Robots and the declining importance of non-human capital
A post about robots in the Financial Times Alpha Blog makes an interesting point that’s not directly related to robots:
Simply owning capital is not a ticket to long-term wealth.
I know that sounds crazy looking at the list of billionaires in the world. Aren’t they all capitalists of one sort of another? Here is the key, though. Being one of the first capitalists in a new industry or revolutionizing an existing industry can get you rich. But old money doesn’t pay like new money. The relentless march of commoditisation eventually drives profits to a pittance. In 1960 General Motors was the largest for-profit corporation in history and second only to Soviet State Industries as the largest economic concern of any form. But if you had bought GM stock in 1960 and held it until the company’s demise in 2008, your return — in the form of dividends — would have been less than the return from buying treasury bills.
This sounds like something right out of my blog! Last year, I wrote a post titled The declining importance of non-human capital. In that post I explained that you no longer get rich from owning stocks because “returns that should go to shareholders are instead gong to CEOs and other highly compensated employees, and to Wall Street types such as investment bankers and hedge fund managers.”
I explained that in the modern economy, in order to pass down your wealth to future generations you need to ensure they attend elite schools so that they can enter elite career tracks, and you should marry a spouse with high-IQ genes.
And that’s what rich people are actually doing these days. Despite talk on “game” blogs about the benfits of hot trophy wives, real-world rich people marry women from their own social class. Male doctors no longer marry nurses, they marry female doctors or women with other upper-middle-class careers.
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And on the topic of robots, iRobot (IRBT) is up another 7% today. Is it up because people are reading my blog? Or because it’s being hyped at the Motley Fool? Probably the latter, but maybe the Motley Fool people are reading my blog?
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During the past few weeks, I definitely feel like a lot of my ideas are suddenly being talked about. Yet I don’t get any credit for any of it. I should be widely acknowledged as a great futurist.
Lion of the Blogosphere 
Male doctors no longer marry nurses, they marry female doctors or women with other upper-middle-class careers.
I’ve had this exact discussion with my husband , who teaches surgery to medical students and would strongly agree with this statement. He states that the male medical students marry women with training in genetics, physiology or statistics. They also marry other doctors or physician assistants. Very rarely , they marry nurses.
anonymous
February 13, 2014 at 5:15 PM
I dated a nurse and she told me nurses don’t date doctors because they work with them all day and know what they’re like.
Mark G
February 13, 2014 at 5:39 PM
I dated a nurse and she told me nurses don’t date doctors because they work with them all day and know what they’re like.
Agree with this – don’t assume it’s just sour grapes, or that doctor-nurse avoidance is all one way. I’d eat poison before dating a chick doctor, because I know what they’re like.
Samson J.
February 13, 2014 at 7:36 PM
@Samson J
You’re a male nurse? And you’re wondering why female doctors don’t want to date you?
Sinai
February 13, 2014 at 8:19 PM
i was recently in the hospital – saw a bunch of nurses. the best ones were reasonably pleasant, but with a heavy dose of prole ways and attitudes. visible tatoos, low-class accents. big putoff for a well educated person. the rest i saw would never be considered a potential partner.
is this really an up-marriage phenomenon? or just bifurcation of society – lower class gets lower, upper class gets upper. maybe in times past, when proles aspired to hide their prole-ness, doctors could get with it.
whatever fantasy there is about nurses being attractive to doctors – must be watching some sitcom from the 1950s or something. a male doctor is a man with options, and i’m sure they would rather be celibate than mess with most of the nurses they encounter these days.
lion of the lionosphere
February 13, 2014 at 6:06 PM
I am an autistic, so I tend to be intellectually masculine, despite being a female.
Well, I could say do not find the intellectual company of IQ 105 women (or men) to be that stimulating. I wonder what is the mean IQ of (registered) nurses. 105 would just be a turn off for many, but 115 may seem acceptable.
Also, it makes me wonder what is more off putting, the mediocre IQ or the proleness?
Latias
February 13, 2014 at 6:43 PM
It may all depend on where you were. I admit that most nurses are too prole even for me, but it’s a weird profession in that it draws in an odd mixture of people and backgrounds, and outliers and exceptions to the rule aren’t too hard to find. Remember too that in many places (Everywhere? Not sure) there is a difference between Registered Nurse (4-year university degree) and Registered Practical Nurse (2 years or something), but if you didn’t know this you might think they are all just “nurses”.
Samson J.
February 13, 2014 at 7:34 PM
How many MDs really married nurses in days of yore vs. simply having their way with them on the weekends? H.L. Mencken suggested that the houses of the upper crust, at least in Baltimore, were filled with the former ranks of the brothels. I gather that phenomenon is completely over, except on the Real Housewives series.
Curle
February 13, 2014 at 10:17 PM
“I should be widely acknowledged as a great futurist.”
we love you man. you are in my top five of current thinkers i admire, right after roissy and paul graham.
rivsdiary
February 13, 2014 at 5:20 PM
Assortative mating is all well and good for some careers but not others.
M / F
surgeon / pediatrician
lawyer / lawyer
finance / marketing & PR
cop / nurse
STEM / ?????
Fiddlesticks
February 13, 2014 at 5:20 PM
STEM / robot
lion of the lionosphere
February 13, 2014 at 5:58 PM
I laughed.
Samson J.
February 13, 2014 at 7:30 PM
Are we sure assortative mating is a recent phenonema? Royalty has always been obsessed with marrying into elite families. Are doctors really forgoing trophy wives or did the trophy wives just get more advanced degrees?
The Undiscovered Jew
February 13, 2014 at 7:45 PM
Re: finance / marketing & PR
The most hypergamous women are found in this pairing. And usually these ladies under-earn their peers in the other categories, who by the way, have more job security. This is the most common type of bobo women found in NYC, where they all flock to Wall St guys, who bendover for them.
JS
February 14, 2014 at 8:30 AM
Most men in STEM are Indian, and Indian women like Indian STEM men.
Lion of the Blogosphere
February 13, 2014 at 5:21 PM
Are you sure? I think there are more East Asians in STEM than Oriental Indians.
JS
February 14, 2014 at 8:25 AM
Depends where you work. Basically we’re talking about chinks and wogs. They are both tribal and hire their own. So if you work in a place where a Chink gets into a high level management job, he hires all Chinks. If it’s an Indian, he hires all Indians. Und so weiter. The eco system at different companies tends to lean one way or the other.
Because Chinks have huge language problems, they don’t rise in the ranks as easily as smooth talking grifter Indian suck ups. So I’ve seen more wogs than Chinks. But also, wogs tend more in pure software shops. Chinks seem to be more prevalent in hardware companies. Wogs also are seen more in support and professional services positions, again for obvious language reasons (much better to get a wog on the line than a chink, though both suck).
peterike
February 14, 2014 at 10:02 AM
Pete, you must be Aussie. I guess Wog is the Ozzy word for Prole. You are saying it to mean strictly Indian.
JS
February 14, 2014 at 1:10 PM
Wog is the British term for brown skinned person, whether it be someone from the Near East or South Asia.
CamelCaseRob
February 17, 2014 at 3:10 AM
or normandy. the wogs start at calais.
jorge videla
February 17, 2014 at 10:49 PM
two wongs don’t make a white and australians are now the richest people on earth not counting silly countries like qatar.
jorge videla
February 17, 2014 at 10:48 PM
It would be interesting to study what the most common spousal profession of each profession is.
In what professions are people most likely to marry within vs. outside the profession (controlled for M:F ratio).
In what professions are men/women most likely to marry up or down?
Fiddlesticks
February 13, 2014 at 5:24 PM
It would be interesting to study what the most common spousal profession of each profession is.
I think those discussions are around, on other sites; I’m sure I’ve seen them. Do some research and let us know what you find!
In what professions are men/women most likely to marry up or down?
Well, our host’s disdain aside, I think nursing is middle-of-the-road, if not slightly above middle (it certainly pays decently), and I’ve seen no small number of nurses married to guys who make less money – often police or military guys. It may be interesting, too, to mention that the few female doctors I know who married “down” seem to be pretty happy, although I don’t know what goes on at home…
Samson J.
February 13, 2014 at 7:30 PM
TOOS will get around this. Impoverished noblemen had no trouble finding American heiresses to solve their financial woes during the Gilded Age. As long as toos holds the gates for the prestigious universities and the means of power, they won’t be beaten.
That’s the only thing which matters.
Colmainen
February 13, 2014 at 5:28 PM
“Male doctors no longer marry nurses, they marry female doctors or women with other upper-middle-class careers.”
If you’re looking for a high IQ spouse, it’s hard to go wrong with an RN who comes from a middle class background. I only have one friend who’s a doctor. He works in infectious disease and married an RN a couple of years ago. My brother is the smartest living person in my family, works in military intelligence (prole, I know) and is also married to an RN. I expect both couples to produce children of above average intelligence, provided their kids don’t regress too far toward the mean.
Of course, most readers of Lion’s blog know that nursing is a borderline prole profession, so as a general rule, perhaps nurses should be avoided, but my point stands: RNs are typically pretty bright and good to breed with if IQ is your only concern.
Robert
February 13, 2014 at 5:39 PM
Better to marry (for eugenics purposes) a lazy women without much ambition who settled to be a registered nurse than someone who diligently worked to acquire the credentials to be an RN. The latter likely uses work ethic over intelligence. And intelligence is the more valuable genetic trait than conscientiousness, regardless of the former being more heritable than the latter.
Black_Rose
February 13, 2014 at 5:58 PM
If you’re looking for a high IQ spouse, it’s hard to go wrong with an RN who comes from a middle class background.
As a physician who married a nurse, I agree with this (as well as with most of the other comments so far), although I am not even close to representative of any mainstream trend.
I would, for example, affirm that RNs are often the best of both worlds: reasonably bright and attractive, if not quite as bright as med school chicks, but with a prole edge that makes them come across as more honest and genuine than their conniving, status-seeking UMC counterparts.
Hospitals are fantastic places to observe sociology, and socio-sexuality, in action. Time and again I have eschewed the company of female docs in favour of the nurses because they are more down-to-earth and feminine.
My brother is the smartest living person in my family, works in military intelligence (prole, I know)
Ssshhh, don’t tamper with this idea that PROLE means STUPID and is to be AVOIDED at all costs…
Samson J.
February 13, 2014 at 7:21 PM
@Samson, if you truly prefer spending your chit-chat time with nurses over doctors, it is because you , yourself, are prole.
aonymous
February 13, 2014 at 8:19 PM
Ssshhh, don’t tamper with this idea that PROLE means STUPID and is to be AVOIDED at all costs….
The US is more meritocratic than ever, and occupational prestige is highly correlated with one’s g.
Still, intelligent people will like a Lisa Cuddy, Allison Cameron, or Martha M. Masters over a nurse (or a Nurse Joy). (Nurse Joys are prole.)
Latias
February 13, 2014 at 9:02 PM
“The US is more meritocratic than ever, and occupational prestige is highly correlated with one’s g.” ———– Sure, but how much does high g correlate with pathological hypergamy and self-centeredness in women? Ambitious women expect nice things and may expect you to kill yourself getting those nice things for them. Perhaps prestige men are staying with their own, but perhaps that’s a bad strategy. http://www.avoiceformen.com/women/834/
Curle
February 13, 2014 at 10:35 PM
None, I guess, because most women are like that, assuming they can attract high-status men (not an alpha thug).
Unlike Latias, as she is aloof and autistic to even socialize…
Latias
February 14, 2014 at 12:01 AM
Zeta guy. Dead last, but gets what he wants first (which is poon)?
We could all agree in very honest terms, that status chasing for most guys is basically whoring for whores.
PUA = P(an)(us)sies Unite America
JS
February 14, 2014 at 8:24 AM
I found the same thing as Samson J. The nurse I dated was very down-to-earth and feminine and I really liked that. Previous to her I had dated a highly paid medical research scientist. She was really smart and we shared a lot of interests and could have all kinds of intellectual conversations. I already had male friends who filled that role, though, and I wanted something different in a girlfriend. The female research scientist I dated also seemed like she didn’t understand men as well as the less intelligent nurse. She told me one time that her male colleagues were much more successful in getting dates than her and she didn’t know why. She just couldn’t understand that having a high income might be more of an asset for men out on the dating market than it is for women.
Mark G
February 14, 2014 at 10:14 AM
I am like the female scientist but much worse.
I am completely oblivious to non-verbal cues, and have a very limited ability to express any affectation in casual social situations. I also do not participate in social chit-chit and look disinterested, but I am still attentive because my mind is scouting for any topics that might arouse my attention (as an autistic, I do not have to maintain eye contact to be attentive, and I abhor looking at others’ faces as I can process much information better and organize my thoughts while not looking at someone). But I am not a taciturn, since I can maintain sustained intellectual conversations quite easily if the subject is something I am quite familiar with. I could perhaps understand courtship relationships based on my intellectual expenditure on reading various PUA and HBD blogs although very infrequently, but I would still not be able to understand and apply it in fluid and novel situations.
I also look fairly nice and feminine, but in a more childish and innocent not in a “gorgeous” and “stunning” sort of way, somewhat like Martha Masters on House, but with straight black hair and shorter.
Latias
February 14, 2014 at 1:46 PM
I am largely interested in how automation would displace middle class or working class jobs. There is little upward social mobility beyond working and middle class, since the upper class know how preserve their relative social, political, and financial power.
It seems unlikely that automation would reduce the price of actual needs, such as food, housing, energy, and medical care, but it will reduce the price of non-essential services. Also, automation does not seem to offer a compensatory mechanism that creates new jobs for the jobs that it displaced Automation’s net effect would reduce one’s market power, by eroding the value of one’s labor while the price of one’s needs is relatively constant, to purchase one’s needs.
Automation would have actually benefited industrial communist countries the most, assuming that many conservative critiques about those nations were correct, as they alleged they stifled the desire to work. Those communist countries would have had a buffer against any potential strikes, and could provide essential goods and services (since the government owned the means of productions, not just performing a few critical functions, the government would obviously have a larger economic responsibility than in states with free enterprise) to its citizens more reliably since the output of the economy and the government would less leveraged to human labor and less adversely affected by political dissent.
Latias
February 13, 2014 at 6:35 PM
During the past few weeks, I definitely feel like a lot of my ideas are suddenly being talked about. Yet I don’t get any credit for any of it.
You mean Tim Cook still hasn’t paid you for predicting the success of the iPad?
I should be widely acknowledged as a great futurist.
Do you prefer value-creating nerds/slaves build an obelisk or pyramid in your honor?
The Undiscovered Jew
February 13, 2014 at 7:42 PM
“Do you prefer value-creating nerds/slaves build an obelisk or pyramid in your honor?”
😀
Excellent.
Thomas
February 14, 2014 at 9:29 AM
In America ~120 IQ + social skills is better than 140+ IQ. If your IQ is too high you’re a freak, you will think differently than others and it will be hard to get along with them. This will be somewhat minimized if you live in a milieu of higher IQ people. But if we look at the people who really make money, it’s usually above average intelligence + social skills (conformity and making people feel good about themselves). Then again there’s Silicon Valley, but the people who actually make money in STEM are the cream of the crop out of the many, many smart people out there.
So, for a middle class striver it’s better to have ~120 IQ + social skills. If you live in an UMC social milieu then you can get away with being smarter because you don’t have to fight to get to the top, you’re already there.
shiva1008
February 13, 2014 at 7:53 PM
Male doctors no longer marry nurses, they marry female doctors or women with other upper-middle-class careers.
and then they go on to have 1.2 kids, ensuring their demographic demise. great plan! lol.
lords of lies
February 13, 2014 at 8:35 PM
Last night I saw a show about building a skyscraper on PBS. It feature a brother engineering team where on one half of the building a brother used the traditional labor heavy method of installing exterior glass, which had a crew of nearly 20 guys. While his brother used a new partially automated method with only six workers. The new school brother finished his job first.
dsgntd_plyr
February 13, 2014 at 8:40 PM
If true, this is not necessarily because doctors suddenly favor high-IQ partners. In the past, certain professions were less accessible to women. This meant that fifty or sixty years ago, some kids benefited from high-IQ public school teachers who today would choose another career path.
Vince, the Lionhearted
February 13, 2014 at 10:03 PM
Lots of people are making lots of money purely on stocks. The fact that the wildly overrated FT writers(they endorsed Neil Kinnock for PM over La Thatcher and constantly urge the UK to drop sterling for the Euro) can’t tells you a lot about them.
Dave Boxthorn
February 14, 2014 at 12:17 AM
Being very successful few times in husband/father thing, I can say that trivial way to ensure you propagate your genes into distant future is by marrying attractive women and making as many babies as it is feasible with each. Marrying them is not required, but it will make thing easier. High (or low) intelligence wife will give you more problems than you could imagine. Shoot for two sigmas below your intelligence if you are 2 sigma or higher above average. If you are a woman and reading this blog, your options are not great. High intelligence correlates with low attractiveness and fertility in women. Going to Ivy might be actually harmful for guys, as you would waste the time that you could spend socializing with attractive women you could marry later.
My Two Cents
February 14, 2014 at 3:12 AM
Except a lot of such attractive women tend to have f*cked up uteruses nowdays because of their history, and children produced thru heavy infertility treatment tend to be somewhat ‘off’.
Colmainen
February 14, 2014 at 12:43 PM
Just saw snow removal robot on TV. Made by a company that makes SWAT robots.
THE REVOLUTION IS BEING TELEVISED!!!!!
dsgntd_plyr
February 14, 2014 at 8:06 AM
Some people here have such a miserable life. Living your life through the eyes of other people show how low self steem someone can have.
Most of these high-IQ girls will have high expectations upon you. They think that they have the right to be spoiled and to have everything they want. In a divorce, expect hell. They will get your legs if they can. I knew some med schools chicks in college. They were disgusting.
Much preferable a middle class, down to earth wife, care loving and supportive, avg intelligence (but not stupid).
Samuel
February 14, 2014 at 9:17 AM
We’ve previously discussed here that the best way to AVOID divorce is to marry a high-IQ high-social-class spouse. Divorce is lowest among this demographic. Proles are most likely to get divorced.
The reality of the world is different than what you read on “game” blogs.
Lion of the Blogosphere
February 14, 2014 at 9:20 AM
He was speaking of middle class, which could include high IQ women.
Conversely, not every (White) girl who lives in Manhattan is of high IQ – high-social class background. Many of those women who work in Marketing or Media in general, don’t even come from top tier schools. Go check their Linkedin profiles, a lot of them come from lowly state schools or private schools that you never heard of. But they’ll try to ride the carousel when it comes to higher status men, even though they’ll never marry them,
Marriage and Sex are two separate things altogether.
JS
February 14, 2014 at 9:42 AM
Harvard grads like Paul Janka of NYC (you consider him a prole because he didn’t graduate on time) sleeps with many prole women.
JS
February 14, 2014 at 9:43 AM
Such high-IQ high-social class women do not marry people beneath their class to begin with, so it is a moot point for non-toos men.
Colmainen
February 14, 2014 at 12:44 PM
this decline has been going on for two hundred years. the excess workforce has been absorbed by government until now. there will be blood.
jorge videla
February 17, 2014 at 10:50 PM
and once again civilization turns everyone into a freak.
i wonder what love was like in the ussr?
jorge videla
February 17, 2014 at 10:54 PM
yes. just compare money management fees vs total value of securities and divide by p/e. what you get is something like 10% of public corporation income going to wall street.
and public corps are a much larger fraction of the economy than they used to be.
jorge videla
February 17, 2014 at 10:57 PM
Wall street jobs will be computerised (this is of course happening at the moment as well) and there are not so many good jobs available anyway (even less so if you are not part of the elite)
Taking ONE stock, when you obviously know that the stock market has performed great since the 60´s…
People will still own rental properties, and other income producing stuff – but for the people with a couple of hundred thousand dollars, investing that in college for the kids is a better idea than the stock market. But if you have tens of millions or more, the reason for going to ivy league is only to be part of the “intellectual elite”, you will manage financially without an education.
Times of long declines of the stock (and real estate market) are not good times for wall street jobs anyway…
Oraklet
February 17, 2014 at 11:38 PM
Boring problem with this argument: it’s less tax efficient to pay dividends so the value of dividents has declined. Instead money is retained in the company, increasing the share price. Look at total return.
Also, investing in one stock is stupid and if you use an index tracker you internalise the benefits of changing technology without paying anything to “Wall Street types such as investment bankers and hedge fund managers”.
dha
February 26, 2014 at 5:56 PM