The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by 9rx » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #274

9rx wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of producing all this stuff now ? Historically production was transactional. You give me something, I give you something. But along the way the average Joe ran out of things to offer in return. Businesses give, but increasingly fail to receive in kind. Apple, for example, produced in excess of $50 billion dollars worth of value that they've never been able to get anything in return for. In other wor…

In other words, they have effectively given away $50 billion dollars worth of stuff away for free and have shown no signs of wanting to stop. What are you talking about? Is this some dramatic way of saying you think some of their products are underpriced relative to their specifications?

I am, of course, referring to the IOUs (a.k.a. cash) they famously are sitting on, and have been sitting on for decades. Technically they can call the debt at any time, but what does average Joe have to give that Apple would want? If there was something appealing they'd have done it already. In reality there is nothing and it will sit there forevermore and the consumers on the other side of the transaction ultimately got stuff for free.

But, as before, it doesn't really matter as rich people aren't interested in things. They already have everything they could ever dream of and physically cannot handle even more. They are interested in social standing.

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

#292

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #271

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

I know how much the American health care system sucks. But I have looked into a high deductible health care plan on the exchange for myself and my wife - both over 50 to calculate how much we would need to survive a month of unemployment. It was around $1000/mo with no subsidies for a bronze plan.

[deleted]

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

#293

Post by raw_anon_1111 » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

bix6 wrote: post #284

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please. The median household income in the US is around $85K https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/ The median individual household is $55K https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ Neither are living on the streets.

https://www.lmtribune.com/local-news/achilles-takes-on-risch... > By my estimate, about 60% of Idahoans don't earn a livable wage Sure boss it’s all fine and dandy.

And that has nothing to do with the fact that you don’t need “FAANG money” to live a comfortable life in Idaho…

Besides cry me a river for the people in red states who keep voting for politicians who are voting for policies that hurt them as long as they can “own the libs” and see ICE mistreat brown people.

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

#294

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #279

ceejayoz wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That money black hole hits companies too. A $50k/year job typically can't throw in $60k in healthcare benefits.

It’s not that much. https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/cost-of-employer-sponsored-h... A small company can use a PEO like Rippling (a YC company) where employees are “co employed” with the actual company and for taxes/HR/benefits with for Rippling. It’s not like contracting. Everyone from the CEO down is “co employed”

[deleted]

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

#295

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #289

ceejayoz wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a family plan; the bronze plans are $2400 or so a month. But that means a huge deductible; for a high-needs family, it works out worse financially.

When I compared plans at work over the years, I’ve found that it is rarely cheaper to do low deductible/higher monthly costs than higher deductible /lower monthly cost + pay deductible out of pocket.

That will vary from person to person.

In our case, we tend to hit the max out-of-pocket pretty fast.

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

#296

Post by deaux » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

anal_reactor wrote: post #281

deaux wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very much there during the 1990s, people were median happier than in 2026. Unless you mean globally, in which case it's near impossible to tell. But GP likely meant the US or Europe.

> But GP likely meant the US or Europe. Reminds me of movies "Aliens attack Earth. By Earth by obviously mean USA. By USA we obviously mean New York City. By New York City we obviously mean Manhattan.". Half of Europe was literally undergoing complete economic collapse in 90's.

Your supposed connection of country-level economic situation and happiness reminds me of this great comment:

"I can't stand the conflation of "satisfied" and "happy." It's insane. There is more happiness in one Zimbabwean (country "happiness" rank: 143) than in one hundred Icelanders (country "happiness" rank: 2, worldwide antidepressant consumption rank: 1.) Go stand in a crowd of people and count the fucking smiles and the fucking laughter.

"It is all part of this broader wave of newspeak. If you can quite literally redefine happiness, you can redefine anything. Nothing has meaning anymore. You will live alone, you will consume antidepressants, you will be protected from the sunlight, you will not smile, you will not laugh, and you will be happy." [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46295573

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

#297

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #157

rib3ye wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a gh for a $100 stringer missile last week. I often wonder if I will miss the stable tyranny of American capitalism if we descend back into warring nation states defended by cheap autonomous munitions.

That thing was a toy, not even remotely viable or even a meaningful step towards viability. It was discussed here.

Compared to an actual stinger missile and its usual application, yes. Deployed against soft targets like trucks, cars, or homes, it has the potential to be very effective.

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

#298

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #34

energy123 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robots will eventually be better than people at manual labor. I don't claim to know when that crossover will happen.

This is still a "hard" problem from a scientific perspective. LLMs haven't taken us any closer to solving the perception, actuation, learning loop. It will require multiple new developments in material science and a new ML paradigm.

While you're correct we still need a lot more, the advances in the past 5 years represent more than I've seen in most of my life.

Just look at the speed in which we can train a humanoid robot things now. We can send out a mo-cap human, get some data, and in few hours run a few hundred trillion simulations, and publish a kernel that can do that task relatively well.

LLMs allow us any perception at all. They feed vision to scene comprehension an then let the robot control part calculate a plan to achieve a goal. It's not very fast, and fine motor controls have a long way to go, but it is possible.

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

#299

Post by newfriend » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #208

kjkjadksj wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Relative to the peers in their own country they usually do What about people born in the wrong neighbourhood or even the wrong family. I have a hard time beleiving IQ is a strong predictor of income. Anecdotally I personally know a lot of dumb people who make a lot of money and intelligent people who don't. If anything I'd say social skills are probably a better predictor of income.

Obviously it's "on average". Of course not every single person will be ranked by their IQ.

I know a 5'3" guy who played in the NBA.

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

#300

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #279

ceejayoz wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That money black hole hits companies too. A $50k/year job typically can't throw in $60k in healthcare benefits.

It’s not that much. https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/cost-of-employer-sponsored-h... A small company can use a PEO like Rippling (a YC company) where employees are “co employed” with the actual company and for taxes/HR/benefits with for Rippling. It’s not like contracting. Everyone from the CEO down is “co employed”

It really is.

The US saw an average of $14,885 per-capita healthcare costs in 2024. Higher now.