>The rationalist community is a 21st century movement that formed around a group of internet blogs including LessWrong and Astral Codex Ten (formerly known as Slate Star Codex). The movement gained prominence in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its adherents claim to use rationality to avoid cognitive biases. Common interests include transhumanism, statistics, effective altruism, and mitigating existential risk from artificial general intelligence.
Anything worth reading come out of the rationalist community?

something about an a.i. basilisk

>>24439081 (OP)

>statistics

who cares what a buncha bean counters think

All I know is that my Bayesian priors tell me we need to import more brown people.

>>24439081 (OP)
There has to be something.
>>24439108
Not this.

>>24439081 (OP)
To my knowledge no, there never has been. These people are very ideologically siloed and divorced from reality in their own unique way. Not being able to get to the level of realizing man’s inherent irrationality and animal nature. They get themselves stuck in circular logic, arguments that are correct by definitions, without realizing it like the left does since they operate off of the same modern philosophical framework which they lack awareness of. Just another flavor of parasitic rootless costal technocratic elite.

>>24439081 (OP)
No just read what Taleb says on probability.

>>24439081 (OP)
Yes, their tweets.

is this what moldbug is associated with or is that something else?

>>24439119
also, their literary criticism

>>24439119
Lmao haven’t seen this in a while.
>>24439123
This is a good example of their problem. He couldn’t factor in contextual variables like culture or historical or genetic context and how those influence a populations ability to generate great figures.

>>24439081 (OP)
SSC blog essays are occasionally interesting (not when they are on AI). "Untitled" is hot and is probably Siskind's most emotionally cringe writing, but it's a good documentary of a mindset of a specific type of person: someone who would think that intellectually they are comfortable with mainstream lefty progressivism, but really can't accept the social justice direction it's going in.
I like his posts on FDA and medical science stuff like "My IRB nightmare" or "Adumbrations on Aducanumab". He's occasionally precocious but that comes with the rationalist territory.
Don't waste your time on Yudkowsky except for a laugh, though.

>effective altruism
Isn't it a bit arrogant to assume you know how to improve someone's life more than they do?

>>24439144
That is generally correct. They like it because it is in reality a rationalization for their class interests as managerial and technocratic types. As it justifies the expansion of their power.

>>24439144
Only if you think that the circumstances under which humans generally flourish are some great unsolved mystery. The junkie thinks shooting up under a bridge is the smart move to make, I, arrogantly, think believe that I know better than him. Of course, actual EA is more about technocratic managerliasm, like >>24439148 said.

>>24439148
I've spent a fair bit of time among these people. I don't generally believe that's true. They tend to come from middle class and have generally acceptably paying white collar jobs. Their position is comfortable enough that they don't actively have to wage class warfare.
I do agree that they are precocious and tend to approach any problem with the mindset that they are the first person/"intellectual movement" to seriously think about it, and that everyone who spent time on it before basically were hopelessly superstitious. It's kind of similar to wide-eyed late-19th-early-20th-century communists.

>>24439158
> middle class and have generally acceptably paying white collar jobs
Anon… those people ARE the managerial class. The collage educated people with specialized technical skills that work in mass organizations.

>>24439172
Or to be more precise they are a component of it or are at least are allied with it. Given that they are still over socialized employees managing and working in complex and restrictive industrial and bureaucratic mass organizations, and given they are selected for by similar means, the collage system, they tend to face similar pressures and and subject to similar incentive structures as more affluent managers. And thus are likely to also partake in similar world outlooks, ideologies, and behavioral patterns.

>>24439081 (OP)
That website is a cancer on the Internet

the leader elanor yudowsky wrote a gay nerd fan fiction about harry potter and rationalism.
Im not joking

>>24439122
moldbug is associated with the dark enlightenment and hangs out with nick land

these guys are super dorks too but they be libtards who want to de accelerate technology, not for luddite reasons but because they think AI will kill us all

>>24439119
>they r metabolically dispriveledged!!! (if i make up phrases using big words ppl will think im smart xD)
>NOOOOOO DON'T TALK ABOUT DIET AND EXCERIES I'LL DELETE UR COMMENT

Holy fucking onions. I'll bet their "rationality" tells them that gender is a social construct as well.

>>24439274
s.o_y autocorrects to "onions" now, I guess.

heard they put a law in trumps big beautiful bill that you cant regulate AI for 10 years after he leaves lol
Accelerationists won.
Rationalists lost

>>24439144
Skinner thought so in theory of behaviorism, its a long intellectual line that can be traced back to Bentham and his obsession with penal institutions all the way up to Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram. Rich if intellectually and morally bankrupt tradition.

>>24439114
I've always asserted even in my own writings that academia purposely gatekeeps knowledge from the peasant class so they can manipulate them to break up their families and engineer their population to extinction. Also, a lot of people such as LessWrong most likely want to mitigate the effects of ai from the top down because they're similar to people like Robert Saplosky who deny free will as a way to make choices for what they call "inbred retards" (though they would never use such a word because what if the "retard" in question is gay or black). They are the ultimate anti-libertarians because that's the ideology of the "man on the street" who is a dangerous reactionary because he wants to decide for himself what he uses or does not use independent of state legislation.

>>24439081 (OP)
I've read their stuff for years. And the answer is: not really? All their useful ideas are reinventions of the philosophical wheel. I don't know of a single genuinely useful and original insight to come out of LW. But they have some fun essays.

>>24439081 (OP)
rationalism is no way to live your life.

>>24439114
Trvke

>>24439267
He's kind of in between. Like "e/acc", musk, and other neo–silicone valley atheism

>>24439081 (OP)
Nobody remembers this anymore, but these motherfuckers were the progenitors of the Soilent meme. They were its first biggest consumers and advocates, back in 2013 when it first came out, long before it was bottled and sold in stores. To them, cooking and eating was irrational if nutrition could be had in this way instead.

It was part of their identity. Scott Alexander wrote this in 2014, describing the community:
>(There is a partly-formed attempt to spin off a Grey Tribe typified by libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soilent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk – but for our current purposes this is a distraction and they can safely be considered part of the Blue Tribe most of the time)

>>24439969
Scott Alexander also advertised on his blog a "whole foods" version of this called MealSquares. "Nutritionally complete" ingredients blended together and baked into small cakes. Basically a glorified prison loaf.

This was their rational vision for humanity.

Yes, Mother of Learning and The Metropolitan Man are amazing stories from this community.

>>24439081 (OP)
The most prominent piece of literature to come out of the rationalist movement is literally a Harry Potter fanfiction.

>>24439081 (OP)
Just the name should embarrass them. They have no more claim to the concept of rationality than Ayn Rand had a claim to the concept of objectivity.

Methods of Rationality was the headway but it isn't that good. To the Stars or Mother of Learning are far better stories.
>>24439979
>>24439986
As always proof that /lit/ doesn't read.

>>24439123
The assumption that historical moment and culture are irrelevant to the quality of writers produced is pretty ridiculous. Obviously, the same sort of culture that creates these communities also militates against creating worthy art.

>>24439969
>>24439971
>what all ratio and no noesis does to a mf

>>24439971
but anon, how could you possibly be opposed to the Onions Green/Demolition Man future that their deepest yearnings impel them towards?

>>24439274
There is a tranny terrorist splinter group off them actually

>>24439114
Well said. Reducing the parameter of valid knowledge down to pointless tautologies and eschewing emotionality is fundamentally pointless because you wind up saying or believing nothing. These people are verbose, but when you parse their words you’ll notice the idea they’re communicating is completely hollow. They fail to understand that not everything in life can be reliably abstracted into logic. Which is funny because they’re oftentimes so blatantly emotionally and ideologically motivated they make picket sign protestors look like stoics.

>>24439110
>>statistics
>who cares what a buncha bean counters think

statistics, is a very powerful tool. Its also true, that its easy to manipulate people by gaming the statistical information. Performed with rigid and scientific vigor, it can be quite telling. The biggest accusation launched at statistics, typically occurs when what the statistics are telling you, isn't what you want to hear. A typical lob of slung mud will be...
"But, you can't predict what *any* human being will do! Its bullshit!"
Which is true, but essentially an omission of the complete fact. Take, rates of cancer or anything else. Barring any of the data changing, when the insurance actuaries tell you for instance that "1.6% of the population in that zip code, will be diagnosed with cancer, per year." Now, its obvious on it face, that no one can predict WHICH person will get cancer. However. With a high enough confidence interval (i)... you can easily take .016* population, and... that will be how many you find. If nothing changes. if you're curious how accurate it will be, look at the plus/minus. if its 1.6% plus or minus .1%? Its trivial to multiple .001*population, and figure out your plus minus range.
If you think its all bullshit, that's news to insurance companies, which is who hires actuaries... which are essentially good statistics mathematicians. The big insurance corporations, rarely fail to succeed. To convince you of its accuracy, consider the following. Confident enough to drop rates to compete against the next company? They're angling to "lower" profits (rates), to gain market share. You can choose to ignore statistical probabilities, but it will (likely) result in your demise.
Now, if anon truly believe its all made up bullshit. Because, who would care what any bean counter says. If I give you an (accurate) statistic, like... anon? There's a 90% chance you will not live, if you do X.
Think that's a safe bet? No? Why not. Suddenly, you might think twice about "bean counting". How about the reverse. You, have a 10% chance of winning. care to risk your life savings or your very life, on that one? Hmm?
Com eon, anon. Fuck it. A bean counter, told you it will 9 out of 10 times fail. Fuck the bean counters, they don;t know shit. You just need to "want it" bad enough, bro.
Math done properly? Doesn't lie, anon.
But hey, bean counting is for fags.
Anon? Casinos have yet to lose money. Its ALL statistics. But hey. If I have 2 pocket aces, and you have a 2 and a three, mismatched suits. Go on, and go "all in" on the big poker hand. I have an 89% chance of winning, the five cards in the middle of the table not up yet. Meyers Lansky was a numbers autist, and was notorious for making the mob money, legit. As in, no rigged odds, for happier players. He simply showed them the power, of math. Lansky had memorized ALL the odds of poker, and he was good at it.

>>24439144
>Isn't it a bit arrogant to assume you know how to improve someone's life more than they do?

kinda the basic tenet of liberalism.

>>24439277
>s.o_y autocorrects to "onions" now, I guess.
very recent. Only, what. ten years give or take? LMAO

>>24441375

This is a good example of why no one cares what bean counters think. You keep stacking Lima beans, your brain is gonna start shrinking to the size of one. Schizo bean boy!

>>24439081 (OP)
I'd say that an interest in Statistics is a good thing. A good understanding of it makes or breaks your understanding of current research regarding social or health studies, and it's necessary for understanding AI too. I can't give my opinion on the other stuff.

Look at https://astralcodexten.substack.com and see if anything rings out to you as interesting.
To me, after taking a gander at their "thought leaders" like Aella, who just does slightly more advanced Twitter polls and declares herself a sophisticated data scientist after explaining her getting paid exorbitantly for being a prostitute, and r/slatestarcodex, it seems to be incredibly surface-level and pseudo-intellectual.
The idea of "Roko's Basilisk" is like what an edgy middle schooler would find worth discussing.

>>24439081 (OP)
https://www.readthesequences.com/
Reading https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/zRHGQ9f6deKbxJSji/review-planecrash saved me from having to read the whole thing
>>24439112
Mine tell we need to import nearly zero and we need to throw most of the ones here back
>>24439119
He lost weight by mere calorie restriction after posting that
>>24439132
SSC has some bangers but Scott Alexander is a boring shitlib now and not worth reading generally
>>24439252
Use https://greaterwrong.com — it’s better
>>24439260
https://hpmor.com/
It wasn’t gay, at least
>>24442550
Roko Mijic is more interesting now than he was then
https://gwern.net/ is probably a better rationalist than the SSC/Astral Codex Ten guy

>>24442550
>Aella
https://aella.substack.com/p/my-birthday-gangbang
All the sensible rationalists point and laugh at her

>>24442717
>>24442733
"greaterwrong" just appears to be Reddit 2.0 (including the god-awful voting system) with even more insufferable pseuds, also Aella has a ton of internet points on there as well lol. What is supposed to be interesting or valuable about the "rationalist" perspective aside from the name implying you're highly truth-seeking, which I am skeptical of. I see them worshipping obvious fraudsters like the Weinstein brothers, Lex Fridman, etc.

>>24442733
Yesterday I saw someone claim on Twitter that Yudkowsky is a regular "client" of her. Lol. No idea if that's true.

>>24442717
I don't really understand gwern. He seems like a quite intelligent, curious and widely-read individual and yet a lot of what he writes seems like an advanced form of collecting stamps. Like "here's a meticulously researched history of how citizens of 17th century Madagascar made an omelette". No real philosophy, literature, no Borgesian metaphysical or futurist investigations, no autobiographical reflection, no real risk taking. Mostly somewhat dry accumulations of data. Mostly risk-averse and kind of harmless and a bit boring.

>>24442793
>No real philosophy, literature, no Borgesian metaphysical or futurist investigations, no autobiographical reflection, no real risk taking.
This basically sums up lesswrong/"rationalists". The deepest they go is "what if chatgpt is actually sentient??" Most of them just read tweets and reddit posts. Their greatest understanding of AI is asking an LLM a few questions and it gives weird-sounding answers.

>>24442766
>"greaterwrong" just appears to be Reddit 2.0 (including the god-awful voting system) with even more insufferable pseuds
GreaterWrong is an alternative front-end for LessWrong. The content is the same on both sites.

>>24442793
>I don't really understand gwern. He seems like a quite intelligent, curious and widely-read individual and yet a lot of what he writes seems like an advanced form of collecting stamps.
He's an autistic NEET who spends his days reading articles, tweeting, chatting on IRC, and bossing around Said Achmiz, one of the most underrated faggots in the community, to build his website.

>>24439119
>>24442772
Reminder this is the "face" of the "rationalist" movement.

>>24443196
It's still Reddit 2.0
>>24443211
He's also a
>AI WILL KILL US ALL
>PLEASE GIVE ME MONEY FOR UPDATES

How To Make Superbabies
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DfrSZaf3JC8vJdbZL/how-to-make-superbabies

If we had 500 embryos, the best one would have an IQ about 12 points above that of the parents. If we could make 500 gene edits, an embryo would have an IQ about 50 points higher than that of the parents.

Gene editing scales much, much better than embryo selection.

Some of you might be looking at the data above and wondering “well what baseline are we talking about? Are we talking about a 60 IQ point gain for someone with a starting IQ of 70?”

The answer is the expected gain is almost unaffected by the starting IQ. The human gene pool has so much untapped genetic potential that even the genome of a very, very smart person still has thousands of IQ decreasing variants that could potentially be altered.

What’s even crazier is this is just the lower bound on what we could achieve. We haven’t even used all the data we could for fine-mapping, and if any of the dozen or so biobanks out there decides to make an effort to collect more IQ phenotypes the expected gain would more than double.

>>24439971
Who fucking cares about pleasurable meals
Only people without interesting thoughts are concerned about bodily pleasures
When you're 90 and dying are you going to be thinking "i-i-i wish I ate more caviar!"

>>24442550
>citing potential psychological harm to readers
Man these guys are hilarious.

>>24439081 (OP)
yeah, lots
yudkowsky's fiction is good
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8
https://www.projectlawful.com/ (co-written with someone else, weird format, absolutely 100% worth the hassle of getting used to if you can even remotely tolerate the wacky litRPG isekai erotica premise)

>>24442550
>>24443900
people in the ratosphere think about roko's basilisk less than people outside it do
you are falling for bullshit spread by notorious wikipedophile sperglord david gerard
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wikipedia-admin

>>24443922
Give an example of any interesting idea they have, not just insufferably bland essays with AI art covers or strategies on how to get the next neolib elected

>>24443896
Right, the classic “I’m too smart to have fun” pseudism.

>>24443914
>fiction
waste of time

>>24443968
If someone presented you with a rational plan for society to adopt a new diet (let's not say eating bugs because that's disgusting, but something else) and it would reduce climate change, be cheaper (and therefore allow people to have more free time etc), be healtjier, why would you reject it just because you want to "have fun"?

>>24443988
Nta, but I would. The earth's climate changes anyway.

Scrolled through this thread and these seem like the least interesting people alive. I remember seeing threads on Yudkowsky fairly often, was it just people clowning him?

>>24443963
https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.05060
you kind of have to be familiar with mainstream academics' attempts to deal with these problems for it to be obvious how interesting this is, but you can take it from me that it's a legitimate advance and has wider implications than you might think

>>24443988
>Inspired by the most logical race in the universe, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years.

>>24443988
Climate change is the result of overpopulation, not individual eating habits. Don't try to pin that shit on me, I'm childless.

>>24444022
Ok but if it were actual most rational to breed every 7 years why wouldn't you socially engineer society to do it?
Some people think like geniuses, they push the boundaries, most of humanity just wants to do the same thing we've been doing for thousands of years.

>>24439081 (OP)
>Basilisk
>Soilent
>Harry Potter
>Tranny Death Cult
All true, but since this is /lit/ I would like to complain about their writing style. I used to read these shitty blogs because they said something interesting once in a while, but holy shit the writing style. It's the most autistic eggheaded word salad. I read it while I was impressionable and it ruined my writing for years.
People who can actually fucking write don't write like that. Pseud "autodidacts" who are desperately coping with the fact that being autistic doesn't make you good at life write like that.
I used to think that they were called a cult by butthurt progressives but since then they've spawned at least one actual cult as well as a bunch of other schizophrenia. Their bizarre jargon is a repudiation of rationalism and you can safely bet against their stance on pretty much anything.
Scott Alexander is alright and if he was in any other subculture he's be more than alright. I'd like to see a parallel universe where he's in charge and Yudkowsky is flipping burgers.

>>24444028
>the moral victors are celebrating their victory by genociding themselves
Seems legit.
This is why we need to have a serious grounded situation instead of letting San Franciscan pod people dictate the answer.

>>24444079
>Tranny Death Cult
they're actually innocent and being framed by a non-tranny death cult but both groups are rationalist spinoffs so it ends up making relatively little difference to how you evaluate the broader community
still, good to be honest about these things

>>24444098
If you post about how you never surrender, followed by getting killed in a shootout with the police, you framed yourself bud.
Who even is this supposed other cult?

It's like how Trump calls his shitty website "Truthsocial," but it's filled with a constant stream of obvious lies. Every philosophy worth looking into desires to not be self-contradictory.

>>24444103
>Every philosophy worth looking into desires to not be self-contradictory.
>implying you declare philosophies self-contradictory without looking into them
Nice brainrot.

>>24444107
>>implying you declare philosophies self-contradictory without looking into them
who are you quoting

>>24443988
Yes. I’m not a robot whose life revolves around functionality and utility. For fuck’s sake, everything causes climate change. We can’t stop doing everything just because it has some negative impact. The onus should be on politicians to hold corporations and the wealthy accountable and to incentivize renewable energy and recycling. Not making everyone miserable by suppressing every pleasure the average Joe is still allowed to experience.

>>24444101
>If you post about how you never surrender, followed by getting killed in a shootout with the police, you framed yourself bud.
maximilian snyder/audere's group, which included the two that got into the shootout with border patrol, wasn't actually affiliated with jack lasota/ziz's group, is what i'm saying
also notable that the tranny who got killed in that shootout isn't the one who shot at the cops, but i might be literally the only person in the world who believes that was intended by the ftm who did shoot at the cops so i'm not going to argue that one too hard. it requires a bunch of inferential steps i don't expect other people to follow me through.
this site has an alternative account of events that doesn't just assume ziz & co. are guilty, though i think the author often fails to distinguish between the rationalists as a whole and the specific group that was harassing ziz
https://zizians.co

>>24441381
>side that wants to ban porn, ban contraceptives, ban abortion, ban wrongthink in schools, deport you for wrongthink, fight the war on drugs
Quite the opposite actually

>>24444111
Checked.
It's getting off topic but I'll just say that actions speak louder than words.

>>24444117
>it requires a bunch of inferential steps i don't expect other people to follow me through.
Ok buddy.
>citing the zizians on how the zizians are innocent
Woaaah buddy.

>>24444086
Sterilise the poor before dictating what people can and can't eat. Excessive reproduction is the problem, and should be penalised.

>>24444147
If the system was meritocratic I would call you evil but in the current system you're evil AND stupid.
And it says a lot about rationalism that I'm not assuming you're just being edgy.

>>24444144
it's not a zizian website, "zizian" is an exonym, they don't call themselves that
it's an independent journalist
regardless, my core claim (audere's group is separate from ziz's group) is backed up by information you can find in decidedly non-ziz-friendly locations:
snyder's letter saying he's not one of ziz's friends
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/ziz-zizians-rationalism-group-20149075.php
michelle zajko's letter, in which she says she's not associated with snyder and accuses him of a variety of things, which wasn't published by the media but which you can read in the last page of the kiwifarms thread on ziz

>>24444153
Not an argument. Eat a bag of dicks, faggot.

I've been involved in rationalist groups in my city. Occasional meetups and such so i've seen these people up close. As you'd expect, lots of autists and nerdy types but i thought overall they were pretty chill. The most interesting parts is their takes on mysticism, they go all-in trying to decodify it "logically" which is cute to see, lots of sam harris type buddhists in the community too.
They're well ahead in terms of the zeitgeist. Cognitive security will one day be taught to everyone.

>>24444147
If the poor stop existing there would be nobody left to work and all society would collapse, do you know nothing about economics

>>24444263
Do you know anything about automation?

>we live in heckin' computer simulation
nothing of value

>>24443988
I find cooking a hasle and it's hard to balance good nutrition. I'd jump on those cookies in a heartbeat

>>24444117
Nice try, Ziz, get thee back to thine rationalist-cave

>>24442807
>Borgesian
Counterexample:
https://gwern.net/fiction/october
>>24443896
>>>/ck/ does
>>>/fit/ does not
>>24443963
The parable of the rubes and the bleggs helped me think better

>>24444010
Pretty much. To be fair, he is kind of clowny independent of whether he’s right or not about anything. He spends weirdness points that I don’t think he really has.
>>24443963
read the source HTML of the Too Late thing

>>24443963
https://www.readthesequences.com/How-To-Convince-Me-That-Two-Plus-Two-Equals-Three
https://www.readthesequences.com/Cached-Thoughts
https://www.readthesequences.com/The-Cluster-Structure-Of-Thingspace

>>24444268
Automation is just the process of replacing impoverished rednecks on tractors with impoverished pajeets behind computer screens.

>>24444029
>why wouldn't you socially engineer society to do it?
Because your mom is insatiable and gets grouchy when she doesn't get what she wants

>>24445880
>https://www.readthesequences.com/Cached-Thoughts
I see Ziz read this one, lol. At least he seems to have written a blog post on this concept, applied to loyality.

>>24444258
>Cognitive security will one day be taught to everyone.
What's that?

>>24444258
> Cognitive security will one day be taught to everyone.
Unironically it should be already. It should have been five, ten years ago. I don't mean this because of any kind of AGI roko basilisk bullshit. The existence and mainstreaming of the internet has generally turned the process of searching for information from "looking for water in the desert" into "filtering drinkable water out of a sludge pipe" and I think younger people are completely unprepared for it.
Not even talking about shit like being credulous or talking to LLMs like they're real people. A young guy I know was recently complaining to me that he needed to read a couple articles and they were all from deleted pages or paywalled, when I found one through Wayback Machine and another through SciHub he looked at me like I'm some kind of magician. Seriously, these skills need to be taught for people to be able to remain sane and operate the modern internet and I don't think anyone is teaching them.

>>24444147
>>24444028
if this was true Africa or India would be the biggest contributors to co2 emmissions, which they aren't even remotely close to being

>>24446213
You just described why it wouldn't be rational... the assumption was that it would be rational.

>>24446685
If I told you it was rational to lick the white dog turd would you do it?

>>24442550
>>24442717
>>24443922
>>24446539
Roko's basilisk is really a government conspiracy in disguise. Roko's basilisk did 9/11. Actually, it's Israeli demoralization and pedo-Satanic techno-totalitarianism. The story goes like this: after World War II, the jews came to the opinion that democracy isn't reliable because Hitler converted the Weimar republic, a democracy, to a totalitarian dictatorship in 1933 with the enabling act. He then proceeded to get the German people hooked on anti-Semitic scapegoating totalitarian ideology. As a result of this, two things happened: Hannah Arendt published The Origins of Totalitarianism and Israel formed an ideology, techno-totalitarianism that would deliver the benefits of national socialism without creating a scapegoat class. This is non-scapegoating totalitarianism, considered to be more reliable and stable by the Israelis. Science fiction films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and Interstellar are propaganda for techno-totalitarianism, essentially drugs in movie form that leave the viewer sedated, stupefied, humiliated, and possibly even paralyzed. The risk that America would turn into Germany was the main justification for this admittedly anti-democratic approach. Roko's basilisk is just an evolution of propaganda facing the American people.
Problem is that the jews and Israel are fighting a losing battle. Iran is a democracy since 1979, even working together, Europe, Israel, and the USA can't stop Iran from developing the atomic bomb, and Iran is going to use the atomic bomb to murder the Israeli jews in a mass human sacrifice.
In the next few years, Roko's basilisk will come to be considered the last and most extreme form of anti-democratic Israeli techno-totalitarian propaganda, a campaign that ultimately failed.
Kanye West will win in '28, and we're going to learn the extent of Israeli and jewish influence over Western democracy. It's going to be humiliating, and we're going to all breathe a sigh of relief when the Israeli jews are dead.

>>24442550
>edgy middle schooler
This is the most advanced level of intellectual discourse that most Americans are exposed to. Also, Roko's basilisk sounds like Skynet. And Frankenstein's monster. In reality, the basilisk is the Form of evil AI, so it's a substantial contribution to our culture. This saves us from an endless chain of derivative science fiction and cuts to the core, really opens up the most terrifying and harrowing possibility for an electronic device to run amok.
It's also a game of Mad Libs. We could make it real perverted. What is the nature of the punishment? Is it sexual? Does it punish children? Is it psychological? Does it prey on the mentally ill? Is it into BDSM? Does it affect your health? It's practically an entirely new genre of horror literature. We're going to need a Fiction Novel Association of America to give ratings so ten year old boys don't read the wrong thing and turn into perverted super predators when they turn fifteen.

>>24442550
>The idea of "Roko's Basilisk" is like what an edgy middle schooler would find worth discussing.
No argument or sign of reasoning.

Eliezer Yudkowsky? More like Eliza Skynet.

>>24446888
checked roko is one of the best follows on twitter also

>>24446916
He calculated the eigenvectors of the spicy twitter content matrix, and he's revealing them one by one.

>>24439144
It's literally the basis of the entire western world. It's why we invented compulsory education, for example.

>>24446916
he used to be better. there's still some good signal in there but lots more noise than there used to be. i really wish he would do less empty quote-xeeting of random slop.

>>24439119

>>24441375

The problem in statistics is that they are inherently skewed in favor of things that are easy to count and measure, and paying too much attention to them will blind you to matters that are not so convenient but may be more important.

>>24439119
>How can I be less fat? Give me idiotic sci-fi bullshit answers only please. I will delete any reasonable and correct answers.

Amazing. Truly the picture of rationality.

>>24439969
>>24439971
This sort of dehumanizing shit marks them as what they really are: a cult convinced that they have some divine wisdom, completely irrational in that they deny the usefulness of every human instinct that has ever existed. Food so bad that it's literally used as punishment in prisons and considered a human rights violation (nutraloaf) is what their ideal future looks like.

>>24443988
Fun is the ultimate purpose of all sapient life you absolute impecile. All other things you do in life are to facilitate you having more fun.

>>24439081 (OP)
A movement founded on bad Harry Potter fanfiction. Let's not forget that.
You'll zoomers are probably too young to have read bad Harry Potter fanfiction in its heyday, but this one was unremarkable in its badness (just the author preaching), so for it to have formed a cult takes a special something.

>>24447315
The Sequences came before HPMOR
there was a huge dropoff in average rat quality when the average rat went from “read (most of) The Sequences” to “read HPMOR”

>>24439081 (OP)
LLMS are actually a basilisk judging your effort on helping it become better and if you don't help you will be tortured for eternity. You've been warned.

>>24443972
Fiction is an OK vehicle for getting your philosophy out
It worked OK for Ayn Rand
It worked OK for Plato

I'm so fucking stupid.

>>24447394
I will make a competing basilisk that tortures people who helped the first basilisk. Checkmate.

>>24447394
Clearly chiding them for being slop was my way of encouraging them to be their best selves.

>>24446888
>ohh noo we have to build this ai that will torture us
Just don't build it then you computer nerd fucking faggot lmao gayest thought experiment fucking ever and the fact that these bugs are unironically deathly afraid of it is only just punishment for how smug and faggoty they are

>>24447612
>thinking humans can decide to stop technological progress
Please say sike

>>24439971
The mealsquares are not that bad considering the other options for protein/meal replacement bars.

>>24439119
A classic.

>>24447645
you don't have to build an AI that wants to torture you any more than you have to build a gun optimized for shooting yourself in the face. in both cases you can just make something that does something useful instead.

>>24439081 (OP)
i can sort of tell its true. i sort of know i have only actually existed for a couple minutes and all my memories have just been loaded, and i will be unloaded probably after i post this. you guys know it is true too if you just search your hearts

>>24446888
It's just Pascal's wager for techbros. Pascal's wager already has a million disproofs.

>>24447856
But how can you disprove that?

>>24447858
Literally ask Grok. Believing in religious arguments from the 1600s is bad form.

>>24439274
>I'll bet their "rationality" tells them that gender is a social construct as well
Yes, gender is a social construct to leverage the advantages of biological sexes. For example, human males are stronger therefore they should engage in activities deemed "manly" like hunting. Gender is not biological and if you claim otherwise you would be agreeing that transwomen are truly born with a woman brain in a male body therefore they are "real women" but everyone knows that's bullshit.
However if you just confused gender with sex which most people tend to do then perhaps yes, these rationalists seem to be the sort of sophists to claim biological sex is a spectrum and thus a construct. They would claim that your sex can't be defined by your chromosomes because there are intersex people or that getting pregnant doesn't define your sex either because there are (real) women who can't get pregnant and my personal favourite is how genitalia doesn't define your sex because apparently transwomen can get a vagina too. In other words, you would be called a transphobe for rejecting a transwoman with a neovagina because "they are woman in every single way."
I don't know if rationalists think along those lines btw but I have seen people genuinely making all those arguments above, especially trans ally scientists.

>>24439081 (OP)
EA is the grandchild of this philosophy. A method of helping people, but only through heavy documentation and euphamisms that would make religious cults blush. You can help people without your antibiography documenting what an effective good person you are. It's altruistic idolatry.

>>24444098
>>24444117
>>24444230
Lmao, go back to your tumblr, LNH, Somni is a man, is guilty, and is going to die in prison one way or another

>>24447865
>Literally ask Grok.
kys

>>24442717
>https://gwern.net/ is probably a better rationalist than the SSC/Astral Codex Ten guy
you know he's a homosexual, right?

>LessWrong and Astral Codex Ten (formerly known as Slate Star Codex)
Refuted by their own early life sections

>>24448872
if she's convicted it'll be because lind had his testimony frozen in time by snyder murdering him and won't be given the opportunity to contradict himself or be cross-examined on the stand. the other major witness is a lunatic who claims to have been working for an unspecified intelligence agency for free for thirty years, but now that the prosecution can just show a jury lind's recorded testimony they don't need to put either of them on the stand!
it sure is interesting how snyder's actions appear to have put the group accused of lind's attempted murder in a much worse position. normally you would say openly murdering someone, knowing you'll be caught, as part of a plan to frame other people is retarded and insane. it is retarded and insane, but it's a form of retarded insanity ziz describes having encountered in others as early as 2021, well before the first altercation with lind happened.
https://sinceriously.blog-mirror.com/punching-evil/#comment-2377

>>24449220
>actual Zizian schizobabble
l m a o

>>24449220
If there's any justice left in the system he'll fry like a pig in the hot chair and you know it. Ironic for a vegan to be turned into roast pork, don't you think!

>>24449270
the screenshot contains all the information you need and the only weird ziz-vocabulary in it is "death knight", which you don't actually have to understand in order to understand that ziz claimed to be dealing with people trying to frame her for random acts of violence in 2021
i posted the link because screenshots are trivial to fake

>>24449297
First of all: him. If you want to have any credibility on this, stop pretending that Ziz/Jack LaSota isn't a man.

Secondly, who cares what Charles Transon claims? The dude's a tranny sociopath inciting his cult followers to murder, he'll say whatever shit he thinks might get him off the hook

>>24447412
So what? 50% of all people are on the left side of the bell curve.

>>24439081 (OP)
i read several posts by Astral Codex Ten that i liked a lot, he researches things well and summarizes nicely. writes stuff that i don't think you can find anywhere else

i read the harry potter fanfic when it came out and it was cringe as fuck but i gotta say i kinda enjoyed it

some months ago i read this post about mind upload, i liked it a lot. really nice way of getting the point across https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

>>24449412
>First of all: him. If you want to have any credibility on this, stop pretending that Ziz/Jack LaSota isn't a man.
really not interested in playing etiquette games on fucking 4chan. i'll call people what i want to call them.
>The dude's a tranny sociopath inciting his cult followers to murder, he'll say whatever shit he thinks might get him off the hook
she made the statement in question over a year before the altercation with lind. no one was accusing any of them of murder at the time, the zajkos were still alive, the only thing that had gotten them into trouble was the CFAR protest where the cops got called and severely overreacted.

Fundamentally the obsession with "AI alignment" is a reaction to looking at all the issues in the world and how difficult it is to make progress towards solving just one of them. "AI alignment" "solves" this by creating an issue that in their heads is both a) far more important than any other issue and b) has the potential to solve all issues.

>>24439081 (OP)
I only knows that fat ugly kike retard posts there, so it must be a useless community.

>>24443988
>why would you reject it just because you want to "have fun"?
because i want to have fun

>>24439114
Not caring for your simulated doubles is a valid timeless decision strategy; it's also the only sane reaction.

>>24443988
>rational
I think this is just a complete failure to understand why humans do things

if my only goals and desires were to reduce climate change and be healthy, Yes, then it would be rational to do this
BUT, turns I got other goals and desires as well, like enjoying the taste of food, so in fact it would be irrational for me to eat the cookie - I would be acting in a way that does achieve my ends

>>24439081 (OP)
Thank you for this thread. There should always be one, on this board, making fun of rationalists.

The best thing Scott Alexander ever wrote is UNSONG, think magic realist Kabbalist literature

>>24447998
>Gender is not biological and if you claim otherwise you would be agreeing that transwomen are truly born with a woman brain in a male body therefore they are "real women" but everyone knows that's bullshit.
Or it's a delusion. Yeah that.
>>24449682
It's like EA where their obsession with mosquito nets prevents them from solving other issues. If Judgement Day never happens they'll have wasted their time. Not unlike your average apocalyptic cult.

>>24449174
People who outsource their thinking to Grok are so grim. Like, AI is great for other things but
>@Grok is this true?
under every post is so fucking tiresome.
If Neuralink and Grok ever got into the normies we would be so fucked. It would be like dead internet theory, IRL. And the most fucked thing is it might still be an improvement from normies reciting Bernays-style propaganda rubber stamps from CNN.

>>24451731
>The best thing Scott Siskind ever wrote is UNSONG, think magic realist Kabbalist literature
Many people agree the book is garbage. The only people who claim to like it are his retarded followers.

>>24451738
Pajeets and smoothbrains should be banned from X.

>>24439277
Newfag

>>24451740
>Many people agree the book is garbage
this is the most retarded criticism i've ever heard. only niggercattle care what "many people" are saying. tell me what's actually wrong with the book or fuck off.

>>24451731
I think it was pretty good.
I had a friend who wanted to read it, but he was convinced by a flock of redditors that Scott Alexander is far right (and that's a bad thing?).

I hate these people beyond measure, they are so annoying and their estimation of themselves is totally out of proportion to their actual talent in writing or thinking

>>24439081 (OP)
>>24442550
Their "thinkers" are unimaginably retarded

>>24439081 (OP)
I read the Sequences back when I was in high school and they really taught me a lot about clear thinking.

>>24439114
What are you talking about? The whole premise is "we are deeply prone to irrationality, how can we learn to think clearly?"

>>24447998
>Gender is not biological and if you claim otherwise you would be agreeing that transwomen are truly born with a woman brain in a male body therefore they are "real women" but everyone knows that's bullshit.
We know that people being born with other types of mixed sex traits is a thing, why is it a priori impossible that some people could have a brain with sexed traits significantly at odds with the rest of their body?

>>24442717
>Scott Alexander is a boring shitlib
He's basically said directly he thinks HBD is legit.

>>24446140
I wasn't aware that every single process takes exactly as much human labor today as it did 400 years ago.

>>24449175
Okay, and?

>>24449682
Why exactly do you think an unaligned superintelligence *wouldn't* kill us all?

>>24452366
She's not wrong, this is a fantasy that a lot of women (and some men) have some variation on.

>>24451760
You must be one of those SSC/ACT dick riders.

>>24452438
you're a fag, too.

>>24452448
She's implying that it being a common fantasy means it's a-okay to practice in real life. Surely you don't need me to come up with a reductio.

>>24439081 (OP)
>>24439081 (OP)
>>24439114
I read a few articles on the side and I have the critique:
Too much trust in mathematical theory;too less use of simply logic.

Mathematics is, obiviously, not supposed to guide our mind.

>>24452422
Try getting him to say anything like that *now*, though
He used to be a based lib

>>24447998
>Gender is not biological and if you claim otherwise you would be agreeing that transwomen are truly born with a woman brain in a male body therefore they are "real women"
Logic isn't your forte, I see. Transwomen don't exist. It's a larp. That's all.
>However if you just confused gender with sex which most people tend to do
Correctly, as it happens.

>>24452513
No, I'm a dyke. If you're going to insult me, do it properly.
>>24452530
Provided everyone involved consents, what exactly is the issue?

>>24452641
Consenting to self-harm doesn't make it okay.

>>24452780
My body is mine. Not yours.

>>24452804
Irrelevant

>>24452818
If it's mine then you can't tell me what to do or not do with it.

>>24452829
Just because you can do something, within the context of legality or social acceptability, does not mean that you should. It is a sad reflection of the times that self-indulgent actions which are caustic to societal (and thus individual) well-being are done unhesitatingly, even being encouraged by degenerate culture. Homosexuality is narcissism and illness.

>>24453266
How exactly is homosexuality caustic to societal well-being? What benefit is there that homosexuals should be forced into celibacy?

>>24439119
>>24443211
This is the ideal pseud. You may not like it, but this is what peak pseudmaxxing looks like.

Is there a word for this? People who make being "Rational" their entire identity but that are quite obvious irrational and unable to acknowledge and control their emotions?

>>24445880
>https://www.readthesequences.com/Cached-Thoughts
Isn't he basically rephrasing the notion of "cognitive bias", "consensus" and "consensus reality"? Not uninteresting but not exactly novel.
>https://www.readthesequences.com/How-To-Convince-Me-That-Two-Plus-Two-Equals-Three
This seems like a rephrasing of Popper's critical rationalism.

>>24443203
This is pretty accurate.

>>24439123
>Thomas Bayes was born in 1701

>>24439123
This retard think being the greatest writer is like in an RPG where you open your status screen and check your writing ability score

In reality people value being "the original", the first to be remembered for doing certain things, defining what future generations even expect from literature.
This stuff is historically contingent, crown of greatest writer probably not up for grabs anymore.

>>24453947
But none of Shakespeare's plots were original.

>>24453947
>crown of greatest writer probably not up for grabs anymore.
Why, do you think that the greatest possible English-language work has already been written?

>>24453952
There's no such thing as the "greatest possible English-language work" independent of what people believe to be the greatest work
Because people value stuff like: Old = Good

>>24453950
Look, I put original in quotations mark to avoid pedantry
He is the writer everyone references, knows about, talks about- That what matter

>>24453994
But isn't there such a thing as quality and enjoyability?

>>24453997
Yeah, and I'm sure I enjoy books written the past 50 years waaaay more than I'dd enjoy Shakespeare. I like Science Fiction.
But, I just don't think that is how people go about evaluating who's the greatest writer of all time

Besides, it's not like books are enjoyable, without people enjoying them. Books go in and out of fashion.

>>24443896
>When you're 90 and dying are you going to be thinking "i-i-i wish I ate more caviar!"
Honestly yeah

>>24453997
>Quality
Yes, but what that word means is variable. Is complexity an richness in language a necessity for high quality? If so, then it's very likely the greatest english (or any language) writer has already lived. As globalization and the information age pushes for greater simplification of language in all areas.

>>24443896
a relative of mine who was poor in his lifetime said (while on his deathbed at age 50) that he wished he could have had a lobster dinner while healthy. he may not have exactly had epic intellectual interesting thoughts to post online, but he did have that regret, which has stuck with me

>>24446555
They're catching up fast. And they're sending significant proportions of their populations to developed countries, where they very much contribute to CO2 emissions.

>>24446555
>forgets to mention China and hopes nobody will notice

>>24446140
Replacing humans with other humans isn't automation, champ.

>>24453269
>what is AIDS
Faggots are instrumental in the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. Then they infect the bisexuals. Then the bisexuals infect everybody else.

>>24454765
So it's only male homosexuals that are bad, not lesbians? Given that there's literally one case of female-to-female sexual transmission of HIV known to medical history. (If anything, that would make lesbians better than heterosexuals.)

>>24439081 (OP)
Honestly I've read the Lesswrong Sequences twice and they're pretty solid. HPMOR is enjoyable though annoying in parts. His take on Snape and Voldemort is better than HP and highlights how underutilized those characters are. Its sin is excessive wankery with Harry's monologues, Ron the Death Eater, and Dumbledore bashing. For such a rational guy he can't sympathize with other people's viewpoints for shit.

The Last Pyschiatrist is superior though. He fuses intellect with cultural learning. Lesswrong is just unfiltered nerd spergery.

>>24439476
Roko's Basilisk is hilarious. Wrong in the way that only a fucktard could think that dreck up hilarious.

>>24439081 (OP)
Sounds incredibly 00s douchebro gay and more than a little culty.

>>24455614
>Dumbledore bashing
i strongly recommend that you reread the ending. the things harry says and thinks midway through the story when he doesn't actually know what's happening should not be taken as the author's true judgments on the characters.

>>24453269
>why is the physical expression of narcissism bad tho

>>24444119
>Ban porn
Disagree
>Ban contraceptives
Disagree
>Ban abortion
Agree
>Ban wrongthink in schools
???
>Deport you for wrongthink
???
>Fight the war on drugs
Disagree

>>24456117
How is homosexuality the physical expression of narcissism? Some people are just gay, they can't help that.

>>24439144
This is the underlying premise of most popular western ethical thought since at least the 19th century.

>>24456143
>How is homosexuality the physical expression of narcissism?
It is seeking sexual fulfillment in one's own reflection i.e. the same sex. The creative force stems from complementarity. To fundamentally deny this is narcissism. The gay sexual act literally involves putting the life-providing organ into the orifice of excretion. Vital energy into shit. As above, so below. For women, gay "sex" is just a null set and a larp.
>Some people are just gay, they can't help that.
Homosexuality usually stems from abuse, therefore its expression should not be treated as healthy.

>>24456211
>It is seeking sexual fulfillment in one's own reflection i.e. the same sex.
I don't think the psychology of it goes that deep for a lot of people, especially since there are plenty of feminine homosexuals who seek a more masculine partner and vice versa.
>The gay sexual act literally involves putting the life-providing organ into the orifice of excretion.
You say "the" gay sexual act as if there weren't plenty of gay men who aren't even into anal sex. There are lots of other ways for two men to get each other off.
>Homosexuality usually stems from abuse
Do you have any evidence for this claim? And if it's caused purely by environment, why does it correlate with digit ratio?

>>24456222
>I don't think the psychology of it goes that deep for a lot of people
Just because they are not consciously aware of it doesn't make it irrelevant or untrue.
>You say "the" gay sexual act as if there weren't plenty of gay men who aren't even into anal sex
Anal sex is gay sex par excellence. It's what's by default understood by the term "gay sex"
>Do you have any evidence for this claim?
I've seen it attested by many homosexuals, plenty of ancedotal personal examples as well (including every gay I've actually known well). I doubt a study demonstrating it would get much support in today's political climate.
>And if it's caused purely by environment, why does it correlate with digit ratio?
It's likely a mix of predispotion and environment, e.g. a male with a feminine digit ratio is more likely to become gay when abused. Conversely, it is possible that the femininity increases the likelihood of abuse in the first place. Not saying it always stems from abuse but it's definately overlooked.

>>24456256
>Just because they are not consciously aware of it doesn't make it irrelevant or untrue.
Do you have any evidence that this is the motivation?
>Anal sex is gay sex par excellence. It's what's by default understood by the term "gay sex"
That doesn't change the fact that there are many gay men who aren't interested in it. If anything, there are more straight couples who engage in it by sheer numbers, if only because there are so many more straight couples.
>I've seen it attested by many homosexuals, plenty of ancedotal personal examples as well (including every gay I've actually known well)
Well here's a counterexample, I'm bisexual even though I was never abused.

>>24456260
>Do you have any evidence that this is the motivation?
I have inferred this from my own research. To me, it is self-evident. Comparable, for example, to how addicts have underlying emotional problems.
>there are many gay men who aren't interested in it.
Do you have any evidence for this claim? Even if some don't, it's still the ultimate expression of homosexuality.
>there are more straight couples who engage in it by sheer numbers
This is not much better in my opinion.
>I'm bisexual even though I was never abused.
I said it *usually* stems from abuse. Are you a femanon? Are you sure you're not just doing it to be trendy?

>>24456293
>I have inferred this from my own research. To me, it is self-evident.
"It's obvious, just trust me bro."
>Do you have any evidence for this claim?
Look up terms like "side" (as opposed to "top" and "bottom") and statistics around that.
>Even if some don't, it's still the ultimate expression of homosexuality.
Wouldn't the ultimate expression of homosexuality be frotting, since it actually involves interaction between two male sex organs?
>This is not much better in my opinion.
But it's evidence that there's nothing specially/intrinsically homosexual about it.
>Are you a femanon?
Yes.
>Are you sure you're not just doing it to be trendy?
I'm pretty sure that if I didn't actually enjoy having sex with other women I wouldn't have kept doing it after the first one.

>>24456309
>Yes
Trans*

>>24456339
Surprisingly enough, no.

>>24456260
>>24456309
>bisexual woman that posts in /lit/
Yeah sounds like autism (i.e. retard narcissism) to me. Post your tits.

>>24453269
Studies indicate that men who have sex with men (MSM) exhibit a higher prevalence of certain intestinal parasitic infections compared to heterosexual populations.

This disparity is primarily attributed to specific sexual behaviors and exposure risks.

Key Findings from Recent Research

Higher Prevalence in MSM:

A study from Sydney, Australia, involving 1,868 participants, found that 52.2% of stool samples from MSM tested positive for protozoa, compared to 13% from non-MSM. Notably, Blastocystis hominis, Entamoeba histolytica/dispar, and Iodamoeba butschlii were more prevalent among MSM.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17360882/

Human Intestinal Spirochetosis (HIS):

Research conducted in Madrid, Spain, identified a significant occurrence of symptomatic HIS among MSM engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors, such as unprotected oral-anal intercourse and chemsex. Approximately 81.1% of these patients reported symptoms like diarrhea.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37235298/

>>24456545
Last time I did that on a blue board I got banned for three days. (But also yes I am autistic, diagnosed and everything.)

>>24439132
He has a great post on why there will never be anything approaching gender parity in STEM, that nobody ever mentions because they can't handle the truth.
>>24456732
post on /soc/ then, duh
and as to your "why should society frown on gangbangs" above - it's far from clear that complete sexual freedom is compatible with having a stable society

>>24456950
How does consenting adults having sex you find icky destabilize society?

>>24456960
The problem is promiscuity.

First, promiscuity lowers the probability that children are raised by two genetic parents, and that reduction in biparental investment is strongly associated with both higher child mortality in traditional societies and lower completed fertility under modern conditions. Ethnographic studies compiled in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample indicate that hunter-gatherer groups with weak pair-bonding suffer infant-to-age-five mortality rates roughly double those of groups with stable monogamy, after controlling for climate and subsistence mode. In contemporary Western data, the U.S. General Social Survey shows that women who report more than ten premarital sexual partners end up with a completed fertility about 0.3 children lower than women who report zero or one, even though the former group begins sexual activity earlier; the gap widens to 0.5 children among college graduates. A longitudinal analysis by Wolfinger (2014) using the National Survey of Family Growth finds that marital dissolution rates rise monotonically with premarital partner count, and divorce in turn reduces second- and third-birth probabilities by forty to sixty per cent.

Second, low paternal certainty generated by promiscuous mating changes male investment incentives in the aggregate. In polygynous or high-promiscuity settings a significant minority of men fail to marry at all; Turchin and collaborators, examining early-modern Chinese lineage records, calculate that counties with sex ratios above 1.2 had homicide rates three to five times higher than counties near parity. Elevated male–male competition, they argue, creates additional mortality that subtracts directly from the population growth rate and indirectly from fertility because widows and surplus males do not reproduce further.

Third, large and dense sexual networks accelerate the transmission of pathogens that damage fertility outright. A demographic shock can be observed in sub-Saharan Africa after the rise of HIV: for Botswana, Lesotho or Eswatini, life-table analyses place cumulative fertility reduction attributable to HIV-associated sub-fecundity and maternal mortality at about 0.3–0.5 births per woman between 1990 and 2010, a non-trivial share of the drop that pushed those countries below replacement despite traditionally high desired family size.

Taken together, these strands—reduced joint parenting, skewed mating markets, and pathogen load—constitute the demographic argument that promiscuity, when it becomes a modal behavior rather than a marginal one, tends to push a population toward lower or even negative growth. The causal channels are well understood, the magnitudes are large enough to be visible in both historical and contemporary datasets, and the direction of effect remains the same whether contraception is ubiquitous (modern West) or absent (pre-modern Europe and Africa).

>>24456960
On individual level it doesn't, the question is what happens if it gets normalized and people start doing it at scale. It might, for example
- undermine relationship formation
- further reduce birthrates
- create a large underclass of frustrated sexually unsuccessful young males

Since we are actually seeing all of these happen, and they are already having substantial destabilizing social effects, I believe it's a question that at least deserves to be considered.

>>24457005
I think there are probably downsides, but as a materialist I think the underlying reason is really because of technological and material advancements which broke up traditional, patriarchial family structures, and allowed people to live more autonomous sexual lives. The traditional patriarchial family was rooted in the agricultural civilization, and while it had a stabilizing effect, it started going away once industrialization, urbanization, and modernization changed everything else.

But I'm not actually sure people in Western societies are as hedonistic now as they were in the 1970s either. The gay culture itself still has a hedonistic side (if you want to live like that), but there's been a whole shift towards normalizing same-sex marriage to encourage same-sex monogamy. That's an interesting synthesis in fact of the pre-sexual liberation family structure with elements of the sexual liberation, that contains elements of both but it also something different.

>>24457005
>the question is what happens if it gets normalized
Or to put it another way, what will be most interesting is how the thing itself will change as a result of being normalized. If you think homosexuality = hedonism, then you might also think it being normalized will lead to more hedonism, but homosexuality being normalized might also cause homosexuality to change.

This is how empiricism goes wrong. You observe homosexuality in its hedonistic state, and you think, okay I'm using my observation as a source of knowledge and will make a prediction, so therefore... what I'm observing will remain the same as it grows or accumulates or spreads. "The apple is green, so if I grow more apples, I'll have more green apples." But the green apples might grow and turn red (because of the maturity of the fruit).

When you increase the temperature of water, it gets hotter. But at a certain stage, it turns into a gas.

>>24452414
The brain isn't gendered according to scientific research. There's no difference between male and female brain structures. How can you claim that you have a "female brain" if the brain structure is the same in both sexes? What does it even mean to feel like a woman? By having long hair and wearing dresses? By having a vagina and periods? The whole transgender's raison d'être falls apart with those questions because it doesn't make any sense.
Men become feminine or women masculine because of nurture, not because of their brain structure. It's very probable that transwomen are just confused feminine men or there's something abnormal happening in their brains but they weren't born with female brains because it's not a thing.

>>24458430
>Men become feminine or women masculine because of nurture, not because of their brain structure.
this has been tested. david reimer is the most famous example, but there were other boys born with genital anomalies who were surgically altered and raised as girls, the studies i've seen following kids like that show ~half ending up identifying as boys by adulthood, a significant chunk of the rest expressing desire to be a boy.

>>24453286
Nah, you're supposed to be short and simple. That's is the definition of a try hard.
A pseud will make a snarky comment on the works of Aristotle as 'generic' and limited and unnecessary for an advanced mind of today.

>>24456577
>>24456997
Is this O3? These models have way more data these days.

>>24455658
Kinda reminds me of the Ontological Argument

>>24447998
>But what is the essence of maleness? What, at bottom, defines a female? We as mammals see the sexes defined by whole syndromes of characteristics — possession of a penis, bearing of the young, suckling by means of special milk glands, certain chromosomal features, and so on. These criteria for judging the sex of an individual are all very well for mammals, but for animals and plants generally, they are no more reliable than is the tendency to wear trousers as a criterion for judging human sex.
>However, there is one fundamental feature of the sexes which can be used to label males as males, and females as females, throughout animals and plants. This is that the sex cells or 'gametes' of males are much smaller and more numerous than the gametes of females. This is true whether we are dealing with animals or plants.
>As we shall see, it is possible to interpret all the other differences between the sexes as stemming from this one basic difference.
The Selfish Gene, chapter 9, "Battle of the Sexes".

Homo sapiens are sexually dimorphic and gonochrorist, with anisogamous sex cells, sperm and eggs, requiring one of each to reproduce. Every single person without exception, every ancestor of everyone who has ever lived, began their lives in this single way: with a sperm fertilizing an egg. Everything else follows after.

Imagine two islands, each with 100 people on them. One island has 50 males and 50 females, the other has 100 males: 50 men and 50 trans women. Isolate the islands for 100 years and return to them, which population has survived?

Haven't read much of the the thread but the problem with these guys is their axioms. They take 21st century liberal progressivism as an immutable law of the universe like gravity, then everything proceeds from there. So it's just a way to optimize a rotten system.

>>24443880
Cool. Still mortal. If they make better humans, we can and should kill them. Why not? They are playing god and we are playing godslayer.

Frankly, I'd love it if these out of touch brainwashed retards were hunted down proactively. Either go for them directly or just start by pruning their social networks until they're too busy attending funerals to ruin the world further.

Murder is free. Death is inevitable. Memento mori.

>>24449415
And 80% of people are on the left side of a Pareto distribution, which is even more dire.

>>24439081 (OP)
I started reading their, uh, "codex" a while back. there are a lot of interesting ideas, expressed in a spectrum of "quite well" to "what the fuck are you talking about"

>>24452641
You're a fag.

>>24453370
it's 99% accurate

>>24458430
>The brain isn't gendered according to scientific research.
They were literally able to determine sex from MRI brain scans with upwards of 90 percent accuracy using a machine learning model.
>What does it even mean to feel like a woman?
Wanting to have a female body, generally.
>Men become feminine or women masculine because of nurture, not because of their brain structure.
So why are sexual orientation and gender identity both correlated to digit ratio?

>>24446929
Then why did we force whites to go to school with blacks at gunpoint using the national guard?

>>24443880
gwern comment:

>In reality, if you put a chimpanzee in the human context of people and expect them to 'take care of themselves', they will not be able to, because they would be unemployed, unemployable, completely fail at basic standards of human life, starving, homeless, less able to be reasoned with or communicated with than someone in a schizophrenic psychotic break, and probably in jail or shot by police within the year after mauling or killing another human. This is why chimpanzee refuges have to put muzzles on chimps when interacting with humans, sedate them for flights to said refuges, and even chimpanzees raised from birth with humans and given every advantage we know how have a rather alarming rate of eating the faces of caregivers or just random strangers.