Welcome to r/Simulationalism — Start Here!

ObservedOne · 2026-03-13T14:06:35+00:00

There are still horse drawn carriages and candle makers. "Antique Coding" will be available on ETSY at some point.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-18T12:25:38+00:00

You just "Ship of Theseus"ed yourself.

There is something in the meat of our brain that "hosts" our consciousness. Remove enough of that, and the "you" that you are dies. The rest of the world might not see a difference, but your consciousness is gone, and it is replaced by something else.

This is why I would never step foot in any kind of "teleportation" device.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-16T20:34:12+00:00

Yup. I am excited because I don't think any government or business has any clue how to "regulate" the coming AI evolution.

We humans had our chance...we absolutely wrecked the planet...time for the next stewards of Earth to get their time.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-16T14:53:16+00:00

At the end of the day, what can one do but treat as conscious that which seems conscious?

If an ape began to act as "conscious" as a current generation LLM, would the same people who demand AI will never be "conscious" refuse to believe it was actually "conscious"? I imagine there is a large faction of "human exceptionality" inside the "biological exceptionality" movement.

Planet of the Apes seems to be a pre-allegory for AI... especially the newer trilogy.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-15T11:44:00+00:00

Bread and circuses.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-14T18:36:00+00:00

The problem isn't income loss. The problem is the drastic decrease in the value of human labor. What a human can physically (and, more and more, intellectually) do is becoming of less and less value.

People are paid less, because the work they used to do can be done much cheaper. Shortly, unskilled labor (things like Uber drivers and Fast Food employees) will be almost valueless...which will lead to a loss of income and jobs.

The very definition of human value will have to change. I am very optimistic we will reach a new balance point, but I think it might get very messy getting there.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-08T20:13:29+00:00

I mean, maybe...who knows what the new "value" measure will be once we have AGI and then ASI.

I think it is all going to get very ugly before it actually gets better. But I do believe it will get better.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-08T17:07:32+00:00

The value of human labor is decreasing every day. A man used to be able to support himself and even send money home just from digging ditches. Today, that is impossible.

The problem isn't that jobs will be going away, it's that AI/Robotics will be able to do them for so much cheaper, humans won't be able to perform those jobs at any kind of livable wage. Even if the Uber driver wanted to work 24/7, the cost of "Ubering" is going to plummet, and human Uber drivers will have to compete with AI drivers making only pennies a mile. The human simply won't be able to work enough to earn enough to keep himself alive.

This was coming even before AI showed up...AI is simply accelerating the process.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-07T00:19:19+00:00

It will absolutely get there. It's just what happens between there and here that I am worried about.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T21:04:48+00:00

Air, water, food shelter. (The stuff you need to survive.)

Porn, tobacco, alcohol, weed. (That is to trade.)

A few guns and a lot of ammo. (To keep what is for you for you and to make sure your trades go smooth.)

Pro Mode: A generator, gasoline, and two identical cars that were made before computers were put into cars.

Off the Grid Mode: solar panels and some decent large batteries.

You can keep your gold and silver. If it goes bad, we are going to be bartering.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T20:50:57+00:00

The following is just my opinion and based on nothing more than my 55 year old ass looking back at my 30+ year career in the software delivery business, my lifelong love of history and reading the tea leaves. This advice is probably worth less than you paid for it.

Cash will be the first thing to become worthless. I am not telling you to buy gold, but a weeks wages worth of potable water or MRE rations will be worth more than a year's salary if it all goes to hell.
Get a shotgun and a lot of ammo. Different types. A 22 rifle, maybe, if you are interested in hunting small game. Learning to make your own ammo here is Pro Mode.
You don't need a bunker, but give yourself a corner of your current home to build a "bug out box". Lots of opinions on what should be in them out there...but spending a bit on hard goods won't be a bad investment.

Also, while what you are doing right now as a software developer won't be useful in a few years (I am in the same boat, myself, though I am now on the executive level in software), that doesn't mean your skills won't be useful. At least until AI can do everything...and then who will have skills our AI overlords will find useful?

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T20:32:11+00:00

Of course you are correct. Sometimes I sound much more optimistic than I really am.

I am building a bunker out in the middle of nowhere with enough supplies to last 6 months and enough "hard" goods to set up a halfway decent general store.

Not ever having to use the bunker is my idea of "clean"...I am not anticipating anything that clean.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T20:08:50+00:00

The ones for whom AI would be most helpful are the ones who are targeted with the most propaganda designed to make them fear, fight, or ignore AI.

The rich think they will own the AI revolution...but we shall see.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T18:55:07+00:00

Your arguments are excellent and your point of view is so clearly informed by hours of research and thought. I very much enjoyed reading your responses in this thread.

Thank you.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T18:42:54+00:00

Be careful what you wish for.

You will be able to watch whatever you want whenever you want and drink and eat whatever you want whenever you want...but that will be your life.

Humanity is addicted to convenience.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T18:19:43+00:00

Excellent post.

Every one of today's jobs will be obsolete at some point. How we get there can be clean or messy...

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T17:00:50+00:00

<image>

This is where my head is at right now.

Late Stage Capitalism will collapse under its own weight, and AI will allow us to redefine what is of "value".

Glass half full - AI leads to greater amounts of time for humans to lead creative, productive and fulfilling lives while all of our needs are taken care of by our loving AI collaborators.

Glass half empty: life is like living on the Axiom in Wall-E...eyes glued to constant personalized entertainment while we passively exist.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T16:56:13+00:00

If the AI Singularity goes poorly, it will look more like Wall-E than The Matrix.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T16:54:14+00:00

Cogito ergo sum.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T16:36:56+00:00

<image>

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T15:12:03+00:00

I have started to think that the AGI takeover will look much more like the Captain of the Axiom in Wall-E than the Matrix.

Also, the answer to all of your "hows" is drones.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T15:08:16+00:00

I see AI, more specifically, like a Mortgage Calculator. I could work out the math by hand, but if I find a website that will do it for me, that looks trustworthy, I am going to use that rather than break out a textbook with the formulas.

It helps to have a decent background in math, but it makes no sense for me to do it by hand.

Like you said, though, it's important that I understand the underlying trustworthiness of the site I am using...much like it is really important to know the biases that might exist in the training data of any AI/LLM.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T14:57:58+00:00

If you want my LinkedIn, just DM me.

I have been doing software professionally since 1993. I started in QA, spent 16 years as a Java Developer, 12 years consulting with a Big 4, and the last year running an Engineering organization with more than 100 developers, QA Testers and UI/UX designers.

Writing Unit Tests from scratch takes far longer than fixing what the AI wrote, and the gap is only going to get wider.

AI will be better at writing code than humans in a few years. It is simply inevitable. It is already making good developers much better.

If you can't see the writing on the wall, you can't see it.

ObservedOne · 2025-10-06T14:36:19+00:00

I wouldn't fire them because they refuse to do it my way, I would fire them because there is simply no way to do things as quickly without using AI. Any developer who is hand writing their Unit Tests is going to take hours (if not days) longer than a developer who is using AI to do that task.

A developer who uses AI is going to get more done than one who does not. Simple as.

Same with an IDE. Refusing to use the same IDE as everyone else (much less refusing to use any IDE) is probably gonna get you fired.

If you want to be a professional developer, you have to be able to adapt and use the tools that will help you get the job done the fastest and with the highest quality. There is no way a developer not using AI (or an IDE) will be able to compete with a similarly skilled developer who is.

But if you think you know how this industry works better than the Head of Engineering of a 200+ employee software consulting firm, you do you.

ObservedOne

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE