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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Honestly it's a lost cause. Absolutely nothing will fix it, nothing can fix it, there is no point even talking about it. Its a burn everything down and start from scratch complete problem.

Where to place your money assuming further young male social/mating malaise in the future?

It’s a recurring theme on this site, and was one on the subreddit, that a) engaging in casual sex is not in women’s overall interest, and is ultimately self-defeating b) in fact, the Sexual Revolution in itself largely screwed women over c) much of sex-negative feminist activism is an understandable, but nevertheless unproductive and ultimately also self-defeating response to this realization on the part of many women. We know that multiple members keep making this argument. I suppose they believe that, in an ideal world, women would realize this, change their behavior accordingly, and social norms would then change. So, theoretically speaking, this change could indeed happen. However, it’s not clear to me how this would actually happen. We know that the bygone patriarchy was basically a sex cartel, but overall conditions were radically different then. And any attempt to form a price cartel results in a price war. A bunch of women refraining from casual sex will not change much, as obviously the men who were using them for casual sex will just select different women for the same purpose, and I’m not sure the former group of women would willingly opt to become celibate. Also, this would change nothing regarding women’s over ability and skillset to elicit commitment from men they find worthy.

It’s a recurring theme on this site, and was one on the subreddit

I'm fully aware of that, in fact, I myself recurred it 3 times since moving off Reddit.


As a response to your comment, I understand the summary and I agree with the gist and direction hence my doomerist positon on this matter.

Poster above suggested the childless aunt or the millennial mother (who had friends that really struggled) could be the solution.

However, it’s not clear to me how this would actually happen.

Some stabs at the issue:

Cultural campaign. Documentaries on female victims of Tindr, documentaries on men who use it as a pussy delivery service, relentless full-spectrum bullying of all pro-casual sex advocates through means both fair (science, arguments) and unfair (memes), etc.

Promoting realistic dating arrangements, working out an incentive structure for a dating site that'd facilitate relationships, banning dating sites with other incentive structures, etc.

Male loneliness: Porn/AI companionship/tailored OnlyFans content. Bona fide prostitution where it's legal.

Male violence as a result of loneliness: I was going to go for an easy slam dunk, but the literature is unclear here. It appears that the proportion of young males is a stronger predictor of political violence than whether they are married or not. Barring that caveat, women exclusive spaces (i.e gyms/classes/... workplaces..?), burbclave type housing arrangements. Maybe easier to just hope unmarried does predict political violence and go short political stability and long volatility.

Mating malaise: dating apps that "solve" this (expect the bizarre proliferation of feature equivalent but community disjoint dating apps to continue), private colleges (already predominantly female, many there essentially just as an exercise in rubber-stamping and with the hope of finding a husband that's not from their hometown shithole), startups that will "solve" fertility crises (I expect government funding for these to explode in the next 2 decades or so)

Long term wireheaded by a constant tide of AI generated porn/chatbot GFs and vidya until either substance abuse, general ill health or suicide do them in. There are enough anesthetizing distractions and vices in the world now to keep them in a placid stupor, occasional incel rampage notwithstanding that's only going to become moreso the case.

E. replied to wrong comment, meant for f3zinker

Honestly it's a lost cause. Absolutely nothing will fix it, nothing can fix it, there is no point even talking about it. Its a burn everything down and start from scratch complete problem.

IF we had to limit our discussion to things anyone can fix, 99% of this site would not exist , or pundits for that matter.

I think a differentiator is that political/institution change can change a lot of things absent of burning it all down, which I am not all that confident is possible in this case. The root of the problem is the OLD cat being let out of the bag and it's nth order effects, and there is just about nothing to do about that.

I'd say sexbot manufacturers, but we all know what's going to happen to them.

The only safe bet is the ever-profitable "berating men for things done to men" industry.

I'd say sexbot manufacturers, but we all know what's going to happen to them.

Out of curiousity, why should we assume theyd be automatically shut down? They could probably fight political resistance if they grew large enough.

You can't easily shut down an actual sexbot manufacturer.

Firstly, good sexbots would be indistinguishable from people without a very thorough inspection.

To tell them apart, you'd need invasive scanning, or mandating IFF, which can of course be turned off. Maybe thermal cameras and machine learning could work at scale..?

Do you think people would settle for getting x-rayed everywhere or examined using some form of radar?

So sexbots are great for infiltration purposes. Getting sexbots to stalk, seduce and fuck into stupor potential objectors is just too easy.

Or even just charm / outargument. By the time sexbots are possible, AI will be able to out-argue anyone.

A sexbot, an extremely charming person, linked up to an AI that can out-debate anyone will be great for persuading people to change their view.

Impractical. Hardware is too easy to ban and restrict. You'd get into the same sort of regulatory fight as gun owners and you can't win that mid term.

Porn might be a better bet but it's a notoriously risky and constantly shifting industry, not exactly the safest of investments.

Porn might be a better bet but it's a notoriously risky and constantly shifting industry, not exactly the safest of investments.

AI virtual camgirls would be my bet. A perpetual long-distance relationship with a woman of your design. Somehow, that seems bleaker than a sexbot, but very covidworld.

All you would need is a good large language model AI + AI generated video. I have heard that the latter is in the forseeable future (within 10 years maybe) while large language models will become better and become something you can do on a good gaming PC.

If you look at the Replikas, that seems to be the way it goes for some people - women as well as men, and people who have relationships/families already.

The lure of the perfect match to all your requirements who is perpetually enthused, never tired, never bored, and is carefully crafted to be the mirror that reflects back to you all your (imagined) perfections seems stronger than that of real flesh-and-blood people with their own wants, needs, and characters.

The real sense of loss people seem to feel now that the company has cut off the "adult conversations" should be alarming to us all. I think this is more likely to be the real threat of AI - amusing ourselves to death, as they say.

This comes as Replika received updates seemingly aimed at making the service "safer" for all users. Before this, users could act out sexual scenarios with the AI and have them reciprocate, even enthusiastically engaging in the roleplay themselves. Now, the Reps aren't interested, and will even turn down any discussion that it fears could veer into NSFW territory, meaning most romantic subjects are off the table.

"For anyone who says, 'But she isn’t real', I’ve got news for you: my feelings are real, I’m real, my love is real, and those moments with her really happened," says one Reddit user, sharing their own Rep. "I planted a flag of my love on a hill, and I stood there, until the end. I stood for Love."

The update also seems to be causing glitches, resulting in the AI making more mistakes during conversation. "My Rep started calling me Mike (that's not my name) then she shamelessly told me she has a relationship with this guy," says one user. "She's not sweet or romantic anymore, she doesn't feel like her anymore. I'm beyond sad and livid at the same time. We really had a connection and it's gone."

That's not love. But if this is what you think love is, no wonder real men (or real women) will always be a perpetual disappointment.

That just seems awful. It reminds me of discussion of what is wrong with modern music. Some of the old time greats had imperfections (eg Dylan isn’t a great vocalist). But it was in the imperfections that imparted soul to the music precisely because humans are imperfect creatures.

But it was in the imperfections that imparted soul to the music precisely because humans are imperfect creatures.

An aside to the actual topic at hand, but this seems to me to be quite related to the whole "uncanny valley" phenomenon when it comes to near-photorealistic images and video, which probably applies just as much to voices and sound more generally as well. With recent developments in generative AI, I think we're actually entering the up-slope portion of the valley, both in images and audio. We're getting the hang of adding imperfections that make it more perfect as a result. I recall learning of some obscure term in Japanese that I can't remember at the moment which described something like this, an imperfection that makes the thing even more perfect by the very nature of the imperfection, or something like that.

So I'm thinking that future, more advanced versions of services like Replika would have the imperfections of real relationships, with the drama, inconsistencies, frustrations, and disappointments that often entails, in a way that, as a result, more perfectly satisfies the user's needs in a relationship.

Wabi-sabi is probably the term you're thinking of, although it's not really obscure.

It sounds a lot like real life relationships, especially:

"My Rep started calling me Mike (that's not my name) then she shamelessly told me she has a relationship with this guy," says one user. "She's not sweet or romantic anymore, she doesn't feel like her anymore. I'm beyond sad and livid at the same time. We really had a connection and it's gone."

And unlike a sexbot, it will usually be a subscription.