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The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

danielhomola.com

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

#241

Post by pixl97 »

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 ?

Water for one. It was very risky as things like droughts quickly killed you. It was also very risky as someone moving upstream of you and shitting could see you dying from dysentery very quickly. Water is in far worse shape now because of how deeply we've pumped out aquifers and how poor we've left soil conditions in many places.

Next is amount of people. Current human density is supported by antibiotics. Take away them and we quickly fall back to around 1900 population density (1.6 billion roughly). And not even internal antibiotics, external antibiotics like chlorine for cleaning and water purification.

So those are the setups for population collapse. When population starts collapsing this way it generally overshoots the numbers pruned because of war/disease. We won't fall to 1.6 billion, it's likely to fall well below 1 billion.

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

#242

Post by cheesecompiler »

gradus_ad wrote: post #67

A rebuttal: the institutional and experiential barriers to wealth generation can be overcome with AI unlike any other technology before. Consider: someone wanting to start a business previously had to negotiate tremendous legal/compliance/technological hurdles. The prospect of going alone given these is very intimidating so most without wealth or connections didn't. Their good ideas languished. Now, everyone has a kn…

Rebuttal: we are yet to see this actually materialize beyond the theoretical fantasy. We have seen this with computers and internet already: the supposedly democratic technology consolidated in a few platform monopolies.

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

#243

Post by pixl97 »

bloppe wrote: post #200
ceejayoz wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I hope congress gets their shit together soon

Narrator: "In fact, they did not"

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

#244

Post by Kubuxu »

sp1nningaway wrote: post #118
profunctor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The dashes?

The shear volume of writing, the false rigor and vestigial artifacts (preface, interactive charts, MORE filler hidden behind accordion dropdowns) are a tell. I would be more annoyed but I'm fascinated by this kind of false productivity that AI is encouraging. I don't agree with the conclusion anyway, as AI is CURRENTLY providing wealth to me with side projects that wouldn't have been possible to take on 2 years ago.

Yeah, after two paragraphs, my eyes started skimming it due to low signal-to-noise ratio.

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

#245

Post by 7777777phil »

sp1nningaway wrote: post #204
7777777phil wrote: post #55

The sims are really well done, the dynasty simulator especially. You can actually stress-test the argument instead of just nodding along. Appreciate the craft. I have issues with the economics though. The income model is calibrated from three separate literatures that were never estimated together. Different samples, different decades, different identification strategies. Then the big move, βIQ drops to 0.10, βW jump…

I bounced off of this article because I didn't like the conclusion, then provided myself a rationalization that it was probably mostly AI generated. What inspired you to engage with the article more deeply? You agree with the conclusion, but not with any of the supporting arguments. I'm also fascinated by your compliment on of the dynasty simulator, which I found completely inscrutable. What kind of background knowle…

[dead]

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

#246

Post by cheesecompiler »

sp1nningaway wrote: post #204
7777777phil wrote: post #55

The sims are really well done, the dynasty simulator especially. You can actually stress-test the argument instead of just nodding along. Appreciate the craft. I have issues with the economics though. The income model is calibrated from three separate literatures that were never estimated together. Different samples, different decades, different identification strategies. Then the big move, βIQ drops to 0.10, βW jump…

I bounced off of this article because I didn't like the conclusion, then provided myself a rationalization that it was probably mostly AI generated. What inspired you to engage with the article more deeply? You agree with the conclusion, but not with any of the supporting arguments. I'm also fascinated by your compliment on of the dynasty simulator, which I found completely inscrutable. What kind of background knowle…

The parent comment reads as an LLM to me as well.

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

#247

Post by vessenes »

Interesting points, made in florid style. I'd make the point a little differently, though -- in the next n years, you want to be on the side of capital. Labor is in for a really tough time.

Missing from Daniel's analysis is total economic output, and I think this really matters -- when we think of Optimus launched and at scale, do we think of total GDP growing, shrinking, being stable? A lot of what someone thinks about this question will tie directly to their predictions and mental/emotional focus.

I think of GDP growing - we will be turning stuff into the ground into something that works for $1/hr on all manner of tasks - we're going to be able to do a lot more stuff than we were. As Daniel points out, a company is going to own a lot (by no means all) of that economic benefit. By some miracle of our modern markets, you too could own some of that benefit, just by buying into the company.

The "mercantilist labor" view is less rosy: if there's a limited amount of labor to go around then this will be directly siphoning off living wage and (to the point of the essay) excess capital that could go into building dynastic wealth.

From my viewpoint, I think Daniel's charts would get a little bit less alarming for the non-dynastic scenarios if they imagined GDP increases along the way. They probably push up the sharpness of an inflection point.

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

#248

Post by automatic6131 »

deaux wrote: post #222
automatic6131 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The idealized future in my option has something like 1/1000th of the current population Okay! You first though. What, still here?

"You participate in society, how curious" If they're choosing not to have kids then they are doing their part towards their beliefs.

Nope, using the "I am very intelligent" comic doesn't work to defend those who want to eliminate society

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

#249

Post by kg »

zozbot234 wrote: post #188
kjkjadksj wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at home prices and then tell me it sucked.

What home prices? There are many places (second-rate cities or rural) where home prices are just fine. Not everyone has to live in SF.

We periodically see posts on HN about the 'loneliness epidemic' and simultaneously the solution for home prices is to live in a rural area where you have maybe two neighbors and it's a 30-minute drive to see your friends or colleagues.

As someone who grew up in a rural area I don't miss it and I think people who call it a good standard of living have interesting criteria. That cheaper rural home also comes with secondary costs, like a longer commute.

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

#250

Post by cheesecompiler »

pear01 wrote: post #49
skyberrys wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't rely on a single human being to fix this kind of issue. It's only solvable through massive collaboration and communication among those who want to fix it.

This is not the history of politics. Movements that ignore the need for a charismatic leader fail, often spectacularly. It's why for example occupy wallstreet was such a laughable failure. Who was its leader? Is the human megaphone a species of "massive collaboration and communication"? Can you name me one leader from that movement who was nationally recognized as such? Strong leaders are always required. Such people…

> It's why for example occupy wallstreet was such a laughable failure.

This claim is enormous. I would instead argue that the movement lacked cohesiveness because it basically complained about too large a set of (correctly identified as interconnected) issues and lost momentum because the surface was too large.

That said, I agree w your point about a face being important. Even in software, where tech can speak for itself, we see this heavily: Torvalds, Matsumoto, van Rossum, Jobs,

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