something_else

I think you could definitely sell that premise. A custom or retrained model you can realistically create is unlikely to be competitive with frontier models for most tasks though. Retraining or fine-tuning is somewhat old news now for most use cases. You'd likely be better off running a context-engineering agency that configures the frontier models for companies through skills, plugins, custom agent loops, CLAUDE/AGENT.md files and other forms of external memory and context. Getting this setup right massively improves their performance on tasks for a business which can provide a lot of value. AI is all about getting the right context into the model just now. On your more general point, I don't know how this protects you against the risks of post-scarcity AI-driven world. We're talking about a world where there are basically two classes of people, those with control over the means to produce value and those without. Being able to build custom models or tweak them does not put you in the former unless you earn so much money that you are competitive with the likes of the massive AI companies who actually control the most capable models. Oh, right, yea on this point I agree. My point was not that everybody has equal value in the marketplace just now, my point is that everybody basically would in a post-scarcity AI-driven world. "bringing it into the real world" > "proposes highly unrealistic theoretical scenario" I'm only talking about a theoretical post-scarcity AI-driven world so much because that was the original topic of discussion. I have been trying to keep this discussion anchored to that original point. You said it was just my gut feeling that such a world is more likely to be dystopian than utopian, I think I have provided a fairly solid argument that it is very possible it will be, and that it is not just a gut feeling. I'm interpreting everybody 'owning AI equally' to mean everyone has access to a frontier model that they have full control over with no guardrails, which cannot be taken away from them. If that's not what you meant then please correct me. But assuming it is, who knows if that would be a good thing. It's just your gut feeling that it would be good. You would then have dictators all over the world who now potentially have the capability to produce an extremely effective bio weapon, or to hack into nuclear launch sites and reactors of other countries. To assume that such a chaotic and rapid transformation of the world would be positive is, I think, quite unwise.

Diagnosing someone's developmental stages can also be quite cringe. It comes across as patronising. Because SD is hierarchal, when you are 'diagnosing' someone with Stage Green blindspots the implication is that you are more developed than them as a person, even if that's not the intention. Obviously that annoys people. If the goal is to help them develop, that's likely a bad strategy. It's better to just point out the flaws in reasoning without actually labelling them as 'Stage green blindspots'. One of the capacities associated with Yellow is being able to understand people operating from different value systems and communicate in a way that makes sense within their frame. That means showing someone the limitations of their thinking without constantly pointing out, or implying, that they’re lower down the spiral than you. If we are talking about the stages theoretically and discretely I think this is valid. But their expressions in practice are never discrete, people exist on a continuous spectrum across the spiral. There's a reason the term used to describe someone's level of development is "centre of gravity is around stage green" rather than someone "is stage green". People may have aspects of stage yellow in their development even if their centre of gravity is around green. If you are operating from the perspective of "I am yellow and they are green, therefore I am more developed across all domains of life than them" then you are using the model wrong. Check out the document below, it has shit formatting but I can't find the better version. Cowan specifically warns about people identifying too strongly with Tier 2, and argues that the need to proclaim yourself as Tier 2 can itself display traits that are at odds with what Tier 2 is supposed to represent. He also warns about it becoming a status symbol, and about using the model to look down on people as less developed because they aren’t on the same “Tier 2” plane as you. https://spiraldynamics-integral.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Cowan-Christopher-First-and-Second-Tier.pdf I agree that you rarely see people posting on a quest to develop a deep understanding of systems here, but that's hardly surprising. You're ultimately just very unlikely to develop that kind of understanding from a forum debate, and this place is rife with high-level shit-posting and intellectual sparring to boost one's own ego. I'm far from immune to that, in fact I enjoy it. Aside from that the forum is also really good for giving and receiving more practical advice. But the higher level stuff just isn't something that can be absorbed very well in this format because it doesn't capture attention well enough to keep the thread popular, so people stop posting that kind of content. I don't really agree with this. I see plenty of people making interesting points across the spiral here. I feel like this demonstrates the issue with building an identity around tier 2. Rather than acknowledge that someone from any level of development may have interesting ideas, you are flattening them all down into caricatures of their development stage.

Cringe is largely about delivery and context, rather than content. If a software engineer said “I studied systems architecture at university, and here is the specific principle I think you’re overlooking” I wouldn’t find that cringe. They’re giving a reason and explaining why their background is relevant. If instead they said “I studied systems architecture, so you’re wrong and simply lack the experience I have” that has a much higher potential to be cringe because the credential is being used as a substitute for explaining the disagreement. That latter is much closer to how Spiral Dynamics stages get used on this forum. There is also another important difference between the two cases. “software engineer” is relatively bounded, competence in that field can be verified quite easily. Whereas “I’m Yellow” is often a self-assigned assessment of one’s own developmental level for which there is little evidence on a forum. So using “I’m Yellow” as evidence that your interpretation is more correct than someone you deem as "Green" will often not land well unless you can really back it up to the point where people believe you are at that level. I think this point misses what the Spiral Dynamics hierarchy is supposed to represent. The point isn’t that Yellow is simply “more correct” than Green, Blue, Red, etc. Each stage embodies ways of thinking that are adaptive to particular conditions and problems. Sometimes a Green lens may be the most appropriate one, sometimes Blue, Red, Orange, and so on. So “I’m Yellow, therefore I understand this better than someone at Green” doesn’t follow the system. Someone whose centre of gravity is Green could have a much better understanding of a particular domain than someone who considers themselves Yellow. Developmental stage is not a substitute for domain knowledge, experience, or the quality of the actual argument. In fact, if Yellow is supposed to recognise the functional value of the earlier stages, then automatically dismissing a Green perspective because it is Green seems contrary to the very thing Yellow is supposed to understand. Yellow is not meant to be a label to boost someone's ego and assert dominance, authority, or correctness. So when it is used that way it often comes across as cringe.

Yea, exactly. I rarely think explicitly about "producing value". I find that to be a flawed framework for me personally, although it is definitely necessary sometimes. Same as you, I put effort into what I am passionate about and what I am good at, and that often brings value to others. But bringing value to others was never really the underlying motivation so much as a side effect, or a tool necessary to sustain doing things I enjoy. There's a reason we're drawn to people who provide value from a place of deep intrinsic motivation. When you meet someone like this they often have a mystical quality to them that is very appealing. Passion is very magnetic. Compare that to people who are coming from place of strong extrinsic motivation, or who have a deep inner passion but it's for something external like money or power. Often they come across like grifters, or in the worst case psychopaths. Obviously most people are somewhere in the middle, but looking at the extremes on either side I know which side I'd rather lean towards.

Yes. It is one of the things that defines us as a species. Most humans strive for it, some with more success than others. What is someone meant to do? "ChatGPT defend me and my family against the AI apocalypse" What is the pitfall you are talking about? It isn't clear to me from your comment, could you expand? Yes, a safety net is a good idea. I think UBI would be great if implemented well, but we have no way of knowing that it will be. "Competent" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in making that second sentence sound reasonable, but competence of an average individual becomes meaningless in a heavily-automated post-scarcity world. You are outcompeted by a billionaire's ASI in every domain you could possibly develop competence in. That essentially leaves your argument at "it's a good thing if the rich people who just happen to control the AI continue to empower themselves and their dynasties at the expense of everybody else" which is pretty hard point to defend IMO. I don't know if you realise just how different a post-scarcity world could be from our current one. It's possible money and wealth would cease to exist in their current forms. Our current tools barely work now, let alone in this theoretical world.

Get 10 or 15 friends and you’ll have options for plans most weeknights, and parties and clubs to go to at weekends. You’ll meet tons of girls this way. Social circles are exponential. Through every friend you will often meet a bunch of other people, many of whom will be girls. This is particularly true in university. On top of this, girls find you more attractive when you have friends. Having few or no close friends will make most girls lose interest in you very quickly. Massive action may be required but putting all of your eggs in one basket, cold approach, is unwise. Better to distribute that massive action across several areas like social circle, style, gym, dating apps, and yes, cold approach.

@yetineti I agree with your underlying point, which is that when someone tries to enforce their system of value on me (which is what I interpret @LordFall as doing to you), my inherent reaction is to question it, or tell them to fuck off. I think the problem you’ve run into is that you’re now trying to justify that stance at length, which leaves you playing the status game you’re trying to deconstruct. Better to simply not participate, or firmly stand your ground. Define your own internal values and measure yourself against those. Ironically, doing that may well result in you providing more value to the world even under the external framework @LordFall is trying to box you into. I think that is also a point you have made before too, which I also agree with. I don’t really disagree with @LordFall either. Providing value to others is important, and to some degree it’s part of living a good and successful life. Generally, being able to genuinely help other people will create more opportunities and better outcomes for you as well. Where I disagree is that you don’t need to constantly measure yourself and others against these external hierarchies in order to do that, unless your goal is to rise to the very top of them. Most people don’t need that. You can define success according to your own values and still live a very fulfilling, valuable life. For some people, their internal values will align very closely with the external measures society rewards. For others, they won’t. Not everybody who loves music wants to be a rockstar. Some people are perfectly content performing locally, making good music, connecting with people, and having that be enough. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think you both just take very different approaches to life and have very different value systems, so you may never agree. And that’s fine.

I agree with all of this, however I don’t think a post-scarcity UBI driven world would be as happy as it sounds. You could have a society where everyone has their basic needs covered, cheap entertainment, healthcare, food etc, while almost all productive assets and economic power are owned by a tiny group of people. So materially, life might actually be very comfortable. But if you have almost no ability to compete economically, accumulate wealth, or meaningfully change your position, then you’re still completely dependent on whatever redistribution the ownership class decides is necessary to keep society stable. That doesn’t sound like freedom to me. It sounds like some kind of techno-feudalism. My argument is not that AI is going to create an awful life for everybody, it’s more that I think the range of possible outcomes here is massive and very uncertain. It’s IMO unwise to assume that a post-scarcity ASI-driven world will create a good life for everybody. There are so many ways it could go wrong before we even reach that point, and even more ways it can go wrong if we reach it. For example, imagine ASI eventually gives a tiny number of people the ability to replace most human labour and potentially wield an unprecedented amount of power over society. The danger isn’t that every billionaire would abuse that power, or even that most would. The danger is that you only need a small number of sufficiently ruthless people controlling sufficiently powerful systems for things to go catastrophically wrong. Human history gives us plenty of examples of what people are capable of when power becomes extremely concentrated, and ASI could amplify that power to a level we’ve never seen before.

How does any of this prove we are all going to be living a life of abundance? I'm assuming the mechanism by which you see that happening is UBI, but it isn't nearly as developed as you made it out to be in your last post. The Canada bill would require the government to develop a framework for implementing something along the lines of UBI, and it may not even pass. Even if it does pass, it doesn't actually implement UBI, it just requires the government to develop a framework. Progress, yes, but not as far reaching as you make it out to be. It's also just a single country. The EU has a citizens' initiative advocating for UBI, but that isn't legislation being passed either. Initiatives are proposed for all sorts of things that never ultimately become law. So where is the actual mechanism that gets us from "AI makes production much cheaper" to "everyone lives in abundance"? What makes you think utopia is the way this will go, and not dystopia?

I would argue it is the primary thing worth considering, given that it has basically defined our species for 200,000 years of history. Also, I don't think we are really very close to AI actually doing everything for us and providing us all with a life of abundance. I use AI all day for my job as a software engineer and it is insanely good, but not anywhere near good enough that it could be trusted to do the job autonomously. That would be catastrophic. And coding is the complex task that these models are by far the best at right now. We are at a stage where the economy is going to shift massively in the coming years because you now need one person to do the job of 4 in some white collar fields. But predicting how this will actually go in practice is hard.

Stop viewing social circle as a distinct pickup skill, or as a tool to get laid. There is 'social circle game' and there is 'making friends and having a social life'. You want the latter. Stop putting your energy into cold approach, if it's not working for you after 2500 approaches then it's not probably not going to work at all. Go make some new friends instead. It's pretty easy, especially in university. Having a good group of friends significantly increases your self esteem and confidence. It makes you much more attractive. It exposes you to tons of cool new people (men and women) through parties and events. It will also just make you enjoy your life in university much more. You want to be meeting people mostly organically instead of entirely through cold approach, I promise you it will work so much better for you.

I don't disagree entirely, however I think a core component of improving your dating life involves organically instilling a feeling of high value in yourself. If all you do is get really good at mimicking high value behaviour, that doesn't necessarily mean you ever develop that feeling of being "good enough" deep down, which is what makes a lot of those behaviours come naturally in the first place. I think a more holistic approach is better than going all in on behaviour modification through pickup, though I don't deny that can help some people. Focusing on building a solid all-round life that you actually enjoy living will, for most guys, make a huge difference to dating. The "high value" behaviours start to flow more naturally when you genuinely believe you bring value to other people's lives. For example, if I list the stuff I've done in the past 6 years to improve my dating life in order of what had the biggest impact, I'd rank them like this: Building a solid social circle of deep friendships Better grooming / style Long-term travel / backpacking (such a good way to build natural confidence and social skills) Gym Actively practising pickup and learning "correct" behaviour Just generally getting older and wiser I specifically noticed that doing stuff which made me feel fulfilled with my life massively increased my confidence and "high value" behaviours. When I was forcing myself to go out every weekend and do approaches, I actually felt pretty awful. There was value in it, but it often made me feel dirty and sleazy, not fulfilled. So I don't think pickup is useless. I just think deliberately training the behaviours is only one part of it, and probably not the most important one.

Full material abundance for me, but not for thee. This vision of utopia is entirely dependent on powerful people being willing to give up what differentiates them from the masses, which is extremely unlikely. Extinction is more likely. I suspect once humanity develops this kind of tech it will make wealth inequality much worse, not better.

Yea, that's... how the market works. "The last two buses arrived 12 minutes late, so this one is basically guaranteed to be here in 11 minutes."

What was your argument at the time for why crypto would go up again in the future? Just curious more than anything

Are you just approaching people around campus? Or on the street? That has an awful rate of success in general. You need to build a social circle, go to parties, join societies/clubs/organisations, make friends. That is what university is about, and never again in your life will you have the opportunity to build a social circle so easily.

Honestly, I think you have a better chance of changing that at university than outside of it. At least that’s the case here. Does your school not have societies, parties, events etc. that would allow you to build up a solid social network?

I find it hard to tell where pickup theory draws the line between a “shit test” and: Playful teasing Rejection Actually insulting you I’ve experienced the first a lot, but that just seems like normal flirting. It also doesn’t really seem to be what people mean by a shit test. The second and third, though, often seem to get folded into the concept. If a woman rejects me, I’m not going to keep pursuing because “she’s subconsciously testing me.” Even if that were true, I don’t want to engage with that kind of game when there are plenty of women who don’t do it. Same with outright insults. Why interpret hostility as hidden interest when I can spend my time on women who are clearly interested and enjoyable to be around? My theory is that “shit tests” mostly exist in the context of cold approach. Women understandably have a defensive response to random men approaching them while they're going about their day, and handling that response well can sometimes build attraction. But that makes the behaviour more a product of the way you’re meeting women than some pervasive female tendency. I’ve never really experienced it at all meeting women through friends, parties, night clubs, or dating apps.

It depends entirely on you, what you're studying, and whether you can realistically fund your music and social life with the kind of job you could get without higher education. Both paths are valid, and neither is final. You can always change direction if the one you choose isn't working. There's a solid argument for getting a degree, working a high-paying job for a few years, and building up savings. That can give you the money and stability to fund your hobbies and make turning one of them into a career much more realistic than if you're scraping by on a low income. That's roughly where I am now. I got a degree, worked for several years as a software engineer, and that gave me the financial stability to experiment with hobbies and side projects. It also gave me enough money to travel, live somewhere nice, and build a great social life. The business I'm working on now also requires reasonable capital to start, so it would have been much harder to bootstrap it without a solid job behind me. If you're studying for something like engineering, law, medicine, or another credential-based, well-paid career, higher education can be a very good investment. If your degree is less likely to lead to a strong income, then skipping it and focusing on music becomes a much more appealing option. On this point specifically, I don't know how it is where you live, but higher education here is basically a cheat code for a social life.

Yea, this is pretty much what I've found. I can't even really pinpoint a shit test a woman has ever given me tbh, if they do it it doesn't even register to me. I just assume they're playfully teasing and either laugh or tease back.

But it’s also true. Most people, not just girls, would not respond favourably to hearing that a dude goes out to the park specifically to target and hit on women. If a few people respond negatively that’s a them problem, if it’s the vast majority of people that’s a you problem. Yes, there are situations where it’s the right thing to stand your ground even if everybody in the world thinks you’re wrong. I don’t think this is one of those situations personally. Specifically going out to target lone women in the park to try and get laid is, IMO, not very healthy in most cases and I struggle to think of ways to defend or justify that behaviour. “It works and some women like it” is not convincing to me. In most cases you’re just being a public nuisance. This was pretty much my thought process at the time and I decided that it didn’t align with my values. I pursued travel, parties and making friends instead as a means of dating / socialising and was much happier as a result. I don’t agree with the “don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks about you” mindset, you should be aware of how your actions are perceived by others. It’s healthy in small amounts, and it serves as a check for your behaviour.

They are. Some people are just assholes, even if it’s from deep trauma it’s still them expressing exactly how they feel and not trying to put on an act or be something they are not

Could not agree more. The thought I always had during my loner pickup phase was: “Does my future girlfriend really want to date a guy who has no friends and spends his Saturday going to the park to talk to girls?” Probably not. She wants a guy with a vibrant social life who has better things to do. Pickup got me some results, but it also made me feel lonelier, more worthless and, at times, like a creep. —— My only contention is that building a social circle specifically to get laid I.e. “social circle game”, misses the point too. The real upgrade is having deep friendships, people you genuinely love spending time with, and a life you actually enjoy. That removes a huge amount of neediness because your need for connection and appreciation isn’t resting entirely on women. It’s also just very attractive. Almost every time I go out partying or clubbing with my close friends I end up hooking up with someone because our group has such great vibes and we all love each other. Overall, the two biggest things that improved my dating life were deep friendships and travel. Pickup helped with social anxiety, which was valuable, but it was not a long term solution. Very much a phase to go through and discard.

I have found that “being yourself” is exceptional advice, but it’s misunderstood and very cliche. It doesn’t mean become a socially uncalibrated weirdo. It means develop a high degree of self-awareness, learning to express your personality, and not requiring approval of that personality from others. It’s about being comfortable in your own skin. The dudes who are genuinely assholes but still get laid don’t get laid because they’re assholes. They get laid because they are being themselves confidently. If you pretend to be an asshole to get laid it doesn’t really work because it’s inauthentic and humans have a radar for inauthenticity. In the same way, a “nice guy” is unattractive because he is faking the niceness to get laid. And also because “nice” isn’t a personality trait. If you are authentically kind and have more to your personality than “he’s nice” that is also very attractive. The deeper purpose of practicing pickup is, or at least should be, to learn to express yourself, your values, your desires and your needs unashamedly and authentically. It isn’t about learning what act to put on to get laid.

I relate to this, and a lot of what you say here really. I suspect it's a component of avoidant attachment, although I don't want to be that person diagnosing someone on an internet forum. I'm mainly saying it because I relate a lot to where you are in life as well and I notice a lot of avoidant patterns in myself. I'm using the word "you" from here on as a general descriptor of "an avoidant person" because it sounds good in writing, but I'm largely describing my own experience, perhaps you'll relate. Avoidance can leave you spending a lot of time chasing experience, hookups, adventure, achievement, but never settling down. Never letting anybody get that close to you, friend or relationship. Never really letting anybody see who you really are deep down. It leaves you in this weird state where you aren't depressed, you actually feel quite good, you're at a healthy stage in life, having fun, achieving things, but you just feel like something is... missing? I think what's missing is vulnerability, stability, and a deep rooted connection with other people. The thing that scares you most. You build exceptional social skills which function as a mask, a mechanism allowing you to socialise without connecting deeply, because being your authentic self around people without this mask of exceptional social skills scares you. You've always got an escape route for every commitment planned in the back of your mind so you can return to your life of freedom at a moment's notice. Being tied down or committed to one thing for the rest of your life, be it person, career, where you live, is a terrifying concept. You look at everybody else who has settled down and think that looks like a boring life, so you run away from it. And keep running. How can they be so happy with such a boring life? Until eventually you start looking at those people and feeling like you may actually be behind them in life. To be clear, I actually think being avoidant has many benefits in younger years of life. It pushes you to put off committing to anything too early, which is a surefire way to fuck up your life. But it only works for so long. Eventually your mind starts to realise that there's only so long you can run away from any kind of commitment and responsibility.