Hi. I am the author. If anyone is interested in following my writing, especially those not often on LessWrong, consider subscribing to my Substack: https://tomasbjartur.substack.com/
I plan to mirror any future fiction there.
I haven't written much but my next-best stories are likely these:
I'd read the novel! I think there's room for more character development, and the neat tie-ups/references back to Krishna's ambitions, Blood Meridian, etc. would be more impactful across chapters in something longer form.
Great article. I'd love to read the work you mention here if it exists:
> I read a work of great insight on the corrosive effect of irony on American culture, critiquing it as a kind of anesthesia poisoning the pop cultural artifacts out of which the American soul is now woven.
Your writing style reminds me a lot of the titular short story in "Liberation Day" by George Saunders. I really hope you stick with writing because I think it is quite good.
Motivation comes from "this stuff is nuts, but it could work"
Meaning from: "That was nuts, but it worked"
Between the two, it's a chore to get a bunch of homsaps to agree on exactly what is nuts OR what's possible. AI could definitely help with sanity checking the contentious stuff without always giving great reasons so that we may cross it off either of two lists quick.
(Governments need a third list for prioritising the new instances of Thomas Midgley Jr to put in the airlock)
This is so great, absolutely love the wry inner monologue style:
> There is little less interesting than another man's drug trip. Unfortunately, he's both Arden Vox and my boss, so I try my best to appear fascinated.
I think this is definitely drawing inspiration from his writing (especially the Bay Area House Party posts; latest in the series, with the previous at the top: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sources-say-bay-area-house-...). Just curious, but why would that make you hesitate?
This is absolutely enthralling. It's one of the best pieces of writing I've had the pleasure of enjoying in quite some time. I keep laughing while grimacing and looking inward. The vocabulary is exceptional, too. Really well done.
It kind of reminds me of Krazam's YouTube skits, but in long-form writing.
EDIT: I kind of wanted more from the ending, though. It wrapped up surprisingly quick.
Im enjoying reading this but struggling with the fact that the average number of words per sentence nears 150. I exaggerate, of course. But please, use periods.
Assuming this is fiction... A good friend of mine is a professional writer. I learned from her that most of what is presented to us, readers, as fiction is really not so far removed from what really happened.
Yeah: We've seen some AI-related companies/CEOs acting as if they are heroes deeply conflicted by the ramifications of their own superpowers, inviting us to imagine their product might be too awesome for mere mortal hands, and agonizing over how they might make bajillions of dollars for savvy investors that [BUY] [BUY] [BUY] today... but at what figurative cost!?
I'm glad to see some satirization of the woe-is-me-for-making-hundreds-of-thousands-under-capitalism flavor of techbro in the first few paragraphs. Insufferable archetype.
There is a lot of unmet demand for AI researchers that don't seem completely crazy. The Manhattan Project, people are wearing suits and ties, they're all aligned with the broader goals of the nation, the madmen who are proposing super bombs with 100 megatons are being corralled into relative containment. At a certain point in history, the development of nuclear power and thus nuclear weapons became inevitable, but so far we've managed to live with this technology without an apocalypse. But in AI development it sometimes seems like every other person is an Edward Teller. There are limits, I think, to the benefits of the open-mindedness of the Silicon Valley culture.
I also work in AI as a software engineer. I feel bad about what's happening but I'm just getting by and AI is ultimately a threat to my career too. My younger truck driver cousin is doing much better than me financially. He didn't go to university, didn't rack up university debt, didn't have to work nights and weekends for 15 years.
My main problem isn't AI though, it's the structure of the anti-competitive tech sector; which is itself driven by the structure of the monetary system in which it operates.
AI is just yet another tool, like crypto, and other distractions which may be used to further disenfranchise me and others. I don't feel bad about other people because I've been a victim myself and as a tech person, I also get the privilege of being labelled as part of the oppressor class, while being oppressed by them... While working one of the most competitive and mentally-taxing jobs in the history of humanity... Seeing the harms, understanding the problems, seeing the solutions but being so powerless that I'm literally forced to work for the oppressor.
I feel too much pain to feel any guilt. I can totally relate to the comment about 'nice colleagues' but I understand it's a very superficial concept, unfortunately. Our world is so dystopian, even kindness is turned into a weapon. Their kindness is partly what holds this incredibly violent system together as it strengthens bonds between the elites which protect the system. Kindness, kinship and filter bubbles combine to form a moat around a global monopoly on power, violence and opportunities; causing the most unjust, asymmetric treatment of humans in the history of mankind. Topped with layer upon layer of gaslighting which looks more and more disturbing and unbelievable as you move down the social hierarchy and lose your voice and power. We have a system where every person lives in a different reality and yet pretend to live in the same reality. People communicate with words but nobody shares the same understanding of the words; that's how bad the situation is.
I'm a bit hesitant to comment. I relate to some of what you're saying some of the time. Don't compare yourself to others. It's great your cousin is doing well but having more money ("doing well financially") shouldn't be a benchmark, that is a distraction. If you've been a software engineer for 15 years you're probably doing ok.
> the most unjust, asymmetric treatment of humans in the history of mankind.
Things are not perfect but I think we're very far from the worst in history. Things used to be way worse for most humans for most of the history of mankind. I would say unfortunately we aren't going straight "up and to the right" in terms of human happiness, well being, a better world, but that's the nature of things, there are ups and downs. I think things can and will still work out (climate, geo-politics, AI, economy etc.) if we do our little bits. Look for the good things and we'll work on the bad things.
Getting less screen time and more time with people and outdoors can help with perspective. It's easy to get sucked in doom and gloom on the Internet. Happens to me.
People do abuse words but I think we can still communicate just fine. We just need to do a better job of explaining in detail what we're talking about.
It's interesting that you talk of yourself as being the oppressor class while thinking of yourself of being oppressed. I think that shows the limits of this line of thinking. Most would probably consider you "elite" as well. We're all just people I think is the easy answer there. I'm not jealous for a second of any "elite", I'm sure they have the same human struggles (or even worse) as all of us.
Hope you can get over your pain, try and get some help if that makes sense to you.
The roman empire collapsed because a bunch of itinerant peasants in the desert invented a loop of metal that allowed them to ride faster on a horse and destroy roman formations on the battlefield.
The romans also invented a form of self healing concrete that allowed their buildings to last to the present day and we only discovered how it was made within the last five years (and to my knowledge it still isn't widely used). It still didn't save them. Civilizations collapse because they can't take care of their least fortunate, they can't keep the water and food supply clean, and because people that require less resources to succeed end up replacing them. And then they build in all the comforts that the people they replaced had, they become soft and are taken over by the next group of idiots that finds a way to cross their moat or knock down their walls.
Despite speaking as if he's doing his utmost to have a love affair with the Cambridge dictionary (and sounding like a twat at the same time) he's not wrong in so far as not giving a shit is going to screw him over when the ability to push buttons in front of a television no longer matters. What happens when the guys hanging around doing meth on the sidewalk become the engineers that end up becoming the super biologist supermen that cure cancer make us able to hear what dogs hear and see extra colors? It's unlikely, but it's even less likely that everyone who is a middle class engineer will be so tomorrow. There is no moat in any profession outside of entrenched wealth or guns at the moment. There just isn't - we're in a permanent state of future shock along with the singularity. In large part because that's what people decided that they wanted.
And not going to lie - the guy does sound like someone that's off their meds and doesn't know how to project a real personality so he's surrounding himself with a wall of fancy pants words to sound "totally legit bro" type shit. This coming from a guy who's first instinct in ebonics is to hate it with a fucking passion. Like "total American psycho" vibes except with locution. Some people I see on the streets of San Francisco or elsewhere will have the American Psycho "vibe" - god I hate that word. In any case - that's a "book" that someone can be "killed" to which is a thing where people will fuck with someone that likes to read by screwing with them. The one that douchecanoes in San Francisco are attempting to do to me is "Withnail & I" wherein they'll attempt to find ways of fucking with me if I only talk to homeless or fucked up weirdos if I'm doing an activity that requires someone have an addiction. They're getting really fucking desperate at this point too - like sitting down next to me and smacking their lips while they eat like food is an addiction or seeing if they can give me sick if I talk to someone at the coffee stand. Because I dislike going around San Francisco where people were smoking meth and fent and I smoked a joint (one) and I drank (like six handles of alcohol over the course of three years) and I smoked (but like half a dozen packs of cigarettes over three years). It's a joke I believe to the book Entangled Life which has a mushroom that's eating a cigarette which itself is a joke to the movie airplane which may itself be a joke about the book the illuminatus trilogy which itself may be a joke about blue jeans and pedophilia (not a pedophile). There's a bunch of these "traps" that are convolutional ways to fuck with someone. So if you jerk off it's this trap, if you got into a fist fight one time it's the American Psycho trap, etc, where they (and it's some group of fuckers that have decided to screw with you in a group) will surround you with a group of assholes that are attempting to fuck up your life by manipulating you.
This is the "freedom" joke having to do with the statue of liberty and people that read because it's psychological. There's a whole nother tree of asshole for people that are into music that has to do with buddhism or something. This stupid shit is everywhere in San Francisco. More or less anyone involved in it is a massive piece of shit.
Oh and Statue of Liberty with four eyes is "spiderman", buddhist with headphones is "batman", and Marylin Monroe with mask is "the shadow", and so on. There's another one for superman I believe - it would probably be Harry Potter is Superman as a joke on national socialism and the will to power. Which is again like helter skelter and Ra the SS and Rascals which is the next CIA thing.
Correlate that to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Which is which superhero?
It must be an instagram joke.
So it's more stupid having to do with fucking with people. I just can't keep a secret for shit and I hate it when people fuck with me constantly.
I mean speaking of Company Man or whatever. This version of the economy is at about peak stupid and is going to implode within a year. AI will be just the thing that people use to change their oil or turn the faucet on or what have you and there won't be any money in it anymore. Genetic algorithms, self healing code, platform as a service by telling google you want one. Coding will become a thing that you just have your digital unicorn do for you and all the money will be in trading hair dos for the next version of Microsoft's clippy.
Personally I'm more worried that books are trapped in a feedback loop in which people are just scraping culture from what used to exist -
How is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Model any different from "The Remains of the Day"? How is "Death Valley" (a new book) different than taking a section from The Illuminatus Trilogy? The question here isn't so much whether or not someone is free or not to do something, but whether people are using their freedom to use something akin to the xerox effect to purposefully create as much anti-information noise as possible while culture dies out of stagnation. If a country is relatively soft compared to the rest of the world where do their epics come from? Do people understand or care about what an adventure novel is about if they don't ever experience adventure in their lives? How long would it take a people to not be able to tell fiction that is written in good faith with something claiming to be but isn't? How would anyone know the difference? Even this is an example of only one type of obfuscation having to do with I believe certain branches of Christian satanism (the lie). Is it good or bad (culture jamming)? To what degree is culture important?
One of the things that I worry about is that anyone that writes books in english may be rehashing plots that have been written about already to the point where english may die out. Using an algorithm you should be able to compare the creativity of works over time and I would argue that books in english (what about art) are becoming less creative as time goes on. I don't believe this is necessarily the sky is falling type shit either. How many RPGs exist in which the main (female) character is realistic as a fighter - not to break or create gender roles but merely as something different (and interesting) artistically? It almost doesn't exist at all. Or ugliness in visual media. I don't think that it exists as an art form and I don't think you could make a video game in which everything wasn't some degree of high gloss and shiny. In movies for a long time you had a color palette that was primarily all blues and oranges (why? - possibly it could have had something to do with getting around someone adding green screen to the background in order to doctor the film in some way - maybe). OKHSL has a color palette with high saturation colors - and yet Mad Magazine has a higher color saturation content (see the latest on mad science) than any movie made within the last year. You'll have a 100 million dollar plus movie where the color palette looks awful. I've even seen some of the newer cinematography that relies on three d filming affects and even with the added depth of field it has less visual interest than Hammer films from the 70s.
Look at the plots of Jack Vance, Philip K. Dick, Hp Lovecraft, Robert Anton Wilson, Samuel R Delaney, to name a few. Stories these days are downright boring in comparison to many of them. And I'm a millenial so this is my parent's generation. The new weird is cool - I like China Meiville and some of Jeff Vandermeer. And then you read Clarice Lispector and you're left wondering the extent that he was scraping his artistic technique from her stuff.
I don't know where culture is right now in the sense that I don't know what people care about in such a way where not bandwagon appeal but how to fit into society in such a way where I can both be useful and I understand it.
From what little I know about the late history of the Roman Empire, the stirrup thing had nothing to do with it. In late antiquity, Roman soldiers and "barbarian" soldiers were not very different.
Here's an introduction to the scholarly debate about that:
Also, ancient concrete recipes had little to do with it either. Modern construction usually uses steel rebar, which corrodes, because it costs less and lasts long enough. (Most buildings get torn down because they're functionally obsolete.) People who really care about longevity could use stainless steel rebar if they're willing to pay for it. More about that:
Rebar is essential for concrete beams. Something has to provide tensile strength. Roman concrete was usually used in pure compression.
Epoxy-coated rebar turned out to be a dud idea. One scratch in the epoxy, or a cut end, or a weld, lets water in. It's now banned in Quebec and being looked at elsewhere.
The Oregon Department of Transportation has been using stainless steel rebar for bridges that cross salt water. Seems to be working out well. Steel cost is 5x-6x ordinary rebar, but the long life is worth it.
There's now stainless steel plated rebar, which is a tougher coating than epoxy. Not clear how that will work out.
> There is no moat in any profession outside of entrenched wealth or guns at the moment
That's just not true at all.
Plumbers and electricians and carpenters are not going anywhere. A residential plumber will not have their job automated this or next decade, at best they'll have some fancier tools to play with.
No one expected natural language to be solved in 2020. At the time the smart money was on 20 to 80 years. Many people are still acting like it's not.
Things happen not at all and then all at once.
We have the cheap humanoid platforms coming out of China and they cost six months minimum wage salary in the developed world. Once a model is developed that can use those platforms to match humans for simple tasks we will see the hollowing out of all unskilled physical labor overnight.
ELIZA passed the Turing test in the 60s. That's not a statement of technological progress towards AI, that's a statement on 1) the uselessness of the Turing test, which has been known for decades and 2) the gullibility of the human psyche when it comes to assigning intelligence to anything that can mimic human communication patterns.
Not quickly at least, but technology can gradually reduce the labor content of a plumbing job thanks to things like solderlerss fittings, plastic tubing etc. For carpenters, prefab assemblies made in automated factories, etc.
The biggest risk they face is perhaps competition from unskilled workers who can do trades by just wearing Meta AR glasses and following instructions from an AI.
Of course you’d still need training on how to work with your hands but it would cut down on the need for years of experience and planning.
Power systems have a long way to go in terms of integration with data. One can envisage an inherently safe system whereby a data signal is superimposed on the wire (related to data-over-power) and every power source continually interrogates its loads and conditions on the wire are being continually monitored. Any unsafe situation will result in a shutdown of supply.
I'm describing a system that goes well beyond existing breakers and earth leakage: one that is able to fully map the connections between components, know the topology of the system and compare actual and expected behaviour. The idea is that any dummy could do electrical wiring, as the system itself would make it impossible to create an unsafe situation.
Cost would be higher to start with, but with economies of scale reducing the difference, my guess is that the higher cost of components could be offset by lower installation cost and the increased safety.
Every plumber, electrician, and carpenter relies on a union to prevent hordes of people from taking their jobs which requires any tradesman to go through five years of schooling in order to qualify to become hired at above minimum wage. To become the highest certification of plumber and open your own store (which you own) in some states requires fifteen years or more of certification or proven work experience.
In Indiana if you do nothing but take the tests it requires you have (depending on county) ten years of experience in order to open your own store and call yourself a plumber. I may as well buy a wrench and call myself a plummer and fix people's leaky faucets and then charge 90 percent of what they do. Or I would if I wanted my legs broken.
They vote themselves money in order to keep out immigrants for connecting pipes together. All the flow calculations require simple calculus you can have a cell phone tell you. They're a voting block not a profession.
And the stupidest thing is that if you got rid of the stupid shit like this you could absorb all the immigrants you wanted who would all go into construction and the price of a house would plummet. And instead we have phds that are never going to pay back what it cost to get a degree in computer science which no longer matters. But they couldn't write a science fiction book that wouldn't be derivative where I would say "oh this is like this author I've already read this one".
This reads like someone who is quite out of touch with the trades. A large number of states implement right to work laws that discourage union membership. I could go out and get a framer job today (and with the current immigration crackdown probably have one by the end of the day). Having worked as a framer before college, it will be incredibly long before these jobs have any level of automation (a thought which gives me comfort when I consider my own job prospects).
However, I'm thankful everyday that I get to sit in an A/C office and type on a computer. Framing is hard work and ruthless. Most people won't last a day doing it because of how challenging it is.
Who is going to buy the houses? Who is going to own the land? Not many people need a plumber. Look back some decades. We can't all just work in the trades. It doesn't make sense from a supply and demand stance.
A decrease in quality of life is an acceptable cost to stay alive. In a very different economy, people will just fix their own toilet with scavenged or bartered parts.
My point was that humans can do most residential plumbing tasks easily, and the effort and cost involved in learning and acquiring tools might outweigh the desire to pay for a service in a future economy with scarce labor opportunities.
Also, in such a bleak future, there might not be running water where you currently own property.
But really you're answering your own question. The economy is not a zero sum game- It adapts. Why do our current jobs exist? Because somebody is paying for what we produce. Then we take our pay and buy what other people produce. There could be an equilibrium today (or 20 years ago) where nobody has any jobs but there are generally feedback loops that help get to a functioning economy.
It's not impossible that unemployment will go up but it's not as simple as LLMs will take our jobs. There's always more jobs to do and there are always some other equilibrium points. And it's not even clear LLMs are taking our jobs, one might argue that they'll end up creating more jobs.
What you are talking about is info overload and break down of "shared stories" as content explodes faster than there are people or time to consume it all. In Economics they will tell you what happens when Supply drastically overshoots Demand. But economics is too young and immature a field to tell you how to find meaning and how "to fit or be useful".
For that you need the Philosophy or Religion.
So here is a useful lecture from an actual Philosopher on Detachment and Flourishing cause "there is no obligation to fit or be useful or understand everything" - https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-8
If you are the type who feels the need to fit - go through the previous lecture on Attachment and Flourishing.
You write like David Foster Wallace, and I mean that as a compliment.
Have you read The City & the City? BBC Two also did a miniseries version, which I thought would be unfilmable and even unwatchable, but somehow it works, likely due to China Miéville himself serving as a consultant on the production.
For those who aren’t familiar with the work, I advise you to avoid spoilers, which are present in the reference links below.
>despite having some FartCoin which has been doing very well lately, shockingly well, this FartCoin. I wonder if it will continue to "moon" to the point where I can quit my job and become a VC and go on podcasts in which I will try to downplay the source of my initial capital so as to maintain some illusion that this economy makes any kind of sense at all to me or anyone else for that matter. Though perhaps by the time I am doing podcasts I will be so far gone I will just own it and maintain that it required great genius to have foreseen the rise of FartCoin and allocated capital to same.
Fartcoin hasn't been doing that well though, I had to check the date of the article and it is recent. Maybe he got in Fartcoin long ago in early Nov. 2024? 200x since then but only a 2x since the end of Nov. 2024.
Hi. I am the author. If anyone is interested in following my writing, especially those not often on LessWrong, consider subscribing to my Substack: https://tomasbjartur.substack.com/
I plan to mirror any future fiction there.
I haven't written much but my next-best stories are likely these:
The Maker of MIND: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/H4kadKrC2xLK24udn/the-maker-...
The Liar and The Scold https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/duF4Qh9pn7Y5imhsm/the-liar-a...
Of the two, I prefer The Maker of MIND. Both got similar karma on LessWrong and were written ~2021.
I'd read the novel! I think there's room for more character development, and the neat tie-ups/references back to Krishna's ambitions, Blood Meridian, etc. would be more impactful across chapters in something longer form.
Great article. I'd love to read the work you mention here if it exists:
> I read a work of great insight on the corrosive effect of irony on American culture, critiquing it as a kind of anesthesia poisoning the pop cultural artifacts out of which the American soul is now woven.
I really enjoyed it. Very Hitchhiker’s Guide -like. It’s been a while since I’ve read something like that. Thanks for sharing
Your writing style reminds me a lot of the titular short story in "Liberation Day" by George Saunders. I really hope you stick with writing because I think it is quite good.
You've really struck a nerve, congrats, it's quite the accomplishment.
Entertaining, almost insightful!
Disappointed at: >It wouldn't have worked anyway
Feedback:
Motivation comes from "this stuff is nuts, but it could work"
Meaning from: "That was nuts, but it worked"
Between the two, it's a chore to get a bunch of homsaps to agree on exactly what is nuts OR what's possible. AI could definitely help with sanity checking the contentious stuff without always giving great reasons so that we may cross it off either of two lists quick.
(Governments need a third list for prioritising the new instances of Thomas Midgley Jr to put in the airlock)
This is so great, absolutely love the wry inner monologue style:
> There is little less interesting than another man's drug trip. Unfortunately, he's both Arden Vox and my boss, so I try my best to appear fascinated.
Almost immediately you know you’re in good hands.
This was well written. I'm glad that I powered through the initial hesitation I felt when I recognized the narrative style.
Can you elaborate? I also feel like I've heard this particular voice before, but I can't recall where.
I may be imagining it but it's very reminiscent of "Scott Alexander" / Slate Star Codex / whatever he rebranded to
I think this is definitely drawing inspiration from his writing (especially the Bay Area House Party posts; latest in the series, with the previous at the top: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sources-say-bay-area-house-...). Just curious, but why would that make you hesitate?
Microserfs?
This is absolutely enthralling. It's one of the best pieces of writing I've had the pleasure of enjoying in quite some time. I keep laughing while grimacing and looking inward. The vocabulary is exceptional, too. Really well done.
It kind of reminds me of Krazam's YouTube skits, but in long-form writing.
EDIT: I kind of wanted more from the ending, though. It wrapped up surprisingly quick.
Im enjoying reading this but struggling with the fact that the average number of words per sentence nears 150. I exaggerate, of course. But please, use periods.
I really appreciated the stylistic difference.
Lol the top comment there is golden. The perfect icing on the cake of this satirizing piece.
I enjoyed this work of nonfiction.
What a delightful piece of realistic fiction. I was very entertained and amused.
Buildup OK, ending weak.
I thought Von Neumann had a pretty good line for this kind of weepy writing:
> Some people confess guilt to claim credit for the sin.
I don't think that line is supposed to apply to fiction.
Assuming this is fiction... A good friend of mine is a professional writer. I learned from her that most of what is presented to us, readers, as fiction is really not so far removed from what really happened.
Yeah: We've seen some AI-related companies/CEOs acting as if they are heroes deeply conflicted by the ramifications of their own superpowers, inviting us to imagine their product might be too awesome for mere mortal hands, and agonizing over how they might make bajillions of dollars for savvy investors that [BUY] [BUY] [BUY] today... but at what figurative cost!?
*clutches pearls, faints onto nearby divan*
"I used to get soooo drunk" heard it more than a few times lol
What a delightful read, thanks.
If you need a case study on "kill your darlings", read this.
amazingly well-written. exposing the utter psychopathy of the rationalist movement & of silicon valley more broadly.
this is the type of magical writing that an LLM can't capture a single iota of.
I'm glad to see some satirization of the woe-is-me-for-making-hundreds-of-thousands-under-capitalism flavor of techbro in the first few paragraphs. Insufferable archetype.
There is a lot of unmet demand for AI researchers that don't seem completely crazy. The Manhattan Project, people are wearing suits and ties, they're all aligned with the broader goals of the nation, the madmen who are proposing super bombs with 100 megatons are being corralled into relative containment. At a certain point in history, the development of nuclear power and thus nuclear weapons became inevitable, but so far we've managed to live with this technology without an apocalypse. But in AI development it sometimes seems like every other person is an Edward Teller. There are limits, I think, to the benefits of the open-mindedness of the Silicon Valley culture.
Is it like this in Chinese companies? I genuinely have no idea.
Demand for or need for?
I also work in AI as a software engineer. I feel bad about what's happening but I'm just getting by and AI is ultimately a threat to my career too. My younger truck driver cousin is doing much better than me financially. He didn't go to university, didn't rack up university debt, didn't have to work nights and weekends for 15 years.
My main problem isn't AI though, it's the structure of the anti-competitive tech sector; which is itself driven by the structure of the monetary system in which it operates.
AI is just yet another tool, like crypto, and other distractions which may be used to further disenfranchise me and others. I don't feel bad about other people because I've been a victim myself and as a tech person, I also get the privilege of being labelled as part of the oppressor class, while being oppressed by them... While working one of the most competitive and mentally-taxing jobs in the history of humanity... Seeing the harms, understanding the problems, seeing the solutions but being so powerless that I'm literally forced to work for the oppressor.
I feel too much pain to feel any guilt. I can totally relate to the comment about 'nice colleagues' but I understand it's a very superficial concept, unfortunately. Our world is so dystopian, even kindness is turned into a weapon. Their kindness is partly what holds this incredibly violent system together as it strengthens bonds between the elites which protect the system. Kindness, kinship and filter bubbles combine to form a moat around a global monopoly on power, violence and opportunities; causing the most unjust, asymmetric treatment of humans in the history of mankind. Topped with layer upon layer of gaslighting which looks more and more disturbing and unbelievable as you move down the social hierarchy and lose your voice and power. We have a system where every person lives in a different reality and yet pretend to live in the same reality. People communicate with words but nobody shares the same understanding of the words; that's how bad the situation is.
I'm a bit hesitant to comment. I relate to some of what you're saying some of the time. Don't compare yourself to others. It's great your cousin is doing well but having more money ("doing well financially") shouldn't be a benchmark, that is a distraction. If you've been a software engineer for 15 years you're probably doing ok.
> the most unjust, asymmetric treatment of humans in the history of mankind.
Things are not perfect but I think we're very far from the worst in history. Things used to be way worse for most humans for most of the history of mankind. I would say unfortunately we aren't going straight "up and to the right" in terms of human happiness, well being, a better world, but that's the nature of things, there are ups and downs. I think things can and will still work out (climate, geo-politics, AI, economy etc.) if we do our little bits. Look for the good things and we'll work on the bad things.
Getting less screen time and more time with people and outdoors can help with perspective. It's easy to get sucked in doom and gloom on the Internet. Happens to me.
People do abuse words but I think we can still communicate just fine. We just need to do a better job of explaining in detail what we're talking about.
It's interesting that you talk of yourself as being the oppressor class while thinking of yourself of being oppressed. I think that shows the limits of this line of thinking. Most would probably consider you "elite" as well. We're all just people I think is the easy answer there. I'm not jealous for a second of any "elite", I'm sure they have the same human struggles (or even worse) as all of us.
Hope you can get over your pain, try and get some help if that makes sense to you.
Stirrups.
The roman empire collapsed because a bunch of itinerant peasants in the desert invented a loop of metal that allowed them to ride faster on a horse and destroy roman formations on the battlefield.
The romans also invented a form of self healing concrete that allowed their buildings to last to the present day and we only discovered how it was made within the last five years (and to my knowledge it still isn't widely used). It still didn't save them. Civilizations collapse because they can't take care of their least fortunate, they can't keep the water and food supply clean, and because people that require less resources to succeed end up replacing them. And then they build in all the comforts that the people they replaced had, they become soft and are taken over by the next group of idiots that finds a way to cross their moat or knock down their walls.
Despite speaking as if he's doing his utmost to have a love affair with the Cambridge dictionary (and sounding like a twat at the same time) he's not wrong in so far as not giving a shit is going to screw him over when the ability to push buttons in front of a television no longer matters. What happens when the guys hanging around doing meth on the sidewalk become the engineers that end up becoming the super biologist supermen that cure cancer make us able to hear what dogs hear and see extra colors? It's unlikely, but it's even less likely that everyone who is a middle class engineer will be so tomorrow. There is no moat in any profession outside of entrenched wealth or guns at the moment. There just isn't - we're in a permanent state of future shock along with the singularity. In large part because that's what people decided that they wanted.
And not going to lie - the guy does sound like someone that's off their meds and doesn't know how to project a real personality so he's surrounding himself with a wall of fancy pants words to sound "totally legit bro" type shit. This coming from a guy who's first instinct in ebonics is to hate it with a fucking passion. Like "total American psycho" vibes except with locution. Some people I see on the streets of San Francisco or elsewhere will have the American Psycho "vibe" - god I hate that word. In any case - that's a "book" that someone can be "killed" to which is a thing where people will fuck with someone that likes to read by screwing with them. The one that douchecanoes in San Francisco are attempting to do to me is "Withnail & I" wherein they'll attempt to find ways of fucking with me if I only talk to homeless or fucked up weirdos if I'm doing an activity that requires someone have an addiction. They're getting really fucking desperate at this point too - like sitting down next to me and smacking their lips while they eat like food is an addiction or seeing if they can give me sick if I talk to someone at the coffee stand. Because I dislike going around San Francisco where people were smoking meth and fent and I smoked a joint (one) and I drank (like six handles of alcohol over the course of three years) and I smoked (but like half a dozen packs of cigarettes over three years). It's a joke I believe to the book Entangled Life which has a mushroom that's eating a cigarette which itself is a joke to the movie airplane which may itself be a joke about the book the illuminatus trilogy which itself may be a joke about blue jeans and pedophilia (not a pedophile). There's a bunch of these "traps" that are convolutional ways to fuck with someone. So if you jerk off it's this trap, if you got into a fist fight one time it's the American Psycho trap, etc, where they (and it's some group of fuckers that have decided to screw with you in a group) will surround you with a group of assholes that are attempting to fuck up your life by manipulating you.
This is the "freedom" joke having to do with the statue of liberty and people that read because it's psychological. There's a whole nother tree of asshole for people that are into music that has to do with buddhism or something. This stupid shit is everywhere in San Francisco. More or less anyone involved in it is a massive piece of shit.
Oh and Statue of Liberty with four eyes is "spiderman", buddhist with headphones is "batman", and Marylin Monroe with mask is "the shadow", and so on. There's another one for superman I believe - it would probably be Harry Potter is Superman as a joke on national socialism and the will to power. Which is again like helter skelter and Ra the SS and Rascals which is the next CIA thing.
Correlate that to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Which is which superhero?
It must be an instagram joke.
So it's more stupid having to do with fucking with people. I just can't keep a secret for shit and I hate it when people fuck with me constantly.
I mean speaking of Company Man or whatever. This version of the economy is at about peak stupid and is going to implode within a year. AI will be just the thing that people use to change their oil or turn the faucet on or what have you and there won't be any money in it anymore. Genetic algorithms, self healing code, platform as a service by telling google you want one. Coding will become a thing that you just have your digital unicorn do for you and all the money will be in trading hair dos for the next version of Microsoft's clippy.
Personally I'm more worried that books are trapped in a feedback loop in which people are just scraping culture from what used to exist -
How is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Model any different from "The Remains of the Day"? How is "Death Valley" (a new book) different than taking a section from The Illuminatus Trilogy? The question here isn't so much whether or not someone is free or not to do something, but whether people are using their freedom to use something akin to the xerox effect to purposefully create as much anti-information noise as possible while culture dies out of stagnation. If a country is relatively soft compared to the rest of the world where do their epics come from? Do people understand or care about what an adventure novel is about if they don't ever experience adventure in their lives? How long would it take a people to not be able to tell fiction that is written in good faith with something claiming to be but isn't? How would anyone know the difference? Even this is an example of only one type of obfuscation having to do with I believe certain branches of Christian satanism (the lie). Is it good or bad (culture jamming)? To what degree is culture important?
One of the things that I worry about is that anyone that writes books in english may be rehashing plots that have been written about already to the point where english may die out. Using an algorithm you should be able to compare the creativity of works over time and I would argue that books in english (what about art) are becoming less creative as time goes on. I don't believe this is necessarily the sky is falling type shit either. How many RPGs exist in which the main (female) character is realistic as a fighter - not to break or create gender roles but merely as something different (and interesting) artistically? It almost doesn't exist at all. Or ugliness in visual media. I don't think that it exists as an art form and I don't think you could make a video game in which everything wasn't some degree of high gloss and shiny. In movies for a long time you had a color palette that was primarily all blues and oranges (why? - possibly it could have had something to do with getting around someone adding green screen to the background in order to doctor the film in some way - maybe). OKHSL has a color palette with high saturation colors - and yet Mad Magazine has a higher color saturation content (see the latest on mad science) than any movie made within the last year. You'll have a 100 million dollar plus movie where the color palette looks awful. I've even seen some of the newer cinematography that relies on three d filming affects and even with the added depth of field it has less visual interest than Hammer films from the 70s.
Look at the plots of Jack Vance, Philip K. Dick, Hp Lovecraft, Robert Anton Wilson, Samuel R Delaney, to name a few. Stories these days are downright boring in comparison to many of them. And I'm a millenial so this is my parent's generation. The new weird is cool - I like China Meiville and some of Jeff Vandermeer. And then you read Clarice Lispector and you're left wondering the extent that he was scraping his artistic technique from her stuff.
I don't know where culture is right now in the sense that I don't know what people care about in such a way where not bandwagon appeal but how to fit into society in such a way where I can both be useful and I understand it.
From what little I know about the late history of the Roman Empire, the stirrup thing had nothing to do with it. In late antiquity, Roman soldiers and "barbarian" soldiers were not very different.
Here's an introduction to the scholarly debate about that:
https://acoup.blog/2022/01/14/collections-rome-decline-and-f...
Also, ancient concrete recipes had little to do with it either. Modern construction usually uses steel rebar, which corrodes, because it costs less and lasts long enough. (Most buildings get torn down because they're functionally obsolete.) People who really care about longevity could use stainless steel rebar if they're willing to pay for it. More about that:
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/roman-vs-modern-concr...
Rebar is essential for concrete beams. Something has to provide tensile strength. Roman concrete was usually used in pure compression.
Epoxy-coated rebar turned out to be a dud idea. One scratch in the epoxy, or a cut end, or a weld, lets water in. It's now banned in Quebec and being looked at elsewhere.
The Oregon Department of Transportation has been using stainless steel rebar for bridges that cross salt water. Seems to be working out well. Steel cost is 5x-6x ordinary rebar, but the long life is worth it.
There's now stainless steel plated rebar, which is a tougher coating than epoxy. Not clear how that will work out.
What features of modern construction create tensile stresses where the Roman designs only produced compressive stresses?
You'll notice the Romans used a lot of arches and very few concrete beams.
Introduction to bridge statics [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbCVRr5eANA&
> There is no moat in any profession outside of entrenched wealth or guns at the moment
That's just not true at all.
Plumbers and electricians and carpenters are not going anywhere. A residential plumber will not have their job automated this or next decade, at best they'll have some fancier tools to play with.
No one expected natural language to be solved in 2020. At the time the smart money was on 20 to 80 years. Many people are still acting like it's not.
Things happen not at all and then all at once.
We have the cheap humanoid platforms coming out of China and they cost six months minimum wage salary in the developed world. Once a model is developed that can use those platforms to match humans for simple tasks we will see the hollowing out of all unskilled physical labor overnight.
NLP still isn't solved. LLMs are a big step change, but NLP still isn't solved.
I can talk to a computer and it can talk back. The rest is commentary.
ELIZA passed the Turing test in the 60s. That's not a statement of technological progress towards AI, that's a statement on 1) the uselessness of the Turing test, which has been known for decades and 2) the gullibility of the human psyche when it comes to assigning intelligence to anything that can mimic human communication patterns.
It did not.
Not quickly at least, but technology can gradually reduce the labor content of a plumbing job thanks to things like solderlerss fittings, plastic tubing etc. For carpenters, prefab assemblies made in automated factories, etc.
The biggest risk they face is perhaps competition from unskilled workers who can do trades by just wearing Meta AR glasses and following instructions from an AI.
Of course you’d still need training on how to work with your hands but it would cut down on the need for years of experience and planning.
There is literally zero chance of that actually working, and no one who thinks it could has ever set foot on a job site.
... electricians ... are not going anywhere.
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
Power systems have a long way to go in terms of integration with data. One can envisage an inherently safe system whereby a data signal is superimposed on the wire (related to data-over-power) and every power source continually interrogates its loads and conditions on the wire are being continually monitored. Any unsafe situation will result in a shutdown of supply.
I'm describing a system that goes well beyond existing breakers and earth leakage: one that is able to fully map the connections between components, know the topology of the system and compare actual and expected behaviour. The idea is that any dummy could do electrical wiring, as the system itself would make it impossible to create an unsafe situation.
Cost would be higher to start with, but with economies of scale reducing the difference, my guess is that the higher cost of components could be offset by lower installation cost and the increased safety.
Every plumber, electrician, and carpenter relies on a union to prevent hordes of people from taking their jobs which requires any tradesman to go through five years of schooling in order to qualify to become hired at above minimum wage. To become the highest certification of plumber and open your own store (which you own) in some states requires fifteen years or more of certification or proven work experience.
In Indiana if you do nothing but take the tests it requires you have (depending on county) ten years of experience in order to open your own store and call yourself a plumber. I may as well buy a wrench and call myself a plummer and fix people's leaky faucets and then charge 90 percent of what they do. Or I would if I wanted my legs broken.
They vote themselves money in order to keep out immigrants for connecting pipes together. All the flow calculations require simple calculus you can have a cell phone tell you. They're a voting block not a profession.
And the stupidest thing is that if you got rid of the stupid shit like this you could absorb all the immigrants you wanted who would all go into construction and the price of a house would plummet. And instead we have phds that are never going to pay back what it cost to get a degree in computer science which no longer matters. But they couldn't write a science fiction book that wouldn't be derivative where I would say "oh this is like this author I've already read this one".
This reads like someone who is quite out of touch with the trades. A large number of states implement right to work laws that discourage union membership. I could go out and get a framer job today (and with the current immigration crackdown probably have one by the end of the day). Having worked as a framer before college, it will be incredibly long before these jobs have any level of automation (a thought which gives me comfort when I consider my own job prospects).
However, I'm thankful everyday that I get to sit in an A/C office and type on a computer. Framing is hard work and ruthless. Most people won't last a day doing it because of how challenging it is.
Who is going to buy the houses? Who is going to own the land? Not many people need a plumber. Look back some decades. We can't all just work in the trades. It doesn't make sense from a supply and demand stance.
A decrease in quality of life is an acceptable cost to stay alive. In a very different economy, people will just fix their own toilet with scavenged or bartered parts.
> Not many people need a plumber
Do you… not have running water?
My point was that humans can do most residential plumbing tasks easily, and the effort and cost involved in learning and acquiring tools might outweigh the desire to pay for a service in a future economy with scarce labor opportunities.
Also, in such a bleak future, there might not be running water where you currently own property.
But really you're answering your own question. The economy is not a zero sum game- It adapts. Why do our current jobs exist? Because somebody is paying for what we produce. Then we take our pay and buy what other people produce. There could be an equilibrium today (or 20 years ago) where nobody has any jobs but there are generally feedback loops that help get to a functioning economy.
It's not impossible that unemployment will go up but it's not as simple as LLMs will take our jobs. There's always more jobs to do and there are always some other equilibrium points. And it's not even clear LLMs are taking our jobs, one might argue that they'll end up creating more jobs.
What you are talking about is info overload and break down of "shared stories" as content explodes faster than there are people or time to consume it all. In Economics they will tell you what happens when Supply drastically overshoots Demand. But economics is too young and immature a field to tell you how to find meaning and how "to fit or be useful".
For that you need the Philosophy or Religion.
So here is a useful lecture from an actual Philosopher on Detachment and Flourishing cause "there is no obligation to fit or be useful or understand everything" - https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-8
If you are the type who feels the need to fit - go through the previous lecture on Attachment and Flourishing.
> I like China Meiville
You write like David Foster Wallace, and I mean that as a compliment.
Have you read The City & the City? BBC Two also did a miniseries version, which I thought would be unfilmable and even unwatchable, but somehow it works, likely due to China Miéville himself serving as a consultant on the production.
For those who aren’t familiar with the work, I advise you to avoid spoilers, which are present in the reference links below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_City_(TV_se...
Ok look man go dig up some books by Ivy Pochoda, S.A. Cosby, or Tod Goldberg
There's cool shit being written now if you know where to look
>despite having some FartCoin which has been doing very well lately, shockingly well, this FartCoin. I wonder if it will continue to "moon" to the point where I can quit my job and become a VC and go on podcasts in which I will try to downplay the source of my initial capital so as to maintain some illusion that this economy makes any kind of sense at all to me or anyone else for that matter. Though perhaps by the time I am doing podcasts I will be so far gone I will just own it and maintain that it required great genius to have foreseen the rise of FartCoin and allocated capital to same.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fartcoin/
Fartcoin hasn't been doing that well though, I had to check the date of the article and it is recent. Maybe he got in Fartcoin long ago in early Nov. 2024? 200x since then but only a 2x since the end of Nov. 2024.
You know it is fiction writing, right?