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Owen McGrann
Personal blog · owenmcgrann.comwritingculturepolitics
Owen McGrann writes The Palimpsest, a personal blog at owenmcgrann.com about writing, culture and politics. Since 2026, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 5 times, most often “The Dead Economy Theory”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-06, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Owen McGrann's essays on AI and the economy, chiefly 'The Dead Economy Theory'. Commenters cite them as background on AI-driven economic change, labour displacement and whether markets can absorb AI company offerings.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Literature, music, politics, law, fatherhood. The detritus of an ADHD-addled brain.
Most-linked posts?
- The Dead Economy Theory5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2026-05-29
What Hacker News says?
I love to model and simulate. As the dead economy theory[0] (discussion [1]) was submitted here, I decided to simulate it. It was really hard to figure out a path "good for the humanity", in the sense of a balanced system, not a winner take all situation, etc. I think this is the reason why you have the tendency to propose some freeze-all policies, full control or similar. If you want to find the equilibrium, you ne…
Comment linking /p/the-dead-economy-theory
on “AI 2040: Plan A”Submitted The Dead Economy Theory as a story · 3 points
HN discussion"Carl Benedikt Frey at Oxford has documented that the Industrial Revolution took seventy years before wages and employment recovered for the workers it displaced. In the interim, wages stagnated, the labor share of income collapsed, profits surged, inequality skyrocketed, and the political consequences included the Chartist movement and widespread social upheaval." From half way through this (meandering) blog post:…
Comment linking /p/the-dead-economy-theory
on “Asian AI startups launch Mythos-like models”See also https://www.owenmcgrann.com/p/the-dead-economy-theory which was thoroughly discussed 17 days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324712 (1426 comments).
Comment linking /p/the-dead-economy-theory
on “The Dead Economy Theory”I don't think the market will swallow the stock offerings until we see early signs of GDP growth attributable to these entities. But until then, I think the cost is higher than the benefit, which "The dead economy theory" essay covered it well [0] [0]: https://www.owenmcgrann.com/p/the-dead-economy-theory
Comment linking /p/the-dead-economy-theory
on “Can the stockmarket swallow Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenAI?”