Virtual reality and the unemployable

[moatdd]

Stef, I know you've often mentioned that we're going to face significant challenges from people who are unemployable due to their lack of skills, abilities, intelligence, etc.

In the future, simulated reality would become the most humane thing we can offer to these people.

If you're unable to live a fulfilling life, you could choose to live in perpetual bliss where everyone loves you, you're an astronaut or a brain surgeon, and it all feels real despite the reality being that you are wasting away in a chair, plugged into machines that siphon your excretions and feed your body through tubes, and feed your mind with fantasies.

I'm a game developer and I think I might just devote my life to developing an escape for the masses of reality-allergic cretins that plague us.

I think that the best thing the free market can offer people who are unable to deal with reality is the total escape from it (all voluntary, of course, I don't intend on sending out teams of gestapo who test your IQ, and, if it is below 85, forcefully plug you into the matrix.)

If this is a bad idea, please talk me away from the ledge on this.

[Siegfried von Walheim]

It is a horrible idea. Capable but mildly depressed people will also engage in total escapism (which isn't free--other people have to sustain it somehow) as well as the worthless and the result is civilizational implosion by Holodeck. 

 

However it could work as a eugenics program since the few that don't succumb to satanic temptation will be the ones that wind up making babies and thus seizing the world of the future. But I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the population was capable of rejecting the literal blue pill, and even more surprised if half of them are young and female. 

 

I'm not arguing whether it's possible (because I have no idea), just that it's an extremely terrible idea as the temptation to escape reality in a way even the best of video games cannot would likely result in most people (smart and dumb) checking out of the gene pool (and civilization in general) with only a minority remaining (and we have no reason to believe they won't "pull the plug" and do some unpredictable societal reordering that could be good, bad, or a mix of both). 

 

Ultimately I'm against it but not to the point of making it illegal as I think (in the long run) the minority that choose the red pill will wind up reigning supreme in this scenario (however that would like mean untold suffering and death as I'm sure many would want to "pull the plug" on the Holodeck parasites while the rest would rather try to sustain it--and the end result would be either civil war and/or foreign intervention which could result in foreign conquest or the nation being ruled by radicals of one ideology or another).

[neeeel]

my question would be, why? 

Sure, in a free market, you could start up a company that offered this, I suppose. Not sure how you would make your money though. Harvesting organs , blood, etc? 

Why is it my job , or our job, or someones job, to provide a blissful life to people? How is this different from a welfare state, for example?

[moatdd]

Well for one thing, it would be up to people who wanted to use the system to pay for it themselves. Rather than paying for college or university tuition (when they are clearly not suited for it, as college/uni is supposed to be for people who have a shot at actually having a meaningful career) they would subscribe to the service. Considering how much college tuition goes for and how much they could save in comparison to debt enslavement, the main upkeep cost would actually be preserving their bodies in a minimal state.

Perhaps we can siphon their waste products and use it as biofuels to power the machinery that provides for their virtual existence.

If anything it is a digital opium den for hopeless people to throw their lives away for a lot less than the cost of opium.

I wouldn't say that it would be your, or my job to provide a blissful life to people (although I do enjoy providing value to people in general as part of a trade) -- but when it comes to people who you just can't have in any workplace (because they are incompetent), well, unfortunately we are at some point going to have to deal with them. Not as a matter of duty, but because these sorts of people like to run to the gun and make trouble for the rest of us productive folk.

So if we say, bread-and-circused them with a system that not only entertained them, but made them feel as if they actually mattered within their own virtual fiefdoms, they can happily stay out of our way, and we'd be happier for it.

Right now, the left is sowing discord amongst these people by saying: "You can be anything! You can be an astronaut! Except you can't! Because of race and sex and hualalalagh <insert guttural noises>"

Instead, I propose restoring harmony to these people by saying: "You can just put on this helmet and it will let you live your life as an astronaut" and then they put the thing on and they go off and be astronauts in a safe, padded virtual world without actually causing anyone else any trouble.

And the best part is, when they first enter the simulation, we intentionally show them a janky, low-res world and (of course) their reaction will be negative and they'll demand to be let out of the simulation, at which point we turn the system up to its full, perfect settings and let them think they took off the helmet and got out of the system (while they're actually still in the simulation), and gradually alter the course of their virtual lives so that they go through college and magically pass all their tests and are offered to work at NASA, finally culminating in them in them taking on the job of an astronaut.

And, let's not forget: since about 80% of one's intelligence is inherited, I would absolutely hate to see families torn apart, I'm sure the system could be offered as some sort of family package deal.

[barn]

Hi @moatdd

What do you think about this:

Those that are least capable of critical thinking need philosophy and clear ethical guidelines the most. If we want a better world.

Anything that perpetuetes their worldview, allows from an even greater isolation from countering ideas (to madness, ignorance) is to the detriment of these people and those around. VR for them would be a great bubble to wrap themselves in... (as academia, think-tanks, subsidised media, is showing it to us)

Therefore, I would put forward that similarly to addicts, ideologues, emotionally possessed individuals it's highly beneficial to NOT aid / create more tools for escaping reality. If we claim to care about improving the world / fellow individuals.

[moatdd]

Hey @barn

I can totally agree with you that these people need these things, but as someone who has also done a lot of teaching, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Sometimes you have to pour in a whole lot of kool-aid and mountain dew into the pond, at which point it is no longer healthy, but let's face it: if someone is incapable of helping themselves or taking the necessary steps to help themselves and instead turns to burdening others, I just run out of care to dredge from the bottom of my barrel of care-a-lot.

I'm dead serious: I have no love for these people. I do, however, care, about people who would choose to live in the challenging real world even when offered to live in a virtual and false world where everything can be taken for granted. I am seeking to offer some sort of final solution where the productive and the unproductive can both get their way.

A utopia for the takers, and reality for the makers.

Not only would I help them escape their reality, I would like to help them escape ours, as well.

[barn]

3 hours ago, moatdd said:

Hey @barn

I can totally agree with you that these people need these things, but as someone who has also done a lot of teaching, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Sometimes you have to pour in a whole lot of kool-aid and mountain dew into the pond, at which point it is no longer healthy, but let's face it: if someone is incapable of helping themselves or taking the necessary steps to help themselves and instead turns to burdening others, I just run out of care to dredge from the bottom of my barrel of care-a-lot. 

Right, people don't just need those things but actually, they can't get them without virtuous people showing good example, having platforms for free interaction.

I see what you mean by the teaching angle,... even created a thread or two on a similar content... I myself have identified similar thoughts of mine as : mental exhaustion, lack of focus, my own fear of imaginary future outcomes... stressing it that those were my conclusions back then, I can't know what is really going on for you.

Is it perhaps possible that you experienced something similar too?

That you've spent far too much time in an environment with people who saw critical thinking as their enemy?

 

About 'amping up the sugar content of ideas to make them more enticing' or 'mountain dew-ing' :

People respond to incentives, the better the invitation, the more people are likely to turning up, listening. As in: entertaining, truthful, useful, constructive, reminding of objectively assertable consequences with proofs, adequately graded.

It's easy to teach smart kids, the challenge is to distill without messing with the essence of any given idea. Good teachers are capable of that. Others, not so much / not at all and those individuals tend to be the 'zombie army footsoldiers of government propaganda'.

3 hours ago, moatdd said:

I just run out of care to dredge from the bottom of my barrel of care-a-lot. 

Hopefully, this bit will be of use to you :

Is it true that genuine caring for others was only possible as an overspill from first having adequately cared for oneself?

I think so, because if I'm not doing what I say I believe in, want to see... well, that's hypocrisy. Loosing respect for myself in the end, paralysis, depression ultimately.

No wonder (logically), why when I don't deal with my own problems (avoidance), I tend to normalise letting people do the same.

We are what we do repeatedly. We can choose what to do and what not to do repeatedly. Only ideologues and deterministic individuals who choose those 'chains' can't. What will you choose then?

3 hours ago, moatdd said:

I am seeking to offer some sort of final solution where the productive and the unproductive can both get their way. 

The only final thing about human existence is death in my humble opinion. Between birth and that, there's a immensely vast pool of options, some better some worse...

What if the inconvenience of opposing ideas was not a bad thing and people became better equipped to update their thinking as a result? Would it be possible to achieve that with promoting an 'escapist' lifestyle?

 

Also, both can't "get their way" . They're mutually exclusive.

As in:

° reality can't be described as a form of 'virtually real' phenomenon, they are, the two are different things

° giving an addict more substance of addiction can't be helping them to not be even more addict

 

Let's say it existed, a segment of the population (some already do it in their own head) went into the 'void'. Would they have a positive impact on the rest of the world as a result or they'd become 'allergic' to anything not being supplied to them through manipulated imagery, regulated content, base lizard-brain brain-washing?

In a nutshell:

(VR here, relativism digitalised)

[moatdd]

re: this topic and forum -- I came looking for copper and I found gold. I just wanna take an honest and sincere moment to say I am thoroughly enjoying this thought experiment and the effort that my fellow participants are contributing. Getting banned from Twitter may have been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I haven't had a fun debate where we weren't at each other's throats in a very long time. Great job, Ethan, keep it up!

Quote

That you've spent far too much time in an environment with people who saw critical thinking as their enemy?

I taught drawing at a couple of colleges, both on-campus and online, and was disheartened by a vast majority of people who were willing to absorb information passively but unable to actually put time and effort into the drills and practice that they actually needed in order to become technically competent with the skills they were being given. Furthermore, I had received a warning from the faculty for stressing the urgency and need for competence in the fundamentals because all the future lessons required it, and in a situation where grades had to be given, I was in a situation where I had to pass people that if it were up to me, I would flunk 95% of the people in the class.

As a silver lining to all of this, I took to teaching people who sought me out independently. Teaching them is a lot more enjoyable than teaching people who take the college route to experience knowledge like one of those spinny flappy roller things in a car wash. They actually do learn and practice their drills, and it's really nice to see their progress.

I spent time in the Toronto indie video game community and left it soon after I found it had been thoroughly infested with social justice warriors. It doesn't help that the Apple and Google app stores are owned by SJW companies and that all the main ways(Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, various game journalists) to publicize a game are run by the left. I've been feeling like I've had this steadily tightening vise around my neck for about 5 years now.

Quote

The only final thing about human existence is death in my humble opinion. Between birth and that, there's a immensely vast pool of options, some better some worse...

 What if the inconvenience of opposing ideas was not a bad thing and people became better equipped to update their thinking as a result? Would it be possible to achieve that with promoting an 'escapist' lifestyle?

My proposed VR solution is actually aimed at people who have an average IQ of ~70 and have reached adulthood and are currently illiterate even in their own language. They don't actually have a vast pool of options, and I think that the pool of options available to us all (when it comes to careers) is rapidly shrinking with the advance of technology that is outstripping the rate at which the human race can increase its baseline IQ through hereditary means. Worse yet, that baseline IQ appears to be in decline.

We're heading towards a world where there are going to be a lot of people who will be mentally incapable of finding a place (finding fulfilling careers that haven't been automated) within society. Instead, the Left offers these people a place waving placards and signs, marching through the streets, and then hitting people and storefront windows with those very same placards and signs, and maybe the occasional bike lock. They form no-go zones, which, as Lauren Southern accurately dubbed as 'conquered land' within which gang violence and crime rates soar. And finally, they take to skewing voting for governments and systems that they can take from without putting anything into.

The globalist media and governments glorify these people, making them seem noble and purposeful.

Surely the free market can turn some of this advancing technology which is supplanting careers of low intelligence requirements to achieve a dual purpose through VR:

1. It gives these people the illusion of being purposeful in a world where their contributions will amount to little more than sticking your arms out a jet airliner window and flapping to help it along.
2. It gives these people the false utopia that the Left has been dangling in front of their nose to motivate them, thereby defusing these people in a nonviolent manner.

Quote

Let's say it existed, a segment of the population (some already do it in their own head) went into the 'void'. Would they have a positive impact on the rest of the world as a result or they'd become 'allergic' to anything not being supplied to them through manipulated imagery, regulated content, base lizard-brain brain-washing?

The reality-allergic already exist. They're increasing in number, and at some point, it will not be humanly possible to get them to calmly sit down and watch a video when they are clapping their hands over their ears and screaming at the sky, and running at us wearing fashionable jackets of compounds manufactured by DuPont.

Again, VR utopias seem to be a pretty good solution for bipedal amygdalas to be able to live the rest of their natural lives in the perfect utopia they so desire, where they can stay out of the gene pool.

Until of course, Google makes an implanted coprocessor that can grant you additional neofrontal cortex functionality and a fistful of IQ points, but you can bet that it will include backdoors for FBI and CIA access, leftist indoctrination, and scrolling banner ads that play whenever you shut your eyelids.

[moatdd]

7re: this topic and forum -- I came looking for copper and I found gold. I just wanna take an honest and sincere moment to say I am thoroughly enjoying this thought experiment and the effort that my fellow participants are contributing. Getting banned from Twitter may have been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I haven't had a fun debate where we weren't at each other's throats in a very long time. Great job, Ethan, keep it up!

Quote

That you've spent far too much time in an environment with people who saw critical thinking as their enemy?

I taught drawing at a couple of colleges, both on-campus and online, and was disheartened by a vast majority of people who were willing to absorb information passively but unable to actually put time and effort into the drills and practice that they actually needed in order to become technically competent with the skills they were being given. Furthermore, I had received a warning from the faculty for stressing the urgency and need for competence in the fundamentals because all the future lessons required it, and in a situation where grades had to be given, I was in a situation where I had to pass people that if it were up to me, I would flunk 95% of the people in the class.

As a silver lining to all of this, I took to teaching people who sought me out independently. Teaching them is a lot more enjoyable than teaching people who take the college route to experience knowledge like one of those spinny flappy roller things in a car wash. They actually do learn and practice their drills, and it's really nice to see their progress.

I spent time in the Toronto indie video game community and left it soon after I found it had been thoroughly infested with social justice warriors. It doesn't help that the Apple and Google app stores are owned by SJW companies and that all the main ways(Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, various game journalists) to publicize a game are run by the left. I've been feeling like I've had this steadily tightening vise around my neck for about 5 years now.

Quote

The only final thing about human existence is death in my humble opinion. Between birth and that, there's a immensely vast pool of options, some better some worse...

 What if the inconvenience of opposing ideas was not a bad thing and people became better equipped to update their thinking as a result? Would it be possible to achieve that with promoting an 'escapist' lifestyle?

My proposed VR solution is actually aimed at people who have an average IQ of ~70 and have reached adulthood and are currently illiterate even in their own language. They don't actually have a vast pool of options, and I think that the pool of options available to us all (when it comes to careers) is rapidly shrinking with the advance of technology that is outstripping the rate at which the human race can increase its baseline IQ through hereditary means. Worse yet, that baseline IQ appears to be in decline.

We're heading towards a world where there are going to be a lot of people who will be mentally incapable of finding a place (finding fulfilling careers that haven't been automated) within society. Instead, the Left offers these people a place waving placards and signs, marching through the streets, and then hitting people and storefront windows with those very same placards and signs, and maybe the occasional bike lock. They form no-go zones, which, as Lauren Southern accurately dubbed as 'conquered land' within which gang violence and crime rates soar. And finally, they take to skewing voting for governments and systems that they can take from without putting anything into.

The globalist media and governments glorify these people, making them seem noble and purposeful.

Surely the free market can turn some of this advancing technology which is supplanting careers of low intelligence requirements to achieve a dual purpose through VR:

1. It gives these people the illusion of being purposeful in a world where their contributions will amount to little more than sticking your arms out a jet airliner window and flapping to help it along.
2. It gives these people the false utopia that the Left has been dangling in front of their nose to motivate them, thereby defusing these people in a nonviolent manner.

Quote

Let's say it existed, a segment of the population (some already do it in their own head) went into the 'void'. Would they have a positive impact on the rest of the world as a result or they'd become 'allergic' to anything not being supplied to them through manipulated imagery, regulated content, base lizard-brain brain-washing?

The reality-allergic already exist. They're increasing in number, and at some point, it will not be humanly possible to get them to calmly sit down and watch a video when they are clapping their hands over their ears and screaming at the sky, and running at us wearing fashionable jackets of compounds manufactured by DuPont.

Again, VR utopias seem to be a pretty good solution for bipedal amygdalas to be able to live the rest of their natural lives in the perfect utopia they so desire, where they can stay out of the gene pool.

Until of course, Google makes an implanted coprocessor that can grant you additional neofrontal cortex functionality and a fistful of IQ points, but you can bet that it will include backdoors for FBI and CIA access, leftist indoctrination, and scrolling banner ads that play whenever you shut your eyelids.

[barn]

Hi @moatdd

(Thanks for the pm, I'll do as I said. Nice one!)

Splendid, I think you will find the following conversation pertinent and helping you see more details. Highly recommend it:

(Haidt/Lukianoff/Peterson)

ps. - It speaks to me regarding Western culture / mentality and minds rather... or at least it expands on near identical markers, outside of Americans (Northern, I suppose).

[barn]

Hi @moatdd

Thanks for taking the time in responding, thinking about some of the ideas!

On 09/19/2018 at 9:55 PM, moatdd said:

I taught drawing at a couple of colleges, both on-campus and online, and was disheartened by a vast majority of people who were willing to absorb information passively but unable to actually put time and effort into the drills and practice that they actually needed in order to become technically competent with the skills they were being given. Furthermore, I had received a warning from the faculty for stressing the urgency and need for competence in the fundamentals because all the future lessons required it, and in a situation where grades had to be given, I was in a situation where I had to pass people that if it were up to me, I would flunk 95% of the people in the class.

As a silver lining to all of this, I took to teaching people who sought me out independently. Teaching them is a lot more enjoyable than teaching people who take the college route to experience knowledge like one of those spinny flappy roller things in a car wash. They actually do learn and practice their drills, and it's really nice to see their progress.

I spent time in the Toronto indie video game community and left it soon after I found it had been thoroughly infested with social justice warriors. It doesn't help that the Apple and Google app stores are owned by SJW companies and that all the main ways(Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, various game journalists) to publicize a game are run by the left. I've been feeling like I've had this steadily tightening vise around my neck for about 5 years now. 

Many, many of your experience resonates closely with my observations, way of thinking.

It does look like (to me), you could have benefited from more free-market style immersion. And that probably you took/take your work seriously enough to care about quality more than the average does.

On 09/19/2018 at 9:55 PM, moatdd said:

My proposed VR solution is actually aimed at people who have an average IQ of ~70 and have reached adulthood and are currently illiterate even in their own language. [...] - A.

We're heading towards a world where there are going to be a lot of people who will be mentally incapable of finding a place... [...] - B. 

[...]

Surely the free market can turn some of this advancing technology which is supplanting careers of low intelligence requirements to achieve a dual purpose through VR:

1.  It gives these people the illusion of being purposeful in a world where their contributions will amount to little more than sticking your arms out a jet airliner window and flapping to help it along.
2. It gives these people the false utopia that the Left has been dangling in front of their nose to motivate them, thereby defusing these people in a nonviolent manner. 

point C. 

A.

Think of just the falsely projected fuel crisis. We didn't run out of resources, what's more we're better able to not just refine but extract from the ground than ever before.

Similarly, this issue too could be prepared for, seeing it down the road just like the example I have made.

A trend doesn't mean its effects can't be adequately countered with, should there be sufficient incentive to enable the necessary preparations/updates.

Also, better communities, more non-governmental (or restricted) charities could do miracles in a much more economically efficient manner.

B.

Yes. Actually, the same goes for higher up in the IQ scale (up to about 100-115), I even created a thread on a very similar subject.

ie. -  banking too, production in general, some areas of healthcare it's been / will be going on, not to mention the vast majority of admin jobs that could/should be restructured (some estimate it to ~70-80% seats at work taken up, wages paid unnecessarily, ALREADY)

C.

/ 1.

Illusion - ie. - bubble. Not good. Further detachment from society, less exposure to incentives on learning basic social cues, improving integration. Growing group of unproductive people that has to be cared for. There'll be people included, who otherwise could do other things. (similar to people on social benefits that otherwise could at least be self-sufficient but they choose not to out of various reasons)

/ 2.

The left in my estimation is very bad at looking after people's interest... compared to others. It would be great for them if they could outsource an even greater amount of people, the costs associated to people who shouldn't be carrying that load in the first place. (higher amount of tax being diverted, increase in the loss of opportunities for the productive, higher opportunity costs)

On 09/20/2018 at 2:41 PM, moatdd said:

The reality-allergic already exist. They're increasing in number, and at some point, it will not be humanly possible to get them to calmly sit down and watch a video when they are clapping their hands over their ears and screaming at the sky, and running at us wearing fashionable jackets of compounds manufactured by DuPont. 

Therefore, perhaps you would agree with me when I say:

Let's NOT have more, please!

Because what you incentivise, grows. Becomes progressively accessible to a greater amount of people, parallel with its former boundaries becoming less clear-cut, inclusivity expanding. (normalisation -> outcome, more of the base -> more of the later except in here it's more hyperbolic... x^2)

On 09/20/2018 at 2:41 PM, moatdd said:

Again, VR utopias seem to be a pretty good solution for bipedal amygdalas to be able to live the rest of their natural lives in the perfect utopia they so desire, where they can stay out of the gene pool. 

I don't think that's true. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems similar to:

'When cleaning the house, let's brush the dog-hair/fallen fur under the carpet, it won't bother anyone there... '

As in: (fallacy) 'Out of sight, out of mind.'

On 09/20/2018 at 2:41 PM, moatdd said:

Until of course, Google makes an implanted coprocessor that can grant you additional neofrontal cortex functionality and a fistful of IQ points, but you can bet that it will include backdoors for FBI and CIA access, leftist indoctrination, and scrolling banner ads that play whenever you shut your eyelids. 

I can't disagree here. Makes perfect sense to me. (sigh) Only if we could keep the Internet free and unshackled.