#155 – Wealthy Hobbies & AI Brain Rot

Good morning everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week!

Here are 5 things I found interesting over the past few days.

Let’s jump in.

read online on my website

read time 3 minutes

#155 – The Rundown:

• Quote: Keep looking upward.

• Podcast: Mark Bouris x Chris Joye.

• Article: Why AI is coming for your mind (not your job).

• Observation: The 10 most ‘useful’ hobbies in wealthy circles.

• X: The real manufacturing boom.

Quote:

{h/t James Clear}

Podcast:

Straight Talk with Mark Bouris: Chris Joye

Chris Joye – CIO and senior portfolio manager at Coolabah Capital Investments, economist, and weekly Australian Financial Review columnist – is arguably one of the most thoughtful voices in Australia’s financial landscape.

This episode is essential listening for anyone looking to obtain a clear picture of Australia’s economic reality.

Chris’ diagnosis of the dual cause of Australia’s inflationary environment was particularly insightful, and yet (somehow) contrarian: exceedingly high government spending and record-levels of immigration.

I personally took lots away from this conversation and have been reflecting heavily on the ramifications of some of the topics discussed since.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

[Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes]

P.S. I made a Spotify playlist with every podcast I’ve ever recommended. Hope they bring you as much value as they’ve brought me.

Article:

AI isn’t coming for your job. It’s coming for your mind by Tom Slater

A thought-provoking write-up from Tom Slater of UK investment manager Baillie Gifford on the cognitive impacts of extensive AI usage.

Some genuinely interesting insights on how an overreliance on AI can weaken our knowledge retention and understanding.

These were my biggest takeaways:

1) We’re trading deep thinking for quick answers without realising the cost to memory and judgment.

2) The people who (intellectually) thrive won’t be those who use AI most, but those who can still think without it.

3) The cognitive decline that is associated with AI usage has nothing to do with how much people use AI, but in how they use it.

4) AI is redirecting cognitive circuits away from deep processing, memory consolidation and effortful reasoning, and towards a new suite of cognitive skills: delegation, verification and interface management. These are forms of managing intelligence rather than performing it directly, a kind of cognitive orchestration that, for the majority of people, has no real precedent in pre-AI work.

5) Verification without prior mastery risks becoming a superficial check rather than genuine evaluation.

6) The central paradox is this: AI reliably improves immediate task performance while degrading the underlying human capabilities that produce that performance. You get better results today, but become less capable tomorrow.

7) Every role that AI absorbs is one that a junior employee would once have learned by doing. The efficiency gain and the training loss are the same decision, viewed from different angles. This creates a widening gap not just between companies but within them, between a shrinking cadre of AI-fluent senior professionals and a growing population of graduates who cannot get a foot on the ladder that those seniors once climbed.

You can check out the article here.

{h/t Jack Raines}

Observation:

The 10 Most ‘Useful’ Hobbies In Wealthy Circles

Many people long for access to wealthy circles and networks.

The allure of reaching a higher status in which money, experiences and opportunities are seemingly limitless has long represented an oasis for much of society’s lower and middle classes throughout history.

But let’s say you ‘do the thing’ and get the ‘access’ you were looking for…

Now what?

Once you’re actually ‘there’ (whatever and wherever ‘there’ is), what do you talk about? What’s the value you can contribute? What are the hobbies that you can bond over with your fellow socialites?

I came across a fascinating thread on Reddit in response to this exact topic:

What skills/hobbies actually feel “upper class” or useful in wealthy circles?

These were the top 10 most common answers, weighted by upvotes and mentions:

1) Entrepreneurship/business

2) Golf

3) Sailing

4) Extensive travel

5) Scuba/technical diving

6) Hunting/shooting

7) Wine collecting/tasting

8) Tennis

9) Aviation/private flying

10) Horse riding/equestrian

Although this is most certainly a list of the top 10 past times that people (most likely not privy to said circles themselves) would expect to carry weight in these settings, it is still quite fascinating to me.

That perhaps explains why the responses, although plausibly accurate, are broadly a representation of what we see in movies and TV shows…

Nevertheless, I’m curious – which ones would you add/replace?

{h/t Mr Family Office}

X:

The Real Manufacturing Boom

{h/t Trader Ferg}

Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡

In case you missed it, last week’s newsletter covered the incredible story behind Ferrari, intelligence vs wisdom, family offices, if the UK were a US state & more.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, it would mean the world if you could forward it to a friend or send them my website.

This goes a long way to helping me reach more people :)

See you in the next one,

Dimi

P.S. the best ways to get in touch with me are via email or LinkedIn.