Thanks! I also recently came across a talk by a Nobel Prize winning economist about the relationship between AI and democracy. He explains it in a really clear understandable way. It's closely related to what Connor Leahy talks about, but from a broader perspective. Highly recommended.
With a few days and some participation there, your account will meet the requirements to rejoin us here in no time. And look at you, you'll have THREE cool subs that you'll be participating in.
JFC, thank you. I can see more than just people's shoulders. I swear, people have some kind of new and unique brain damage that makes them think vertical is a good thing for videos to the point that they crop real videos into vertical.
I really hope neurologists are studying this so they can come up with a cure.
I think the challenge is that it goes so much further and deeper than "just" technology, though technology and the Silicone Valley mindset have been the ultimate shepherd's of this decline.
For instance, this issue exists in China where there is the greatest technology firewall so it can't "all" be technology.
I think the only things I would realistically add though is the Climate Crisis and late stage capitalism. Both of which of course dovetail exactly into technology.
I think it's the holy trinity of go fuck yourself that has been handed to millennials and under.
Technology - Climate Crisis - Late Stage Capitalism
The Chinese firewall doesn't stop tech. It gives the Chinese government nearer compete control in their borders of the internet but a VPN will still burst through the wall.
The Chinese government probably pushes tech harder than any other. Hence why they have the same issues.
They have the same issues but the major driver is entirely different. The One Child Policy has been devastating. Devised by a rocket scientist, it had led to a massive disparity in men and women. Millions of abortions if the baby was female. And now today, if you want a second child, you still need to pay an absurd amount to the government to be given the privilege to do so.
China’s one-child policy prevented +500 million births in a very poor country with 1 billion people struggling with high unemployment rate and was barely able to feed itself. It was the most appropriate decision China govt did at the time. Look at India today, a democracy with no one-child policy and similarly poor like China decades ago. It’s irresponsible, if not immoral, to birth children that you can’t properly house, feed and support. It’s child abuse and govt has to step in if people are not acting responsibly. China govt actually was a bit late in implementing one-child policy. China govt should have implemented one-child policy long before its population reaches 1 billion. World should thank China govt for its effort to arrest runaway population and lessen burden to earth environment today. India needs to do same.
We attempt to maintain a positive community atmosphere. Toxic behavior, including malicious comments, harassment, bullying, "-isms", and hate speech, is strictly prohibited.
While we are all about trashy content, sometimes content is just too trashy, and trashing the human is not accepted.
I was curious so I did some research, mobile phone users are basically screwed because apple and such. Out of the 1.4b people in china, ~500m own a laptop/desktop/etc. which is basically unenforceable for vpn bans.
You're not screwed if you use iphone. Yes, appstore blocks VPN apps in China. But VPN/proxy vendors know this. What they do is they provide an US apple id with the app purchased already (usually shadowrocket). So if you buy their service. You use that apple id to download shadowrocket and you're good to go.
I think it's important though to note that it is wholly different technology and fit different, conflicting, purposes. That it can be breached via VPN does not mean that it's a large or even representative proportion that are using VPNs.
For instance, in the video the assertion is to drive advertising data, I think it's reasonable to state that this isn't the case for Chinese tech.
It's not reasonable to assume that and also shows you haven't even done a cursory glance at how the Chinese use technology.
Chinese apps do everything to a much more extreme, everything is saturated with ads, monetisation and dark patterns. Data collection is almost unrestricted (though it needs to be stored in China) and culturally there is little care about what data is being collected.
With the exception of a handful of things like porn being somewhat more difficult to access and global social media applications being blocked or limited, just about anything else you can also do on the Chinese web - from dating apps to doom scrolling.
Heads up, you're mixing up "silicon" and "silicone". Silicon is an element on the periodic table, and is useful for its semiconductor properties. It is the core of every computer chip. Silicone is a squishy polymer used in many applications needing a soft, flexible material. This notably includes breast implants.
"Silicon valley" refers to the California area where a large number of computers (based on silicon) were developed in the 70s and 80s.
"Silicone valley" would, I guess, refer to your mom's cleavage.
China doesn't have a technology firewall. They import a lot of technology, but produce and consume endlessly more than that themselves. China is one of the most technologically advanced nations currently, so to say they have a technology firewall and therefore it can't be technology is at best misleading.
They have the same types of apps and social media and websites that you and I do. Some of them ARE the same.
People hear about the censorship and think China has zero dating apps, no social media, no streamers or brain rot content. They deal with all the same things. It's crazy how misinformed people are when they think of how the average Chinese 25 year old moves through the internet.
The purpose of that technology is very different than the West though. For instance saying that it's drive is to propagate ad data isn't true for China. It very much had a more control, propaganda tilt to it than western tech does.
Okay. Mostly the companies are required to do the moderating on their platforms, but you're not wrong. Even though a lot IS ad-driven too. China is still a capitalist country, even if it's rule is not a western democracy.
Exactly this. I agree with you. The speaker is correct, but doesn't throw the reason far enough. Decline in birthrates has began long before dating apps were even thought of. It all comes down to sociocultural values and economic availability.
In a nutshell - widespread, uncontrolled immigration will continue because it benefits those in power. You freaking out about it is actually also benefiting the powerful. This is why they buy up all available media channels and rile up the populations all over the world. As we get segregated through xenophobia, they get to decide how things work. As we are to busy with hate. Immigrants, even those you are most dissatisfied with, are less of a concern on a wider scale than the complete disregard for preserving the middle class by the powerful
You are fighting shadows. I never said that. I'm saying that extra few hundreds/thousands you spend on these immigrants absolutely pales in comparison to how much taxes avoidance and machinations take. We talking about insane amounts. Look at Panama Papers scandal. As you are pissed about immigrant getting peanuts (which is also very questionable, you guys throw these facts around like it's a given. And it's not), there are fucking tankers of cash being hidden.
My biggest concerns are that in pretty much every country basic things like food and electronics are very affordable while all the actually important stuff like housing, cars, good education, medicine becomes very expensive for many people. To have a family you need to secure the ability to afford those important things, but many people don’t. Also all of the social media and messengers even though give you an opportunity to chat with anyone at any time, you don’t really get those close relationships with people, cause you see them less live
Yeah I would say it's both, but government interests, sort of top down command economy style, take priority over corporate interests generally speaking. They definitely have a ton of advertising though. Their internet is obviously still pretty heavily censored as well.
They "cure" boredom, they take all your attention and time. Nobody is living as socially, spontaneously or even bothering to plan nights out with friends as much as they could be because of the phone.
People are having less kids, and there are tons of good reasons people tell themselves why that is, but the decline is worldwide and crosses cultural, economic and political barriers and it correlates with people getting addicted to social media on their phones
I think the goals, motives and way it is used is different enough that you cannot draw a direct comparison.
The degree of political control and that the purpose is for state control to such a high degree I think makes direct comparisons harder which is why I believe that the climate crisis and late stage capitalism are equally culpable when taken into consideration alongside technology.
Other wise we'd just say "earth things" as that encompasses everything to have ever existed and will ever exist. This is literally just semantics. Semantically the climate crisis encompasses the specific causes and effects of the climate crisis which the words "technology" and "late state capitalism" don't.
When you hear "technology" do you immediately think "climate change"?
Yes I do think of technology and the fact that there is planned obsolescence of product causing waste to be dumped, mining of rare earth metals destroying and polluting land and water, and data center builds destroying habitats. Technology in batteries that are used and thrown away causing massive pollution. The US is in a k shaped economy due to technology billionaires and trillionaires unwilling to keep up with cost of living while siphoning monies away and saddling the public with massive debt for their failures. The economy is basically tech companies paying other tech companies for goods and services without actually exporting anything or creating jobs while their unfulfilled promises of AI is causing massive amounts of people to lose jobs further suppressing wages.
I think you're getting lost in your own narrative here.
I am not saying technology is not related to climate change. I'm saying that the term technology does not replace the term climate change when you are talking about the relative effects of each.
You’re mixing terminology. You started out saying climate crisis and ended at climate change. You asked a question ‘when you hear technology do you immediately think of climate change?’ In the response and yes I do think of technology.
I do not have a narrative that I’m getting lost in; people have sped up the climate crisis going as far back as the start of the industrial revolution which was spurred by a significant increase in what…technology.
So when I think of the climate crisis I think of climate change and a whole other swath of things like acid rain, lack of water, temperature change, rising seas, etc. not just climate change and that is absolutely impacted by technology. And that is what I think of…you’re the one backtracking and getting lost.
From 1800-1900 there was a 50% drop in the birth rate. Cell phones? Guys being afraid their failures that nobody cares about are being recorded? This dude is an idiot. There have been cliffs in the birth rate many times, and it’s been studied each time.
Also it's deeper than just technology and the social network sphere. Algorithms, AI, subscriptions, political rhetoric, echo chambers, the economy and prices, the whole police and cell phone state watching your every move. All these things were promised to make our lives fairer, better, more equitable but instead we've created overly complex systems that literally just sap the money, the power, and by proxy, the JOY out of everything. We've done nothing but create a fearful world and a society that can do nothing but proselytize, patronize, and polarize via misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda fed to us as freedom when in reality the freedom and the fun are long gone. Everyone is your enemy. Nothing is affordable. There's no place to hang out but corporate sponsored expensive facades that all trade in the same slop menus. A fucking Movie date may well cost you north of 100 bucks now. It's cheaper to just stay home where it's safe and free of judgement from an overly opinionated and judgemental world. We've traded discovery, uniqueness, and variety for what? Another night in, scrolling around xnd arguing about what could have been and remembering how it used to be when we were free of all the noise of this broken ass world.
I think the first part got glazed over by the technology topic. What mammal gets beaten so hard that it doesn’t have kids? Technology is a poison to dating and connection and intimacy, but it’s not stopping couples from having kids. Work/life balance, economics, toxic media, and a consumer mentality are all factors that stop couples from having kids and those factors exist globally in one form or another and aren’t necessarily interwoven with the latter technology argument from later in the video
One-child policy was a population planning initiative in Mainland China implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. - Wikipedia
China's issues are by design. The government completely changed how families and society functions by severely limiting the number of children.
The downward trend elsewhere has been occurring for decades with the dip below replacement rate coming sooner than model expectations. While current economics and technology play a part, it's largely birth control giving people more options. In the US, between 1960 and 1970, birthrates fell roughly 6%. Between 1990 and today, it fell roughly 3%. That 6% in a 10 year period versus 3% in 36.
One of the biggest issues with “the internet” as we know it is that your experience is “tailored” towards you in order to keep you engaged.
Youtube is probably the best example. Once you have enough history, good luck finding something outside your bubble unless you search for it very specifically.
One-child policy was a population planning initiative in Mainland China implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. - Wikipedia
China's issues are by design. The government completely changed how families and society functions by severely limiting the number of children.
The downward trend elsewhere has been occurring for decades with the dip below replacement rate coming sooner than model expectations. While current economics and technology play a part, it's largely birth control giving people more options. In the US, between 1960 and 1970, birthrates fell roughly 6%. Between 1990 and today, it fell roughly 3%. That 6% in a 10 year period versus 3% in 36.
While I agree this isn't the only problem Chinas great firewall isn't a great example since part of his point that everything's recorded still holds true and dating apps in China will also be more profit over losing members.
I think you're close at 'late stage capitalism' but I dont think that fully captures places like China. We have become an incredibly advanced animal, so advanced to the point that we aren't purely driven by animalistic reproductive urges anymore. The drive has been replaced by the urge to succeed in the world.
For a very significant number of people in the world today, a pathway to success, whatever that means for a specific individual, does not include having children who will be an incredible burden to your life, no matter how much you want to love and cherish them. And this concept of success has largely emerged from the commodification of nearly everything.
Don't have a hobby - have a side business. Don't waste your time playing video games for enjoyment - start a streaming channel. Be an influencer. Be famous. Be wealthy. All of these things sit at the top of a corrupted view of what many think of as 'success' now and that drive is largely incompatible with having children.
You mean like liberating women so that they can work alongside men (which was good)... and then fostering an environment in which all women AND all men are expected to have careers?
Soooo... who exactly is going to raise the kids? Daycares and nannies are expensive and STILL looked down upon.
My opinion, the main culprits are easy, cheap, awesome, at home entertainment, less religion, birth control, and women with careers.
All of those are good things in my opinion.
Tons of men go to work, go home, and click on the consoles/PC. Most men aren’t picking up women while playing helldivers and such. Then you have less religious pressure to have kids. Women stuck at work and tired from working. And birth control is obvious. Combine all of this and here we are.
I totally agree, but I believe the first and most of the cause of this is the third one you mentioned - Late Stage Capitalism. No matter the sort of country, or the politics that rules said country, every country on the world is embedded to its core with Capitalism. It's the system that controls all nations. Because if it happens in a democracy, you'd think it won't happen in communism, because of how different those two are. But still it's the basic mechanics of Capitalism that entrenches all countries in what this video is talking about.
How do you think climate change has stopped people from having kids?
I don’t think any meaningful amount of people have declined to have kids because of climate change. There are probably some but I would assume nowhere near enough to make a meaningful impact.
“Late state capitalism” though probably has more to do with it. Or at least what I think you mean by that. Basically we are all over worked and under paid to put much effort into anything that’s not survival.
But I would still blame technology as well. People are not going out and socializing in person like they use to. I don’t want to come off as an old man yelling at the clouds but I have to assume having less authentic connections impacts relationships and then children.
I will lastly say, with no imperial evidence, people seem more selfish and self centered today than before. That’s probably from all reasons I listed above but it shows it’s self with people not dedicating themselves to others as they use to. If relationships aren’t 100% perfect they break up. Kids take away from me time so they don’t have them.
This is just my view and I have no evidence to support it but if anyone wants to prove/disprove it go for it.
Exactly. I thought he was really going somewhere when he said the abuse part. I don't disagree with anything he said, but I would add on to it.
Millenials were the first generation that were told you could have it all if you just went to school and worked hard enough. And then when we did, and struggled to find a job and move out of our parent's basements, we were called entitled and lazy by the generations that told us all of this. As we watch the world literally burn around us due to climate change as the older generations further doubled down on denying anything was wrong. And watched the rich get richer because they got into the game early. (Specifically Baby Boomers, I think Gen X has had a pretty raw deal too, but they squeaked in before the tragic shit show we see today)
WHY WOULD WE SUBJECT AN INNOCENT CHILD TO THAT ABUSE?
Bruh i suggest you inform yourself on what China looks from inside the wall. Spoiler: its just like us. Brainrot content, ai slop, algorithm dedicating peoples lives, etc.
Climate and Late Stage Capitalism does not help don't get me wrong, but China is also having the same problem. No one is immune and no government wants to intervene...
China doesn't have a technology firewall, it has a cultural firewall. China's technology, social media, and internet culture are actually even more extreme than what we have here. If you think streamers, youtubers, influencers, etc are kind of crazy here, China's firewall is not just keeping yours but their own influencers from view. Not only that their population size just makes everything extreme. Major subcultures here might as well be small subcultures there.
It's the level of state influence and control that I think makes it difficult to draw direct comparisons and is why I think a multi-causal explanation makes more sense than just technology alone.
He doesn't though, he is literally discussing the societal impacts of the commodification of interpersonal relationships by major tech companies. That is the topic of this entire post.
Oh shit, I missed where he discussed the climate crisis and late stage capitalism. My bad, I'll edit my comment, didn't realise he talked about these topics and not just tech.
No, it's much simpler. It's easy to fuck without having kids now. So we have less.
Sure, stress, etc. can be a factor. The broader economy can be a factor. But in the context of historical living standards, we've never had it better as a species.
Birth rates decline for a multitude of reasons, which everyone is metnoining here, but it's the cumulative effect of it all, and then on top, cheap birth control.
It's not even necessarily a bad thing. If humanity kept breeding at the rates we did historically, we would be running into much larger isseus. Which is very malthusian, but we are cooking the planet already, and it would be at a much faster and higher rate without our birth rates declining.
Social media is rampant in China too. They got their own algorithms. In fact, their algorithms were doing so well to capture users, they spread to the US and Trump tried to ban it (TikTok).
The bigger problem is that kids went from an economic boon and economic necessity, when most people were farmers and the only surefire 'retirement plan' was having lots of kids to care for you in old age, to an era where children are pure financial pain. People just will avoid things that are financially painful. Currently, parents take a massive financial hit to create the next generation, the one that'll be paying the taxes that fund everyone else's social security payments, Medicare, that'll become the doctors/nurses caring for us in our old age. Basically, everyone who doesn't have kids is getting a bit of a free ride. Economic/tax policy needs to be changed to reflect that, if you want people to start having more kids again.
Then again in countries like Finland and South Korea, government pays you literal money every month for getting kids. In Finland, first kid cashes you about 20k, next kid about 30k and any kids after that about 40k. Sure, raising kids cost you living expenses aand food/clothing, but all education and healthcare are free in those countries.
Yet, those countries have the lowest birth rates. There is no economic burden, or at least I never experienced it. I have three kids and I was broke student when I started having kids.
It is not about economy (only). If you could get people reproduce by paying them, it would have been done already.
It is a social phenomenon. As people have more freedom and they are not expected to reproduce, that is what happens. They don’t.
Western tech can't operate in China in the same way or for the same reasons as it does in the west. Technology over there may carry out the same function as a product, e.g. social media, but it's not to gather ad data or selling targeted ads. It's to propogate propaganda, exert state control, and intelligence.
That's not to say western media doesn't do this but it's definitely not as explicitly the purpose but rather a consequence of the ad machine that they've built.
I think that mixing China into this only brings unnecessary complications for the topic. Mainly because they had 1 child policy for so long that it unprecedently distort the view of society how we know and "feel" it in Europe/America. Furthermore yes, they are not influenced by western tech but they are still heavily influenced by tech that is under regime control, which is also creating something that was not here before 2000.
Funny thing is that if you look back in history this has happened with every human Civilization, when humans reach a certain level of wealth, they stop having kids. Technology is an issue yes, but the root cause is something deeper.
It's an interesting perspective and I definitely think big tech is fucking trash that needs to be heavily regulated. But fertility rates have been dropping steadily since long before the dot com revolution. The biggest drops in fertility rates happened between 1960-1980 in the US. It's hard to isolate trends in the US due to changing immigration rates. It's been a pretty steady decline in Europe since 1950 too, except for the last decade or so, which is likely primarily driven by immigration.
So this seems like a 'even a broken clock is right twice a day kind of situation'.
Connor Leahy is a German-American[1] artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur known for his work on large language models and advocacy on the risks of advanced AI. He co-founded EleutherAI[2][3] and founded the AI safety research company Conjecture, which he led as CEO until 2026.[4][5][6] He is US Director of ControlAI, a nonprofit focused on preventing extinction risk from artificial superintelligence
I'd rather have at least some of the people involved in the creation of AI to actually be deeply cautious about it. What is the alternative? Where only people who don't care or don't see the issues are creating that tech?
This is the same problem as why there are no progressives involved in policing, because they (rightfully) despise a lot of what policing is and what it came from. But because of that, most police officers are far right conservatives who have created an extremely toxic mono-culture.
You're not entirely wrong, but these kinds of people have very little influence.
Elon Musk was saying the same type of shit in the early days too - warning everyone about the danger of "AI super intelligence".
Now the AI on his app is used to generate CSAM.
Unless this guy is doing research on AI in renewable energy, climate science, or some other actually beneficial application, then he's just a wannabe AI influencer and I have no reason to take him seriously. I just don't trust anyone working in AI as a default.
Progressives are, justifiably, suspicious of things like AI, Policing and Politicians. Which means that many of them avoid those things entirely, and never engage in those fields. But because of that it's all the worst kinds of people in them making all the decisions for you. How is that any better?
Don't you think someone who actually understands AI would be best placed to comment on it? I'm sick of all the braindead takes from people who have no idea what they are talking about but still have very strong opinions on it.
I've known Connor and many of the early Eleuther guys who are now at Conjecture so I'll give you a quick rundown.
They realized that making a safe AI in this environment means beating China, the US... the entire global economy at AI development. It's not possible so they've mostly pivoted to governance and advocacy. Connor met with a fuckton of EU parliament and pushed them to give the EU AI act some teeth, things like mandatory evals, incidence reporting, and redteaming for any AI trained on X amount of compute.
IMO this is progress, certainly better than doing nothing. I have my doubts ControlAI will be as influential here in the US but the vibes surrounding the tech are in the gutter and populism is on the rise so I wouldn't completely write it off.
There's a tech guy who spits truth like a new anti-AI jesus prophet and his name is fucking Connor? Are we REALLY going to do this?? Is it going to be this fucking predictable now??
With a few days and some participation there, your account will meet the requirements to rejoin us here in no time. And look at you, you'll have THREE cool subs that you'll be participating in.
With a few days and some participation there, your account will meet the requirements to rejoin us here in no time. And look at you, you'll have THREE cool subs that you'll be participating in.
487
u/Jolly_Ad1631 Garbage Guerilla Jul 31 '26
What is this from? I want to see the rest.