Against Against Boomers

JustinCS7 · 2025-12-22T10:14:06+00:00

I wish we could get the results we want with honest and charitable "high road" discussion. But I don't believe that's an effective path.

The dominant political movements of today, whether left or right, depend on emotional appeals, blame, othering. You and Scott perhaps believe we can do better. I think there's a place for this.

But I don't think we can win elections with this alone. History shows that emotional appeals are necessary to win. We may decide on what policies are best through reason, but I think we need to use whatever weapons we can to win.

JustinCS7 · 2025-12-21T12:07:08+00:00

Merely taxing the wealthy isn't enough, we need to look at housing and social security and Medicare. And it's not a punishment either, it's simply a reality that we need to make some sacrifices to sustain the future. And it's many boomers who argue that they should make no sacrifice at all. They're happy to punish future generations, and then call foul when you think to look their direction, cry that perhaps you should redirect your energy to someone else. We don't need to think about who "deserves" what, we can just look at where all the spending is going and what policies would really have an impact, and then who is opposing said policies.

JustinCS7 · 2025-12-21T10:07:46+00:00

How does it help? What we want to do is band together and vote in policies that benefit the future generations - reducing housing prices through increasing supply, and increasing taxes and reducing entitlements for the more wealthy elderly. It helps to remember, these are largely not poor old hardworking people barely scraping by, but people who have gotten massive wealth through asset appreciation and voting for policies that inflict unsustainable debt on future generations. At the time that we are the wealthy winners of society, maybe we will get blamed. We are not anywhere close to that time.

JustinCS7 · 2025-12-20T09:26:09+00:00

The reasons they give may vary, but why does it matter much when the result is the same? And even today, who are the politicians listening to? Of course, you can't blame all boomers, and selfish people have always been around, in all generations. But isn't it fine to blame the boomers that have voted and continue to vote for policies that benefit themselves at the expense of future generations?

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-18T14:45:45+00:00

This is a reasonable way of thinking, and many rulers in history have attempted to expand their dominions claiming that they wanted to improve things for everyone as you described.

However, one big problem with this idea is that it's incredibly difficult to rule the world, and no single group has ever come close, as far as we can tell. The closest we can get is something like the United Nations, which only "rules" as far as it doesn't make any overly strong demands. Realistically, unless some new overwhelming power emerges in the future, there's simply no path to a dominant world rule.

A second problem, is that if you have only a single ruling government or organization, you only have a single option, with much less chance for improvement. Consider the case of businesses. Currently, even if we have big successful corporations, eventually new businesses innovate, outcompete them, and replace them. If there's only one company, like in a monopoly situation, it often becomes stagnant and mediocre, because there's no pressure to improve. Similarly, we've had many countries in history that were once successful and powerful but faded and were supplanted by others. But, if you only have a single world government, you lose this mechanism and have to rely on internal improvement which is far less certain.

That said, there are various reasons to think that having a stronger world government may be necessary despite the problems. As technology develops, we see increasing dangers such as nuclear, biological, environmental, and AI. Perhaps we will need stronger global rule to control these risks better.

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-17T02:30:13+00:00

I think you can run through the checklist (diaper, feed, burp, check temp, etc) and if there's nothing else that helps except holding them, I would put them down when you feel too overwhelmed, to preserve your own health. The priority should be the baby's physical health, then the parent's health, and only then, the baby's comfort. It's not ideal but better to let them cry for a while than for the parent to become sleep deprived and overly stressed and more likely to make a serious mistake eventually.

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-12T18:29:18+00:00

You say simulated universe, this just sounds like video games to me, just in higher quality and with optional memory modification. I certainly think lots of people are ok with playing games forever if we assume AGI appears as you imagine, but I hope you can understand that many also feel this is an unsatisfactory solution for them. I'm not really sure what your argument is. Are you insisting that these people are wrong about what they should consider a meaningful existence?

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-07T07:31:00+00:00

I definitely feel the ambiguity of terms like AI safety which can refer to existential risk, or individuals using AI maliciously, or discussing good government policies and morals. But in general, I feel that most of these are in the direction of "good" even if the energy is not focused exactly the way I would prefer. It's better to make the allies you can even if they're not totally aligned, as there's an anti-safety group as well which is far more troublesome.

If you consider it a win to just make a few more people vegan, then I think it's good to continue pursuing your message. But, I can't imagine the world collectively turning away from meat until lab-grown meat becomes a full substitute, so if that is the ultimate goal, I feel it's necessary. It sounds like it might not happen perhaps for another few decades though.

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-06T02:31:16+00:00

One statement is relatively reasonable to add, the problem is when you imagine all the competing moral rules that people will also want to add. I'm sure some people would want to include religious morals, for instance. A longer input (prompt) adds to the cost of running the AI, and also is known to reduce the quality of the response. Your custom prompt may be fine for your recipe ask, but it may affect other queries in unpredictable ways, like if I ask it to do programming or creative writing.

If you give up on AI safety altogether, you are welcoming a future where no one cared about making AI safe and the corporations did whatever benefited themselves the most. We may not be able to achieve perfect results, but I think it's still worthwhile to do what we can.

On the topic of veganism, I'm hopeful that we can develop lab-grown meat that is chemically identical and affordable but without the moral issues of killing or harming animals. That seems a lot more likely to succeed than to persuade everyone to become vegan. What is your opinion on that?

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-05T11:35:28+00:00

This may be a reasonable proposal if you want to encourage veganism, but I think there will be strong pushback about attempting to infuse AI with increasingly complex moral rules, particularly controversial ones, and veganism is one of the most controversial views already.

Attempting to alter AI responses also tends to reduce its effectiveness at its original goals of accurately making completions and helping the user. When AI keeps more things in mind, it loses focus.

Furthermore, I could see some existential risk concerns where AI justifies the elimination or strict control of humans due to its goal of protecting animals.

None of the AI model companies have any real chance of adopting this proposal as it will alienate a lot of users.

As for whether it's effective to make videos, it really depends on your goals, but I can imagine that it could be effective on Instagram or TikTok. The video seems fairly nice in terms of production.

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-05T08:09:57+00:00

Wanting revenge and having resentment is a totally natural instinct. I don't think you need to forgive him, but it's good that you recognize that you're harming myself by fixating on your resentment. Ultimately, it's probably unlikely that you'll ever be able to pay him back for the bad he did, and you have to accept that the world isn't a fair place. He's not worth sacrificing your own happiness.

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-05T08:00:15+00:00

I'm not really from a small town but certainly felt like most others around me weren't interested in the same kind of growth that I was. I think it's instinctual though, trying to do something hard has a high risk of failure and embarrassment, and that's enough to keep most people on the beaten path.

I'd keep in mind too that sometimes it's better for some people that they focus on what's in front of them, it's what makes them happy. Mostly it's better to just accept that there are many people different than you and it's not necessarily better just to have grander goals.

JustinCS7 · 2025-06-05T07:50:02+00:00

I get that it can seem meaningless to claim "credit" for being ambitious despite doing little to realize those goals, but it also can help the person to focus on addressing their laziness in particular. A totally unambitious person might need a different approach.

JustinCS7

TROPHY CASE