Proof that rich people ain't the smarter
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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I reckon that, on average, they're stupider.
Having enough money means that mistakes have lower consequences. Which leads to having fewer opportunities to learn an important lesson.
E.g. caused an accident by driving unsafely. Poor: can't afford insurance, can't pay, lose car, lose job. Rich: uses other car. End result: rich person doesn't learn to drive safely.
Related. I had a rich older lady rear-end me once in her Mercedes coupe. Low speed in traffic moving through an intersection - but enough damage that I could see insurance would have to get involved. Cars in front of me are gridlocked, I get out and ask her if she's ok.
She says, "why did you stop?!". I'm a sarcastic bitch so I said - "see those cars in front of me? I can't drive through them." Her: "you hit my car!". Me: "uhhhhh (brain loading).. I was stationary, and in front of you. How can i have hit you?". Her: .. Me: "Look, the damage isn't bad, it's no big deal - insurance can sort it out. Accidents happen."
Her in her most patronising private school accent she could muster, "I don't have accidents".
Gotta admit that one threw me. I'd never heard that level of privilege, simply defying reality. We pulled aside when traffic started moving and she called her husband and handed the phone to me (I guess he's the fixer in the relationship).. he was more reasonable and we got details exchanged etc, but that conversation stuck with me.
She doesn't have accidents - all her collisions are on purpose.
There's a survivorship bias at work too. Getting rich requires taking big risks. Smart people will know that odds of success are very low, so likely not worth the payoff. Stupid people are more likely to go for it, the vast majority will fail, but we only really see the successes.
The fuck it involve risk. Getting truly rich, like being a owner class and living from earnings, takes as much skill and luck as winning the lottery.
Isn't that what I meant? Smart people are less likely to play the lottery because it probably won't provide a return. Buying regular lottery tickets hoping you'll eventually win is high risk.
They didn’t take a risk to get rich, most were just born rich. I think that’s what they meant by “got lucky.”
Yeah makes sense. I meant "get rich" more in the rags to riches sense, but could have been clearer.
Ya don't gotta think when you got money!
Money is wasted on the rich.
"I paid for AI to tell me to invest in AI. What could go wrong?"
Every step you take further from reality, ie surrounding yourself with yes men, the dumber you get. This i promise you.
"But I was told AI would never ask for a raise!"
It doesn't need to ask for a raise if it bankrupts you with the first bill.
Stop teasing me with hope :,)
We could try and spread it as "trust me bro this happened at my cousin's company". Maybe we can manage to scare the managers. If we write often enough that some company got bankrupted from a single ai-company bill these statistics-based-word-vomit-programs are bound to eventually regurgitate this story and then people will start to believe it.
'ai' won't. the greedy bastards you're renting time on it from will.
- Who told you that?
- Grok. Why?
A CEO wouldn't... Nay couldn't possibly mislead another CEO just for profits sake... Right?
We should replace execs for free with a polished pebble. Everybody loves pebbles, even otters!
Pebbles? In this economy?
They can still be found in nature. If you're quick, you can get one before the rush starts.
Oh no! An exec may not get their bonus package?!
Now now, let's not be too hasty. They can probably make up for the cost by just doing some more layoffs. Or, in the worst case, getting a taxpayer bailout. No need to go around putting the sacred executive bonuses on the line.
Oh they will, after they’ve ”successfully reduced spending” by firing the remainder of the staff. And then they’ll ”retire” (get booted) with a huge severance package.
Futurism's writing isn't always spot on.
But their headlines are usually pretty good. This one's a banger.
Given what Facebook and Google did, it might be that the believed their own hype a bit too much.
You love to see it.
"The consequences of my actions?!"
It's possible if the problem has a narrow solution space that's well defined, something like alpha fold but otherwise it's not yet currently possible to sufficiently replace workers, we don't actually have AGI yet, much less AGI that costs less than a flesh and blood employee.
No, that's just plain wrong. Alphafold is not an llm, it is not replacing any jobs. Nobody's job was folding proteins in every conceivable way. Without a doubt in my mind, alphafold is creating additional lines of research, which means more researchers, more grants, more papers to write. Nothing like that is happening with generative ai, and the continued insistence from ai bros that talking to a chatbot should also count as science is driving me up a wall.
Never claimed it was and LLM. People's job was through multiple means trying to discover the shape of proteins. There are a lot of ways to apply NN to take over labor people were doing before. Particularly with general purpose robotics but many other nonphysical tasks can similarly be automated, like searching a solution space.
The conflation of neural networks and large language models is the most common way I see people claim talking to chatbots as science. You know damn well what 'ai' means in this context: the article is about chatbots, not NN in general, certainly not robotics.
People's job was through multiple means trying to discover the shape of proteins
Oh, and they were replaced? The neural network publishes papers now? That's ridiculous. It's a tool that unlocks new science, no researcher is throwing up their hands like 'oh, whelp, guess alphafold is the future, no need for me anymore!'
Gish gallop response, just as I expected.
When will these lying dumbshits learn that all the other C-suits are lying dumbshits too?
Ah but you see, they're not AS smart as me. Because I'm above average. /S