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Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

> As a bystander directly immune to the fortunes of AI going up or down

Sorry to break it to you but you are neither immune nor a bystander to the fortunes of AI going down. You are part of it all whether you like it or not.

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You're not breaking anything to me. I deliberately phrased it as "directly immune" because I have no financial stake in AI-related companies. Obviously a debt-bomb of any type imploding reverberates across the economy.

If you have a 401k, you likely have AI investments.

so 35% of americans are affected :)

59% of US adults.

The entire economy collapsing would likely heavily affect you even if you have no financial stake in AI-related companies similarly to how subprime mortgage crisis in the 2000s affected even people without mortgages.

In fact, the subprime mortgage crisis impacted the average Joe much more than the fuckers responsible for it, who ran away scot-free with fat money bags.

The financial crash that will happen as the result of the AI speculation bubble popping will be the exact same. You won't see Altman or Dario on the streets, that's for sure.

> I have no financial stake in AI-related companies

so zero exposure to any popular index? Even “ex-US” is tsmc and sk-hynix in a trenchcoat. I think it was BHP exclaiming that theyre an AI play because they cover 85% of the raw materials in DC build outs.

In the current mania “no financial stake in AI-related” is a very bold claim.

You can just not have investments, which is more common than you think. Being young, lots of people I know don't even have enough of a cushion to invest, and others want to avoid all risk (especially in the current market) and park their money in a high-interest savings account.

Of course, this doesn't insulate you from second- or third-order effects, but it does remove the possibility of your money being immediately wiped out. It's really not as bold or crazy as you say it is.

If you work, you inevitably have some investments occurring. But every working adult is invested in the stock market.

If you are young, impact is less scary because you still have 20, 30 or 40 years for the market to go back up.

If you're talking about employer retirement savings, even then not everyone has them, and the young people who do will only have an insignificant amount of assets invested into them due to not having had time to accumulate wealth.

> every working adult is invested in the stock market

Are you aware of the existence of other countries which do not operate like the US? (no mandatory pension fund, etc.)

As long as you participate in the economy, a recession will get you. Even if you’re poor, homeless and unemployed, people’s generosity towards you in a recession goes down.

I know, that's what the second paragraph of my comment says.

My point wasn't that I am a hunter gatherer, it's that I didn't have a vested financial motivation to cheer for or be against AI

you can 100% and totally be immune to it

Which type of person is immune to it and where do they live?

I guess if you're older, retired, sufficiently wealthy and have few needs (house paid off, lots of savings, don't care too much about acquiring new tech) then you can easily not be affected.

"sufficiently wealthy" is quite a term -- doin a lot of heavy lifting there.

there are a lot of older folks leaning on 401ks and IRAs that are heavy in big indexes and I suspect many of them may end up eating cat food to get by if/when the bottom drops out.

Homeless people who live in the sewers. But first, you have to learn karate.

Just don't be invested in AI stocks, heavily leveraged in the stock market and about to retire, or work at a place built on such?

those dudes on the sentinal islands. they never felt the AI explosion and won't feel the hit when it goes down.

the rest of us will, though. I for one am looking forward to cheaper graphics cards, which I'll use to play video games after givin out handies behind the wendys

How do I get zero direct and indirect stock market exposure, no electricity price impact, no RAM or GPU price impact, etc?

I'd love to live in a world where AI firms bidding these things up doesn't affect me but I'm really struggling to understand how they aren't impacting the market.

be poor (minus electricity, I guess)

If I'm poor I'm still indirectly exposed through the stock market. Employers stock goes down I get fired. Employer has better robotics because of AI? I get fired. Datacenter wants to get built where land is cheap? I get evicted.

Just because I'm too poor to own stocks doesn't mean stock prices don't affect me. That's indirect exposure not direct exposure.

I started buying stocks by investing $5 fractional shares each week.

You're never too poor to own stock.

You don’t like computers? Because these corporations are pushing up computer prices, for the rich and poor alike.

I have a computer, don’t need a new one

Sorry, who do you think is going to pay for the bailout? The rich? Don't make me laugh

People who are poor still have to participate in the economy. When you have a trillion dollar bet not pan out, somehow your minimum wage job no matter what it is, will be impacted because that’s what a recession does.

Silly person didn't you see that film with Ashton Kutcher?

life is too short to watch ashton kutcher movies

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