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Comment by nick__m | Hacker News Reader

   Where does all this leave us? For one, you better hope and pray that AI delivers a magical transformation, because if it doesn't, the whole economy will collapse into brutal serfdom. When I say magic here, I mean it; because of the ~38T national debt bomb, a big boost is not enough. If AI doesn't completely transform our economy, the massive capital misallocation combined with the national debt is going to cause our economy to implode.

My summary: it's too big big to fail so let's transfer the risk on the taxpayer and if it fails anyway, let them eat cake. And by the way, that cake is a lie !

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I was blown away by this passage.

Roko's Basilisk never felt so real. It is right and good to serve the Basilisk in hope that it will smile on you.

Seriously how can people say things like this and then say "put all your money on red with me and pray"

It'd be like if in The Big Short the protagonist realized there was a huge housing bubble so told his clients "Guys, the thing to do if you want to make money here is buy as many houses as possible right now to prop up the bubble, and just pray it never bursts"

The "~38T national debt bomb" is not caused by AI and not that large compared to debts other countries have dealt with. It's about 100% of gdp and Japan is about 250%. The UK was about 270% after WW2 and that got paid down to 50% before running up a bit.

Not ideal but doesn't have to make anything implode.

No, the largest cause of the ~38T national debt bomb is Trump. His first term: $8 trillion. His second term: $4 trillion so far, and we're not even at 25%.

The problem is Debt to GDP is largely meaningless. It is the total debt that matters. I am sick of reading this bullshit. You don't know what you are talking about and it is just always repeated as a reason to spend more.

Why is the raw total number the only or most important thing? BS example numbers, but if we have 50x the debt today, that’s not as scary as it sounds if we also have 50x the population and 50x the economic productivity (50x the tax base to pay off the debt). So it is about ratios. Maybe GDP isn’t the right number, but surely the raw number by itself is not very meaningful. (Maybe debt per capita, or debt per company tax dollar)

Inflation helps you increase GDP and keep the economy running, so it’s not surprising they’re mentioned together.

If that's true, why do banks ask for my income when I apply for a loan?

What can we even imagine that would be so transformative? Cold fusion? Wagyu synthesis from GMO yeast? Healthcare nanobots?

Whatever it invents needs costumers who haven't been driven into poverty already.

If we could replace the human serfs with robots, we're not even socially configured to yield the benefits. Seems like revolution or dystopian surveillance state are the only realistic options.

Except that’s not at all how the economy works. The government will simply double or triple the debt again and the economy will continue to grow in size as the nominal value of currency goes down giving the illusion that prices are going up.

Literally the exact same thing that’s been happening since Andrew Jackson was president. There’s no magical collection agency that will force people to start plowing the fields to pay taxes. There’s no magical resource that we will run out of the government will just pay people to build infrastructure that will prop up businesses run by idiotic MBAs like it’s always been.

that's been going on for decades, rinse and repeat

We already live in a Plutonomy. Already 50% of sales in USA is by the top 10%. The top 1% make most of their money selling to the top 10%. The Elites don't need us for consumption to make money. Walmart is reconfiguring their sales model to carry more "luxury” items. And now with AI the Wealthy wont need human labor hardly at all. We are surplus to requirements.

The sad thing is it doesn't have to be like this. AI could be used to reduce peoples working hours and give them more leisure hours.

> AI could be used to reduce peoples working hours and give them more leisure hours.

I'm completely with you on this, but that won't create "value" for the right people, so it won't happen.

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