SlutCon

tonetheman

That is a crazy essay. I am assuming it is a true story. It is wild that such an event exists but it is a great read from someplace I would never be.

AnodicElegy

Interesting read. Sure, there's still sex and acid, but man, we're a long way from John Phillips' San Francisco.

arm32

This is delightfully written.

schainks

Great read, but I'm a little puzzled. My takeaway is SlutCon has successfully re-skinned The Argument Clinic. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpQlyUjp3vM ). Someone enters a commercialized, scheduled space to pay for a raw, spontaneous human experience, only to get trapped in an infuriating debate over the technical definition of the experience itself. Or am I missing a read-between-the-lines that this event is really to facilitate successful Autistic people in flirting, dating, and relationships?

Tenoke

Pleasant read, which feels as if it's from an outsider to the event. Alas, I just don't think there's that much to report.

alphawhisky

This is hilarious. The intersection of rationalism and horniness will be remembered in the future much like the old English aristocratic social order or the social circles portrayed in The Great Gatsby. Just a bunch of pompous, self involved assholes wasting their money in increasingly more stupid ways.

gorgoiler

”Many of the panels were organized with legibility and empiricism in mind. It seemed to me they attempted to render attraction more calculable, and thereby tractable.” This is undoubtedly very clever writing — perhaps I’m missing an ironic in-joke, even? — but the intractable density of syllables renders its empirical tractability incalculable. It’s a shame. It would be cool to get the simplified version. There’s something interesting here for sure, nestling under the pile of words.

nkg

It felt real and, for a moment, I was worried that it was journalism and not fiction.

slopinthebag

i can't be the only person who thinks that the concept is entirely irrational right? :P

brnt

For some reference, an earlier post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49737985

ArcHound

If you're asking yourself WTF, here's an explainer: https://www.iankduncan.com/personal/2026-09-16-sex-ai-and-th...

idan

This is how Epstein happens Nobody should be tolerating this, let alone celebrating or venerating this. It's a misogynistic sex cult with a thin veneer of science. Incels but with fancier words. Repulsive to the core.

paimapi

>Many of the workshops focused on outward signs of confidence like posture and clothes but left alone a history of deeper maladjustment. You can remove a guy’s fedora in an afternoon, but the rest takes years. aye, and if this isn't the core issue for pretty much everyone who feels out-of-place, unloved, and had issues dating I think there was a small chance in my past that I might've tumbled down the angry atheist / LessWrong pipeline. I actually knew a guy who did. I have to thank an English teacher who had us read Slaughterhouse-Five for steering me clear and leading me to secular humanism. that moral philosophy meant anyone as low and terrible as me (at least as low and terrible as I thought I was) still deserved to be treated with compassion and it made me feel loved for the first time in my life I'm one of those people who benefited immensely from therapy (CBT at the time though I'd probably try ACT now). the me before therapy had the emotional maturity of a teenage boy, who thought you could and should rationalize away feelings, that they were fundamentally illogical. I'm decades beyond that now, in the best relationship of my life, equal partners with someone I deeply respect and love, and who everything feels natural with even after ten years. the key to all of this has been the fact that we validate one another, that we give each other the grace we would want for ourself. it's a real change and a watershed thing for me - realizing that you don't have to internalize your experience of having your feelings invalidated that sad version of myself, who thought you could somehow extrinsically 'solve' despair and loneliness through some kind of scripted performance, that's the multi-verse version of myself that needs someone to tell him that he can be loved, that he doesn't deserve to suffer. here's to hoping these attendees are able to grow out of that same phase I had once been in one day - it's sure to do the world a lot of good if they did

blurgrin

There're people with professions that I wouldn't have imagined. I'm 50+, thought I had seen it all.

iamnothere

All the over the top sex positivity stuff used to annoy me, but the whining sex negative puritans are just as bad. Oh my god, nerds want to learn how to have sex! Give me a break. This is way less weird (and much less worrying) than a lot of stuff from the 2010s.

eleventen

Why is this flagged. It’s interesting, well written, and on topic (AI Safety Sex Cult etc.)

nojvek

Not sure why flagged. Well written by a human. Breath of air from all the Slop on HN nowadays.

metalcrow

I gotta say I'm confused about the entire reason this is important. Any furry convention has just as many IT professionals (and probably a few AI devs), but people aren't posting about Anthrocon and talking about how many people get drugged and assaulted there in the context of IT. Why is this different?