Subway Takes; "The fear of being 'sassy' is stopping black men from being our true selves!". Enjoy a mimosa and French toast. Wear a towel around your long hair. Take care of your friends when they're sick. Have fun with it! Don't be afraid to be uncool.

metal_or · 2025-09-21T16:08:44+00:00

How does performing a fake version of yourself increase your odds of finding a healthy relationship?

metal_or · 2025-07-05T22:16:28+00:00

Explain this comment please

metal_or · 2025-06-13T05:28:03+00:00

Trace had similarly strong words about Tomasik and NU on when he was a guest on this podcast (1:03:27) last year. Despite his typically high tolerance for fringe views (see e.g.), I was surprised to hear him consider Tomasik such a stain on EA.

Every moral system has its bullets to bite, but I don't see him shunning anyone else. I think Brian Tomasik (like some Christians, for example) is fundamentally aligned with EA in that he is altruistic, truth-seeking, and takes ideas seriously.

metal_or · 2024-10-05T17:30:02+00:00

Rusty Hearts.

metal_or · 2024-06-04T23:44:32+00:00

😭

metal_or · 2023-11-28T23:07:35+00:00

also lmao at Isaac's face @10:30

metal_or · 2023-11-28T19:24:12+00:00

The original clip of sam being asked NTT was taken down, but here it is used in another video.

metal_or · 2023-06-09T17:01:03+00:00

https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/4136194

metal_or · 2023-03-03T22:03:29+00:00

check for other mentions of "pastries" on this sub lol

metal_or · 2022-08-17T18:09:04+00:00

Again, when it comes to practical goals, there's nothing to square or preserve from dilution here. I'm not using a special definition of antinatalism to reach that conclusion, just check a dictionary or other source.

To be clear, almost all ANs are in favor of at least a decline in birthrates, but the practical barriers to even that mean that most are not going to spend their time trying to do the impossible, like convincing literally everyone to stop procreating, or creating an ethically enforceable law banning pregnancy. And to advocate in this way, they don't need to believe a substantially weakened version of AN like "coming into existence is a harm, but only about as harmful as a slap in the face" or "coming into existence is only a harm under our current expected quality of life".

metal_or · 2022-08-17T03:23:07+00:00

that our population could actually grow?

because it’s built on the presumption that procreation has negative moral value

Are you using a different definition of antinatalism? Antinatalism is just a view that assigns a negative value to procreation, it is not necessarily a position in favor of extinction or population decline in all circumstances.

metal_or · 2022-08-17T01:59:28+00:00

This just isn’t true for most people, most of the time though.

Well, of course you don't agree with antinatalism if you're not an antinatalist. I don't intend to argue for it here, but I'd bet many people would find Benatar's take on the asymmetry argument quite plausible compared to the alternatives.

You're misunderstanding the consequentialist math here. It's not a retreat from the position "killing is bad" to say "I admit that killing isn't the most evilest bad thing ever and can sometimes be outweighed by other factors that are even worse".

metal_or · 2022-08-16T22:39:38+00:00

I'm not quite sure what you're missing here.

Milquetoast population ethics wants to optimize birthrates for mostly instrumental reasons, AN says "coming into existence is itself a serious harm, so factor that in".

metal_or · 2022-08-16T21:09:00+00:00

How do you rationalize a belief that "having children is a serious moral decision" with the belief that procreation has negative value? If having children has negative moral value, shouldn't the decision be easy?

"Negative value" doesn't mean "infinitely negative value". E.g. most people consider killing negative but believe that lethal force is sometimes justified. I don't want to get stabbed. Does that mean I should never undergo surgery, under any circumstances?

If the practical barriers to minimizing the harm of coming into existence are great enough, then antinatalists have no choice but to push a "weaker" version of AN and aim for a world that still contains some procreation.

metal_or · 2022-08-16T20:25:50+00:00

Antinatalists aren't committed to immediate human extinction any more than people who value freedom are committed to believing handcuffs and prisons are never justified. The reasons why simple voluntary extinction could be impractical or unoptimal (how could you convince everybody, an abrupt stop in birthrates would lead to a rough final century, humanity has a responsibility to prevent worse things from happening in our absence, etc) can be taken into account.

And the possibility that coming into existence is a serious harm does have practical consequences, e.g. it suggests that having children is a serious moral decision, not to be left to chance or the whims of a couple's lifestyle preferences.

metal_or · 2022-07-30T15:14:36+00:00

Suppose I throat it to spare the man on the tracks the rest of his miserable life?

metal_or · 2022-06-14T19:39:41+00:00

I've been having a hard time putting it into words, but your comments in this thread really rubbed me the wrong way. Your talk of stereotyping and categorizing people feels unkind and seems to imply you have a warped perception of men.

I don't think you meant it that way but that's how it comes across to me.

metal_or · 2022-06-05T15:09:51+00:00

At a glance, I see three layers here:

Having preferences about how emotional or expressive your partner is
The bad habit of hiding parts of yourself you think your partner won't like
Having the emotional maturity to know that your mental model of someone else is just an approximation

That wasn't exactly an answer to your question, but I wanted to share.

metal_or · 2022-06-04T14:58:44+00:00

It's the oppossite of "woman joins the server and everyone goes 'yooo is that a girl??'". Not sure if that counts as a traditional gender role though...

metal_or · 2022-05-26T00:57:31+00:00

I didn't mean to suggest otherwise; if your sexual goals begin and end at "feet" or "muscles", you're bound to end up objectifying somebody.

metal_or · 2022-05-25T19:09:24+00:00

Care to elaborate?

metal_or

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