haroldbkny
15d ago
I want to agree with you, but after a lifetime of feeding my animalistic brain porn and more porn, I kinda think porn may be better than sex, at least in some ways. I feel worse after porn, but it's much easier to reach similar levels of sex-high with porn then with real sex. Porn allows your idealized image of sex to dominate, vs the actual thing which is limited by real social interactions and physical sensations. I'm currently trying to ween myself off of porn, in the hopes that doing so will make sex easier and more pleasurable, but it's really hard to do. I've had mixed results so far.
Note: I'm on anti depressants, and have been for decades, which may totally blow my whole equation out of the water. They seem to make it very difficult for me to feel sexual pleasure, especially during sex as opposed to watching porn. So everything I wrote here may not apply to others.
haroldbkny
3d ago
Ah, I see. Well, that makes more sense, then.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
In non-Trump news, I have some new data on revealed preferences. I live in a pretty leftist place, and my employer recently made a switch for about half of the non-single occupancy bathrooms on each floor to be gender neutral. What's interesting is that this has resulted in women completely abandoning those bathrooms. Shortly after the switch, I even saw a number of women about to go in the former women's rooms, realize that they're now gender neutral, and reverse course to presumably go find an actual women's room. Some female coworkers mentioned to me that they like trans people and "have trans friends", but don't like the bathroom change. I guess I like this change, because it's effectively increased the number of men's rooms, since no women want to use the former women's rooms. So make of this revealed preference data what you will.
One bad aspect of this is that they've covered over the urinals in the former men's rooms. I asked my wife if she would care if there's a urinal in a bathroom she was using, and she said that she wouldn't like it, because she doesn't want to see a guy's dick. I guess women don't know that you can't really see dicks of someone using a urinal unless you specifically look around their body to try to see it.
haroldbkny
15d ago
Not sure I understand what you mean. Or maybe you misunderstood what I meant. I didn't mean, like, the chance of getting laid with a new partner is slim, I haven't had to deal with that for decades either. I just meant that your sense of how hot the sex is (which to me makes a big difference in how pleasurable the sex actually is) is entirely dependent on the other person and potentially conflicting desires or awkward interactions. As opposed to how you can just find porn exactly as you want it at the click of a button.
haroldbkny
15d ago
For almost a decade I have worked two days a week and I have never been happier or ironically more successful.
What do you do?
I really don't know if what Trump and Musk are doing is good or right, and I'm far from Trump's ardent defender and fan, but I also don't think it's that ridiculous what they're doing. They're using the big tech playbook, which is what Musk is used to. Slash budgets, break stuff, and the stuff that's really needed will become apparent as a result. It's what people who want to actually make change and make their companies better will do, not what people who want to preserve the status quo at any cost. (Read: it's what actual businesses do, not governments, because businesses care about cutting out waste, and governments don't really).
Maybe it's completely the wrong tactic to take. Maybe that playbook should never be employed for government because the programs are too important to have even a temporary gap. I don't know what the right answer is. But it's certainly interesting that they're trying something so unique. Where every other politician has claimed to want to make changes and failed to do so, this strategy might succeed, because it's never been tried before in government.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
This is really interesting. I'm not pro-Trump and I'm not anti-Trump, but I am anti-anti-Trump. But I will say that this sort of thing unnerves me a little bit.
Trump is clearly used to wheelin' n' dealin' big business, callin' the shots, callin' the bluffs, making bluffs, making quick decisions based on gut instinct and an innate knowledge of human behavior and (company) politics. People just aren't used to this in the POTUS. For most politicians, everything needs to be carefully carefully considered, because the cost of a mistake could be not just that quarterly profits are down, but rather global catastrophe.
I admire that Trump is willing to try this out for the US, and maybe it's what we need in some ways to get us to prosperity, but I also fear this and the consequences of what happens when a nation who's more dangerous calls his bluffs and his tactics. He could be doing the right thing by trying these tactics, or it could be sheer insanity and the result of putting someone in a position they're not really the right person for. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
This is a small question, not a huge discussion topic.
Is there a term for groups or factions hiding behind their name as a shield, as opposed to what their group actually does? As an example, feminists will say that all women should be in favor of feminism, because feminism just means "supporting women's choices" or something benign. But in actuality, feminism really means supporting specific women in specific ways - many women don't like abortion advocacy, sexual liberation, and all of the things that actually goes along with feminism. I used to joke that I am a "goodist", which is in support of things that are good. And when people donate to goodism, we'd use it to fund very specific libertarian or anti feminist causes, or something.
I remember thinking about this concept back in my anti-sjw heyday of 2014 a lot, but I can't remember if there is a term for it. This is related to, but not entirely described by "motte and bailey", such that I think it should have it's own name, if it doesn't.
This is coming up for me now, because I'm seeing people post things like a meme that says "do you realize how insane it is to publicly announce that you don't want diversity, equity, and inclusion?" in response to Trump
haroldbkny
4mo ago
I've spent the last 15 years telling leftists who want to "tear down the system" how much that's a terrible idea, because when the system is torn down, tens of thousands of people die. I think there was some SSC post about this but I can't find it. I think it's beneficial to remember that tearing down the system is bad when the right wants to do it, just as when the left wants to do it. Now, defining what constitutes tearing down the system vs cleaning house and getting rid of waste and cruft may be the next place this argument would go, and I don't know any really good answers for that.
haroldbkny
4mo ago
I may be naive or simply out of the loop and not following what's going on with DOGE this month vs last, but is the point to actually defund science? Or is the point to "break stuff", in order to stress-test the system and find out what's actually important, so that we can then focus on just the important stuff, while cutting out the stuff that was previously being funded but not likely to help anything? Basically, by downscaling, the stuff that's actually important will come forward and be made apparent, so we can continue to fund it. That's at least what I thought they were trying to achieve.
I'm not saying what DOGE is doing is correct, or that they're actually managing to successfully achieve the goal of cutting out only the waste. But I see a lot of people saying that DOGE no longer wants the US to do science research, and I guess I just doubt that that is actually true.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
One thing that really irritates me and makes me have less regard for economics as a study is that no one can agree on the cause of the great depression. Some people say FDR saved us, some people say he made it worse and was the real reason it went on so long. There are so many theories that completely contradict each other. If economists can't figure that out, I have no faith in their ability to make predictions in our time.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
I'm asking because I'd love to be in an industry that's more normal than tech: what are normal jobs that have that hiring routine, in your experience? Are we talking like working in a construction site, being a teacher, being a librarian, working as an accountant, all of the above?
haroldbkny
5mo ago
Although, I can see it now:
"Musk gives doublehanded Nazi salute, showing that he intends to be twice as evil as the Nazis ever were!"
haroldbkny
8mo ago
Has anyone noticed how much vitriol there is towards AI-generated art? Over the past year it's slowly grown into something quite ferocious, though not quite ubiquitous. I'm starting to feel (almost) as if it's outside the overton window to admit to using or liking AI art. Like I said, it's not ubiquitous, but maybe it's getting there. Pretty much any thread I ever see that features AI art (outside of specialty groups devoted to AI interest) has many vocal detractors accusing AI art of being trash and stealing from real artists.
While my mind is not fully made up on the issue of whether AI art is "good", if you ask me, I wouldn't say that it's bad that AI learns from "stealing" from artists. Honestly, ask absolutely anyone who's learned anything creative: learning art is all about learning how to steal from people. I know it's not completely analogous, but I don't personally believe that it should be bad for AI to learn by stealing while it's okay for human artists to learn by stealing.
More than anything, I'm kinda surprised there's this strong sentiment, and willingness to call out AI art and its proponents as being some sort of evil in the world. Maybe it's mostly because people get off on being judgy these days, and believing they have some sort of moral high ground, and less that they actually care about artists? I'm not sure, but I would have thought the Butlerian Jihad would have started for something more severe than art.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
I only hope that this time around there's much less of the "not quite lying, but fudging the truth to such a degree that it makes me feel like I'm going crazy". Examples of this include the media acting like Trump installing his own staff into the white house was unprecedented and all ran shock stories about how Trump just fired everyone (even though that happens every presidency), and also when they said that Trump made rape a preexisting condition. The media whipped everyone into a frenzy about everything Trump did, even the most anodyne stuff, and spun it all in the worst possible light. Even if Trump isn't more effective this time, I just hope that people are sick of the media BS and that they do not start doing this sort of dishonest tactic again.
haroldbkny
5mo ago
Libs did try to resist Trump after his first election, believing he was illegitimate, didn't win the popular vote, needed tk be impeached over Russia, Stormy Daniels, etc.
It is refreshing that I no longer hear this stuff anymore. Leftists have now accepted that Trump won legitimately for his second term, and no one seems to be doubting that he is the rightful president. Instead it's a lot of "I can't believe people voted for this". But I consider that a lot better then the constant refusal that he is the rightful president, because all of the investigations and doubts really did prevent Trump from fully having the power last time. It was one witch hunt after another, causing everyone left of Jeb Bush to really internalize that it's a virtue to resist Trump on every level. I think the lack of question to his legitimacy this time will make things different this time around, for what it's worth.
haroldbkny
4mo ago
Just curious: why do you want to be in America instead of the UK? If I had no family or friends in America (maybe you do, I'm just assuming you don't), I think I'd be equally happy here or in the UK. I might even prefer to UK for some reasons.
There's purely one reason why I don't take societal collapse seriously. People have been saying society's about to collapse for my entire life, I cannot think of a single time in my life when people weren't saying that, and it never happened. And quite frankly, I got sick of worry about that sort of thing about 15 years ago. That's not to say it can't happen, but I've basically been chicken little'd out of the game.
I agree with your main premise, but a nitpick:
For a long time, people considered the Turing Test the gold standard for AI. Later, better benchmarks were developed, but for most laypeople with a passing familiarity with AI, the Turing Test meant something.
I'm not really sure that's true. The Turing Test has been passed in some form or another since 1966, with ELIZA, and I also remember various chat bots on AOL instant messenger doing the same back in the early 2000s. I think that people realized quickly that the Turing test is just a novelty, something thought up by Turing in the early days of computer science that seemed relevant but was quickly proven not to be, and that various technologies could beat it.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
I wrote last week about how my circle was reacting poorly to the Trump win, but also how their reaction wasn't as bad as 2016. My latest update is, it's still pretty bad, probably worse than it was last week, but still not quite as bad as 2016. But I'm starting to get that feeling again like I'm the crazy one, simply on the basis that everyone I know in meatspace seems to think a complete disaster has befallen us. Furthermore, I think I need to retract my previous statement that my exposure to this strong sentiment is because I went to a very leftist college. I'm now seeing a lot more of this from people who I know outside of that school.
I have a number of people posting multiple times per day about some kind of issue du jour, ranging from high school boys chanting the Nick Fuentes thing, to screeds about how people will (literally) die due to Trump being in charge, for whatever reasons. And I spent the weekend with family and friends who wouldn't stop talking about it, also. It was a lot of signaling and complaining and without any real acknowledgement that over half of the country voted for Trump, including huge gains in lots of minority groups, and that maybe that means something.
So far, from a personal standpoint, this is not off to a good start, and I worry this next four years will be as personally trying as the previous four, with regards to my ability to keep my cool and not feel like a crazy person when surrounded by those in my life and their insistent attitude about Trump. Personally this is starting to make me want future Democrat wins, but not because I believe in the Democrats. If the dems win, my life mostly stays the same. If the Republicans win, my life gets worse just because people around me can't deal with it. But I also can't bring myself to really take these people's fears seriously, since I do feel like this chicken little routine happens every time a Republican gets elected (from my limited experience), without the Republicans even doing anything that bad.
Are other people also seeing an escalating level of this sentiment? It seems maybe like the anti Trump machine had some rusty gears and a slow start, but it's starting to get going again.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
Yuppies, probably all between 25 and 38. Maybe it's something different about being a kid on a college campus vs being a yuppie in a professional environment.
I just heard what I think is a terrible atrocity (granted on the much milder-end of terrible atrocities) that no one seems to know or care about. Apparently Maryland requires that if you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea:
- you report it to the DMV
- you have to use a CPAP machine (edit: if that's your doctor's recommended treatment)
- your CPAP machine has to send data to the state showing that you're using it regularly for 70% of each night (edit: if CPAP is your doctor's recommended treatment)
Failure to do this will result in your driver's license being revoked.
This really makes my blood boil. I found out about this because my friend in Maryland is one such person affected by this, with her extremely mild case of sleep apnea (that probably 75% of Americans actually have). She didn't bother with or really need the CPAP, but now, the DMV found out, and is threatening to revoke her license, so she has no choice. Hell, I'm a person who's been diagnosed with very mild sleep apnea, but I chose to not use the CPAP machine, because I couldn't stand having an intrusive device strapped onto my face with tubes running on my bed, pushing air down my throat all night every night. Provided I didn't sleep on my back, I was completely fine, and I didn't need to use the device at all. Since then, I've lost weight, and I don't have sleep apnea anymore, or at least not as much, but I don't even know if they ever declare someone as "no longer having sleep apnea", or if I'd actually pass that threshold, or if the DMV would care. My only saving grace is that I don't live in Maryland, but man, this makes me so scared about what might come next, and how long I'll get to keep my driver's license for before this either comes to my state, or some other health-related driving restrictions start cropping up.
This seems like such rampant safetyism to me that it honestly makes me so angry, probably angrier than I should be. I guess this seems like such government overreach, much in the same way as covid restrictions. Except that these restrictions really could last forever, and expand to other states, and never go away, unlike the covid restrictions. Did Maryland honestly have rampant cases of drivers falling asleep because they were so tired from their sleep apnea that they needed to mandate an intrusive, ongoing, never-ending medical treatment to save people from crashing their cars? Does this help anyone at all, or were they just looking to do some security theater?
I really want to do something to fight this before it expands. Is this the sort of thing the ACLU would take up the fight for? Are there any organizations that would actually fund and spearhead a class action lawsuit for this sort of thing?
haroldbkny
11mo ago
The thing I really can't stand is that I've had hours long debates with feminists about legal paternal surrender, and they'll continue to employee the exact mirror-image rhetoric of "women should keep their legs shut", and they just don't get it (in my experiences). It just feels wrong to them to allow financial abortion, and they won't budge no matter how much one points out how much they sound like the traditionalists on the other side that they decry so much.
You might be right. I in no way think that it's evident that DOGE is taking good steps that will bring about positive change with certainty. But I'm just sick (as I have been since 2016) of people ascribing evil or stupid motives to Trump that he probably doesn't actually have.
Also, sort of a nitpick, but having been in companies that have taken the break stuff and downsize approach, losing money isn't the only, and certainly not the earliest, feedback signal leadership looks for in deciding what to reinstate. Applying pressure downwards by defunding stuff causes your reports to take the initiative to make a good case to you what is actually important, which does a lot of the legwork for the "serious investigations", and lets you apply your best judgement more easily.
How did this case come about to begin with? Is Texas just requiring the same sort of "age verification" that's existed since the 90s (the website says are you 18 and you click yes)? If so, how was it possibly worthwhile for FSC to sue over that?
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