Was talking to my dentist and the conversation turned to his son. Kid seems like a high IQ nerdy/obsessive type, he can focus and go deep on the things he cares about, but otherwise just coasts by on things he doesn't. Very much like me. I'm not sure if he was looking for any advice given that I'm similar and I turned out kind of alright, I don't think he was, but even if he was, I couldn't be of much help. The way my parents raised me was extremely relaxed and I think it's not responsible to tell parents "just let the kid do whatever and give him lots of unsupervised free time" both because it's not practical on a day-to-day basis but also because, you know, if you can afford a good school and lots of activities for your child, overall that's probably better. Although... if I had a more tracked life growing up would I have turned out even better? Maybe on some axes, maybe worse on others, hard to tell.

Anyway, that conversation got me thinking now because last week I had an encounter with this twink, maybe 24 years old, and as I was driving him where he needed to be after we fucked, we were talking and had a lot in common. He had also tried to make games in the past and was also artistically inclined. But as the conversation went on it became clear he had a problem. He'd talk about how he liked modelling things on 3DSMax or Blender, and I'd question him about it, but eventually he'd say, "and then I didn't do much more with it." Then he'd talk about how he tried his hand at making music, and I'd question him about it, but eventually he'd say, "and then I didn't do much more with it." This repeated exactly five times, and he repeated that exact phrase, "and then I didn't do much more with it," those five times.

I thought this was interesting. I considered saying something to him, since if he wasn't consciously aware, it seems he was unconsciously so, as he used the same exact phrasing five times, which means his subconscious was basically flooding him with the message, but I figured he was probably aware of it, so there was no need for a stranger to judge him further. "You know what your problem is, you don't go deep enough into things, you always give up before it actually gets going, that's why your life isn't where you want it to be." I wouldn't have said it like this, but it is the spirit of what I would have said over the rest of the conversation. But I didn't say it, because... hm, well, first, he's only 24, at that age I was also lost and aimless and trying lots of different things, thinking I was a lazy loser for not being able to work as hard as I thought I should, so really it would be incorrect to judge him too harshly. But also, I'm not going to meet him again, so there's no need to be paternalistically honest with him. If I were to interact with him in the future, I'd want the best for him, for him to aim at being the best possible version of himself, and in that case I would have said it and meant it. Most people don't react well to someone bothering them and invading and criticizing the very essence of their being like this, but I wouldn't be able to keep interacting with him if I knew he wasn't a serious person, if I knew he wasn't aiming up.

And so I left him where he needed to be and we said our final forever goodbye. I think he is the modal 21st-century human being, most people are like this now, and perhaps, even have always been like this, maybe this is just what being a human being is, unable to have that fire and passion that consumes your whole self, that guides and orients you towards a future fully.

I use this example often, but I used it with this twink too, describing what I do, "You know Minecraft? You know when you hit a block with a pickaxe, how there's an animation, there's the sound of it hitting the block, there's some particles, the block changes visually to show how close to broken it is, there's the resource dropping as a new object on the floor... I spend a lot of time on things like that, those actions that the player spends most of his time doing, I spend a lot of time making sure those feel really good, because, you know, it's what people are spending most of their time doing in your game, they have to feel really good. I think that's important for making games, you have to autistically obsess over things like this, way more than seems reasonable, to make anything good." And he laughed exactly when I said "autistically obsess." He's not the first who laughs when I say those exact words, I'm not sure what people find funny about it, but they do.

Now that the God tool exists, it seems clear to me that the future belongs to those who can autistically obsess. Ultimately the only thing left is the will to do things, and such will can be generated by autistic obsessions or by the kind of alignment I mentioned earlier way more reliably than anything else. Self-directed will generation is like an infinite gold hack, so the post-AI world belongs to those who can naturally do this. My dentist's kid will likely do fine wherever he goes, the twink and most other people will likely not. It's an unfair world, becoming unfairer by the minute.