Sleeping With Some Guy's Wife

[Valach]

1 hour ago, BlessedLion said:

Poly men/ players are a threat to society in a sense. 

This I agree with. I believe monogamy was partly "the norm" in order to keep society cohesive. I am really curious what will happen now since the chains are off so to speak but I do not see that really beneficial to our society or even the individuals living in it. In a way it is similiar to late stage capitalistic societies.

That does not mean that the "old way" monogamy was healthy though.

Edited 14 hours ago by Valach

[LordFall]

10 hours ago, BlessedLion said:

I honestly think most men would have a preference for this if we didn't have societal conditioning that pushes us towards monogamy and marriage. The other problem would be is if society was poly only a few men would have most of the women which most men don't want. 

Poly men/ players are a threat to society in a sense. 

There are many ways to look at this but basically this is a function of competition. Making society more and more competitive makes it so only a few % of males succeed and the women are incentivized to pursue them. Great if you're industrious and end up at the top and pretty lame otherwise.

AI, biotech, fertility tech and overall post scarcity are gonna throw all of this on its head and I think basically everyone will end up getting what they want or have a clear lane on how to get their desired life.

Most men are not ambitious and don't really want to work to level up and become more attractive. If they can have an AI girlfriend/sex robot that fulfills their intimacy needs they will take that over a clear roadmap on how to become a valuable partner to a real woman.

I am in the latter camp and am willing to work extra hard to be able to afford 3-4 women. Seems like it works out perfectly for all parties. 

Edited 4 hours ago by LordFall

[something_else]

1 minute ago, LordFall said:

AI, biotech, fertility tech and overall post scarcity is gonna throw all of this on its head and I think basically everyone will end up getting what they want or have a clear lane on how to get their desired life.

This is just not how the human mind works. If everyone has everything they want, the hedonistic treadmill kicks in and suddenly you get bored of having everything, and you start wanting whatever it is other people have that you don't have. And there will always be something others have that you don't.

For example if you took cavemen and showed them the modern world, they'd wonder what the fuck we're all so unhappy about because everything is amazing, luxurious and so easy. They'd probably argue we're already in a post-scarcity world. Yet we're all still pretty miserable on average because everyone else around us has the same luxuries and we all still want whatever it is that's just out of our reach. The caveman would look at people buying a £20k handbag and think they were fucking insane idiots.

In a post-scarcity world we may end up with bizarre things becoming desirable because there will always be things that are more scarce than others. If literally everything material becomes immediately available to you, then the people who own whatever tech makes that possible hold an insane amount of power that other people don't have. Which means there is still lack, and scarcity. Just in a different form. There will be a post-scarcity equivalent of the 20k handbag.

That also assumes that in a post-scarcity world there is any reason to keep most of the population around, which beyond "it's the ethical thing to do", there is no logical reason to.

[Valach]

There is this assumption that abundance will make you happy, which is simply not my experience at all.

[LordFall]

1 hour ago, something_else said:

This is just not how the human mind works. If everyone has everything they want, the hedonistic treadmill kicks in and suddenly you get bored of having everything, and you start wanting whatever it is other people have that you don't have. And there will always be something others have that you don't.

For example if you took cavemen and showed them the modern world, they'd wonder what the fuck we're all so unhappy about because everything is amazing, luxurious and so easy. They'd probably argue we're already in a post-scarcity world. Yet we're all still pretty miserable on average because everyone else around us has the same luxuries and we all still want whatever it is that's just out of our reach. The caveman would look at people buying a £20k handbag and think they were fucking insane idiots.

In a post-scarcity world we may end up with bizarre things becoming desirable because there will always be things that are more scarce than others. If literally everything material becomes immediately available to you, then the people who own whatever tech makes that possible hold an insane amount of power that other people don't have. Which means there is still lack, and scarcity. Just in a different form. There will be a post-scarcity equivalent of the 20k handbag.

That also assumes that in a post-scarcity world there is any reason to keep most of the population around, which beyond "it's the ethical thing to do", there is no logical reason to.

Most people today are not able to live their lives how they want, they have jobs they dislike and are constantly stressed. Being able to have a hot shower is not being post scarcity. 

If people get UBI they will have their whole life to self-actualize and pursue what is meaningful to them. It's gonna be a beautiful positive change for our civilization.

There are no incentives to harm the population, just because the rich people don't care about the poor doesn't mean they have a vested interest in hurting them. I would say there are many upsides to providing help to them. It's ROI positive to scale UBI worldwide. Rich people will maintain their purchasing power and it will increase if anything and poor people will get their living needs met. 

1 hour ago, Valach said:

There is this assumption that abundance will make you happy, which is simply not my experience at all.

This happens when you don't get to the root of your desires and where they stem from and thus the solution you build for it only addresses the surface craving and not the core need. There are plenty of forms of abundance that enrich your life and feel deeply fulfilling.

Can you elaborate on what the abundance you built looked like and what was not fulfilling about it? 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall

[something_else]

22 minutes ago, LordFall said:

Most people today are not able to live their lives how they want, they have jobs they dislike and are constantly stressed.

The reason for this is that humans always want what they see that others have, but they don't have. It's all relative. Humans have always been this way and likely will be for a long time to come.

If you took a hunter gatherer or a caveman, they'd look at a snapshot of modern life and think: "How can you be struggling to survive when you can source all the food you could ever want by walking 5 minutes to a supermarket round the corner? And you have unlimited clean water pumped directly into your house?? And all you have to do for this is type on a computer all day???? And you still feel like you're lacking??? What is wrong with you, you have everything you could ever need to be happy."

Yet we are not happy.

The same would be true between now and say 100 years time in the world you are imagining and calling "post scarcity". There will still be things that are scarce. Just different things. And we would look at that world and think "You have a device that can produce anything material you could ever want for zero effort? Perfect health with zero effort?? And all you have to do is cash in your government distributed tokens which you get for zero effort???? And you still feel like you're lacking??? What is wrong with you, you have everything you could ever need to be happy."

Yet I would bet a large amount of money they are not happy.

Because their frame of reference views those things as normal and not special or valuable. Whatever is scarce at that time will become desirable. Maybe it's power, freedom, happiness itself, spiritual achievement, expression of oneself. A slightly more capable device that produces all material goods 10% faster. Who knows. It could be anything. But it will be something. There will still be some kind of hierarchy, and there will still be those who are at the bottom of it, and those who are at the top of it.

As the hierarchy becomes shorter, like it may in such a world, small differences will start to matter more and more. It's also very possible that genetics and who your family is will become the defining source of value a person has to offer, which would not be a good world.

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Being able to have a hot shower is not being post scarcity. 

As though that's the only luxury in the modern world? And besides that, try living somewhere with limited hot showers for a month. Suddenly they start to seem a whole lot more valuable and you start realising how much you took your hot shower at home for granted. I have experienced exactly this while trekking in places where cold showers are basically all that's available, except a few scarce places that charge you $10 for a solar powered hot shower.

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If people get UBI they will have their whole life to self-actualize and pursue what is meaningful to them. It's gonna be a beautiful positive change for our civilization.

How can you know this for certain? Certainly about this is at best unwise and arguably delusion. There is no way to know how this would go. Maybe it will be beautiful. Or maybe it will cause a massive increase in obesity, depression, drug addiction and short term pleasure chasing. Maybe many humans will go insane when there is no purpose provided, or no obvious path to take in life. And maybe even those who do have a purpose or drive will find that there is no way for them to compete with the tech owned by those at the top of the hierarchy. Maybe AI will kill us all first. There are so many ways this could go which are not a happy ending.

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There are no incentives to harm the population, just because the rich people don't care about the poor doesn't mean they have a vested interest in hurting them. I would say there are many upsides to providing help to them. It's ROI positive to scale UBI worldwide. Rich people will maintain their purchasing power and it will increase if anything and poor people will get their living needs met. 

In a world like this, those at the bottom of the hierarchy could be viewed by those at the top like you view fruit flies in your kitchen. A minor inconvenience that can be removed with a small amount of effort. Not caring about something and having the power to eradicate it once it causes minor inconvenience is a very dangerous world.

[Valach]

1 hour ago, LordFall said:

This happens when you don't get to the root of your desires and where they stem from and thus the solution you build for it only addresses the surface craving and not the core need. There are plenty of forms of abundance that enrich your life and feel deeply fulfilling.

Can you elaborate on what the abundance you built looked like and what was not fulfilling about it? 

I was not really talking about my life but what I see in people. The people whom I met who were really succesfull in career or dating or whatever were usually more miserable than the average person.