Jeff Bezos isn't worried about the AI bubble: "the good ideas will pay for all of the losers"

[Endymio]

Earth's resources are finite and the population grows.

Oh god, not this "overpopulation growth" nonsense again?

To your second point, earth's resources are in theory finite, but we've used only a vanishingly small infinitesimal portion of them. Take aluminum, for instance. We've mined only about 1.7B tons of it in the last 150 years, and there's at least 2,400,000,000,000,000,000 tons remaining -- we've used less than a millionth of 1%. Water? There's exactly 100% as much today as there was a century ago. Wood? That's infinitely renewable. Oil and gas? That can be synthesized from scratch, using nothing but nuclear power, water, and CO2. And -- thanks to Musk's SpaceX -- we don't have to count "the earth" as the sum total of our resources. Soon we'll have access to much of the solar system.

Again: if resources were finite, GDP would not expand every year as it does. Musk and Bezos didn't get rich by taking pie from others; they made their own.

South Africa is better off than the rest of the continent, yes, but the point is the gross disparity, the lack of balance, the highs and the lows.

Oops! You've missed the point. The Gini Index rates South Africa far *lower* than most of the rest of the continent, despite the fact that living conditions there -- even and especially for the poor -- are much better. You've just admitted my point for me.

 

[toooooot]

Amazon, can't even deliver items on time anymore. And, they hire a bunch of foreigners, who have no clue about what they're doing. I only use them if I have to.

Their temptation to use cheap labor for deliveries will grow with their wealth. Eventually, most of their job will be filled by people lacking legal status, or those on visa who come to work high salary jobs because there are no people to fill those positions locally.

 

[GeoffreyA]

To your second point, earth's resources are in theory finite, but we've used only a vanishingly small infinitesimal portion of them. Take aluminum, for instance. We've mined only about 1.7B tons of it in the last 150 years, and there's at least 2,400,000,000,000,000,000 tons remaining -- we've used less than a millionth of 1%. Water? There's exactly 100% as much today as there was a century ago. Wood? That's infinitely renewable. Oil and gas? That can be synthesized from scratch, using nothing but nuclear power, water, and CO2. And -- thanks to Musk's SpaceX -- we don't have to count "the earth" as the sum total of our resources. Soon we'll have access to much of the solar system.

Again: if resources were finite, GDP would not expand every year as it does. Musk and Bezos didn't get rich by taking pie from others; they made their own.

Even if there is more to be dug out of the Earth, renewed, or recycled, at any time it is limited, and those limited resources have to be used by all. Land too, importantly. The proxy of money is limited, holding this system up. So, the bottom line is, Earth is like an OS running 8 billion programs, a handful of which, through guile or industry, are holding the majority of memory and CPU time. In more pictorial terms, the Earth is a playground for the rich, and the rest are tolerated or exploited, clutching the crumbs that fall from the masters' tables.

Oops! You've missed the point. The Gini Index rates South Africa far *lower* than most of the rest of the continent, despite the fact that living conditions there -- even and especially for the poor -- are much better. You've just admitted my point for me.

Gini rates relative income inequality within a country, not living conditions or poverty itself. One can be a "rich" country and have a somewhat high index, such as America. Things have improved for the poor since the end of apartheid in 1994, but the disparity between what the majority earn, a pittance often under 300 USD, and the few is huge, and this shows up, indirectly, in the difference of life: the living conditions, transport, healthcare, etc. It cuts other ways, such as the grants given to senior citizens, about 150 USD. There's also high unemployment. The cherry on top is the skyrocketing cost of living.

 

[Endymio]

Even if there is more to be dug out of the Earth, renewed, or recycled, at any time it is limited

A monumentally fatuous take: like claiming a man inside a stocked supermarket is in danger of starving to death, because at that moment in time, the amount of food energy in his body is limited.

...and those limited resources have to be used by all. Land too, importantly.

Not even land is limited. Some of the wealthiest people are those who 'expanded' the size of a plot of land 100-fold, by building a 100-story structure upon it. Farmland? We feed 350 million today on much less land than we fed 100 million in 1900. There's no shortage of land on earth: most of the planet is entirely empty.

Nor are we limited to earth. SpaceX's trillion-dollar value comes from the "land" in orbit, and many of the future's datacenters will be in orbit, not here on the ground.

Gini rates relative income inequality within a country

If those sub-Saharan nations with high Gini indexes transformed to a more capitalist economy, their Gini indexes would plummet, despite that the standards of living of everyone in the country -- even and especially the poor -- would skyrocket upwards. The philosophy behind the Gini Index isn't simply juvenile: it's based on envy and hatred, and is backwards, barbaric, and responsible for more human misery than anything else on earth.

 

[GeoffreyA]

A monumentally fatuous take: like claiming a man inside a stocked supermarket is in danger of starving to death, because at that moment in time, the amount of food energy in his body is limited.

You proved my point. Figuratively speaking, if he were locked up in that supermarket for a couple of months, had no money, and the people were inhuman not to give him food, he would starve. Money is the gate that shuts many out of society: shelter, abundant food, peace of mind.

Not even land is limited. Some of the wealthiest people are those who 'expanded' the size of a plot of land 100-fold, by building a 100-story structure upon it. Farmland? We feed 350 million today on much less land than we fed 100 million in 1900. There's no shortage of land on earth: most of the planet is entirely empty.

Nor are we limited to earth. SpaceX's trillion-dollar value comes from the "land" in orbit, and many of the future's datacenters will be in orbit, not here on the ground.

Certainly, there's a lot of land of Earth. But if I had no shelter, can I just go and build a cabin somewhere without the police knocking on my door or bringing a bulldozer?

If those sub-Saharan nations with high Gini indexes transformed to a more capitalist economy, their Gini indexes would plummet, despite that the standards of living of everyone in the country -- even and especially the poor -- would skyrocket upwards. The philosophy behind the Gini Index isn't simply juvenile: it's based on envy and hatred, and is backwards, barbaric, and responsible for more human misery than anything else on earth.

No doubt, Africa is in bad shape thanks to centuries of outside pillaging, colonialism, and control, leading to dictatorships or fragile governments today, along with neocolonial tendencies that harm the continent further. Africa has much potential and can be the next economic powerhouse, like China and India today, if it can fix its problems. There needs to be unity, to use the EU as a model. Unfortunately, despite glimmers of hope here and there, the problems run deep. As for the Gini index, it's just a measure and isn't responsible for any human misery. Man does that to his fellows.

 

[Endymio]

You proved my point. Figuratively speaking, if he were locked up in that supermarket for a couple of months, had no money, and the people were inhuman not to give him food, he would starve. Money is the gate that shuts many out of society: shelter, abundant food, peace of mind.

Now you're just rattling off nonsense. No one in the US is "shut out" of food, and you've moved the goalposts from a mythical shortage of resources to now admitting the resources are available, but we refuse to give them away for free to those who refuse to work for them. And yes: the homeless refuse to work ... go offer that guy holding a cardboard sign on the street near your house a day's wages in exchange for coming to your place and moving furniture a few hours. See if he accepts.

Certainly, there's a lot of land of Earth. But if I had no shelter, can I just go and build a cabin somewhere

Again: by moving the goalposts, you've admitted the correctness of my point. There's plenty of land -- and all other resources -- on earth. You're just unhappy over who owns it.

No doubt, Africa is in bad shape thanks to centuries of outside pillaging, colonialism, and control,

Stop. Just stop that idiocy right there. Any student of history knows Africa was far worse before European control than after. And, as you've already admitted, the best nation in terms of standards of living is South Africa, the nation that endured "outside control" the longest.

As for the Gini index, it's just a measure and isn't responsible for any human misery.

The invidious philosophy behind that index is what's responsible for more human misery than anything else on earth: the idea that everyone being dirt-poor is a better society than one where everyone is affluent, but some much more affluent than others.

 

[BogdanR]

“Jeff Bezos isn't worried about the AI bubble”.
If I could afford to rent Venice, Italy for a day, I wouldn’t have much of a worry either.

 

[GeoffreyA]

Now you're just rattling off nonsense. No one in the US is "shut out" of food, and you've moved the goalposts from a mythical shortage of resources to now admitting the resources are available, but we refuse to give them away for free to those who refuse to work for them. And yes: the homeless refuse to work ... go offer that guy holding a cardboard sign on the street near your house a day's wages in exchange for coming to your place and moving furniture a few hours. See if he accepts.

"Figuratively speaking," a thought experiment, not an actuality of being shut out of food. I stand by all my arguments and maintain that resources are finite, limited, and not accessible to all. "Available" and "limited" are not mutually exclusive. Yes, some refuse to work; others would. Most work but struggle to pay bills. Life isn't rosy for the majority.

Again: by moving the goalposts, you've admitted the correctness of my point. There's plenty of land -- and all other resources -- on earth. You're just unhappy over who owns it.

It goes back to my point and I'll say it for the third time: Earth is like an OS running 8 billion programs, a couple of which are hogging those resources, leaving crumbs of RAM and CPU slices for the rest. Not to mention storage, one might add.

Stop. Just stop that idiocy right there. Any student of history knows Africa was far worse before European control than after. And, as you've already admitted, the best nation in terms of standards of living is South Africa, the nation that endured "outside control" the longest.

If you want to defend colonialism and imperialism, and all the evils it brought about, there's no use debating. Our views are fundamentally opposed, and our persisting in this is futile and will only lead to stress. Let's call it quits in peace, friend. Enjoy your Friday evening, and I'll enjoy mine.

 

[Gravitytr1]

It should be equality of opportunity, since one person will work more than another or possess greater skill or natural gifts. In practice, though, the few have gamed the system to the detriment of the many. Taken in an abstract sense, a farm labourer might have done vastly more work than a tech CEO, but the remuneration is out of all proportion.


I am not espousing stealing from the rich, nor redistribution of wealth, which, in practice, often boils down to stealing from the Former High to make the New High, the Common Folk's plight rarely changing.

It's instructive to think of Earth as an OS with finite resources running 8 billion programs. There's a small class of applications who, honest or not, have secured a majority of the computer's memory and CPU time, causing billions of others to run poorly. Unfortunately, rebooting Earth or updating the kernel isn't possible, and I don't know what the solution is, neither capitalism nor communism as we know them in practice. I do like the idealistic, post-scarcity world of Star Trek and would go there tomorrow if it were possible. It should be noted that the Scandinavian model has led to some of the happiest people.


Gini isn't perfect, like most measures, but has a lot of truth. Take South Africa, which has the dubious honour of the highest Gini index. Yet, it is accurate. The country still deals with massive inequality springing from the legacy of apartheid and poor governance today. In sunny Cape Town, "the best city in the world," tourism paints it as a masterpiece to visit, and certainly it is, if one is going to Table Mountain, Camps Bay, the Waterfront, and all those shiny places. But, take a drive across the city, or better yet, take the train, and the true face of Cape Town reveals itself through the windows: rampant poverty, and townships with shacks a stone's-throw away from top-class areas. Those coming from the airport see it best. After all, "this city works for you."

Bro you're replying to someone whose intentionally contrarian and posts for the sake of argumentation. Look at it's history.

 

[Endymio]

I...maintain that resources are finite, limited, and not accessible to all

And yet the data as given above proves we've used only a tiny trillionth of a percent of most earth-bound resources, and are now just starting to explore the vastly larger pool of space-based resources. And these *are* accessible to all ... but you do have to work for them.

If you want to defend colonialism and imperialism, and all the evils it brought about....

You have an extraordinarily slanted view of history, albeit one that's become trendy in recent years. Colonialism wasn't perfect by any means, but it was vastly to be preferred than the pattern of genocide and rapine that preceded it, one that dominated for thousands of years: conquer a neighbor, then kill all the men and older boys, enslave the women and youngest children, and wipe even the memory of them from the map forever.

Bro you're replying to someone whose intentionally contrarian and posts for the sake of argumentation. Look at it's history.

It does, however, understand the distinction between "its" and "it's".

 

[Gravitytr1]

And yet the data as given above proves we've used only a tiny trillionth of a percent of most earth-bound resources, and are now just starting to explore the vastly larger pool of space-based resources. And these *are* accessible to all ... but you do have to work for them.


You have an extraordinarily slanted view of history, albeit one that's become trendy in recent years. Colonialism wasn't perfect by any means, but it was vastly to be preferred than the pattern of genocide and rapine that preceded it, one that dominated for thousands of years: conquer a neighbor, then kill all the men and older boys, enslave the women and youngest children, and wipe even the memory of them from the map forever.


It does, however, understand the distinction between "its" and "it's".

Google the concept of typo and the mass phenomenon of typing of phones.

Nice try though

 

[Liljonny11]

I giggle when people talk about the AI bubble. They haven’t seen anything yet. Demand will only grow. Let’s talk again in a few years, when you’re still talking about the bubble that still hasn’t become reality.

Demand is already dropping, AI companies are falling apart left and right because people spent the last two decades making software reliable and someone realized they could sell generative and hallucinating AI as capable of engineering. Except it's nowhere near as reliable and to make it more reliable they need to use more resources, driving up costs to the point that it's cheaper to just pay people.