Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

danielhomola.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 435 posts

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#191

Post by throw4847285 »

TGower wrote: post #164
bluefirebrand wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone What are you talking about man, we don't even provide for everyone right now even though we actually could

Right now it is difficult for the average person to put themselves in the shoes of a homeless person. There are a litany of ready made excuses not to do so: "Oh it's the drugs", "They aren't even going to the shelter", "They must have mental illness", a variety of ways to say "I could never end up like that, if it was me I'd do better and pull myself out". These excuses evaporate in the face of a real automation wave…

This already happened. When deindustrialization first hit in the US it devastated the black community. The result? A litany of pundits decrying Black criminality, bad family structures, cultural pathologies. It's no coincidence that The Bell Curve came out around then.

A decade or two later, all of sudden the same phenomena are happening in working class white communities. Drug addiction, family dissolution, abject poverty. So clearly the people of the US finally realized that what was happening was due primarily to material concerns, and that people need to be able to earn a living in order to live. Right?

No. Instead we got right wing populism, scapegoating of immigrants, further concentration of wealth, and no end in sight.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#192

Post by CalRobert »

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #170
pibaker wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not enough space for 8 billion humans to do "frontier living."

It always intuitively felt to me like there was enough space, but I am now getting the sense that my intuition here has been wrong. Will you define "frontier living" so I can better see the lack of space ?

I assume they're referring to the inability of small scale agriculture to produce as many calories per acre as our current food system, which also relies heavily on fossil-fuel based imports. Of course, we also have a lot of unnecessary (but tasty!) excess in our current food system too.

I think the problem really becomes - what do you do when the current system becomes untenable? If the costs of a "basic" modern life (housing, transport, food - I'm not even including healthcare here) become impossible for someone on the median income to have, then what, exactly, are they supposed to do? Find a nice corner to die in?

We sorta tried a miniature version of this on a few acres in Ireland and while it was tough (and we were always reliant on the outside world, we didn't literally homestead), I'm not sure it wouldn't be an improvement for a non-trivial percentage of people at the bottom levels of society.

But, of course, land is owned (thanks to enclosure, which took a common asset and allocated it to specific individuals), and this all falls apart when you or a loved one have a serious disability or illness.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#193

Post by senordevnyc »

estimator7292 wrote: post #145
jmye wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We’re already there. Your individual labor isn’t enough to make a living unless you subscribe to the altar of a feudal FAANG. This is preposterous. You think you already can't "make a living" without working at a FAANG? Is this a serious post?

Yes. That tends to happen when you don't increase the minimum wage for multiple decades.

Damn, I hope no one tells the hundreds of millions of global middle class and upper middle class households who don't work for FAANG that they don't exist!

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#194

Post by bloppe »

jmye wrote: post #117
bix6 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re already there. Your individual labor isn’t enough to make a living unless you subscribe to the altar of a feudal FAANG. This is preposterous. > Collectively, the wealthiest 1% held about $55 trillion in assets in the third quarter of 2025 — roughly equal to the wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans combined. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-wealth-gap-widest-in-three-d...

> We’re already there. Your individual labor isn’t enough to make a living unless you subscribe to the altar of a feudal FAANG. This is preposterous. You think you already can't "make a living" without working at a FAANG? Is this a serious post?

For a lot of people on HN, "making a living" means owning property in a VHCOL area.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#195

Post by kjkjadksj »

pier25 wrote: post #178

> IQ → credentials → income → heritable wealth This doesn't make much sense. Lots of people with high IQ don't have high income because they were born in the wrong country.

Relative to the peers in their own country they usually do. Globally, yeah people get shit hands. That is why doctors leave their countries, go through the trouble to relicense and practice in the US.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#196

Post by senordevnyc »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #107
rmah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the vast majority live at a "borderline biblical" standard of living, then there is simply not enough excess wealth to pay for the data centers (or more accurately, the industrial output necessary to build and maintain those data centers) you're talking about. Agrarian societies (i.e. borderline biblical), by definition, do not have the excess labor necessary for industrial output at any scale (here I mean anythin…

In Marc-Uwe Kling's Quality Land novel [1], the absence of purchasing power resulting from AIs having taken over, is mitigated by shopping robots buying random useless stuff. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Qualityland-Marc-Uwe-Kling/dp/1538732...

So the broken windows fallacy for the AI age?

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#197

Post by highfrequency »

"The window described above is not a metaphor. It is an arithmetic deadline...The window is not a metaphor for someone at your coordinates. It is a number."

9 to 1 bet that this is written by AI (perhaps proving the writer's point that he is being displaced).

I think AI is great, but I wish people would just post the prompt they gave instead of the full length decompressed essay. Much more efficient information transfer!

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#198

Post by guzfip »

tartoran wrote: post #182
keiferski wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I think this is actually good advice. It's great to be a free-thinker and question things, but I do think there is some (monetary) value in just not asking too many questions, but optimizing to be the best at whatever you're doing. Edit: to give an example, I probably would have done better in school had I spent less time questioning the education system and more time ju…

Yeah, succeed in the system, fuck everybody else. If the system is making the world a worse place, all the better, you can take advantage since you’re in the system. All that until you find yourself spat out by the system and get to experience what you’ve been part of with no recourse.

[flagged]

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#199

Post by TGower »

pjerem wrote: post #151
TGower wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does AI truly benefit the average joe? Automated production of goods and services means more goods and services to go around. From cheaper prices on all of the things people already buy to unlocking new classes of products like actually useful robotic helpers. Increased pace of development and reduced cost will make many niche products economically viable, essentially the maker movement on steroids.

I genuinely don't want to be snarky but does the average joe needs a planet that is breathable and isn't burning or does he need even "more goods and services to go around". Robotic helpers to do what ? More free time ? We, as a society, can already have more free time, we just have to choose to work less. We already have it all : enough food and housing for everybody, 80+ years of life expectancy ... What will we ac…

> a planet that is breathable and isn't burning

This is a perfect example of something that can benefit greatly from abundant goods and services. Driving the cost of solar panel manufacturing, supply chain included, and deployment. Enabling continuous monitoring and fast response to GHG leaks or forest fire starting. Reforesting efforts. There are so many ways in which the application of intelligence and labor can help us here, and AI can vastly grow the supply of intelligence and labor.

> More free time?

Yes! Time we can reclaim from the mundane chores of life to do with as we choose! How could you not want that?

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#200

Post by bloppe »

ceejayoz wrote: post #189
jmye wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We’re already there. Your individual labor isn’t enough to make a living unless you subscribe to the altar of a feudal FAANG. This is preposterous. You think you already can't "make a living" without working at a FAANG? Is this a serious post?

I had to drop off my health insurance when the bill hit $4,850.24/month. Millions did the same. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/19/aca-enrollees-uninsured.html

That sucks and I hope congress gets their shit together soon, but there are a lot of non-FAANG companies that offer insurance.
Post reply on HN