u/Auriga33

If race is included as a criterion of consideration to give someone a job, then it becomes rational to judge people’s ability to perform at that job partly on their race.

For everyone who got the job, this was due to some combination of being qualified and being of the right race. We might say that someone’s qualifications can be ranked from 1-5, with 1 being completely incompetent and 5 being world-class. A final score is computed by adding this qualification level to either 1 or 0 depending on whether you are of the right race or not. To get the job, you need a final score of 5.

The question is how qualified should you expect someone to be given their race and the fact that they got the job. The fact that they got the job tells you that their final score was 5, but this isn’t equivalent to their qualifications. You can use their race to figure out their true qualification level. Among the people who are of the wrong race, their race added nothing to their qualifications, so their expected qualification level is exactly 5. Among the people who are of the right race, some of them are 4s who got a 1 point boost from their race and some are 5s who would’ve gotten the job anyways. The expected level of qualification is therefore less than 5. Thus it would be entirely rational to expect different levels of performance based on race.

Leftists often pretend not to understand this (I expect to see this behavior in the comments), but this is just them being bad faith. They’re not so stupid that they can’t grasp such a simple concept. If they think it’s bad for people to make assumptions about someone’s ability based on race, then they should be in favor of eliminating DEI and affirmative action. Anything other than pure meritocracy makes it rational to judge based on race and other demographic traits.

Utilitarianism - Good is the set of actions that maximize the total amount of well-being in the world

Contractarianism - Good is the set of rules self-interested rational actors would agree upon to maximize their own well-being

Deontology - Actions can be intrinsically good or evil, independent of consequences

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As we’ve learned more and more about the world, the existence of God has gotten less and less convincing. The universe looks like what you’d expect if there were no god and every religious tradition looks like what you’d expect if it were man-made. Because of this, the majority of scientifically-informed people today do not believe in God and so does a large and increasing fraction of the general population. Yet, lots of people remain religious, including many who are otherwise intelligent. It’s pretty amazing to me how, given all the scientific knowledge we have today and the ease with which it’s accessible, so many people still maintain a conviction in a religious tradition.

It makes me wonder what evidence would convince them that their religion is wrong. I think the singularity could be the thing that does this for many people (assuming we’re still around to ponder these things). No religion as far as I’m aware predicted the occurrence of anything like a singularity. But it seems like far too important an event for an omniscient deity to leave out of prophetic revelation. Furthermore, most religions actually contradict the idea of a singularity. Suffering isn’t supposed to end until God comes to Earth and destroys the Devil or whatever. But when superintelligent AI creates heaven here on Earth, what do we need God for?

I left religion a long time ago as a teenager when I realized my parent’s religion, as well as every other one, looks more like a man-made tradition than something revealed by a supreme entity. But if I were still religious, I think I’d have become an atheist now, thanks to developments in AI making it clear that a singularity is on the horizon. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is soon an uptick in the rate of people leaving religion as this becomes apparent to more and more of the population, even if things haven’t drastically changed just yet. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. How do you think religious faith will be affected by the singularity?

I am a liberal and a registered Democrat. Voted for Biden in ‘20 and Harris in ‘24. I’m not particularly excited about the Democratic Party as it is exists now but it is much preferable to MAGA, a movement that has embraced the worst instincts of their constituency and is filled to the brim with conspiracists, cranks, racists, and theocrats.

But as bad as they are, there are things that are even worse. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is currently attempting a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party, much like MAGA has done to the Republican Party. And they’ve had an alarming number of successes. If they succeed in taking over the party, I will start voting for what I think would then be the lesser of two evils: MAGA.

The DSA is exactly as stupid as MAGA, but they have the added negatives of hating America and having economy-destroying politics. Their leaders align themselves with our adversaries and think this country, and the West more broadly, is to blame for all the ills in the world. Moreover, if they succeed in implementing their economic agenda, it would destroy the system that has powered this country since the beginning. We would all become much poorer as a result.

Given this, there is a clear lesser evil between the two. MAGA has filled the government with incompetents, embraced the most radical ideas in their coalition, and rejected expertise in favor of populist crankery. The DSA will do all of those things and also destroy the economy while hating the country they’ve been elected to represent.

I hope this is not a choice I will have to make. I hope the moderates in the Democratic Party win out and nominate a center-left liberal in ‘28. But given the rapid rise of the DSA, I’m not so sure that will happen.

There is a need for a lot of data centers right now and unfortunately that need isn't being met. The government needs to step in and fund more data center construction. However, there is a question of where it will get that money.

I was thinking about this problem and came up with an ingenious solution: just cut welfare and use that money towards data centers! Seriously, we spend more than enough on welfare. We could spare a few pennies of that to use on data centers instead. It would certainly be a great benefit to me, as I don't use welfare but I use AI.

Most of the problems in society, from crime to low trust to excessive welfare usage, are caused by individuals of below average intellect. They suck the country dry of its resources just by existing. If you want to know why third-world countries are the way they are, it's because they're full of low-IQ individuals. Every country would be better off with less of these people.

Therefore, if you have a low IQ yourself, which I am defining as anything below the average of 100, you should avoid contributing further to the problem and forgo having children, as there is a greater than even probability that your children will turn out to also be below average. Nobody should be prevented from having kids by force or anything like that, but this should be a societal expectation. We'll gladly give you your welfare check but please do the bare minimum of not making us have to send out even more welfare in the future.

We're on the cusp of a revolution in human aesthetics. Already, advancements in pharmaceuticals and cosmetic procedures have made it easier than ever to become attractive. They will only get better from here. Eventually, it will become possible to directly edit our own genomes to look any way we wish or even advance beyond genes itself. If you think all this sounds far away, think again. Thanks to AI, the future that once seemed 100 years away is now only 10 years away.

When changing our appearance becomes this easy, we'll have a truly free sexual market. Success will belong not to those born with the best looks but to those with the best taste, those who are most skilled at appraising the aesthetic preferences of human beings and editing themselves to match. Over time, this will result in the existence of human beings far more beautiful than anything anyone today has seen. They will seem like glowing angels from heaven whom you will find yourself unable to take your eyes off of.

Think about it this way. Our taste buds evolved to find some things tastier than others to help guide our ancestors towards nutritious foods. But nothing that existed in their time stimulates them better than the stuff we have today because technology has allowed us to optimize our food to better stimulate our taste buds. In the same way, it will allow us to optimize human beings to better stimulate the part of our lizard brains responsible for attraction. Compared to these optimized humans of the future, the most beautiful people of today will be what fruit is to chocolate ice cream. And not the fruit of today, mind you, but the fruit of hunter-gatherer times.

If you are unattractive, do not despair. Beauty will become completely democratized in the near future. You will have your day in the sun.

There’s an increasing amount of support for banning online betting and a number of states are pursuing legislation to this effect. I think this is clearly a violation of individual freedom. One of the founding ideals of this country is that we have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So if someone finds happiness in spending their own money gambling, why should the government stand in the way of that?

You should be very skeptical of laws that serve to restrict freedom with the rationale of saving people from themselves, which is essentially what anti-gambling laws do. Adults don’t need saving from themselves. Most adults are capable of rationally pursuing their own happiness. After all, nobody knows them better than they themselves. Some aren’t capable, sure, but this small minority shouldn’t be used to take away freedom from the majority.

Even if you think the existence of gambling is a net negative for society, banning it is clearly a slippery slope that’s an even bigger net negative. One of the things keeping America from sliding into overt authoritarianism is that we have a huge taboo against telling people how to live their lives. By banning something like gambling, a voluntary activity without direct harm to third parties, you’re eroding that taboo. If people get comfortable telling others what to do because they think they can decide what’s good for them, do you think you’d be better off in that society? Think about all the people on the opposite side as you who are itching to do exactly this but can’t because of our strong norms of freedom. Erode those norms enough and you give them power.

I got into an embarrassing situation at a swingers' party last night.

I snuck up behind an older lady, started fucking her from behind then looked up and suddenly realized that the guy at the other end of the spitroast, getting a blowjob, was my dad.

I said "After 30 years of marriage I can't believe you're being unfaithful to mom."

He said "I'm not."

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Terrorism is the unlawful use of violence against civilians to achieve political or religious aims. This also describes violent protests. If protesters are burning down businesses and attacking random people on the street, then what are they doing if not using violence against civilians for political ends?

There is no moral difference between the person who engages in violent protests and the 9/11 hijackers or the Oklahoma City bomber. All of these people were mad about something and decided to attack civilians because of it. Seriously, if you think rioting is an appropriate response to something, why not hijack a plane or fill a truck up with explosives and blow up a building?

If you support or sympathize with violent protesters, then you are a terrorism supporter who should be dragged off to Guantanamo Bay and waterboarded. There is not a single difference between violent protesting and what we'd all agree to call terrorism. It's evil and deranged behavior across the board.

The N word is very fun to say, phonetically speaking. I often find myself saying it in private because of how cool it sounds. I'd even name my kid this if it wouldn't get me social disapproval. It's really quite a shame that this word is assigned to a slur.

What I don't get is, if black people don't want others to say this word, why did they have to choose something that rolls off the tongue so well? Why couldn't they choose something much harder to say? They can't just get mad at others for saying it if it's so fun to say.

A distinction is often made between stupidity and evil. For example, consider Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. The implication is that evil is worse than stupidity. I disagree. I think stupidity is worse than evil for one very simple reason: evil can be reasoned with.

Evil operates on logic. It has its goals and it's willing to do whatever it takes to achieve them, including fucking you over. But that means you may be able to offer it a better alternative and be left alone. On the other hand, stupid can't be bargained with. You can carefully walk it through every consequence and it will all go in one ear and out the other. Even if it shares every goal of yours, it will still fuck you over.

Perhaps no better example exists to illustrate the difference between stupid and evil than the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Israelis are evil, the Palestinians are stupid. Let me explain:

There is nothing in Heaven or Earth that the Israelis would love more than to wipe off every last Palestinian from the face of the planet. Those filthy goyim who dare beat their chest at the chosen people. The Amalek whom their god demands the sacrifice of.

Yet, they don't do this despite having the military capability. They have shown a remarkable degree of restraint in their current war in Gaza, achieving a combatant to civilian kill ratio entirely expected of urban combat. Over the decades, they have repeatedly attempted to extend the olive branch towards the Palestinians only for the latter to wipe their asses with it.

Why do they show such restraint? It's not because they care about the Palestinians. It's because they know doing what they'd like to do would tank their already piss-poor PR. More importantly, it would lose them the support of Americans and they can't afford to lose that.

Contrast that with the Palestinians. The Palestinians are not evil. Their anger towards the Israelis is understandable given the history of the region. If they hate Jews, it's only because they've been brainwashed by the three or four of them that aren't stupid.

Yet it is they who keep prolonging this conflict. They're the ones who could end it for good any day and choose not to. Why? Because they're stupid. They keep fighting this war they cannot win rather than cutting their losses and accepting one of the peace deals the Israelis keep offering them.

Stupidity is what compelled them to invade a far militarily superior country and slaughter hundreds of civilians while taking others hostage. Stupidity is why Gaza is now a burning pile of hot rubble. It didn't have to be this way, yet it was. All because the Palestinians are incapable of understanding such abstract concepts as the consequences of their actions.

This is why, if given the choice between stupidity and evil, I will take the side of evil 100% of the time. Far more problems in history have been caused by stupidity than evil. If everyone were evil yet smart, they'd find a way to put up with one another. We'd actually have a chance at world peace. But if everyone were good-natured yet stupid, they'd all be hurting each other in confusion and chaos. Achieving any kind of peace would be impossible.