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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   939 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for January 1, 2025

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Long-time Motte / ACX / rat-adjacent lurker here. I am hoping to get some input from some of the many pro-family posters on the Motte to help me get out an increasingly deep rut I've found myself stuck in.

The general thrust of my thoughts is that I assign a high probability to my access to status and resources becoming much worse in the near future. I've thought about what this means for my previously held desire to enter a relationship and form a family and have come to some undesirable conclusions.

The most salient information about me:

  • Mid twenties, lower-middle class background
  • Midwit remote tech worker, upper-mid 6 figure net worth

Why I believe that the future is quite grim:

  • The current state of AI, while unlikely to cause 30%+ structural employment or ASI FOOM imo, seems likely to commoditize the majority of intellectual labor within one or two decades
  • For the subset of middle tier work where AI may not be capable of performing economically, unrestricted immigration policies and flight from the intellectual jobs seems likely to crush the income and working conditions of the remaining jobs
  • This means that the only real paths to accessing resources and status are going to be to either be sufficiently Elite Human Capital so as to be granted access to the moneyed class, or be born into money i.e the west economically becomes South Korea
  • As I'm not intelligent enough to win my way into increasingly narrow paths into the elite nor born into the upper class it then seems likely that my personal access to status and resources is going to plummet

It's well litigated on the Motte why South Korean TFR is rock bottom, but given this is how I model the future of the western world to look like as well, I also find myself struggling to justify forming a family under these conditions. Below are some scattered thoughts.

  • While it's often claimed that singledom is a luxury good, I think it's quite likely that a relationship and family would be a net negative on my resources
  • As I currently spend underneath the poverty line, I can probably eke out a low-status low-resource lifestyle for myself if single, even in most of the non-apocalyptic worst case scenarios
  • I think this probably goes out of the window with a family, any potential partner of mine would either have less resources than me and rely on me to provide, or be roughly in my economic bracket and would desire a much higher standing of living, even before the fairly significant expenses of childrearing
  • This is not a huge problem in a world where I can obtain above average resources through my labor, but is very stressful to contemplate when it's unlikely I'll accrue the neccessary capital to support an entire family
  • Attempting to do so has the real risk of compromising my own ability to maintain the neccessary capital to stay alive, which makes me anxious about whether such a huge sacrifice is worth it

  • Similarly to South Korea I expect the lives of children to become much worse than now, a striver rat race for largely zero-sum access to status and resources that I'd be largely powerless to protect my children from
  • The alternative is a low-status low-resource life, and from my upbringing I'm well aware of how fundamentally awful a low-status low-resource existence can be
  • While I am personally non-conformist enough to tolerate such a lifestyle in the event labor becomes devalued, I'm not sure I can accept the repugnant conclusion that it's better for my children to live barely tolerable lives of suffering rather than to not exist at all

To be clear, I would prefer not to hold these views - I want to be someone that is optimistic for the future and that is capable of providing for a happy family, but this seems increasingly out of reach for me based on how the world is trending.

TLDR: please try to convince this highly neurotic autist that either

a) current middle-class access to status and resources is unlikely to diminish within my lifetime.

b) a committed relationship and family formation is still worth pursuing even with severely diminished access to status and resources.

Similarly to South Korea I expect the lives of children to become much worse than now, a striver rat race for largely zero-sum access to status and resources that I'd be largely powerless to protect my children from

Semi-skilled blue collar work may be unglamorous but it pays a living wage. This is an effective floor on what you can access- and the deal keeps getting better for these people. Don’t be dumb. If your kids have to go into the trades or the army that’s fine and fertility trends will ensure this isn’t too terrible of a deal. You can just not have your kids do the extreme striver rat race.

Remember, the US is quite literally the wealthiest society in human history. The floor for competent people is quite high, even if you’re not the best of the best.

Semi-skilled blue collar work may be unglamorous but it pays a living wage. .... Remember, the US is quite literally the wealthiest society in human history.

This is true as of right now, but I'm not convinced that it will still be true in my child's generation. It seems likely some combination of AR/VR, robotics and immigration will eventually come for these jobs too, although definitely slower than white-collar ones. As I mentioned in my other comment though, it does seem unlikely that both blue-collar work can be economically unviable and that the west is insufficiently prosperous to keep everyone fed and housed at least, so I should probably be less neurotic on that point.

You can just not have your kids do the extreme striver rat race.

I think this is directionally true, but I think it's generally very difficult to suppress the instinct to want to give your children everything you can.

In some ways it was easier for my parents because they barely had anything and thus considered keeping me alive and out of prison a success, but now I have some level of optionality it's really hard to suppress the instinct that I should provide for my children as much as humanly possible. I suppose I did turn out wildly beyond my father's expectations despite everything so perhaps I should be less concerned about this.

Thanks for responding, you've given me some things to consider.

I mean, that’s fair- you want your kids to turn out well.

But PMC strivers seem to turn out badly? They’re miserable and lonely. Who says human flourishing has to be determined by the numbers in your bank account or the trips you take? America is a wealthy enough society that being mediocre is still getting by very well. There’s no need for a rat race to be in the top 5% when it ruins the rest of your life.

But PMC strivers seem to turn out badly?

While I agree that the QoL floor for someone reasonably competent in the West is in absolute terms a good deal, it seems quite obvious to me that the winners of the PMC striver game live, on average, relatively superior lives to those who lose such games and that this disparity is likely to increase with time. Real wages have been flat for decades in most industries, pretty much only PMC's have actually seen notable real wage growth. The fact that most people have decent lives is because the absolute pie of American prosperity is so large, not because they're getting similar percentages that they got in the past.

  • Working conditions are generally better for successful strivers: while the process of getting there is perhaps unenviable, there's many winners who end up in highly paid sinecures while the losers end up serving at the pleasure of their bosses in much worse conditions.
  • Those numbers in your bank account, even if never used for consumption, represent a level of material security that most people don't have access to. The modal American is fucked if they get a cancer diagnosis and can't work for a year: this isn't as much of a problem for a PMC with enough money to live off savings while doing chemo, and enough human capital to find another job after having sat out of the labour market for some time.
  • While I think luxury and conspicuous consumption is highly overrated, there's many life improvements resistant to the hedonic treadmill that are disproportionately available to the PMC class e.g positional access to real estate to improve the commute, outsourcing unpleasant labour, and access to elective healthcare procedures. While some of these will become more accessible as productivity improves, positionally desirable land and access to the time of other people is always going to be zero-sum and disproportionately available to those with more resources and status.
  • Status, while ghoulish to chase for its own sake, is instrumentally important: access to higher quality people and ability to influence the world is arguably even more important in a society that is likely to become more and more productive.

Yes, it's possible to over-optimize for striving: the stereotypical divorced and obese multi-millionaire MD is a sad outcome that I'd highly prefer to avoid. At the same time, it's not like the average non-striver is particularly happy or surrounded by friends in this atomised society we've created for ourselves, and there's plenty of strivers that end up rich and still have happy lives and families outside of work.

Perhaps you're right and the juice will eventually be no longer worth the squeeze: competition gets so high that it's no longer worth it to compete, and the losers still get tolerable lives in the end. That doesn't change the fact that the winners will enjoy the spoils and the proles won't.

It's good you're at least thinking about whether you want marriage and family in your mid twenties, rather than trying to ignore and put off the question as sometimes happens.

Midwit remote tech worker, upper-mid 6 figure net worth

Materially, you are better off than the vast majority of people who have ever lived. Maybe the next generation will do worse, maybe not, but unless something really apocalyptic happens, they will still be materially well off by historical standards. Even if you have to retrain into a more working class job, that's not the end of the world, or even your world. If you have a good and reasonable wife, she will work with you on whatever ends up happening. My father was a not particularly successful night baker and then cook, despite having a college degree from the 70s; these things happen. He still didn't have a bad life, and got to indulge his intellectual preferences in his books clubs and with his family.

I don't necessarily practice what I preach, but you and your (potential) family aren't simply pawns in the games of elites, but also actors who are subtly pushing civilization in some direction, to be determined by your own values. Shall we let the machines do all the email jobs, and pay other people to walk each others' dogs and raise each other's children? That seems like kind of a silly economy, but I'm sure I have ancestors who were household servants, and I guess if that's what my grandkids are doing, it's not ideal, but basically acceptable. Shall we enlist in the Butlerian Jihad? I'd rather not (and wouldn't be able to do much of the work), but it's probably better than just kind of giving up. Shall we join a cult in Alaska? Maybe! I had some friends who were doing something like that, and they formed this beautiful a cappella choir that was touring the country and some other countries, singing everywhere. Maybe it's worth joining a cult to wander around creating random acts of choral music! Yesterday, I visited Saint Anthony's Monastery in Florence, Arizona. They have 50 monks from all over the world, making an unusually beautiful monastery in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. They planted a new olive orchard, and built a small aviary. They won't have children, but it's so interesting that they're doing that, and the grounds are so beautiful! They have these Byzantine style mosaic icons with quarter inch glass tesserae. I want to be able to do that! They're so beautiful, and will continue to be beautiful for perhaps hundreds of years. Perhaps I should plant grape vines this spring, and a new apricot tree.

These are half baked thoughts, which I don't have energy to develop further just now. Basically, living a certain kind of constrained lower middle class knowledge worker lifestyle is probably just a tiny blip, sure, but you and your potential family can outlive it, and find other interesting and potentially beautiful things to do, even with a rather dull and low status day job.

Thank you: this was a beautiful post, I feel it has helped me a fair bit.

Materially, you are better off than the vast majority of people who have ever lived. Maybe the next generation will do worse, maybe not, but unless something really apocalyptic happens, they will still be materially well off by historical standards.

You're absolutely right, and I should make efforts to be more grateful for this. I'll confess I have some anxieties around being forced into poverty from being brought up by parents who grew up "third world poor" without adequate nutrition or modern healthcare and who passed down very similar anxieties. Rationally I do agree that outside of the really apocalyptic timelines I cannot control neither I nor my family are ever going to experience that sort of real material deprivation.

Even if you have to retrain into a more working class job, that's not the end of the world, or even your world.

This is true as well. I think it's easy to get caught up as thinking of your job title as your identity in modern society: internally I can't deny that a lot of my identity is centered around being a "tech guy", which is probably something I should work on. It does seem likely to me that either "I'm not competitive in the blue-collar labour market" or "my current capital is insufficient to support my family" are possible outcomes, but if I'm no longer fit to unclog a toilet likely society will be wildly productive enough to keep my children fed and housed at least.

Yesterday, I visited Saint Anthony's Monastery in Florence, Arizona

I looked up some pictures, and it really does look sublime. I'd like to visit some day as well, life permitting.

find other interesting and potentially beautiful things to do, even with a rather dull and low status day job

I think I would be happy if my children could find something they wanted to do, even if that does end up being joining a cult or a monastery. My father considered his job complete if I survived to eighteen having been fed three meals a day and without a criminal record, perhaps I need to take some lessons from him.

The new SSC post looks like something you would be interested in, even if it doesn't address family formation directly.

I did read it, but didn't find it too interesting. Speculating about space colonisation post-singularity is so far out of society's current frame of reference it feels largely like navel gazing. I find myself more concerned with the more realistic short-term outcomes that might occur.

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