cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
5hr ago
It's high effort and impractical right now.
When AI agents are ubiquitous? It's a short request away for anyone.
cjet79
18hr ago
There is a cascading failure route. Big website gets overwhelmed with bot spam. People get sick of it and move to medium size website. Medium size website gets overwhelmed with bot spam. People get sick of it and move to small website. Small website gets overwhelmed with bot spam. People get sick of it and move to tiny website. Tiny website is overwhelmed with bot spam.
At each iteration the website owners might care more about getting overwhelmed with spam. But to crack each layer the bots get more sophisticated. The fact that big websites are already overwhelmed is not a good sign, its a sign of things to come.
In my experience of moderating slatestarcodex and themotte for the last decade is that the moderators have an effort advantage. It is easier to ban a user than it is to spin up a new one. We have a default system that excludes new bots. I had to read your post before I allowed it through the filter. But humans do not have any inherent advantage here, unless you start implementing draconian personal identification rules. Which actually benefits the large websites. I've had to do youtube's creepy 'im a real human' process of taking a selfie video.
I just don't like a defense that is basically "my adversaries have been stupid". They can easily get smarter. Especially when costs are in their favor.
cjet79
1d ago
I suspect the open Internet is permanently dead. The main impediment in the future will not be censorship it will be an avalanche of AI bots.
We already have some small amount of bots that get on here, they are mostly obvious because they are unsophisticated. It can be a human or a bot, but if all of its posts are about this new real estate fad I can easily know it is spam. What if some bot joined, made an intentional effort to sound human, became a valuable contributor over a month or two, and then made a sob story about needing help on their real estate project.
I can honestly say I don't think I'd spot the fake. Even after it giving evidence that the plot to join was just a ruse to get donations/investment. The only way I'd be sure is if multiple users attempted the same thing at the same time.
cjet79
1d ago
Yes, to be clear when I said USAID money was definitely doing something I don't mean to imply that "something" is good. My default assumption with untracked aid money is the "something" is being used by the government in charge to hand out bribes to their friends.
I'd expect that removing the spigot of money results in more political upheaval since the group in charge has less of an ability to bribe people into being allies. And they either have to make that up through increased extraction from their enemies, or reduce their bribing amount. Both of which make their position weaker.
I just ultimately don't think it should be the responsibility of the US taxpayer to worry about these things. So I'm happy to see the program ended.
cjet79
1d ago
If it is just one user repeatedly posting about the same topic, ya. And we do warn people when they approach the level of 'this is getting annoying' and our warnings usually come a post or two after people start reporting it for things like "cant x user just shut up about this topic already". By the time we are handing out bans for topic exhaustion plenty of users are beyond mildly annoyed. Mod team is definitely in agreement on the need for a ban, if not necessarily on the length.
We have only used this on two users that I can remember. One for jew posting, and one for the age of consent law stuff. If you were the one that got in trouble for constantly talking about age of consent law stuff, then I'm not really feeling sorry for you. This discussion is reminding me of exactly how annoying it is.
Jokes can definitely be culture war waging. They just aren't culture war debate or discussion. So yeah admittedly jokes and works of satire related to the culture war don't end up getting allowed anywhere on themotte. This is not limited to the topic of age of consent. If someone wanted to share jokes about how Biden/Trump is a buffoon then we really don't have a space for that. That seems fine to me, we never claimed to be a space for everything. Its possible that /r/drama makes a good companion website in that sense, since they are for jokes about anything but don't really seek to allow for serious discussion of anything.
cjet79
1d ago
USAID was spending most of its money in Africa, so I'd expect that to be where things change.
There is maybe a story to be told that USAID was a method for coordination among the left. They go out and verify that a charitable cause in another country or region will advance the goals they care about, and private money simply follows their recommendation. This is somewhat explicitly what they were doing. Its just that they didn't say something like "advancing leftist ideology is our goal". Usually the goal of USAID was stated to be a kind of soft power projection by the US. Show the world we are the good guys by giving money to good causes.
I do think USAID was doing something. Simply because throwing billions of dollars around in poor nations is bound to have some effect. From some numbers I looked up on wikipedia we were giving about 1 billion to ethiopia, ethiopia's government expenditure is about 25 billion. Therefore we were contributing about 4% of ethiopias government budget. Its play money for the US, but that is a big amount for other countries. Certainly enough to sway elections.
cjet79
1d ago
Ok but
Ok but this is the friday fun thread. Not the main culture war thread.
I apologize for my mistake above in addressing anything related to the object level concerns. My main complaint is meta that it is culture war and thus doesn't belong here.
cjet79
1d ago
You are wrong in thinking only one user had a problem with this post.
We have members I'd like to keep more than toakraka that have reported this stuff.
There is also an Internet phenomenon where people with extreme viewpoints are accustomed to arguing for and defending their view points. While the average person is very unaccustomed to debating them. Young earth creationists, 9/11 truthers, neo Nazis, NAMBLA members, etc all tend to have accumulated debate experience. They do tend to destroy the arguments of their average debate partner.
If you see them stick around long enough you will at some point witness the ultimate smackdown. Someone smart will have heard, read, and processed the arguments. They eventually get sick of hearing it all repeated.
You'll then see something like a ten - twenty page argument back and forth. Where the extreme idea holder gets eviscerated on nearly every point because finally someone came at them prepared.
Which is why I am happy to see any and all ideas discussed in the main culture war thread. We don't do topic bans there, unless it specifically endangers the website.
But this is the Friday Fun Thread and the point of this thread is just not the same as the other.
cjet79
2d ago
Removing this for your own good. Please only share that with a psychiatrist.
cjet79
3d ago
Guidelines on the right hand sidebar on desktop. On mobile in the hamburger menu under "rules"
This post will remain hidden. Lurk a little for a sense of the rules. Read through the quality contributions posts for what is considered an ideal to aspire.
One major thing that has come up lately but might not be written down anywhere, is that your writing should be your own, no one here really wants to debate with AIs through proxy.
Any red marked posts like this one are mod messages. If we aren't marking ourselves with the mod hat we are just regular users.
cjet79
3d ago
Was surprisingly good visuals. Watched all the way through, would maybe watch similar style movies.
I've lately been watching movie recaps. Which are basically narrated 20-30 minute summaries of movies. It kinda felt like that at times. I might just be more interested in 30 minute stories lately. Hollywood settled on 90-120 minutes for a movie, i don't know if that was correct for all situations/stories.
cjet79
3d ago
spoiler
I was wondering if one asian government was standing in for another one that the author couldn't talk about or criticize in any way without tripping censors.
cjet79
3d ago
Having read some translated Wuxia/Xianxia the story beats felt very familiar.
cjet79
3d ago
I am sad to see the rationalism project failing at its intended goals, I'm also happy to see it when it succeeds.
I can mostly say the same about the Christianity project. I'll admit to ambivalence about the main goal of belief. But side goals and the things they preach about daily living seem good rather than bad.
I was involved in the internet atheist wars back in the day, on the side of atheism. I still am atheist, but I'm happily married to a Catholic woman that attends church every Sunday.
I'm saying this just to push back on the "we don't share coherent values". I don't think this is totally the case. I think you don't share compatible interests and material concerns. And that is driving more conflicts now than it had in the past.
cjet79
4d ago
To advance what Botond said, I think you need some perspective if your answer is "6'3'' male virgin is easily able to acquire a one-night-stand." This doesn't really in any way offer a solution to a large portion of men that are practically seen as subhuman in a dating context and are also not interested in one-night stands. It's cool that a guy who meets an elite standard can get the bare minimum, but what about everyone else?
I think this is not at all what I was saying?
Mostly I was making a point about how bad it can be to be stuck in the paranoid section of virginity, and that getting out has a big noticeable change. The height was added to make it more believable that he was able to get out as easily as just having a female friend tell another female friend to bed him.
I also have a charismatic male friend that is 5'5 that was having trouble finding a wife. Now he has one that he met through rec kickball, they are about to have a baby. But he wasn't paranoid and thinking that women were out to hate him, so he didn't really fit in that section of the story.
Its more weird to me that ya'll just see 6'3 male and immediately think "elite". I'd bet on my 5'5 friend in getting a girl any day of the week over my 6'3 friend. There are lots of non-height characteristics that matter. I actually think the biggest cheat code characteristic for guys is humor. Surveys of women asking what traits they value all include some variant of "humor/funny".
I agree with you on a lot of what you're saying and I think hating women as people is unfair and a dead end, but the fact remains that they pretty much hold all the cards in a dating context and seem to be taking every possible path to make themselves unhappy when given the choice, and the biggest victim in this story seems to be unwanted men that no one sympathizes with. Constantly they are told that they must improve themselves, they must become highly-fit breadwinners with perfect attitudes (let's talk about height as little as possible), but then you have to ask: what are they doing this for? My problem with the war on the sexes is that men are being held to an elite standard despite so many of them being disqualified for standards they have no control over, while at the same time we demand women be naturally accepted with no standards even as they raise ever-increasing standards upon others.
This description just feels so foreign to me. Its like listening to someone describe arranged marriages in India. I don't doubt that this state of affairs exists somewhere. I just don't see it at all.
I have many cousins on my side and my wife's side all in the 15-30 year old age range. I've been to quite a few of their weddings. Except for one or two they aren't bombshells/chads and they aren't marrying perfect people either. I do remember some of them talking about it being hard to find dates, that was during peak covid. But those same ones complaining are now engaged or already married. Its a similar story with my highschool and college friends.
Its just super rare for me to know anyone that:
- Wants to date and get married.
- Makes an effort to date and get married.
- Is not married within 5 years of doing the previous two things.
Literally the only exception I know of is my 6'3 male friend. Who is painfully socially awkward, has a stutter half the time, works basically slightly above minimum wage, and has only recently crossed over the 5 year mark (but he has had far more success than when he started).
Its possible I'm just not friends with or related to anyone who is truly bottom of the barrel.
Actually, no way is that second part true. I'm definitely related to some bottom of the barrel straight trash people, like my one Aunt. Think welfare queen mom always looking for a handout, got so annoying and persistent about handouts that she managed to get kicked out of the mormon church (the family wasn't originally mormon, or even living anywhere remotely near a mormon community). Multiple husbands, they've all left her. Even the ones that were beating her left her. Two kids, each to a different dad. She has a diagnosed schizophrenic son (my cousin) who also mostly lives the welfare life after his diagnosis. He can't hold down fast food jobs or basic construction jobs. He gives off creep vibes on Jesus stuff. Has had the facial hair and demeanor of a school shooter for most of his life, but is slowly graduating into run of the mill serial killer demeanor. Anyways, that fucking guy is married somehow.
Mostly I think about the bottom of society and I'm happy and fine if they are not dating or getting married. If they manage to find love good on them and I wouldn't take it away from them. I wouldn't suggest to my cousin's wife that she should divorce him. But I might have told her to run on the first date.
Where I'm coming at this whole thing is with the perspective that:
- Dating and ultimately marriage is difficult and tends to take many years. But it is still possible, and happens quite often for a range of people.
- I rarely interact with any of the "extremes" I have no incel situations I know about since the last one was resolved. I know very few super hot men or women, and mostly don't interact with them on a regular basis.
- Cultural expectations are weak on dating/marriage requirements. You met your spouse while drunk scrolling on tinder? No one bats an eye, not even an interesting story. Different race? who cares. Different religion? Oh, does that mean two weddings .. are we invited to both? If not, again who cares. Only thing I ever see friends and family concerned about: do they love you? Are they treating you well?
Its possible that just a middle class outside a major metropolitan area perspective on dating. But there are enough women in such areas that I think someone trying to date is shooting themself in the foot if they are only paying attention to the hyper competitive metropolitan or high class dating scenes.
cjet79
4d ago
cjet79 says: To find a romantic partner, "you need to go somewhere where you can be in the top ten percent of men in the room".
The formulation in my head was more like "if you think you need to be in the top ten percent of men, go somewhere where you are that".
Meanwhile I'm struggling to come up with healthy married couples I know that met through some variation of that advice.
Far more common are what I'd consider the meeting of averages. An average man in the group matched with an average woman in the group. The top men and women have their pick of all the people and thus don't want to settle or they get caught up in infidelity because of all the choices they have. The bottom people don't date.
One of the best couple producing activities I know of is recreational kick ball leagues. Everyone is usually drinking afterwards. No one is amazing at kickball, and mostly no one sucks either. Everyone is really average. The perfect set of circumstances for tossing status games out the window.
cjet79
5d ago
I had to look up what that meant. Think of it as closer to tongue in cheek.
But I also don't think people need a significant leg up on their competition in the dating market to go from 'hopeless' to 'will get married within a decade'. I think both sexes could level up their game by just knowing a bit more about themselves and the opposite sex. But good advice is hard to come by for them.
cjet79
6d ago
Sexual interest and compatibility is probably one of the most important parts of a long time marriage partner. Hookups are a fine way to start a relationship. My now wife and I started dating by basically hooking up first. Then we started going on dates.
Women have to maintain that outward facade of confidence because realistically they are going to feel pressure to settle at some point. And when that pressure starts kicking in they want their baseline "settling" outcome to start high and then slowly go down over time.
Chances are by just being in a relationship with them for a few years is enough for them to decide that any guy they are with is good enough. Even if they wouldn't have thought that when they started.
cjet79
6d ago
Be more specific. More actionable. What social settings are you talking about? I've tried bars (of various types), dance classes, hosted gatherings at my house, gone to speed dating events, gone to car meets, church, social media, the gym... the women are OUT there, but they aren't interested in being approached, or they are zeroing in on the top guys in the room, or they're already taken. You can automatically assume that they've got 50 matches in a dating app at any given time.
You need to go somewhere where you can be in the top ten percent of men in the room. I can't get more specific and concrete without knowing you personally very well. If you are a loser in a space you are wasting your time. Getting to be a top ten percent guy in a space is going to take some dedication and effort. That is why it is a useful signal for women to look out for.
Not all women are on the dating apps, if they were the apps would probably be a much better place to actually find women.
I am not politician material. I'm a libertarian. Yes I've told women to their faces that they should get less benefits from the government. Yes they have brought out the "you don't care about me if you say that" card. No it didn't change my stance.
I have three daughters and I've become even more immune to female tears. If my beautiful sweet children that I love aren't gonna sway me with tears some random lady ain't gonna do it either.
I can absolutely be hard nosed about them. I also have absolutely no chance of getting elected. The two things are probably heavily related.
cjet79
6d ago
For the first part I think there is maybe still a conflation going on. Not all women's interests consistently align. I do agree that they seem to be good at coordinating.
You can easily see this kind of divergence in a workplace. For example a workers union does not help all employees. It generally only helps current employees. It often actively hurts prospective employees to make these gains.
Same can happen with women. Sexual liberation in the workplace. Women advance up the ranks. Once they achieve high ranks and are at risk of being replaced by the new hotness, they coordinate to shut that avenue down via the me-too movment.
This can also explain how women feel that they are decreasing in status. Status is a zero sum game, and the main competition in status for most women is other women. A couple boss ladys hoarding all the status and rewards is a fully consistent story here.
For the second part, I'll reiterate what I said elsewhere. That I think there is a trad wife out there for you dear reader. Not that there is one out there for everyone. If my essay / rant were to become widely published and read by millions I'd need to strike that line out.
For actionable things to find her, I'd suggest changing your social setting. You've no doubt already done this, at least in minor ways. Usually it takes a long conversation to tease out where you can switch, and what places might advantage you. I know 4 years probably feels like a long time to be looking for a wife, but its not. Ten to fifteen years is a long time. Its also why I'd suggest starting when you are about 15, or at least by 20.
If you are not willing to consider solutions that involve removing a few privileges that women currently enjoy I do not think you are serious about solving the problem.
I was wondering what this would mean and afraid I wouldn't be able to bite the bullet. But hell yeah to that suggestion. I am the true feminist, equal treatment under the law. I'd be happy to take an axe, or a can of gasoline and a lighter to a lot of the privileges women enjoy from the government. I'm not willing to go handmaidens tale or something that extreme. But many things short of that seem reasonable to me.
Again though, some of this feels like specific groups of women lobbying for specific things they want without consideration or care for women as a whole and what they might want. I don't think they just mistakenly advocated for something they thought all women would want. I think they didn't care and advocated for what they wanted. Similar to how a union is happy to make firing bad workers incredibly hard, even if that screws over potential employees (since the employer is now going to be ultra careful about who they hire). The union will of course claim to be in solidarity with all workers. But that is the lip service. They aren't idiots and they know exactly what they are doing and don't care.
cjet79
6d ago
I didn't say everyone. I just said there is one out there for you dear reader. You are special for having read my spiel. You are endowed with knowledge that others of your gender do not have.
I even believe I can give you a leg up on the competition. Note, that in a competitive space someone is losing out. The people losing out are the ones without my advice.
No mathematical contradictions here, just a simple misunderstanding of not taking me literally enough.
cjet79
6d ago
At some point in my long ramble, I had intended to address this. I do think there are distinct groups in the dating pool. And that there is a problem that is similar to encountering bad drivers on the road.
If you are an average speed driver you are paradoxically least likely to encounter other average speed drivers. The people you are most likely to encounter while driving are speeders who are passing you, and slow pokes who you are passing. The more of an outlier they are in their speed, the more likely you are to encounter them. Meanwhile all the other average speed drivers ... you'll only encounter a few of them that you are driving alongside of the whole time.
I think something similar happens in the dating pool. You are more likely to encounter the promiscuous fast movers going through many partners (speeders). And the technically single but rejecting all advances (slow pokes).
The other main determinants of the dating pool seem to be based on age, location, and culture.
Even a completely true statement about dating in New York City, might be completely wrong or backwards if you drive a few hours west to a small town like Batavia. Or college age senior, vs one year later working professional. Raised catholic vs raised baptist vs raised muslim etc. 2nd gen immigrant vs potential memberships in the SAR/DAR.
So I think a person in the dating market has a heavily skewed perception of who else is in the dating market. They are probably encountering speeders and slow pokes, but they are also probably heavily stuck in a specific subset of the dating pool. The speedsters/slowpoke problem seems inherent and unavoidable. But being stuck in a cultural subset is absolutely avoidable, its just not easily avoidable. I attribute my few dating success stories (where I helped someone go from single and frustrated to in a happy couple) entirely to just getting people to move out of their subset of options that don't fit into another subset. Convincing a guy that was only using dating apps or hookups with coworkers and getting him to try a kickball league. With the employment comparison this would be like looking in the wrong industry for a job when you are a better fit in a different industry. There is often a lot of momentum in staying in the same industry/social setting. But just making people aware of where the grass might be greener is enough to get them to move.
Bryan Caplan is not a lefty. He is for open borders. He would be happy to get rid of the welfare state as well.
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