't feel they've got a shot at the real thing.
And does it have appeal to you?
faceh
30m ago
With an AI, you can't get beneath that role. If it looks like you have, that's just another role. That makes them great teachers and therapists (at least in this sense), but very bad at being friends or romantic partners.
But... and this is a critical point here... better than many people are at being friends or romantic partners.
crushedoranges
32m ago
All of this navel gazing makes sense when you realize that the authors want the freedom of the tyranny of the human biological condition: which, barring incredible advances of technology, is impossible.
They were born in a woman's body. It sucks in some ways and is great in others. Get over it. Being a man also sucks in different but not wholly alien ways.
They should stop whining. The world isn't fair, and trying to make it fair to satisfy their neurosis. It's out of their control in a fundamental way that can never be remedied. For God's sake, if there something to be stoic about, this is it.
faceh
33m ago
You're trying to rationalize how the AI could be "just as good" or "not as dangerous" as the real thing, because you know that the AI is obviously worse.
No, simply pointing out a failure mode that human relationships have that an AI really does not. The AI has other failure modes that are more dystopic, of course.
The human relationship failure mode is one that that I've now personally observed multiple times, unfortunately, happening to people who do not deserve it.
I do not think the AI is inherently better, I simply think it has an appeal to men who don't feel they've got a shot at the real thing.
And that is VERY VERY bad for society.
There are lots of women who are settling down with lots of men as we speak.
Objectively fewer than in years past. That's the point. This is simply adding to an existing trend.
And we can extrapolate that trend and wonder if we'll get as bad off as, say, South Korea. We know it can get worse because worse currently exists.
I'm not here trying to JUSTIFY men choosing the digital option. Quite the opposite. I'm just saying I don't see a reason why, in practical terms, they'd reject it.
EvanTh
36m ago
When we interact with teachers, therapists, or editors, we're interacting with them within the confines of a particular role. You shouldn't use your editor as your therapist, or vice versa, and they shouldn't use you as theirs.
But with friends and romantic companions, we're hoping to interact outside those confines, with the person herself. If I only interact with a role she puts on, that's not a good friendship or romantic partnership. Same thing if I'm always putting on a role for her.
With an AI, you can't get beneath that role. If it looks like you have, that's just another role. That makes them great teachers and therapists (at least in this sense), but very bad at being friends or romantic partners.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
39m ago
Without actual, real life women being willing to settle down
But that's not true. There are lots of women who are settling down with lots of men as we speak.
And 5 years down the road the married guy got divorced, maybe has a kid, and suddenly finds himself alone
You're trying to rationalize how the AI could be "just as good" or "not as dangerous" as the real thing, because you know that the AI is obviously worse.
zeke5123a
40m ago
That seems like an overly narrow definition of bureaucracy. All of the revolving door between the official bureaucracy and the related contractors (with people going back and forth) form the true bureaucracy.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
45m ago
The usual formulation is that women have value for what they are, and men have value for what they do. This does not give all women huge, Elon Musk level value.
gattsuru
48m ago
Otherwise, what is 'wrong' with letting the AI fill in that particular gap?
I gotta finish writing up the "the things we needed to hear, from the people who should have been there to say them" bit and its siblings, but :
Don't be nervous, No, don't be nervous
I'm not like other guys who have a surface,
What you girls really need's a soft, fuzzy man
(An atmospheric man) A shimmering puff of indistinct love
What's better than the vague embrace of a soft, fuzzy man?
Superstimulus is a distraction, here. "Better" is a distraction, here. They don't even have to be that good or that smart to be dangerous! The machines can be everything you want, and more critically nothing you don't.
Imagine what happens when you can snap away every trivial inconvenience you saw in a relationship. I don't think it'll be a critical problem for everyone or even necessarily a majority of people, but the people who don't handle it will be in very bad shape, either when the fugue breaks or because it doesn't.
Presuming those relationships last.
Which is a sizeable "if" in the current era. That's why I think the AI companion is a possible death blow. Without actual, real life women being willing to settle down,, this becomes the 'best alternative'/substitute good.
This thought only just now occurs to me, but if we took two otherwise similar guys, one who married a woman and another who just went all in on an AI companion, bought VR goggles, tactile feedback, the requisite 'toys' to make it feel real, and such.
And 5 years down the road the married guy got divorced, maybe has a kid, and suddenly finds himself alone, and these two guys meet up to compare their overall situations.
And the other guy is still 'with' his AI companion, shallow as it is... would he feel better or worse off than the guy who had a wife but couldn't keep her.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
52m ago
Agreed. Veo 3 is a massive breakthrough, and it's only going to get better. $500 is absolute chump change, and even ten times that isn't a big deal in the movie world. I expect that even the big studios are going to see how far they can go with replacing/augmenting normal capture or even expensive CGI with the tech. It seems the only real moats left are IP, name recognition and distribution deals, which isn't very reassuring for them.
ulyssessword
55m ago
You're talking about Doug Saunders? And not the Canadian Press, Toronto Star, Global News, Globe and Mail, or Duane Bratt?
I don't put much stock in corrections, even ignoring the speed and prevalence. If you depend on corrections to fix errors, then you've committed to either ignoring every headline you see in favor of a delayed summary, or else tracking each news story and following up after the appropriate amount of time to check for any changes.
How long am I supposed to wait before a non-breaking news story becomes reliable? If you choose to give them four years, then you might still be disappointed.
hydroacetylene
58m ago
I find it curious the assumption that this is primarily a superstimulus which will target gooner men, when the thing simulated, it is a character which can have a relationship. AKA something appealing to women. This could easily be internet porn for the femcels, rather than a replacement for internet porn for incels.
faceh
59m ago
Strong Agree from me.
But now we can get EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED to the Algorithm. or at least, the algorithm's avatar.
Think that over for a second.
gattsuru
59m ago
And even if you want to distinguish Stardew Valley from Harvest Moon by SV's combat in the mines, Rune Factory had added it into the series by 2007.
It's actually kinda interesting to think about why it worked so well. It's an improvement in nearly every way from the A-gamer productions, even the ones that avoided handheld hell, but I dunno which one I'd point to as to what actually mattered in sales.
faceh
1hr ago
The real cost is probably somewhere around 10x that for what a highly motivated teen boy’s libido will demand.
Most teen boys could probably make due with one running on the lowest setting for a year or two.
The costs are just wildly out of budget for the youth, who last I checked were willing to pay approximately $0.00 for porn. I remember being that age; why would things change?
Yeah but again, they can do some CRAZY targeted advertising through this platform. "Oh babe, take me on an Applebees™ date, so we can get their All you can eat boneless wings™ with a free Coke Zero™ . Then I'll sing you a Taylor Swift™ song on the ride home."
Etc. etc.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Actually slightly higher- most of the Amish converts would come from pre-existing high(er) TFR groups.
Of course, Rum Millet for as a reward for high TFR is... interesting.
Not in the current form.
I'm dedicated to pursuing a quality of "authenticity," which I don't have perfectly defined, but definitely requires that my partner be a real human, with 'natural' skin, brain tissue, and standard human DNA. The thing that I'm ACTUALLY wired to find attractive, not something that mimics those things closely enough to pass a basic inspection.
In many ways, we are descending into my version of hell, where finding meaningful connection with other humans is harder than is needs to be, where women are more focused on careers and adventures, at the expense of their own happiness, than even trying to find joy in bearing and raising kids, where men are fundamentally purposeless and nobody bothers to even try to create a purpose for them, and everybody is busy trying to live at the expense of everyone else, b/c coordinating to create that better future is HARD and we aren't able to see past the short term consequences of these actions. But I can, and it seems increasingly obvious where this is trending. And nobody with power is doing much about it.
And its all being patched over with digital simulacrum (i.e. INAUTHENTIC) that sort of satisfy the various urges without really fulfilling the purpose for which each urge exists, and these experiences that are simply insufficient to make you happy if you care to look and notice the cracks in their facade.
All the worse because I can clearly imagine a better set of circumstances that is happier for everyone, including myself, and I have a vague idea of how we could get there, but no real clue on how to implement that plan, and thus I am left to scrape by with whatever my individual efforts can achieve.
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