從財富分配崩潰到 AI 沖擊，年輕人的風險偏好越來越高

VIA：@systematicls

本文為X上一位用戶名為“sysls”的博主，在他的個人主頁上，他自稱是一位企業(yè)家，也曾在所有最大的對沖基金里，成功管理過系統(tǒng)性投資的經驗。

近日，他在自己的主頁上，分享了自己創(chuàng)作的一篇文章，揭秘為何在金融交易中，高風險投機反倒成了理性的選擇。

前言

我不是選股專家。我崇拜的是大范圍的低信心（勝率≤53%）投注，但我絕對相信，長期衰退將是下個世紀普遍存在的社會經濟主題。

這就是為什么 40 歲以上的人會建議你努力提升工作能力，增加收入，而其他人似乎都忽略了這一點，拼命地抓住任何能讓他們獲得巨大成功的機會。

向這樣的群體兜售最容易的東西就是“希望”，當你理解了這一點，你就會理解賭場（各種形式，交易所、預測市場等等）的興起，以及交易大師、商業(yè)大師、課程，當然還有……子版塊的興起。

準備工作

一個人無需被關進監(jiān)獄才會被囚禁。有一代人生活在無形的牢籠之中。

他們知道那種生活是存在的：房子、穩(wěn)定的生活，以及三十年來堅持做正確的事所帶來的回報。他們知道有人擁有這一切。他們只是無法想象如何才能達到那種境界。不是“很難”，而是他們根本無法構建一條從現(xiàn)在的位置到他們應該到達的終點的切實可行的路徑。

傳統(tǒng)的財富積累之路已經封閉。不是困難，而是徹底封閉。當嬰兒潮一代僅占人口的20%卻掌握著約50%的國民財富，而千禧一代人口比例相同卻只占約10%時，這便暴露出這套財富積累機制從根本上已經失效。

梯子被抽走了，這并非嬰兒潮一代的本意；資產價格上漲只是恰好讓那些已經擁有資產的人受益。但結果是一樣的。

傳統(tǒng)契約的崩潰

過去，潛規(guī)則很簡單：按時上班，努力工作，保持忠誠，就會得到回報。公司提供養(yǎng)老金。工齡很重要。你的房子在你睡覺的時候也在升值。只要你信任這套體系，它就能正常運轉。

那筆交易告吹了。

在一家公司待上20年如今已不再是優(yōu)勢，反而成了職業(yè)生涯的負擔。工資增長了8%，而住房成本卻翻了一番，年輕人的債務支出增加了約33%。這樣的形勢已經不再支持繼續(xù)保持耐心了。

從更宏觀的角度來看，我以前認為情況很糟糕，但隨著人工智能的出現(xiàn)及其將帶來的經濟影響（即使是以現(xiàn)有技術而言），我認為情況只會變得更加糟糕。

當制度不再獎勵耐心時，人們也就不再有耐心了。

可以稱之為理性適應。

推拉

這里有兩種力量在起作用。

拉力

現(xiàn)代社會基本解決了馬斯洛需求層次理論中最底層的問題。食物價格低廉，基本住所也已具備。安全、醫(yī)療和基本就業(yè)雖然不能完全保障，但已基本到位，大多數(shù)年輕人無需為生存而掙扎。

前幾代人面臨經濟困境時，他們面臨的是另一種問題。當你為溫飽發(fā)愁時，你根本無暇顧及存在的意義。埋頭苦干是可以理解的，因為除此之外別無選擇，只能餓死。你選擇一份穩(wěn)定的工作，保持沉默，不惹是生非——因為這份工作能讓你活下去。

這一代人沒有那種干擾。

當生存問題得到解決后，人們便會追求更高層次的需求：歸屬感、尊重和自我實現(xiàn)。他們渴望體驗，渴望意義，渴望感受到自己的人生并非只是停滯不前，而是在不斷向前發(fā)展。然而，通往這些更高層次需求的傳統(tǒng)途徑——擁有住房、職業(yè)晉升和經濟保障——恰恰是被阻礙的。

從整體上看，我們就像猿猴一樣，本能地抓撓著我們更高層次的自我實現(xiàn)需求的傷疤，鮮血不停地流淌，但我們卻真的不知道如何做得更好。

推動力（以及為何情況越來越糟）

人工智能正在蠶食白領工作，這是人盡皆知的事實。

這種焦慮不再是假設性的了。ChatGPT 的文案水平比大多數(shù)初級營銷人員都高。Midjourney 的視覺效果比入門級設計師還要好。Cursor 和 Claude 編寫的代碼能夠通過審查。除了那些技能嚴重不足的人之外，這幾乎已被普遍接受。

每個月都會出現(xiàn)新的基準，表明人工智能在某些任務上的表現(xiàn)已經達到甚至超過了人類，而這些任務以前需要昂貴的學位和多年的訓練才能完成。

白領們，或者說那些對經濟狀況有較高追求的人，都在密切關注著人工智能取代知識型員工的時間表不斷縮短。三年前，“人工智能將取代知識型員工”還只是一個設想，如今卻已成為一項規(guī)劃假設。人們不再問“是否會發(fā)生”，而是問“何時會發(fā)生”，而預測的時間也越來越短。

還有社交媒體，它讓你永遠不會對現(xiàn)狀感到滿意。

該算法經過優(yōu)化，旨在向您展示未來可能擁有的一切。永遠是您尚未實現(xiàn)的假期，永遠是您買不起的公寓，永遠是您目前生活方式之上的另一種選擇。無論您身處人生階梯的哪個位置，總有人比您更優(yōu)秀，而算法會找到他們。

前幾代人對別人的生活方式了解有限。他們會拿自己和鄰居、同事，或許還有雜志上的一些名人作比較。參照群體很窄。而現(xiàn)在，參照群體無限廣闊。一個年收入7萬美元的25歲年輕人，不斷被同齡人的生活信息所包圍，這些人年收入200萬美元，住在巴厘島，每天“工作”4個小時。“足夠”的標準也在不斷變化。

你永遠追不上。無論你取得了怎樣的成就，社交媒體都會讓你看到你錯過了什么。你的生活與你“應該”擁有的生活之間的差距，由算法維持，永遠無法彌合。

人工智能縮短了你的時間線，社交媒體又讓你永遠感覺不到自己已經功成名就。這種想要立刻逃離、盡快擺脫、以免為時已晚的壓力，每天都在加劇。

這種焦慮無處不在。每個白領都曾有過這樣的心理思考：“人工智能能取代我的工作嗎？什么時候能？”而且大多數(shù)人都不喜歡自己的答案。即使他們現(xiàn)在覺得暫時安全，但“暫時”這個時間卻越來越短。

所以，現(xiàn)在這一代人既負擔不起傳統(tǒng)的人生里程碑，又認為即便走上這條路，在到達終點之前，這條路也可能就此消失。趁著現(xiàn)在還有錢和機會，放手一搏才是理性的應對之策。

為什么要苦苦奮斗20年，去爭取10年后可能根本不存在的晉升機會？

馬斯洛陷阱

當你能夠生存卻無法取得任何進展時，某些環(huán)節(jié)就會出現(xiàn)問題。你還沒到絕望到接受任何交易的地步，但你卻被真正重要的交易拒之門外。原本用于生存的認知資源，現(xiàn)在卻被用于……挫敗感。用于尋找。用于尋找任何可能通往未來的道路。

職業(yè)發(fā)展不僅僅意味著收入，更意味著目標、身份認同，以及工作意義感。財務保障不僅僅意味著金錢，更意味著擁有承擔風險、旅行、建設和創(chuàng)造的自由。

當這些出路都已關閉，而且實現(xiàn)目標的期限也越來越短時，壓力必須轉移到其他地方。這些囚犯需要一條出路，而且他們現(xiàn)在就需要一條出路。

賭場代理

我最初是在L1加密貨幣領域看到這種現(xiàn)象的，當時覺得它只是一時的風潮。后來我在NFT領域再次看到它，之后又在NFT和惡意交易平臺之間的一系列混亂局面中一次又一次地看到它，而現(xiàn)在，顯然又出現(xiàn)了所謂的“預測市場超級周期”。

那些無法想象在一家公司苦苦掙扎的年輕人，卻會毫不猶豫地花幾個月時間學習加密貨幣交易。他們會投入大量時間研究預測市場，以期了解他們深信已被操縱的經濟體系。那些將傳統(tǒng)投資斥為“內幕交易”的人，卻會把房租都押在一種“模因幣”上。

為什么？

因為賭場是他們唯一能感受到掌控感的地方。也是唯一能讓他們的決定真正解鎖下一階段，并在關鍵時刻發(fā)揮作用的地方。

傳統(tǒng)職業(yè)道路？你的經理是因為資歷最老才升職的，而不是因為能力強，而且你的整個部門可能最終都會被自動化取代。股市？當然，假設你的工作還在，你或許能每年賺10%，47年后買得起房子。

但加密貨幣呢？預測市場呢？體育博彩呢？在這里，你的研究至關重要。信念會帶來回報。即使是想象中的優(yōu)勢，也感覺像是自己擁有的，而不是等待別人賦予你的。你下注時，你的判斷將直接決定結果。

莊家優(yōu)勢是存在的。大多數(shù)人都會輸。我認為大多數(shù)人都明白這一點。但他們是在賭博，而不是在等待一個可能永遠不會到來的未來。那些鼓吹人們停止賭博的人，并沒有理解賭徒們的困境，總是自以為是地認為“你們擁有負優(yōu)勢”。我的觀點是，我認為賭徒們完全明白這一點。

那些說“賭博不好，你應該戒賭”的人，幾乎都是那些身處經濟上層階級、享有特權的人。他們看到了出路，看到了前進的方向。所以，他們鼓吹上帝會眷顧他們，鼓勵他們堅持走這條路。

對許多身陷囹圄的人來說，賭博是他們的救贖，而你實際上是在勸他們接受永世的詛咒。這就是他們反抗你的原因。這就是為什么你出于好意的勸告對他們來說如同耳旁風。

具體數(shù)字如何？

預測市場：Polymarket 和 Kalshi 僅在 2025 年 11 月的交易量就超過 100 億美元。兩家公司年交易量合計接近 400 億美元。而 2020 年，這一數(shù)字幾乎為零。增長率呈垂直上升趨勢。

體育博彩：合法體育博彩收入從2017年的2.48億美元增長到2024年的137億美元。Z世代和千禧一代占博彩活動的76%。這兩個群體在在線體育博彩網站上的活動量同比增長了7%。

TransUnion的報告將這些賭徒定義為“投機者”：他們是城市租房者，加密貨幣應用程序的重度用戶，集中在移動交易平臺上。這些年輕人被傳統(tǒng)的財富積累方式拒之門外，只能在唯一能提供這種回報的市場中尋求不對稱收益。

經濟理論支持這一點。

當你身陷困境時，你的風險偏好會發(fā)生改變。

經濟學家稱之為“虧損中的凸效用”：當你已經虧損時，你寧愿選擇挽回局面的較小概率，也不愿接受一定程度的損失。這與人們在二十一點游戲中落后時選擇加倍下注的原因相同。這也是為什么彩票在貧困社區(qū)更暢銷的原因。

我的看法是，社交媒體和我們更高層次的需求，讓那些經濟地位遠低于上層階級的人們，覺得自己已經處于一種匱乏的狀態(tài)。貧困線被重新定義了。這就是為什么你會看到有人一本正經地談論15萬美元的貧困線。這一代人不再是為了生存而冒險，而是為了擁有真正的人生而冒險。

當你的基本需求得到滿足，但更高層次的需求卻受阻時，金錢不再關乎安全，而是關乎獲取途徑。獲取體驗的途徑。獲取自由的途徑。獲取那些你看得見卻無法觸及的生活的途徑。房子不僅僅是遮風避雨的地方；它讓你擁有扎根的土壤，建立社群，感受到自己像個成年人。旅行并非奢侈；它是一種體驗，讓生命充滿意義。

對于看不到通過傳統(tǒng)途徑實現(xiàn)這些目標的一代人來說，冒險的預期價值似乎比苦苦掙扎的預期價值更有吸引力。如果你的底線是“永遠原地踏步”，那么即使只有5%的逃脫幾率，也比100%的停滯不前更有吸引力。

這并非金融知識匱乏，而是受限條件下的顯性偏好。

那些沉迷于模因幣的賭徒、體育博彩愛好者、預測市場狂熱者、交易大師的訂閱者：他們明白賠率很低。他們也明白還有其他選擇。當你的選擇要么“肯定沒戲”，要么“可能沒戲但有很小的可能”，那么第二個選擇總是更勝一籌。

長期退化

那么：你會買什么？

如果這種診斷是正確的，即經濟上被拒之門外的一代年輕人將繼續(xù)通過高波動性的金融產品尋求自主權，那么你應該做多任何滿足這種需求的股票。

平臺盈利與用戶輸贏無關。你尋找的是那些不在乎你是否贏錢或預測是否正確的平臺。你尋找的是那些從用戶活動中抽取費用的企業(yè)，而用戶活動正在不斷增長。

創(chuàng)業(yè)：這個“逃離朝九晚五”的產業(yè)體系規(guī)模龐大且仍在不斷擴張。課程創(chuàng)建者兜售代發(fā)貨教程，教練推銷代理模式，大師們兜售“我是如何月入十萬美元的”秘籍。“自己創(chuàng)業(yè)”已經成了社會認可的“中獎彩票” ；它讓人感覺富有成效、充滿成就感，仿佛你在創(chuàng)造某種東西。大多數(shù)創(chuàng)業(yè)者失敗的事實并不會像彩票中獎概率低那樣抑制市場需求。

預測市場：Polymarket 的估值在 80 億至 100 億美元之間。據(jù)業(yè)內人士透露，其總市場規(guī)模（TAM）相當于“整個博彩行業(yè)”，超過萬億美元。即使這個數(shù)字樂觀估計了 90%，仍然是一個規(guī)模龐大的市場。

加密貨幣基礎設施：托管、交易、質押、借貸。每一波新的投機者都需要入口。Coinbase、Robinhood 的加密貨幣部門、專業(yè)交易所；無論交易方向如何，它們都能從交易量中獲益。

體育博彩運營商：DraftKings、FanDuel及其基礎設施提供商。合法體育博彩仍在各州逐步推行，監(jiān)管壁壘依然存在。

社交交易和社群：Discord 服務器、X/Twitter 賬號、面向該受眾的 Substack 新聞簡報。關注度很高，付費獲取早期內容的意愿也很高。

賭注并非押注某個投機者會贏，而是押注這種現(xiàn)象會持續(xù)下去。押注驅使年輕人進行高風險賭博的潛在經濟條件不會改變。押注從這種活動中抽取傭金的平臺會隨著用戶群體的擴大而繼續(xù)發(fā)展壯大。押注那些身陷經濟困境的人會一次又一次地下注，就像西斯皮胡斯填寫他的第401張彩票一樣。

考慮到我們對人工智能加速發(fā)展、住房成本、財富分配和代際經濟學的了解……這看起來像是暫時的現(xiàn)象嗎？

道德層面

請注意，本論文是描述性的，而不是規(guī)范性的。

看著一代人試圖通過彩票，哪怕是復雜的彩票，來尋求經濟上的救贖，這并非值得慶賀之事。預測市場和網絡貨幣似乎成了獲得掌控感的唯一途徑，這恰恰反映了社會的某種弊病。莊家贏了，大多數(shù)玩家輸了。

但了解正在發(fā)生的事情能讓你做好準備，讓你反思，讓你決定是否要參與其中。如果決定參與，你應該睜大眼睛，全力以赴，在你擁有優(yōu)勢的領域下注。

各個時代的賭場都從絕望中牟利。如今的絕望情緒真實存在，有據(jù)可查，而且還在不斷加劇。這些賭場包括Hope Sellers、Polymarket、Coinbase和DraftKings。他們會繼續(xù)抽取傭金。

你可以對此進行道德評判，也可以繼續(xù)持有這些平臺的股票。說真的，這確實是你可以退出的途徑之一。或者你也可以選擇成為賭徒，如果你這么做了，最好確保自己有足夠的實力。

很好。因為這不是游戲，我們談論的是你的人生。如果你要拿自己的靈魂做賭注，就必須盡一切可能確保自己獲勝。

結論

我留給你一個故事……

我認識一個人，聰明，在科技行業(yè)工作，收入按任何歷史標準來看都相當不錯。上個月他“投資”了10萬美元去刷perp dex點數(shù)。并不是因為他覺得這是一筆好投資。

因為，我引用一下他的原話：“不然我還能怎么辦，攢20年錢，等到55歲再買套公寓嗎？”

我知道他肯定在等下一次圖鑒更新，然后他還會再來一次。

長期退化。

注：以上為機翻，英文版全文如下：

The Prison Of Financial Mediocrity

Introduction

I am not a stock picker. I worship at the altar of a large breadth of low confidence (<= 53% win-rate) bets, but I am absolutely betting the house that long degeneracy is the prevalent socioeconomic theme of the coming century.

It is why people above the age of 40 will recommend you to get better at your job and increase your salary, whilst everyone else seem to be ignoring exactly THAT and desperately clawing at something, ANYTHING that can give them a shot of outrageous success.

The easiest thing to sell to a crowd like this is "hope", and when you understand this, you will understand the rise of the casinos (in all forms, dexes, prediction markets, etc) and the rise of trading gurus, business gurus, courses, and of course... substacks.

The Set-up

One doesn't need to be locked up to be imprisoned. There is a generation walking around with invisible bars.

They know the life exists, the house, the stability, the reward for showing up and doing the right thing for thirty years. They know people have it. They just can't imagine how to get there. Not "it's hard"; they literally cannot construct a realistic path from where they are to where they're supposed to end up.

The traditional path to wealth accumulation is closed. Not difficult. Closed. When boomers hold ~50% of national wealth while comprising 20% of the population, and millennials hold ~10% despite being the same share, the game reveals itself to be fundamentally broken.

The ladder got pulled up and it's not like the boomers wanted to do this; asset price inflation just happened to benefit those who already owned assets. But the effect is the same.

The Collapse of the Traditional Bargain

The implicit deal used to be simple: show up, work hard, stay loyal, and you'll be rewarded. Companies offered pensions. Tenure meant something. Your house appreciated while you slept. The system worked if you trusted it.

That deal is dead.

Staying at one company for 20 years is now a career liability, not an asset. Wages grew 8% while housing costs doubled and debt payments for young people increased ~33%. The math doesn't support patience anymore.

Looking at the bigger picture, I used to think it was bad, but with the advent of AI and the economic impact they are going to have (even with current technologies), I think it is only going to get significantly worst.

When the system stops rewarding patience, people stop being patient.

Call it rational adaptation.

Push And Pull

Two forces are at work here.

The Pull

Modern society has mostly solved the bottom tiers of Maslow's hierarchy. Food is cheap. Basic shelter exists. Safety, healthcare, baseline employment, not guaranteed, but accessible enough that most young people aren't fighting for survival.

Previous generations facing economic constraint had a different problem. When you're worried about eating, you don't have bandwidth for existential questions. The grind makes sense because the alternative is starvation. You take the stable job, you stay quiet, you don't rock the boat - because the boat is keeping you alive.

This generation doesn't have that distraction.

When survival is handled, humans reach for the next tier: belonging, esteem, self-actualization. They want experiences. They want meaning. They want to feel like their life is going somewhere, not just continuing. And the traditional paths to those higher needs, home ownership, career progression, financial security, are exactly what's been blocked.

Collectively, we are apes that are reflexively scratching at the scab of our higher order needs of actualization, and the blood won't stop flowing but we literally don't know how to do better.

The Push (and Why It's Getting Worse)

AI is coming for white-collar jobs, and everyone knows it.

The anxiety isn't hypothetical anymore. ChatGPT writes better copy than most junior marketers. Midjourney produces better visuals than entry-level designers. Cursor and Claude write code that passes review. This is now more or less universally accepted except by those with severe skill issues.

Every month brings new benchmarks showing AI matching or exceeding human performance on tasks that used to require expensive degrees and years of training.

White-collar workers, or otherwise the financially aspirational, are watching the timeline shrink. Three years ago, "AI will replace knowledge workers" was a thought experiment. Now it's a planning assumption. Everyone's asking when, not if, and the estimates keep getting shorter.

Then there's social media, which ensures you're never satisfied with where you are.

The algorithm is optimized to show you the next tranche of what could be. Always the vacation you haven't taken. The apartment you can't afford. The lifestyle one rung above yours. It doesn't matter where you are on the ladder; there's always someone above you, and the algorithm will find them.

Previous generations had limited visibility into how others lived. You compared yourself to your neighbors, your coworkers, maybe some celebrities in magazines. The reference class was narrow. Now the reference class is infinite. A 25-year-old making $70k is constantly fed content from people their age making $2mn, living in Bali, "working" four hours a day. The baseline for "enough" keeps moving.

You never catch up. No matter what you achieve, social media will show you what you're missing. The spread between your life and the life you "should" have is maintained algorithmically, forever uncollapsible.

So you have AI shrinking your timeline AND social media ensuring you never feel like you've arrived. The pressure to escape, NOW, FAST, before it's too late, compounds daily.

The anxiety is pervasive. Every white-collar worker has done the mental exercise: "Could AI do my job? When?" And most of them don't love their answers. Even if they think they're safe for now, "for now" keeps getting shorter.

So you have a generation that can't afford the traditional milestones AND believes the traditional path might evaporate before they reach the destination anyway. Taking shots now, while the money and the opportunity still exist, is the rational response.

Why grind for 20 years toward a promotion that might not exist in 10?

The Maslow Trap

When you can survive but can't get anywhere, something breaks. You're not desperate enough to accept any deal, but you're blocked from the deals that actually matter. The cognitive bandwidth that would have gone to survival instead goes to... frustration. Searching. Looking for any path that might lead somewhere.

Career progression isn't just income, it's purpose, identity, the feeling that your work matters. Financial security isn't just money, it's the freedom to take risks, travel, build, create.

When these paths close AND the timeline to achieve them shrinks, the pressure has to go somewhere. These prisoners need a way out, and BY GOD they need a way out NOW.

Agency In The Casino

I first saw it in the L1 Crypto; and dismissed it as a fad. Then I saw it again in NFTs, and then again and again in the entire shit show between NFTs and perp dexes and now, obviously, the "prediction markets supercycle".

The same young people who can't imagine grinding at one company will absolutely grind for months learning crypto trading. They will pour hours into understanding prediction markets to understand the very economy they believe wholeheartedly to be rigged. The same person who dismisses traditional investing as an "inside game" will bet their rent money on a memecoin.

Why?

Because the casino is the only place they feel agency. The only place where their decisions might actually unlock the next tier, on a timeline that matters.

Traditional career path? Your manager got promoted for being there first, not for being good, and your whole department might get automated anyway. Stock market? Sure, you can earn 10% annually and afford a house in 47 years, assuming your job still exists.

But crypto? Prediction markets? Sports betting? Your research actually matters here. Conviction pays. Even an imagined edge feels like yours, not something you're waiting for someone to grant you. You're placing bets where your judgment directly determines your results.

The house edge exists. Most people lose. I think MOST PEOPLE understand this. But they're playing, not waiting for a future that might never arrive. The people preaching for these people to STOP GAMBLING have failed to understand the predicament of the prisoners, and always assume a kind of intellectual superiority that "you have negative edge". My position is that I think the gamblers absolutely understand that.

The ones who say "gambling is bad, you should stop" are almost always the ones speaking from a privileged position of being in the financial upper class. They SEE a way out; they SEE a path. So they espouse the goodness and kindness of god on staying the path.

For the many imprisoned, gambling is their salvation, and you are literally telling them to accept a life of eternal damnation. That is why they rebel against you. That is why your well-intentioned advice falls on deaf ears.

What Do The Numbers Look Like?

Prediction Markets: Polymarket and Kalshi did $10B+ in volume in November 2025 alone. Combined annual volume is approaching $40B. In 2020 this was essentially zero. The growth rate is vertical.

Sports Betting: Legal sports betting revenue went from $248M in 2017 to $13.7B in 2024. Gen Z and Millennials account for 76% of betting activity. Activity on online sportsbooks rose 7% year-over-year for both cohorts.

TransUnion's report identified these gamblers as "speculators": urban renters, heavy users of crypto apps, concentrated in mobile trading platforms. Young people locked out of traditional wealth-building, seeking asymmetric payoffs in the only markets that offer them.

Economic Theory Supports This

When you're trapped, your risk preferences change.

Economists call this "convex utility in losses": when you're already losing, you prefer a small chance of getting back to even over a certain moderate loss. It's the same reason people double down at blackjack when they're behind. It's why lottery tickets sell better in poor neighborhoods.

My take is that social media and our higher order needs have conditioned people that are positioned well below the financial upper class to feel like they are already at a loss. The zeroth line has been repositioned. It is why you see unironic takes about the poverty line being at $150k. This generation isn't gambling to survive, they're gambling to actually have a life.

When your basic needs are met but your higher needs are blocked, money stops being about security and starts being about access. Access to experiences. Access to freedom. Access to the life you can see but can't reach. A house isn't just shelter; it's the ability to have roots, build community, feel like an adult. Travel isn't luxury; it's the experience that makes life feel worth living.

For a generation that sees no realistic path to these things through conventional means, the expected value of a moonshot starts looking better than the expected value of grinding. If your baseline is "treading water forever," then a PERCEIVED 5% chance of escaping is mathematically attractive against a 100% chance of staying stuck.

This isn't financial illiteracy. It is revealed preference under constraint.

The memecoin degens, the sports bettors, the prediction market junkies, the trading guru subscriboors: they understand the odds are bad. They also understand their alternatives. When your options are "definitely stuck" or "probably stuck but with a small chance of being not," the second option wins every time.

Long Degeneracy

So: what do you buy?

If this diagnosis is right, that a generation of economically locked-out young people will continue seeking agency through high-variance financial products, then you want to be long anything that serves that demand.

The platforms win regardless of whether the users win. You are looking for platforms that doesn't care if you win your bet or if your prediction is right. You are looking for businesses that extract fees from activity, and activity is growing.

Entrepreneurship: The 'escape the 9-5' industrial complex is enormous and growing. Course creators selling dropshipping tutorials. Coaches selling agency models. Gurus selling 'how I made $100k/month' playbooks. 'Start your own business' is already the socially acceptable lottery ticket; it feels productive, agentic, like you're building something. The fact that most entrepreneurs fail doesn't dampen demand any more than bad odds dampen lottery sales.

Prediction markets: Polymarket is raising at an $8-10B valuation. The combined TAM people cite is "the entire betting industry," over a trillion dollars. Even if that's optimistic by 90%, it's a massive market.

Crypto infrastructure: Custody, trading, staking, lending. Every new wave of speculators needs on-ramps. Coinbase, Robinhood's crypto arm, specialized exchanges; they all benefit from volume regardless of direction.

Sports betting operators: DraftKings, FanDuel, and their infrastructure providers. Legal sports betting is still rolling out state by state. The regulatory moat is real.

Social trading and community: Discord servers, X/Twitter accounts, Substack newsletters that cater to this audience. The attention is there. The willingness to pay for alpha is there.

The bet isn't that any individual speculator wins. The bet is that the phenomenon persists. That the underlying economic conditions driving young people toward high-variance bets don't change. That the platforms extracting fees from this activity continue to grow with the audience. That the financially imprisoned will parlay one bet to another, to another, to another, one must imagine Sispyhus filling out his 401st lottery ticket.

Given what we know about AI acceleration, housing costs, wealth distribution, and generational economics... does this seem like a temporary thing?

The Moral Dimension

Look, this thesis is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Watching a generation seek financial salvation through lottery tickets, even sophisticated lottery tickets, isn't something to celebrate. The fact that prediction markets and memecoins feel like the only path to agency is a symptom of something broken. The house wins. Most players lose.

But understanding what's happening lets you position for it. Let's you reflect on it. Let's you decide if you want to be a part of it. IF you do, you should step into this with both eyes open, and bet where you have an edge.

The casinos of every era have profited from desperation. The desperation today is real, documented, and growing. The casinos are The Hope Sellers, Polymarket, Coinbase, DraftKings. They're going to keep taking rake.

You can moralize about this or you can be long the platforms. It is unironically one of the ways you CAN get out. Or you can be on the gamblers, and if you are, you better be good.

Very good. Because this is not a game. This is your life we are talking about. If you are going to wager with your soul on the line, you need to give yourself the best chance that you can win.

Conclusion

I leave you a story...

There's a guy I know, smart, works in tech, makes good money by any historical standard. Last month he "invested" $100k farming perp dex points. Not because he thought it was a good investment.

Because, and I quote: "What else am I gonna do, save for 20 years and buy a condo when I'm 55?"

I just know he's waiting for the next dex to come around so he'll do it again.

Long degeneracy.