Ask HN: Where Are We Headed?

6 pointsfindingMeaning5mo ago2 comments

To a developed world from the citizen of less developed country:

Where are we headed? This is a late night thought from where I live.

I saw a tweet earlier leading to: https://www.julian.ac/blog/2025/09/27/failing-to-understand-the-exponential-again/

Then from Scott: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9183

Then from Sohl-Dickstein: https://x.com/jaschasd/status/1972360405885637021

Seriously, to survive with high standard in low income country requires earning $2k/month. To save would require $4k/month.

With AI automating, the demands from low income country is service industry is most likely to be gone.

The unrest in SEA is in news everyday. This is a pattern emerging across different countries.

Immigration/Brain Drain to developed world exacerbated this condition.

I am genuinely interested in knowing where are we headed and what are we going to do?

What is the merit in being human?

What is the merit in all of this? Who is profiting? Humanity or the elites?

I am not considering jobs, or anything. Just wondering, what will the objective value of money be when this technology is realized in full effect.

2 comments

appreciatorBus5mo ago

Money is just a representation of value, and value exists in every socioeconomic system past, present or future, with or without money, with or without AI.

It’s plausible to imagine a perfectly egalitarian world where a robots do all the work to provide human needs. But human wants, and human social status seeking, are insatiable, so the idea that there will be no value in a world full of robots doesn’t hold water. 30 seconds after we are all equal, someone will do something different than someone else, and we will be off to the races, reinventing a status hierarchy, replete with higher and lower valued objects, tasks, behaviours etc.

pabs35mo ago

Money only has subjective value, its worthless to the people in Amazonian tribes.

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