when you realize if your parents had just been 5 years early
you'd be entering the job market in 2021
the golden age of programming
google would hire you for making a snake game in python
Ok listen AI is the now, it’s the biggest technical change in our lifetimes, it’s reshaping society.
But seriously why are there no good new consumer products/apps, and why have existing ones not added any features (that aren’t just copying competitors).
At this point it’s becoming very very weird.
i regret to inform you that personal growth rarely comes from acquiring new knowledge and almost always from:
- getting humiliated
- showing up terrified and doing it anyway
- admitting you might be the problem
I actually also think it’s the local top for SG but not as hopeless as everyone is.
- 6 decades ago sinkies were basically labourers
- 5 decades ago sinkies were trained to read and write English
- 4 decades ago sinkies were trained for Petrochemicals and manufacturing
- 3 decades ago it was engineering and stem
- 2 decades ago it was banking and financial services
- only recently as early as a decade ago we pivoted to software cloud and cybersecurity.
Think people underestimate the ability of Singapore to pivot when in times of distress.
Also our UBI system is basically set up (GST voucher payouts + singpass), our tax haven system is pretty robust. With the instability in the Middle East we’ll be expecting more to move here.
Finance is 15% of gdp, manufacturing is ~20-25%. Semiconductor chip design contributes as much to gdp as Tourism (~4%). We’re securing data centres via JB-SG special economic zone. Probably already moving into nuclear SMRs.
Gov has shown ability to think longer term and Sinkies have shown ability to adapt pretty quickly. The onus is on other nations to prove that they can outperform Singapore imo.
ELI5 (super short):
AI gets so good that companies fire lots of high-paid workers and replace them with cheap AI.
Fired workers spend less money → businesses make less → they use even more AI → more jobs disappear.
Stock market, loans, mortgages, and banks start breaking because they all assumed people would keep earning high salaries.
So even though AI makes the economy “more productive,” it crashes the human economy.
Big idea:
If intelligence becomes cheap and unlimited, human jobs lose value — and our entire financial system was built on humans earning money.