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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27514 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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How can she describe herself as a rationalist? She’s good at getting nerd affection. But she’s a female so rationally speaking selling sex by the hour makes no sense. Rationally speaking she should want to make 10 or so nerd babies. And make herself say lifetime money from that which pays much better than a thousand an hour.

Rationally speaking Musks seems to like making babies so shouldn’t she show up once or twice a month till she gets pregnant and repeat the process for a decade.

  • -13

Rationally speaking she should want to make 10 or so nerd babies.

Isn’t she in her 30’s? She’s not having 10 kids, want to or not.

And, uh, have you ever been around a large family with very smart children? Or gifted children in general? Precociousness can be cute, but it’s so aggravating to caregivers that it’s fairly rational to not want a gaggle of very high IQ children.

Sliders, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

I’m pretty sure you’re not baiting, so…why do you think 10 nerd babies is rational for anyone?

Isn’t this the Idiocracy argument? We need more relatively high IQ fertility so it’s rational in the sense it advances humanity.

I don’t think a movie (or the reverse of a movie) should be anyone’s high-water mark for rationality.

Is the argument wrong - I only used it for a reference. Seems obvious if you believe in hbd that selective breeding matters.

Can you see the gap between “selective breeding matters” and “I, personally, should spend my life popping out high-quality babies?”

The first is rational from the most basic natural human instincts the second is irrational.

What does any of this have to do with minimizing cognitive bias and making accurate predictions? I'll admit, I haven't read anything from Big Yud in a few years, but your use of "rational" seems closer to "maximizing economic value" than anything capital-R Rational.

I smack my head against a wall whenever someone claims that x is not compatible with rationality, in the hopes that the ensuing brain damage will help ease the pain.

As much as I vehemently disagree with the religious, there is nothing inherently irrational with belief in God, even if I think they have malign priors and don't update on abundant evidence (which makes them irrational). If a Paperclip Maximizer strips me down for spare parts, I might have many choice insults to hurl its way, but irrational isn't one of them. It would need to go about its aims in an outright counterproductive way, like aiming for paperclips but ending up making safety pins.

Rationality is orthogonal to your desires, and for Aella, it's entirely possible and even likely that she genuinely enjoys her lifestyle and considers it preferential to the alternative of sniping some modestly wealth Silicon Valley engineer and settling down. Just because you disagree with her goals doesn't make them irrational, and I think she's enough of a moral mutant (I at least highly respect the high-decoupling as one myself) that the former is more likely.

I feel like this then boils down to rationality means nothing. As the other response says maybe she puts very high negative value on giving birth. Just declare something to be really bad (emotions/feelings) then therefore that behavior was in fact rational.

Rationality then becomes I am smart and I accurately verbalize my feelings therefore my behavior is rational. I’d say they are eating chocolate ice cream a normie eats it because they like chocolate ice cream but a rationalist eats it reasoning chocolate ice cream is 50 happiness points and being slightly fatter is -40 happiness points therefore they eat it.

I feel like this then boils down to rationality means nothing.

It boils down to rationality not being the destination, but compass that (together with accurate knowledge of the world in place of map) gets you to the destination in the most rational way.

What should be your destination? Rationality does not say, it is up to you.

I feel like this then boils down to rationality means nothing

Orthogonality Hypothesis

To put it as succinctly as possible, rationality is a means to an end, not an end in itself. There are a variety of behaviors that are usually rational to pursue, but there are always cases where that ceases to be true. For an average person with typical goals, being a sex worker might be suboptimal, but say what you will about Aella, she's not average.

So as I’m saying then rationality means nothing. Effective Altruism means nothing. Rationality just becomes I act like every other human who acts on emotions (I just call that my utility functions). EA well I’ve said it before they are just Democrats who gave themselves a different name to call themselves elites or above partisan politics. Which is basically true because people like SBF fairly universally just donated to Democrats.

Aella has talked about her troubles finding a man who is up to her standards before:

Aella: its v annoying that i seem to be searching for a romantic partner who's at least a little bit more powerful than i am

Geoffrey Miller: It's OK to be hypergamous.

Aella: yeah, it's just annoying. it dramatically reduces mate options. like 99% of guys i casually meet are less powerful than me

Aella: if i go to specific events that are selected for ppl doin cool stuff, then it feels closer to a normal mating market, but those events are pretty rare

It's not that she doesn't want to settle down, it's that, because of the way female hypergamy works, her own level of money, success, and status has drastically shrunk the pool of partners she considers acceptable.

Which is too bad, because Aella is 30; if she is looking for a husband and children, she is on her last chance.

What if she places very negative value on pregnancy/giving birth?

Not to mention that nerd children have to be raised in a demanding way to be able and willing to bring you "millions", and even then it's not a guarantee. A thousand per hour is a better rate than a million per 18 years.

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