Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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Indeed. If you destroy housing costs [1], medical costs with single payer [2], and energy costs with renewables [3], that gets you to Abundance everyone so desperately opines about. But too much of the country is driven by the inefficiency (rent seeking, broadly speaking), that is the US system and the economy. That is all the country builds anymore. We collectively know what the foundational problems are, there is simply no political will to course correct. Increased supply will disempower the extraction system. AI replaces jobs people need to survive, but does not fix anything I've enumerated; in some cases, it even makes the problem worse (algorithmic price fixing [RealPage] and price discrimination [Instacart], for example).

I would like to imagine a world with enough housing for every human, affordable, accessible medical care for all, and cheap clean energy deployed at scale. When is AI going to deliver that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43119657 (housing cost citations)

[2] Health Care Costs and Affordability - https://www.kff.org/health-costs/health-policy-101-health-ca... - October 8th, 2025

[3] U.S. electricity prices continue steady increase - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65284 - May 14th, 2025

What would people spend that excess on if they had it? Adam Smith observed that most people spent it in nicer houses. While I think there is a limit I think for most we would turn around an spend that extra on a nicer house and return to living paycheck to paycheck hoping we have enough to make the end of the month after paying for it. Nicer cars would likely take a good portion of the difference as well.

> What would people spend that excess on if they had it?

Humans do not exist to be extracted from for their basic needs imho, which is how the current system is configured, so this is not an excuse to keep extraction systems in place. Give humans a 4 day work week if the argument is "what else would you spend this money on?" with the excess. Humans do not exist for the profits of others, again, imho. I understand others have different opinions on this topic.

https://4dayweek.com/ | https://workfour.org/ | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

It might even help with the cratering fertility rate across the developed world.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/fertility-roundup-5-causation

"What if we put all of this effort in and all that happens is people live better lives!?" sounds...silly, no?

What you think others should do it not relevant. The question is what will they do.

If someone wants a 5 day work week and a larger house instead of a 4 day work week who are you to force them to do otherwise? It is perfectly possible to get a 2 or 3 day work week if you want - most jobs won't offer it, but the possibility exists if you are willing for the sacrifices - most are not (though it isn't clear if they even realize the option exist)

If most jobs won't offer it, that is a problem to fix. These are just arbitrary rules, after all (in the US, the official per week work hours codified in federal statute). They can be changed. It is not an option if most cannot obtain it, or it is not easy to obtain it. We have different mental models on the topic, that's all.

>Humans do not exist for the profits of others

They don't, but they voluntarily take the risk trade-off. If you are the profit of someone else, it also means you are the liability of someone else.

Working for someone else has become so prevalent and so much the norm, that people have completely lost sight of the downsides of working for yourself.

It's not at all surprising that people opt for steady paycheck over erractic income and full liability for their mistakes/short-comings (despite the allure of fully reaping the upside). I've seen dudes making $40k/yr destroy $500k of product and still get their paycheck the following week.

I don't understand POSIWID at all. "Purpose" is inherently good intention and moral judgement.

The main token in POSWID seems to apply to reasonably mature instances of S for which several passes have been taken through the build loop. Once someone has edited the thing, it is reasonable to assume that the outputs are the fruits of the intentions.

Oh, so it's more like "the purpose of a system emerges".

Yes.

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