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Old Lady #1: When my ex-husband passed away, the insurance company said his policy didnât cover him.
Old Lady #2: They didnât have enough money for the funeral.
Old Lady #3: Itâs so hard nowadays, with all the gangs and rap musicâŚ
Old Lady #1: What about the robots?
Old Lady #4: Oh, theyâre everywhere!
Old Lady #1: I donât even know why the scientists make them.
Old Lady #2: Darren and I have a policy with Old Glory Insurance, in case weâre attacked by robots.
Old Lady #1: An insurance policy with a robot plan? Certainly, Iâm too old.
Old Lady #2: Old Glory covers anyone over the age of 50 against robot attack, regardless of current health.
[ cut to Sam Waterston, Compensated Endorser ]
Sam Waterson: Iâm Sam Waterston, of the popular TV series âLaw & Orderâ. As a senior citizen, youâre probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old peopleâs medicine for fuel. Well, now thereâs a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration. [ SUPER: Limitied Benefits First Two Years ] You need to feel safe. And thatâs harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time.
[ show pie chart reading âCause of Death in Persons Over 50 Years of Ageâ: Heart Disease, 42% - Robots, 58% ]
And when they grab you with those metal claws, you canât break free⌠because theyâre made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of grime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, donât cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice. [ SUPER: "WARNING: Persons denying the existence of Robots may be Robots themselves. ] Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will.
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Well, isnât that very human? Or are we supposed to be choosy about the attributes?
There have to be two to tango. What about for change trying something on the female side instead of just blaming the male side? What about being more straightforward in communication, actually saying what you want, saying what are your decision criteria, say what is not met instead of either some information-poor handwaving or, even worse, âyou are nice and now go awayâ, sometimes with âyou will make somebody happy [but not me and now go away]â?
Or stop complaining that you got a subgroup that is confused with your antics, doomed to fail, and then blamed for being bitter about it.
Do you want MRAs? Because thatâs how you get MRAs.
Where?
Like?
I have a hunch that it will be something embarrassingly simple. Only made looking complex by lots of iterations on the simplicity, much like all the apparent complexity of fractals boils down to a simple equation.
When the society refuses to communicate cleanly and then breeds lonely bitter engineers, the society gets what it deserves. Simple as that.
Honey, the only one complaining here about any gender is youâŚ
I thought you were supposed to be smart? And yet you canât figure this out? But yet the problem is women? Right. Ok. Good luck with that.
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Much of the time you come off as analytical. Not all of the time, no â some of the time you come off as mushy emotion-laden meat-logical as the rest of us.
But now? Youâre just being creepy.
Nobody owes you anything, much less an explanation.
Industrial robots do a set routine over and over again. It never varies. They never learn. They keep doing the same things again and again and again.
But robots arenât bitter. Robots donât blame.
Robots just are.
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There are several things I find wrong with this idea, including how it removes agency from all of the parties involved, and how it ascribes clear-cut rules to a fundamentally irrational process. However, all of my quibbles with the metaphor pale (in my mind) before this point:
If youâre putting yourself in âcompetitionâ against someone for an âattachedâ partner, youâre doing it wrong.
First, if you choose a partner who will leave an otherwise healthy relationship to be with you because youâre the new âhighest-scoring playerâ person to be in a relationship, then youâre pretty much dooming yourself to having this person leave as this person finds someone else who has a higher aggregate âscore.â
Second, if youâre trying to get someone to leave an otherwise healthy relationship, you are giving their happiness a lower value than your own. After all, they are already in a happy relationship, and thereâs no possible way to know that you can make that person happier than their current partner can.
Relationships should be about people trying to make each other happy. If you start the relationship by tearing someone away from a situation where they are already happy, I canât see how that relationship can be anything other than doomed.
I have two points of advice, which you can accept or discard as you see fit.
- List absolutely everything you like about yourself, and everything that you donât. Using those two lists, figure out what the best possible version of yourself would be. Put together a game plan to take yourself, step-by-step, on a path towards being that person. Maximize your strengths, correct or minimize your weaknesses, and every day, try to get closer to becoming the best damned @shaddack that thereâs ever been or ever could be. If youâre happy with yourself, youâll never need anyone else to be in good company.
- Once youâve become happier in your own skin, start thinking about what you can offer others. The next time you find someone that you want to be in a relationship with, ask not what she can do for you, but what you can do for her. Itâs a weird thing with the human brain: making other people happy makes us happy. Donât do things with the expectation of raising some illusory score, but with the expectation that her day will be better for what youâve done. Donât go so far as to offer things that youâll resent her for taking from you, but give what youâre willing to, and do not expect even gratitude in return. In fact, even do these things for people that you wouldnât want to spend more time with. In all probability, your reward may just be a smile and perhaps a kind word, but on the other hand, brightening someone elseâs day can brighten your own day (and can even take the edge off of your bitterness), and who knows? Maybe youâll get something unexpected in return. Just remember, though: offer these things freely, because, short of an actual contract, nothing you do for any other person obligates them to do anything for you in return.
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Fine lets go get Dan Castellaneta and begin.
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Yep, the second quote was totes from me and probably the first⌠weird.
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If you donât have communication issues, consider yourself lucky.
Check your privilege, sir.
If not for the loneliness factor, this would work. One canât hold oneâs own hand. That just does not work. Donât ask me how I know.
Used to work, somewhat, as of 20 years ago. The effect wore off over the years.
Generally good advice on its own but you have to get something back occasionally. For sustained performance, every battery needs to be recharged. My one got empty.
If I have to pay for a hour of back massage just to get some rudimentary contact I can at least perceive, you can pay the same for me putzing with that fucking computer.
Are deaf and blind people entitled to some assistance? Isnât denying it a dick move?
Why face-blindness and related cognitive issues arenât considered similar enough? Just because they arenât fucking obvious?
Women are a problem. They insist on signalling that is difficult enough to decode for even cognitively perfect people. They are doing all the choosing and not even having the decency to say how. And then I am the problem?
Itâs a curse.
Explanation or⌠donât wonder later.
The strongest material will snap when stressed too much. Then there are the fatigue cracks. Quietly growing, one little layer with every load cycle. Then one nice unassuming day the critical length is reached, the crack runs the rest of the distance in milliseconds, and the thing snaps under an insignificant load it happily carried for years before. Happens to steel girders, happens to people. Donât load either beyond their design limits, or face the consequences; thereâs no third option.
You can not have iterative system without a feedback. Did you ever try to play chess without being told the rules, while being denied even seeing the otherâs side pieces, and having to rely on either explicitly being told where they are (which generally doesnât happen) or on guessing which one couldâve been the one moving to the point where your piece used to be just a moment before?
Closed loop control requiring system just can not be run with open loop. Try to run a stupid thermostat without a feedback and see how successful you are.
Of course youâd lose every game that way. Sometimes a few more moves into it but the loss comes always after a couple. Then you get told you are creepy when you ask for what you need.
People. And after all this I am supposed to like them - and when I donât, itâs my fault.
There are some self-learning and optimizing algorithms out there. More as the machines are becoming smarter and more capable.
Robots are lucky bastards.
Iâll consider the source here and all of your previous comments on privilege and how you donât believe in it.
I work with face blind people and people with full on autism. You know what? They still manage to make friends and meet people of their preferred gender for intimate relations. Some of them are even married. Most of my geeky social circle is on the autism spectrum and theyâre mostly married or with longterm partners. It isnât keeping them from dating.
Hell, one of the guys who works for me is face blind (and is open about it). I donât know if he dates (we donât discuss it) but I am well aware that he has a bunch of friends, including at our workplace, and is generally well liked. Heâs a nice and decent guy who actually talks to me about social justice issues (you know, things like privilege) fairly often.
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Adopting the language of an ideological group is useful when talking to it. PR 101, or so. 
If it is good enough for consulting for a PR advisor of politicos, it has to be good for you.
The image, frankly, talks more about you than about me.
Well, I can get far enough to be âgenerally likedâ but thatâs about it. Glass wall. Hard stop.
You got it too easy to be able to understand.
What group do you think I represent?
It is someone giving you the finger. I think even you may be capable of understanding what that means.
Gosh, the problem must be other people.
You actually donât know much of anything about me or my life so, please, quit pretending that you do. No one has it easy, especially in the maladjusted geek world.
Sorry but your pity party doesnât work on me anymore. It might have before your tirades about women being prizes to be won from men and all that.
People get annoyed when this gets made personal but, fuck, man, the problem here is you and your attitude, not other people. You blame everything and everyone but yourself and then get angry and resentful when the world isnât how you want it while refusing any responsibility for making it better. Itâs on you and not on anyone else, to make your life better. No one will ever care about it as much as you or be as motivated to make it better. The more you blame other people, the less agency you take or acknowledge.
So, yeah, you can give up and be mad at the world and not take responsibility or you can continue to fight and work on it, to try to connect with people and work with other humans and maybe youâll learn how to connect with them better. At the end of the day, it is your choice.
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Speaking of Robotâs learning⌠just to pull the topic back to, you know, robots. This is a article about a independent self driving car startup being run by George Hotz [That name should ring a bell for most of you] and some weird stuff that has been happening with their self driving car:
After a few weeks, the car learned to drive itself, lock onto the car in front of it, and take cues from neighboring cars. The steering, along with the gas and brake pedals, are all automated.
Holtz didnât program these behaviors. In fact, he canât really explain all the reasons it does what it does. Itâs started making decisions on its own.
[Here is the article the quote is from
] The Guy Who First Hacked the iPhone and Built a Self-Driving Car Just Got Funding
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The SJW kind?
Yes, I noticed some quite non-Buddhist behavior in you. Just take it as what it is, you wonât change it.
I expected something like this; was curious what it will be. Predictably, it was not a rational response thatâd carry any useful information other than about the personality of its poster.
Yes. If I get some third-party help I get a bit further. On my own, hard stop. Just trying to track who is who and the comm patterns within the group eats most of my resources.
Propose alternative mechanism of choosing. If there is something like âlikesâ or âfeels good withâ or so, the ranking is done by other brain structures outside of conscious processing - but that does not make it any less done, maybe even more so. It does not matter if the metrics is done in the realm of real numbers on a spreadsheet, or on weights in a live neural network, it is still being done. You can dislike it, you can name it differently, it is still done. Try to come up with any other algorithm-like decisionmaking, you come to similar conclusions.
Besides, itâs them who do the choosing so your blame/mistreatment assignment goes to the wrong gender.
I used to think I am the problem. Then I got more data and reran the analyses.
I canât do some communication modalities. Hard stop. Can emulate a fraction for the cost of a lot of focus and fatigue, and get predictably outperformed by somebody else for whom it is fucking FUN.
Quarter century or more, depending on how counted, and little to no results. Lots of âcould you pleeeease make $this working [for free]â with no results other than getting reputation as a wizard which led only to more such requests. They gradually stopped being fun over the years.
Description of a mechanism is hardly a threat. Except maybe in todayâs twisted-underwear wussified culture where everything is either threatening or insulting or both.
In my specific case, well, I tend to daydream about melting cities with multimegaton instasuns. But realistically Iâm more likely to just fall into a difficult-to-recover-from intense apathy.
However, the comment was meant way more general. And to illustrate the general cases of snapping, how gradual wear ingrains and leads to sudden trouble. To get all yâall think about it.
Everybody can crack when the load pattern they get subjected to exceeds what they can handle. Even any one of you. What happens then - suicide, apathy/heavy depression, alcohol-fueled downward spiral, homicidal spree⌠- depends largely on the specific person and situation.
Iâve been trying my best to stay clear of this, but I really think sweeping generalizations like assigning blame to a gender are not the hallmark of someone with intellectual integrity. A relationship is interaction and feedback between two individuals. Divorcing yourself from the equation is going to get you nowhere every time.
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And heteronormative.
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That is exactly what I meant. See the bitching about the closed-loop control forced to run on open-loop mode. I am unable to read enough from the most common communication modes.
Hence I am not GETTING the feedback. I get words. I get barely anything else. It is not enough to set up a rapport at a sufficient level. And likely I am also sending the non-words part poorly.
People need a debug port.
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I donât want to be your shrink, but how comfortable are you with ambiguity?
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