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

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

#341

Post by ihagen » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

pibaker wrote: post #108

CalRobert wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallel economy could even kinda sorta work except that we made frontier living largely illegal in many places (though I understand you probably could get some cheap land in e.g. Idaho and try to live off it) and the existence of said parallel society represents a clear challenge to capital owners who say trading your labour for their profit is the most sensible way to live.

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

They can manage it. Cheap drugs, distributed by the government, can handle you from suffering and ensure you will not participate in any kind of anti government protests. Also they can add birth control additives and reduce the population significantly.

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

#342

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC

9rx wrote: post #291

anigbrowl wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This doesn't make any sense. Apple has a pile of cash hasn't spent or invested = they have given away free product?

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

#343

Post by bayeslaw » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #288

> They are illustrations of a general principle: the legal inheritance channel compounds while the biological one reverts. All this pseudo-math relies on the fact that family wealth strictly compounds and does not decrease or revert to the mean. But that is not true. Economists study this, and the exact numbers differ but family wealth _does_ revert back to the mean in just a few generations. Wealth does not stay in…

Fair point on the rhetoric: "no regression, no noise, just compounding" overstates it a bit. Individual family wealth does dissipate across generations. The model actually reflects this: η=0.85 inheritance fraction, threshold gating that blocks compounding below ~$20k, and a residual term that captures the noise and bad luck - which your sources are measuring.

The stronger claim of the essa is different from "any given dynasty compounds forever." It's Piketty's r > g: capital returns have systematically outpaced economic growth, so the wealth class maintains and grows its share even as specific families within it churn.

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

#344

Post by bayeslaw » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #52

Commenting strictly on the metaphor in the title: Did you mean to say ladder? Bridges don't get pulled up. Edit to say: Yes I did think of drawbridges. And Batman is a scientist. But drawbridges are simply "opened" or "raised," and the implication always is that it's temporary and they will soon be "closed" or "lowered." Though they can be sabotaged in the open position. All right fine, OP please change your title to…

Finally a useful comment. Thank you :D

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

#345

Post by bayeslaw » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #247

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 ab…

Hey thanks for reading and for leaving a considered comment. You might be right, we'll see. In my mind, GDP growing isn't really that reassuring: 1/ GDP has been growing steadily while people's happiness and overall satisfaction is flat lined or finishing (so even if this was true it won't lead to better lives lived at scale) 2/ it's more interesting to look at the ratio of labour wages / GDP. I actually make a prediction about this and that has been shrinking already. If it continues (which I think it will) even if everything grows ppl will be unhappy and unsatisfied bc a large part of our self worth is coming from comparing ourselves w the ppl around us in the wider society. This is why more equal societies tend to be happier as well.

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

#346

Post by 9rx » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:37 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #342

9rx wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This doesn't make any sense. Apple has a pile of cash hasn't spent or invested = they have given away free product?

A debt never called is the same as giving something away for free, yes.

Technically they can still call the debt, but the question remains outstanding: What do you have that they would want in return? The answer is effectively nothing, and increasingly so.

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

#347

Post by bix6 » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:39 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.

You think regular Americans have the money to afford high deductible plans? One ER visit bankrupts people.

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

#348

Post by magneticnorth » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:41 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #169

> Most of the traits you were born with - intelligence ... Intelligence is considered genetic now? That's quite a bold claim.

Well, it's certainly inheritable from your parents (50%), and recent research suggests at least 20% of the 50% heritability is genetic, according to an article in Nature Reviews Genetics. [0]

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5985927/

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

#349

Post by ankaz » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

TGower wrote: post #233

throw4847285 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

With those past examples the majority of people thought "It's not my problem, I won't be affected", and they were mostly right. With an automation wave of the scale needed to get to effectively no jobs, that's just not the case. They will see that it is indeed coming for them, their friends, and family. They will act accordingly. Altruism not required, just self interest.

[dead]

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

#350

Post by IAmBroom » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

mft_ wrote: post #307

matthest wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living crisis is almost singularly caused by poor governance, not feudal tech lords. NIMBYism prevents new houses from being built, driving up the cost of housing. Healthcare is for-profit, yet not allowed to operate like a true competitive market, with heavy regulations restricting providers to a few that the government favors. Thus it's essentially an oligopoly, driving costs sky high.

The ‘cost of living crisis’ that most people refer to is about food, clothing, fuel, electricity, gas. Much of this is driven by feudal corporate lords, and their gouging business choices. Some is driven by geopolitics. Issues with the affordability of for-profit healthcare is mostly an issue in the US, as far as first-world countries go. And the root cause there is decades of allowing money and big business to direc…

The current pricing crises with food, fuel, electricity, and gas are currently being driven 100% by America's Caligula and his party of elected senatorial horses. And specifically his tariffs, but more generally his inability to comprehend anything beyond self-gratification.