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birb_cromble  1d ago (text post)   729 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread

Since a lot of us here have expressed interest in not starving to death in a gutter, I figured I'd start a weekly thread to discuss financial matters.

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  • Remember that we're all just Internet randos. Don't bet your life savings on a hot tip from this thread.
  • Keep culture war in the culture war thread. Yes, global events may impact our personal finances, but that does not mean we have to incessantly harp on culture war aspects here. If you are going to discuss it, please stick to the practical impacts of it on an individual level.
  • Be kind. Remember that everyone here comes from different circumstances. We all have different resources available and different risk tolerances.
  • Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Better is better. Celebrate people when they take a step up and work to move their finances in the right direction. Don't flame out because they haven't followed what you consider the optimal path. Everybody has to start somewhere.
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What do you think the chances are that we are currently in a large (AI related or not AI related) bubble that will pop?

The last few tech-related meta cycles have both changed everything and not consistently boomed or busted from a stock price perspective. Personal computing in the '80s took over everything, but even Apple's stock has been up and down and looked like a loser before Jobs returned. The Internet around 2000 looked like it would change everything --- and it did --- but my pets.com shares were a bad idea.

I'd bet AI is similar, and picking a specific single winner is improbable. Weak predictions: local models can do most of what people want; big models don't scale much past human abilities, but enough to be game-changing; AI doesn't think truly creatively well enough to replace human cultural achievements, but it's consensus-centering output may be a pragmatic counterbalance to rage-seeking social media algorithms.

I'd bet AI is similar, and picking a specific single winner is improbable

Wasn't that kind of the issue with early railroads? They wound up being transformative, but a great many of the early companies and frontrunners didn't do well?

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