Sure. But also some of my favorite media is podcasts, and many of these exist because of the low barrier to entry. Eg:

Econtalk - a hypernerdy, super in-depth, and sometimes winding and verbose semi-academic economics podcast that sometimes dips into poetry, philosophy, political science, and anthropology.

Hardcore History - Dan Carlin’s much-acclaimed history podcast where he gives book-length lectures on gruesome historical events.

The Power Company Podcast - a podcast exclusively about training for rock climbing

There’s no way any of these shows would have been syndicated on old radio stations. But the freedom of podcasting let them create something awesome and find their niche audience.

I thought this was gonna be, like, a comminity for clearing out you life todo list of various chores… but nope. Vidya 😮‍💨

Hence why I said “in all likelihood”. There are always exceptions to the rule. Apparently you are one of them.

This is really a huge oversimplification of a complex and nuanced topic. But the main thing worth mentioning is that your utility bills, in all likelihood, are already insanely cheap if you compare what you get to any other time in history. Like, keeping your home temperature at a perfectly pleasant temperature 24 hours per day probably costs you only a couple hours of labor each month. Compare this to gathering sticks in the forest and lighting a fire inside a mud hut - which, btw, also gives you lung cancer faster than cigarettes.

Should the government invest more in renewables? Yes, obviously. They should also fund the infrastructure necessary to make renewables work at scale, and research to improve renewable generation, transmission, and storage tech in order to close the gap between what is practical now and what we need to achieve. And while they are at it, they should introduce improved pricing schemes to head off increased wasteful usage. But will any of this actually have a direct impact on consumer pricing…? Probably not, since almost all utilities are already state owned or else heavily regulated. The cost of electricity is determined more by committee and political maneuvering than the actual price of, say, coal or solar on a day to day basis. The actual mechanism of paying for power to be generated and delivered to your house on demand is a combination of the price you pay per kwh, property taxes, government revenue in general, debt taken on by the government or utility, investments made in the past, etc. If you actually want a cheaper price per kwh, the solution is simply petitioning whatever regulatory body is in charge to lower it.

Of course, the problem with lower prices is that they encourage wasteful usage. If electricity becomes free, then aunt Ethel will start blasting the AC while leaving the windows open, because she likes to be comfortable while listening to the birds chirp. Without appropriate pricing schemes, people and companies will use up as much additional renewable capacity as is built as soon as you finish building it.

Are you saying that if you had that access, then you could beat all the big hedge funds? Because… no… you couldn’t.

I have a pic of me petting a friend’s dog in my dating profile. It’s a good pic of me.

That’s a reasonable problem to have, but I think it is more created by your limiting beliefs than anything else.

My work environment makes it impossible for people to casually talk even when not much is going on

Beginning or end of the day? During lunch? Even if you shoot the shit with just one person every day, that’s one more than you seem to be doing right now.

but there’s not really anyone to talk to during those times other than maybe people MUCH younger than me (like around 10 years younger) and I feel even more uncomfortable talking to them since I don’t want to seem like a creep or that older guy trying to be cool with the kids.

This is a symptom of being chronically online. Older people talk to younger people all the time. Hell, older people date younger people all the time. People like to talk to people, and if there are people around, its not weird to talk to them regardless of their age. As someone approaching my mid-thirties, one of my favorite ways to talk to college-aged kids is to lean into our age difference and just be like “so what are you kids these days all into?” And if you are worried about being a creep, you can lean into that, too “Hey, I hope I’m not just being a total creep right now, but I was kinda bored and wanted to see what you kids are up to.”

Finally, you can make small talk with literally anyone who comes into your proximity during the day. People waiting for the bus with you, people just chillin in the park, grocery store checkout clerks. For example, say you are checking out at the grocery store.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

I’m doing good. You?

^ this is the stock response that is just acknowledging you exist. Follow up with something that indicates that you actually give a shit.

“Day going good so far?”

etc

People typically give these sorts of responses when either (a) they are tired or (b) they can sense that you aren’t actually interested in them.

You should understand that a and b are interrelated, as almost no one is ever too tired to express how they are feeling to someone they trust.

The trick here is not to keep asking questions, but to empathize:

“How’s work treating you?”

It’s work.

^ this “neutral” response is actually a polite negative.

“Yeah, tell me about it - my job’s boring as shit. At least it’s almost lunch time…”

Note that this doesn’t always work, and the person may just keep giving “blah” responses. That’s fine. You tried to connect. You tried to be interested. Accept their non-interest and try again with the next person. You will get better at being interested and empathizing with practice, and your increased care for others will become more apparent to others, generating better responses.

SHEEPLE!!!

History is also full of men fucking sheep, but I don’t think most of those men would say that that is their preference.

Again, these improved features might make it a more enjoyable experience - but it still won’t be sex. The person who owns the robot will know it. It won’t scratch the emotional itch that is wanting to have sex - at least not until the AI gains sentience, and has the right and ability to turn you down and/or tell you you just aren’t that great in the sack.

For starters, jerking off and having sex are not equal.

I agree. My point is that having sex with a robot is more akin to jerking off than having sex with a human. Like I said, fleshlights exist. Sex dolls exist. A sex robot would simply be another iteration.

Next you think straight up saying no to a sexual desire is the same as redirection.

I think people should just say no to things they don’t want to do.

Last, you don’t think the desire to get laid is a driver for guys dating girls which eventually leads to marrying them.

Again, I think putting your dick in a robot is more akin to jerking off. Hence the rate of marriage and divorce not changing. People will continue getting married for dumb reasons. They will just be the same dumb reasons as before.

Also, btw, I’m a heterosexual man with a high sex drive.

I’m confused why you think that, and don’t think you understand the point I was making. Would you please elaborate?

You’re really setting yourself up for disappointment here. You’ve created a dichotomy - either we should avoid automating things which can be automated (which isn’t going to happen - consumers like low prices and shareholders like higher profits), or we should transition to a moneyless society (which is also not going to happen, money is useful and everyone likes it).

Morally? I don’t think there is a moral component here. It’s like saying earthquakes are morally wrong. Technological innovation happens when its time comes, and trying to stop it is akin to trying to stop an earthquake. Sure, you can choose not to use the tech if you don’t want to, but others will. You can form comminities which agree not to use the tech (like the Amish), but those outsude your communities will use the tech. You might even get your government to ban the tech - but then you end up with the war on drugs, or south america style inflation, or North Korean levels of policing.

If you want to wax poetic about the wonderful work of hand-weaving textiles, be my guest. But I will very happyly wear a machine-woven shirt for a fraction of the cost so that I can spend my money on something else that I value more.

Do you talk to people like this irl.

Do you not? Someone says something that sounds likely false. So I say “I don’t think that is true”. And then we can discuss whether or not it is likely true.

The crane operators I work with defintely dont.

🎸🇺🇸🦅

May the incels will get laid and move on. Maybe the guy who gets rejected will go home and fuck his bot instead of stalking the girl who rejected him.

Doubtful - these actions are driven by emotions, not the need to get off. If it were the latter, they could just jerk off at home today and they wouldnt do these things.

They can say, just fuck the bot in the ass.

They can currently just say “no”… I’m not sure why we need sex bots to save us from being bad at communicating.

Marriage rates will probably decline, and so will total divorces after a while

Again, doubt. If you are getting married for the sake of having sex, then you are probably in some kind of restrictive religion. And these religions will probably tell you that fucking a bot is an abomination. If you aren’t, then you’ll marry for the same reasons people marry today, and marriage and divorce will stay at about the same rate.

The work could be done cheaper by robots, presumably. And sure, I’m all for legalized sex work. But if a machine can do it better, faster, and cheaper - why not? Fleshlights exist - are you opposed to those because they take work from sex workers? Ludditism always fails - if human sex workers are still around after we have fully functioning sex bots, it is because they can provide something the bots can’t. And I think this will be the case - at the end of the day, we know on a deep level that there is a difference between fucking a bot and fucking a real human.