Are Humans Becoming Like Horses?

Hello. So today I would like to t-talk to you about why people are not having kids and horses. And horses are pretty interesting because, you know, we used to use them for transportation. But after I think World War II or after the cars, uh, gotten invented, you know, horses were no, no longer economically necessary, right? There used to be a ratio of three people for one horse. But now horses are basically, uh, like luxury objects, right? You sort of ride them for fun or, you know, rich people have them and that sort of thing. So, within two generations, the population of horses, after they basically become, become economically useless, it collapsed 85%. And I was kinda just wondering about this because, you know, in some ways, humans are becoming less and less economically rele- relevant. You know, there was first the Industrial Revolution that made, you know, uh, you know, 200 years ago, that made physical, uh, labor irrelevant, you know? No... Or like, you know, machines and this or that. And now we're going through the cognitive revolution, and people can debate it all they sorta want, but from my side, the AIs are smarter than the humans. It's clear. The AI is smarter than me. It is, it knows much more. And the people who are kinda denying some parts of this, I think they're copium. So the question then becomes, all right, if you can't contribute physically, you can't contribute, um, you know, cognitively, what happens next? And it's a, it's a real thought, honestly. Like, uh... And one thing I kind of... The reason I even start- started thinking about this question is because, you know, I travel to some of these countries or I watch... Actually, now I don't really travel. I watch a lot of these YouTube videos about population decline in, like, rural Thailand and, like, you know, how the schools aren't filling up. And if you kind of just look at, look at the, the fertility rate and the numbers, the numbers are pretty shockingly bad, right? It's like, you know, like, if you start with 100 South Koreans, after two generations, there's, like, four left. I mean, that's if you do the current math. Uh, but the math can change, obviously. But yeah, the math is not looking good. But The question is like why people aren't having kids, right? And what the AI told me was that, you know, it's because kids used to be an economic-- it used to be an asset when you were, you know, working on the farm or this or that. But now in modernity, kids are some sort of luxury good. And you see a lot of 📍 people, they can have different reasons, let's, let's say 📍 freedom or this or that. But I think a lot of it comes down to economics and, and the right-- the wrong type of relationship. This is not, not a topic that I'm really an expert about, but I'm really deeply interested in investigating to see why this is true, you know, uh, both from an economics as well as a relationship perspective because You know, yeah, I think economics is one, one as- one part of it, uh, because, you know, it's like the horse question. Like, how do you, how do you make a living? Or how do you... Where is your leverage? Like, where... H-how do you, how do you, how do you... Yeah. And the second question is, like, the right type of relationship because I feel like in the modern world, people have all sorts of different expectations, and the relationships and the values between people are, are wrong, or they don't feel right They, they, they don't feel right. And part of what I'm curious about is trying to find clarity on, you know, what, what, what is, what is the truth here, right? Like, and what are, what are the right values between people And sometimes, you know, I think in modernity, you know, we are j- we are these animals that, that have evolved for millions of year, you know, what billions, billions of years actually, right? 4.35 billion years or 📍 something But modernity is changing so fast that I feel like sometimes we can't really trust our instinct, right? There's been a lot of these technological advances like, uh, contraception, like modern dating apps. There's just a whole slew of things where, where we humans, if we sort of react to them emotionally, maybe it doesn't get us the outcomes and the results that we want, right? And that's why it's important to, for us to try to find the clarity, like what is actually going on here. And it's... So it's not as, you know, when I talk about relationships, it's not so as, uh, simple as sort of pointing fingers and being like, "Hey," like, you know, "the other gender is bad," like, or like, um, or that sort of thing. But more about figuring out like what the-- what is actually going on? Anyways, so that was a pretty interesting learning for me about the horses today, though. Like within two generations after the horses got overtaken by the cars, the population of horses decreased by 85%. And they became luxury goods, you know, and, you know, used for hitting balls with, you know, sticks and stuff. And nobody really killed the horses, actually. The horses simply stopped breeding. 📍 So that is the question And part of the natural follow-up to this question obviously is, like, what is the right control of the machines, uh, and the sort of the means of production, right? Because the horses, they can't control the output of, you know, creating cars or things that replace them. But humans, in some ways, we are able to control the production and the, the machines that, uh, that, that will replace us essentially And i- it's a well-known fact that, you know, that the world is run by elites, right? Uh, it, it cannot be... The countries and such, like, it cannot be run by, uh, masses or groups of people because it's just r- too hard to coordinate. The coordination cost is, is too high. So there's... Where- wherever you go, really, there's just a small faction of people who control things. 📍 And it's not just, like, a singular group of elites. All throughout history, it's basically factions of different elites, like, fighting each other, right? Like, uh... And so, you know, going forward, there probably gonna- is gonna- going to be you know, elites fighting for control of the, of access to the machines, right? Think about today, you know, like for example, the US government, somehow they delayed the release of, uh, GPT 5.6 Well, a- as I've sort of said before I think I'm really curious about getting the clarity on such issues As a peasant myself Anyways, I need to go to the mall to buy a coffee a coffee mug uh, as well as some toilet paper and some shampoo So that's also on my list of things to do And I guess crucially, in my mental model, I don't really see it as as this sort of relative competition between different humans, I don't even know who the, who exactly you wanna characterize as elites, but basically someone who's better off than the general population. Because you can succeed for one generation, but the real question is about like the eternal, uh, continuity of of your line and humanity, right? Because like, let's say you take the example of horses, right? Do horses decide to get to breed? Not really. Uh, they're under, you know, sub-subjugation of something that's more powerful than them, right? And so the question is not like, "Oh, are you gonna do better for one generation?" The question is like, "Will you be subjugated to the machine or so- some, some more powerful force forever?" Uh, I don't know if that kinda makes sense, but it's like you can do well for one generation, but like if, if it's true that there are certain... these like, like the machine or like let's say you take, uh, Nick Land's philosophy about, uh, how capitalism is its o- its own force or whatever, some, some external force like capitalism or like AI or machinery or 📍 whatever, that is actually more powerful than humanity. And maybe right now it's like, it's, it's, it's opportune because you have relative advantage. But, uh, but you have an assumption that you'll, you'll be able to control the machine or something forever. Like, or like let's say if AGI, you'll be able to control it forever. And that's not a guaranteed thing. So I don't, I don't really believe in this sort of like... I believe that from a humanities perspective, if there's a entity or like a force like capitalism or AI that is, that is bigger than humanity that in some ways the intra-humanity, uh, social competition makes less sense over the long, uh, timescale of things Yeah, so I guess what is the fair deal, right? Like, our hor- our... Is the human c- population gonna be like the horse population and collapse eighty five percent in the next two generations? I, I don't really want to actually fearmonger because I actually don't think, uh, that will happen for a variety of reasons, uh, including competition and people, maybe people realizing this fact and deciding that it would be a better public good or common good for, for all of humanity to, to do better. Because like, like let's say you're, you know, some, you know, you have the sort of billionaire fantasy or like the, the r- you know, the elite fantasy of having your own bunker or like, you know, your, your car has the, the shaded windows and, you know, like nobody can, uh... You have privacy and such. No man is actually an island, right? Like you still need medical treatment, you still need this or that. Like everything in life is relational Like, do you want to... So I don't think that's, like, a, a possibility. I think life is, would be, like, far too lonely and far too private. So I don't think that that type of future will happen. But I do believe that there will be many big, uh, elite fights over control of the machine, essentially Yeah, I just realized that I'm gonna put some scary title like the horse co- uh, horse population collapsed eighty-five percent or some scary title, but I don't actually think that way. I'm not much of a doomer, honestly. Um, so and fr- and frankly, this is not a topic I really researched that well yet. Uh, I basically only started researching when I was, like, taking a poop today. So Don't, uh... It's just vibes for now. It suddenly started raining, like in two minutes. Flash, flash raining It's cool Yeah. Anyway, sorry for the super deep thoughts today, I guess. I think I'm still pretty pissed that I, uh, got blocked from ChatGPT yesterday. I had a Pro account, and I just felt once I got blocked and I couldn't use my coding tools, I felt so useless, honestly. I felt like immediately I got demoted from a software engineer into a writer and complainer, essentially. 'Cause I'm like, "What can I do?" Like, I'm not gonna code by hand. That's crazy, bro But I do feel like coming to a foreign country has been very clarifying. You know, it's like if it's... If I was like living in San Francisco or something like that, maybe I would be comparing myself with my peers and trying to write the best agent cor- uh, orchestration framework or evals or benchmarks or whatever. But here, maybe my VPN, they think I'm some sort of Chinese distiller or something. I don't know. Maybe that's why they banned me But either way, not having access to the machine It just kind of made me realize, like, how important this is I need access to the machine, man. Like And it's crazy that it was likely geography, 'cause I'm thinking that maybe they blocked me because of my location or VPN or something like that. Like, it's like you have to be... Nowadays, especially with these, uh, platforms, right, they basically use ML algorithms to detect, uh, anomalies and, and behavioral usages. So if your anomal- uh, some str- if your usage is, uh, anomal- anomalous, let's say you're in a different location or you use a VPN or different devices, they would- they're definitely gonna flag that. That's what I'm assuming, because I, I don't think I used it for any sort of real naughty things. I'm definitely not some Chinese distiller. I'm Chinese, but So I'm not selling accounts. It's crazy So yeah, I mean I think another point that That I feel like I thought out loud was, and I felt like was important is about the continuity of things, you know? Like, part of my question at this point is really, like, what are the teams? Like, who's on my team? Who... Like, if that question kind of makes any sense. You know? 'Cause I feel like in the modern world, right, like you don't actually even know who's on your team, right? People are constantly blaming each other or they're see- they're seeing their saviors in certain ways, but that might not necessarily be true, right? Let's say, uh, let's say you're in the dating market, right? People are constantly blaming, blaming the other gender. Well, for the most part, people are peasants, essentially, and, like, they don't... People are good-willed, but they've basically become defensive and protective of, of their situation with- without, and I, I... This is my, my speculation. And they're pointing fingers at each other. But those aren't really, uh... They don't have any power. They're peasants, essentially. Like, you know, they're, maybe they're on your team essentially, right? On the other hand, right, if you're sort of, let's say you're working, working I don't know, you're trying some-- you're, you're trying to be a courtier, trying to climb the ladder or something, right? And you're data labeling, and you're-- right now you're getting paid a great job. You're working on some, you know, fancy prestige stuff. But ultimately, your job, you're gonna be automated, and you're not actually part of the team because you can't assume continuity. Now, in the long scale of things, let's say you're an elite or something like that, and you own the thing. Can you assume that you have control over the machine forever? And if so, perhaps humanity is the team. Anyways, I, I don't know if that question kinda makes sense, but it's basically about who is actually on your side and who not to blame. And what is even the goal? I need to go buy toilet paper Kind of coffee mug