I suspect most posters here are relatively highly educated. But things can change (e.g. AI) and getting across the ‘finish line’ before then is also (at least for me) part of the FIRE motivation.
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I agree. Society underestimate the impact AI will have and especially the speed it will hit us all. I consider myself lucky. Worked in IT until recently. Saw and profited from the raise of the internet, made good money with y2k. Pulled the plug now at 55. Seeking now a slightly downsized and less digital environment for my next life phase. Interesting times!
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The question I have is: if many become irrelevant then who’ll be doing the spending? One potential answer is “oligarchs/feudal lords don’t really care”. I don’t think I agree.
But yes, certainly, saving and investing for me started because I don’t believe that I’ll get a pension, certainly not a big one unless I work myself until I am with foot in the grave - and by that time, does life matter much anymore? Now it’s expanded to save what’s possible to save before the inevitable need to reinvent myself because AI took my job. I feel that in my field (healthcare/pharma consulting) this is still some years out, I don’t even see it yet in medical writers, or other commoditized type of work, who you’d imagine would be high up on the list of being bumped off, so I doubt it’ll get to strategic consulting so soon.
Well “value creation” will still happen somewhere/somehow and it will be taxed. So I believe that we inevitably will see a “universal basic income” to keeps the folks quiet and happy. I don’t know your age but I would not worry too much about your pension. I just see a hard and hurting transition phase.
I think the equation is different if we consider irrelevancy The purpose is no more FIRE but building generational wealth that will support our children, grandchildren and so on. It’s in a whole other ballpark (but may be built over generations too - I don’t buy the "AI will replace everybody in the next 10 years talking point, it feels like marketing giving what AI is actually able to do, for me).
So the base premise doesn’t change: live below your means, save, invest but if the fear is irrelevancy, the decision to FIRE is a very different one, and one might be more likelky to elect not to FIRE but to build more wealth while they still can instead.
Of course, being an employee will only carry us so far (outside of specific industries and executive positions) so building a business can become of higher import.
I feel we’re not yet in the Wild West time of AI, it’s moving very fast but not on a systemic level, it’s still building, learning, gathering steam.
I anticipate the Wild West to start in about 5 years from now, then it’ll be painful indeed and the pain will last for several years before a new equilibrium is reached. I believe people like me, knowledge workers aged 40-50 TODAY, are FUCKED.
I think and hope that kids born between 2015-2035 will duck out of the worse Wild West stage and emerge in the market when the new normal is established.
Universal basic income is an idea, not sure how it’ll work though. I imagine massive state subsidies are better, ie the state(s) making things a lot cheaper rather than just giving people money, better economies of scale, much better control. So instead of universal basic income → “universal life package”! Hello communism!
I was talking about that to my best friend a month or so ago, he’s a Marxist, said “see, Marx was right!”. I am about as far from communism as one can get.
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That is my concern as well.
At the start if AI it felt (similar to internet 25 years earlier) that near term impact was overestimated, long term impact underestimated.
i still believe that, but… with the internet there was much more of a feeling of new possibilities whereas with AI i genuinely have a concern over its impact in terms of eradication of many types of work combined with extreme concentration of wealth and what instability this may trigger in society.
Time will tell.
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Totally agree with you.
Incidentally in either communism OR extreme oligarchy, the one segment that’s still better off than the masses are those who are the executive arm of the power: police and military. Exactly to control the massive instability. Dystopian as fuck.
One note here. What many people don’t get (especially when discussing with friends voting right) is that one can change the name of the system but the universal basic income is already (almost) implemented. It is named RAV/welfare. It still has a negative connotation but with the time society will accept it and not judge neighbors (a very Swiss trait) using it.
This could also become a tool to suppress people: no taxation without representation is after all a lever governments (eg in middle east) use effectively to keep the population quiet (ie you have no basis to complain about how we govern because you get xyz for free and dont pay taxes).
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Yes, and it really is irrespective of political system.
Whether travelling through North Korea, Iran, Cameroon, or Switzerland… I’ve always seen the elite travelling in expensive black Mercedes Benz’s.
Whether the end point is them controlling things in the end, is open for debate. The end point could also be:
or
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I think you’re all being too negative. I am yet to see a single person get fired because of AI (and no economic layoffs spun as AI related don’t count).
Weren’t the hypers saying 50% of white collar jobs will be gone by now?
sure, in 10 years we will look back and there will have beeen massive change, but most of us will be fire by then, right? 
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Scrap that maybe 15 or 20? I mean I personally have the feeling there will be absolutely zero change in the next 5 years…
Plenty of other risks before then
- China ready to strangle Taiwan by 2027 (it’s personal for Xi Jinping given his family history; by the way, not my assessment but US gov working assumption for years)
- German inspector of the army stating today russia will be ready by 2029 to attack a NATO country
- And the list goes on and on
80 years of stability in europe is historically abnormally long
It will be slow until it is quick
Another way of looking at it is that if the truly dystopian scenarios play out it’s going to mean a massive transfer from labor to capital and last time I checked we’re all stuffing VT under our mattresses.
there are a lot of people who stand to have a much rougher time than us
That doesn’t make me feel better plus if that is extreme enough it will trigger social instability which can lead to further risks.
Something something EEC, EU etc
I think in the innerschweiz we will be fine 
Things do change slower here than the rest of the world and i like that
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