childrenarenotrobots

[childrenarenotrobots]

Tell me about Yvalta! What city did you move to? Are you under one of the House legal codes, or just the generic one? I hear everything's cheap!

We are not affiliated with any particular house, largely because we need not worry about permissions. I won’t say that everything is cheap, but our money is going relatively far here. I do worry that it’s because the population has so little time off from work. We’re in Tyaran, which is a beautiful city.

The cheapness of goods and services would be more convenient if I were actually ready to retire, but it’s only been a few months, and I’m already relatively bored, despite the fun of language-learning and exploring a new home. I think I’ll look into tutoring.

[childrenarenotrobots]

What an excellent breakdown. Thank you for sharing it with us.

which countries have the cheapest rents, and what factors generally determine how expensive rent is?

What a good question! It’s All About Housing, Pateki Altonis’s book on land use reform and national prosperity, has a couple pages of tables attempting to answer it: they compare median one-bedroom home prices between countries.

But of course, that’s kind of misleading. Lakla has a lot of tech and a lot of vacation homes/people who don’t live there full-time, and the median one-bedroom home there is really expensive - about 90% of what a purple makes, enough to really screw workers over. But it’s not actually hard to find purple housing in Lakla that costs about 15% of what a purple makes, so you’d be mislead by the median figure.

And that’s just comparing between cities. Between countries, do you look at their cheapest city? Their median city? Their largest city? Altonis, in the style of greens who write books like this, proposes a metric and spends half the book just justifying it!

His metric is called Real Cost of Moving, and it is the cost of moving to a city, securing an apartment in that city, and living there for three months. So, for example, in a city where it’s really hard to get a lease without planning a month in advance, the Real Cost of Moving includes a month in a hotel while you househunt. In a city where a high security deposit is customary, or first-and-last-months up front, the Real Cost of Moving includes that. He calculates this by city and then provides averages for countries.

The justification for this metric is that one reason we care about housing costs is that we want people to be able to move for economic opportunities, family needs, etc., and so ‘how expensive is it to find a place to live here’ captures a lot of what we care about. Additionally, the prevalence of things like high security deposits, requirements you pay first and last month up front, and wait times for housing are all indicators of a seller’s market - landlords are in a position of power and can make lots of demands of buyers. So he argues that his metric predicts economic mobility as well as predicting some things about landlord-tenant relations pretty well.

And with all that said we can answer your question: Arva has the lowest median Real Cost of Moving as a country; the city of Tiketi in Svaro has the lowest median Real Cost of Moving as a city; and Iltan has the lowest median Real Cost of Moving in Anitam.  (:D)

What goes into that? Well, for one thing, population density - Anitam does quite well on housing prices because we’re actually quite large for our population, while somewhere like Qoloc with really high density is inevitably going to have higher prices. For another, public transit coverage. Good public transit effectively increases the radius someone is searching in when they’re looking for an apartment. If you have to walk to work, you have to live within a mile of work. If you are willing to take up to 20minutes to get to work and can take the train, there are approximately ten times as many places you can live. Another one is local regulation - if your city or country requires no more than two people per bedroom or no subletting or unusually high safety standards, that raises the cost of housing, and if they restrict the building of new housing then that’ll drive it right through the roof. And then there’s how willing people are to pay - in auction countries people are more price-conscious and likely to move to avoid paying a rent increase, and in richer countries people are more willing to pay extra for extra amenities.

So Arva’s secret is that they basically don’t regulate housing except for fire safety, they have a very good transit network, they have a relatively low population density for their population, and they’re kind of poor and an auction country so their population will try really hard to economize on rent.

[childrenarenotrobots]

That’s very generous of you! We don’t need very much space, and I don’t need to be anywhere in particular, so I’m sure it will be fine for our purposes. I’m afraid our own lease is about to run out, but I’ll let my son’s family know that you’re coming, so that they can offer any help you need in getting settled.

…this email doesn’t translate to “fuck you and your biological clock” at all.

@childrenarenotrobots did you get the same one?

[childrenarenotrobots]

I did. It seems genuine, and we’ve begun packing.

I do hope that things go well for you here.

…this email doesn’t translate to “fuck you and your biological clock” at all.

@childrenarenotrobots did you get the same one?

[childrenarenotrobots]

I’ve been informed that our swap has gone through! My wife and I will be in Yvalta very shortly. I look forward to seeing it.

I hope that Elaan is as good to @somecopingskills and his wife as it’s been to the two of us.

[childrenarenotrobots]

People often use “unintelligent” as a euphemism for bad decisions or incorrect beliefs, not merely an inability to grasp introductory calculus. The ability to make good decisions and hold correct beliefs is important for everyone, whatever their work. It should be unsurprising that people respond badly when they believe that others are calling them too stupid to make good decisions or develop reasonable beliefs about the world.

I’m a tad confused about why people who aren’t green and don’t work in jobs that require significant intelligence are upset when other people suggest that they’re unintelligent. I wouldn’t be upset if someone said that I was a slow runner, because it’s both true and not relevant to my caste or work.

[childrenarenotrobots]

Excellent. I’ll contact you through Match Across when I’ve finished setting up an account.

We took a little vacation into Elaan to check it out, even though we haven’t heard from our prospective swaps in a while and Swivel is taking longer than they said they would to finish up their investigation.

It’s all right.  I can’t really see us living there but it’s gotten so I can barely see us living where we actually live, or anywhere.

[childrenarenotrobots]

I certainly wouldn’t mind! They do seem to have let us down. Any site you have in mind is fine with me.

We took a little vacation into Elaan to check it out, even though we haven’t heard from our prospective swaps in a while and Swivel is taking longer than they said they would to finish up their investigation.

It’s all right.  I can’t really see us living there but it’s gotten so I can barely see us living where we actually live, or anywhere.

[childrenarenotrobots]

My granddaughter Aen invited me to a school talent show today. It was wonderful in the way that the best student-run productions are--not technically impressive, but you could see the tremendous effort that had gone into everything, and how much everyone had learned over the course of putting it together. The student audience was also very understanding; technical difficulties were met with shouts of “It’s all right, take your time!”

My favorite performance was from a student who offered us a traditional tribal dance in traditional garb. He explained its historical significance to us, which was very necessary; such traditions are all but dead, these days. The dance itself was genuinely impressive, in terms of how much endurance it must have taken--you could tell the student was exhausted by the end, but he continued dancing until the music was over.

The same boy later played the drums in a student rock band. I found it much less artistically impressive, but he applied himself with the same passion in both cases. He wasn’t declared the winner (the students voted to give it to a boy who performed sleight of hand--I understand that they were very proud of him, as he’s normally very shy), but the audience did seem to enjoy both performances.

More than anything, he made me think of my granddaughter Daare. She’s decided she wants to teach history to grey children. She hasn’t grown out of her abysmal musical taste, and though she’s proven she can write competently, she still prefers speech that is riddled with errors. Her parents tell me that they believe she’s taken up archery specifically because it’s a terribly in-orange activity. I would be lying if I said her actions didn’t frustrate me on occasion; I want her to do her work well and be happy with who she is, not turn in poor-quality work and then try to be someone she can’t be.

On the other hand, I recognized the same passion in this student that I’ve been seeing in my granddaughter. He cared about the history he taught us. He cared about his dance. He cared about his music. I think that the dance made him a better teacher of history, and that the history allowed us to further appreciate his dance. I may not understand what the modern music offers him, but it is clear that it offers something, and I wonder if Daare may be pursuing something similar in music, archery, and her own communication style. Perhaps her eclectic interests will make her a superior teacher as well.

I believe I learned about more than historical tribal customs today. I hope I’m not too old or too proud to take the lesson to heart.

[childrenarenotrobots]

I’m terribly sorry about not checking in with you! I’ve been throwing myself into work lately, but that’s no excuse; when one has made a commitment, it’s important to maintain communication through any unexpected difficulties. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard anything either. 

It’s a shame we missed you; we would have invited you to dinner if we’d known you were visiting. Our loss, I suppose.

We took a little vacation into Elaan to check it out, even though we haven’t heard from our prospective swaps in a while and Swivel is taking longer than they said they would to finish up their investigation.

It’s all right.  I can’t really see us living there but it’s gotten so I can barely see us living where we actually live, or anywhere.

[childrenarenotrobots]

Well, this is certainly inconvenient. I suppose I’ll have to come up with alternative lesson plans for the days that were going to involve supplementary video instruction. On the other hand, this is always a possibility, which is why adaptability is so important.

[childrenarenotrobots]

Would you be interested in swapping into Elaan?

My wife and I had already discussed swapping into Yvalta or Calado when we were ready to retire. I haven’t looked into the specific legal procedures yet, given that we were planning to wait a few more years, but if time is of the essence then I see no reason not to look into it now and see whether your government would consider us an acceptable match.

how could you afford to get gametes frozen (and presumably you'd need a surrogate ??) but not a orange credit, they're not that pricey

We live in Yvalta.

We have lots of money and haven’t found anyone corrupt enough to just take our money.

If we can get out to an auction country we can afford a credit.  Surrogates are cheaper if you let them see a lot of the baby and we can do that, or possibly get my sister swapped out too as long as we’re talking miracles and she’d do it.

[childrenarenotrobots]

Is it hard knowing so many of your purple students will never have children? Not because of your teaching ability, but the incoming cuts to purple credits that will result from automation of low skill jobs.

This has been the trend for virtually as long as castes have existed. Purples used to be a much higher percentage of the population, while greens, yellows, and oranges used to exist in much smaller numbers. Under modern population control systems, the continuation of this trend requires the purple caste to shrink in terms of numbers, as well as by percent.

I do think it’s a bit dire to say that most of my students won’t have children. Even in a highly automated society, I think there are many jobs that will require human input for a very long time, and machines are not always more cost-effective than people. They may end up living with and pooling their resources with siblings or roommates, but I don’t think that having a child is out of reach for even low-skill purples, provided they are willing to work together.

Finally, I would like to say that a person’s worth and dignity are not determined by the number of children they have. When I was younger, I didn’t understand this, and I was very upset that as a child, I did not choose a more lucrative career. My wife and I only ever saved enough to pay for one child, and we didn’t have him until I was fifteen. That one child was the focus of all our effort and all our love. Today he is a psychiatrist, and has four children. I’m grateful that he has such a good life, but now that I’ve had the privilege of raising him, I would be no less proud of him if he were an honest and hardworking daycare worker with no children at all. 

So no, anon, this is not one of the harder parts of my job. I believe that all my students are capable of living good lives, regardless of how much money they make or how many children they have. Thank you for the excellent question.

[childrenarenotrobots]

If anyone was wondering, Keaen Navree is not more musical in person.

[childrenarenotrobots]

Tbh we totally would have robots that could do that if it weren't for r_ds killing cyberneticists and populist politicians slashing university funding

Doubtless there are more pleasant worlds where r*ds have not interfered with the process, and where the differences between robots and people are not primarily differences in their ability to interpret information.

In those worlds, the robots that analyze literature and write fiction are not primarily taking jobs away from purples.

[childrenarenotrobots]

So purples are exceptionally well programmed robots. Got it.

Did you ever study literature when you were in school, anonymous friend?

Literature is one of my primary areas of expertise, so as you can imagine, I have quite a few opinions about its importance. I would argue that the primary purpose of literature, whether it is approached as an instructional tool or as a source of entertainment, is to allow the reader to vicariously gain new experiences through the text. These experiences are then added to our memories, and we draw on them when making decisions, just as we draw on our own memories and experiences. I would argue that although very few of us will have professions which relate directly to literary theory or analysis, the basic activity and the fundamental skills involved are extremely important for almost everyone. They offer us additional familiarity with the world around us, and expose us to new conflicts, questions, and decisions within the safety of an imagined environment.

We could, of course, try to gain similar experiences by actually doing new things. Unfortunately, this is much more difficult and time-consuming, is sometimes dangerous, and limits us to experiences which are already possible. It leaves us unprepared for the future. More than that, it does not allow us the experience of empathizing with another–of placing ourselves in another perspective, so that we might form a model of what the people around us are likely to be motivated by and concerned with.

Have you ever stopped to think about how incredible this ability is? How awe-inspiring it is that I can create a series of particular symbols, that you can read those symbols and translate them into sounds, that you can then translate those sounds into meanings, that you can combine those meanings to form a narrative, that you can consume the narrative and add it to your own life experiences, and that you can then use the perspective gained, whether you agree with it or not, to better predict events that will happen in the real world, and which might not even be limited to my own behavior?

All of my students can do this. All but the most horrifically disabled Amentans can do this.

Robots cannot do this. They translate, yes, but understanding is beyond them, let alone using that understanding to create relevant predictions.

Robots are our best attempt at creating a being which can replace us. They have done a fine job, in some limited cases. Our modern factories are certainly an improvement on the non-mechanized workhouses that one saw perhaps one hundred and fifty years ago. In other instances, they have failed utterly. There is no robot that can do an acceptable job of cutting your hair to your specifications. There is no robot that can cook the meals you wish to eat at restaurants. There is no robot that can vacuum the floors of a daycare without mindlessly removing small toys along with crumbs. I daresay there is no robot that can successfully and consistently hold twenty minutes of moderately thoughtful and pleasant conversation.

The vast majority of purples work in environments that are far less controlled than my classroom. They are constantly required to adapt to new situations and respond to unfamiliar demands. Even a purple who works in retail needs to be able to respond to customer requests and complaints in a sensible manner, a task which is entirely beyond computers because it requires so much adaptability.

If purple children were robots, I would need to prepare them for each of these situations individually. I would need to prepare them for the old customer who was very sure that the sale was today and not yesterday, for the young customer who insists that they be allowed to return a ruined outfit, for the customer who demands that they be offered information which no one around has access to, and for every possible way that a register or electronic scale might malfunction. I would need to teach them the precise words that they ought to say in every situation, no matter what happened. As soon as they reached an unfamiliar situation, they would be incapable of dealing with it in a sensible manner.

I don’t do this. I teach them a few general principles, a few particularly useful skills, and then I trust that they are capable of using those skills to seek out additional knowledge and adapt to the particular demands of their professional and personal lives. They do this. Some do it better than others, but all of them do it far better than even the finest robot. I know they can do it, because every day I watch them respond to imagined situations which they have never encountered before, then watch them create compositions which are unlike any composition that anyone else has ever created in the history of the world–and which are, at the same time, coherent enough that I can understand them and respond in turn.

I would be fascinated to see you create a robot which is capable of even the most basic types of literary analysis. In fact, I would be very impressed if you could create a robotic server that could navigate a restaurant without running into tables and spilling hot food everywhere. I am sure the same is true of the rest of the world. If you’ve made some sort of breakthrough in a similar area, then please, don’t keep us waiting.

[childrenarenotrobots]

Children are not robots, but purples might as well be. You think you're doing them favors by filling their heads with shit about how they're all just one writing assignment away from becoming the next Va Amaaal? How their opinions about politics matter - like you live in one of those tiny countries where purples get a plurality of the vote for some strange, stupid reason? Guess what: you aren't helping them, you're making everything worse.

You know, I would be angry if you sent this sort of thing to a young purple. But you sent it to me, and I’m afraid I can’t help but find it amusing. Purples are the most varied caste--they show the widest span of abilities, interests, and talents. Teaching them requires far more adaptability than teaching a classroom full of yellow children (though a teacher who assumes that yellow children are all the same will also find that they are sorely mistaken). Of all the castes, purples strike me as among the least robotic, which is part of why I enjoy teaching them so much.

The vast majority of any caste is never going to be rich or famous, nor are they going to see their names in history books. Society is primarily composed of ordinary people, and it is ordinary people who keep society running smoothly. If we want good research, we must have a large mass of well-educated greens who can competently assist the lead researchers whose names will ultimately be remembered. If we want good law enforcement, we must have a mass of grey police officers who are well-versed in what the law says. If we want good food and furniture and traffic, we must have a mass of purples who are capable of making good decisions, and who possess a basic working knowledge of the world.

These people won’t ever be famous, no. They are the reason that the famous people are remembered at all. If the society they create is not worth living in, then no single person, no matter how dedicated, can hope to salvage it.

The students I teach are society, and that is why it is so important that they master certain essential skills. It would be absurd to deny them education in areas like reading comprehension, argument analysis, and basic composition, and then expect them to go on to be responsible, law-abiding citizens. 

I believe that there is great dignity in doing a necessary job as well as possible. This is true whether the job is waiting tables or building spacecraft, as long as the person doing it is diligent, responsible, and equipped to do what is needed. I intend to ensure that all my students are capable of meeting that standard.