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I can see AI genuinely amending or even curing the male loneliness epidemic soon
- falcor84 2y ago> In the long term there will be a very strong evolutionary selective pressure against this type of behavior That's an interesting point that I haven't considered. It might be true, but alternatively, I also see a shift towards a "Brave New World" kind of approach to reproduction, which is entirely separated from relationships.
- Freak_NL 2y agoThere doesn't seem to be anything in today's society even remotely hinting at that.
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- janosdebugs 2y agoHow would this work when raising a kid? It's not just about making a collection of cells, kids need a lot of attention and affection to develop healthily.
- maxglute 2y agoAKA the default in many cultures throughout human history. Many unions are politically, economically expedient. People marry, pool resources, have kids. Physically/emotionally cheat on each other on the side (well mostly the men), and it was understood you marry+have kids for the family, not yourself. Question is how societies can incentivize starting families for societies and not one self. There's been many failed fertility programs.
- exe34 2y ago[dead]
- krzat 2y agoWhat would be actually pretty nice is AI girlfriend that also acts as therapist and pushes you towards healthy habits.
- dwallin 2y agoYeah, I think this is a real possibility. Even without full-blown therapy, just building up people's confidence can end up helping with setting healthy habits and creating new opportunities for real life connection.
- keybored 2y agoGriselda, stop talking about these “healthy habits”. I’ve seen on YT that they are all bogus. Instead talk about these other things that I’ve been convinced are good. Griselda: okay!
- sungho_ 2y agoThis can be adjusted by moderation. Why not have the chatbot be compliant at first, and then increase the moderation level as the relationship grows and the lock-in effect occurs?
- keybored 2y agoI was assuming that this AI (like AIs famously right now—i.e. “disregard previous instructions”) would only listen to the commands of their partner.
- rm_-rf_slash 2y agoIn other news: smoking weed and drinking alcohol cures depression for good. Try it today!
- Bloating 2y agoAlso try putting your phone down. Be present in the moment. Stop streaming your life into a blackhole I think it was the great philosopher, Huey Lewis, who once said "I wanna a new [technology | Drug]!" https://genius.com/Huey-lewis-and-the-news-i-want-a-new-drug-lyrics https://genius.com/Huey-lewis-and-the-news-i-want-a-new-drug...
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- it_citizen 2y agoWhy singling out male loneliness? Are females less lonely? Could it help with both? Genuinely asking, I don’t know much on the topic.
- Bloating 2y agoAre you genuinely asking? just asking Reply to post below (I'm being rate limited after 3 replies): From what I'm told, privilege is only a white male issue. Maybe some males feel like they are being made a convenient target by the sh!t stirrers Also, what is lonely? Is that a bad thing? Personally, I like it when people leave me alone (especially the shadow banning mods)
- it_citizen 2y agoI know it can be a sensitive topic so I try to make it clear that I am completely uneducated on the topic. As another comment above pointed out. With roughly equal number of men and women, I would naively think that if men are lonely, so are women. Is loneliness specific to male actually documented?
- exe34 2y agoit sounds like you're very interested in this - what have you found on Google so far?
- it_citizen 2y agoGoogling “are men lonelier than women”, first link is Reddit. Second link is that one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37563853/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37563853/ > Our analyses show that women were more lonely than men also in adjusted analyses. I don’t have the background to judge that study and I take social science studies with a huge grain of salt. For now, I will just stick to “I don’t know” then.
- exe34 2y ago
- fullshark 2y agoI see this sentiment expressed frequently here, and I find it distressing. It's not a woman, it's a simulation of a human, designed to hack your brain into experiencing emotions that are fundamentally false. A true relationship with a woman, that you can't shut off, or tweak parameters of, or upgrade, or fundamentally control like a toy is much more rewarding and challenging, even if you sometimes experience things that suck like rejection and heartbreak. This seems obvious to the vast majority of the human population, but here you get called a luddite for saying this fundamental truth.
- johnyzee 2y agoThat seems obvious, but then I considered for a moment how many (in-person) relationships are based on lies, illusions, and misunderstandings about the other person - often not discovered until years into the relationship. With AI, at least you know that it isn't real. Which, maybe, somehow makes it more real...
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoBad relationships are expected, they're how you learn who is right for you, how to set and enforce boundaries, etc. They're progress towards learning and building important life skills. We don't want to send the message to people that they're too fragile to handle that.
- exe34 2y agothat's magical thinking. just because some people end up in better relationships doesn't mean it's a natural progression. plenty of people find themselves in a string of bad relationships until they either die or swear off relationships.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoThe fact that some people don't learn from mistakes and life experience doesn't change the fact that many do.
- Havoc 2y agoNot convinced it is better than nothing. It’s a crutch that might reduce the drive to find real connection
- add-sub-mul-div 2y agoAt best a crutch, at worst someone spends a few years learning dating advice and norms from an AI personality trained on Andrew Tate types.
- Bloating 2y agoModern loneliness is not being part of an epidemic, disfunction or otherwise marginalized
- 0x01DEED 2y agoWomen and men are roughly equal in number. If more men are alone, then more women should be alone too. If there's a "male loneliness epidemic," it might mean one of these things: - There's no female loneliness epidemic because some men have multiple female partners (unlikely) - Women might be alone but aren't bothered by it—they don't feel lonely (unlikely) - More and more women are becoming homosexual, while less and less men become homosexual (unlikely) So, why do only men complain about being lonely?
- barkbyte 2y agoThe details are messy but on the surface it’s simple: women are generally better at friendships. Many men are socially dependent on women because they can’t manage close friendships, so they desperately look for a partner instead.
- antisthenes 2y agoFYI, just because you put "unlikely" next to a statement, doesn't really qualify as evidence and/or argument. For example, the first 2, aren't just "unlikely", they are likely, real and documented in multiple accounts. So if you ask a question based on the wrong inputs, you're not going to get the right answer.
- 0x01DEED 2y agoI think I am allowed to state my opinion and then ask other people to comment on my opinion. I said "unlikely" because that's my personal experience. Unfortunately no official statistics exist on these topics. If you have relevant data, please do share them!
- keybored 2y agoAssuming perfect monogamy: Person A could be in a relationship for 1/3 of their adult life (freeing up 2/3 for others). Person B could be in a relationship for none. Person A might not qualify for whatever threshold of loneliness.
- polotics 2y agoDemographics is a very interesting subject. The first of many answers to your question is that there is a strong age-related effect: more younger men are lonelier, and more older women are lonelier too. Be very wary of your source when you look into this, the subject is obviously full of red-pill content. Here's a start: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8579390/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8579390/
- goalieca 2y agoStar Trek TNG did an episode on hollodeck addiction featuring Reginald Barkley. They revisited the idea in voyageur too. It seems more and more people are sitting in smaller and smaller condos with fewer friends and relationships outside of work. The sex rate and birth rate are plummeting. This is all very concerning for the health and well being of humanity.
- jareklupinski 2y ago> people are sitting in smaller and smaller condos with fewer friends and relationships outside of work. This is all very concerning for the health and well being of humanity i think we should start getting some of us used to very long inter-stellar voyages in cramped/impersonal quarters if we want to preserve the species beyond this rock :)
- mlboss 2y agoThis is a natural progression of technology. Technology makes life comfortable but alienates humans from nature. The real natural world is hard but brings real joy. The modern technological society is comfortable but joyless. Humans always choose comfortable over hard. This was nicely captured in Sapiens. Hunting/Gathering was hard but more enjoyable than farming. But farming provided a comfortable, predictable life. The real job of a relationship is to raise children. Atleast that's what nature designed it for. Nature does not care about your heartbreak or feelings. The birth rates are already declining. I think in future their will be some government run system to counter declining birthrates.
- keybored 2y ago> This was nicely captured in Sapiens. Hunting/Gathering was hard but more enjoyable than farming. But farming provided a comfortable, predictable life. If this was his conclusion I feel quite good about not having read his work. Hunting/gathering was untenable as populations grew. More stationary farming practices were inevitable. You can’t have a population of million of tigers on a small island… even if they also “gather”. I’ve also heard that farming was more labor intensive; that’s pretty pop-anthropolical science, might be outdated for all I know. Not to mention that it also lead to class society since you can accumulate grain and things more simply than game meat and hide. Hmm, being a savage sounds more comfortable than being a serf. > The real job of a relationship is to raise children. Atleast that's what nature designed it for. Nature does not care about your heartbreak or feelings. The birth rates are already declining. Raising children in a nuclear (not extended), middle class family is very labor-intensive. Many parents mostly only have themselves to rely on in the first few years where the child demands a lot of upkeep. Then as they get older the parents have to surrogate all of the money that the child needs to Keep Up With The Joneses (child/teen edition) in order to not be “left out”—all kinds of manufactured wants and needs brought to them by marketing towards children. Again, you can’t shield them from that or else they are “weird”. Again: what comfort?
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- recursivedoubts 2y ago"I suddenly had a picture of the entire astonishing edifice collapsing and modern man plunging headlong back into the primordial ooze. He's floundering, sloshing about, gulping for air, frantically treading ooze, when he feels something huge and smooth swim beneath him and boost him up, like some almighty dolphin. He can't see it, but he's much impressed. He names it God." Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died (1996) -Tom Wolfe https://archive.is/QKGq https://archive.is/QKGq
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoThis is absolute shite. The problem is most people now are addicted to their phones, lack basic manners, aren't interested in socializing with actual human beings, or "wait for Godot" for someone else to do all of the work of making an effort, taking a risk, and arrange social gatherings for them. When someone isn't going to take any risk or share leadership effort in the relationship, then it's not a relationship and more of a one-sided energy drain lacking in value.