Assume every piece of information reaching you was optimized to capture your attention and influence your behavior. Before accepting it, ask: Why did this find me? What does it want me to feel? What does it want me to do? Who benefits if I do? … Continue readingNavigating The Modern Information Space
John and Bob were both 40 years old when they each invested $5 million into the exact same broad-market index fund. They made the investment on the same day. They paid the same fees. They took the same risks. Neither added another dollar. The index … Continue readingThe Unpreventable Inequity
For much of history, we lived in a world defined by scarcity, the type of scarcity that killed most of our ancestors. Food, clean water, shelter, social stability, were all rare. Because of this, individuals got hard-wired to indulge in abundance when it came our … Continue readingIs More Better?
In this post, I explore financial value and valuation from a higher level of abstraction. The goal is not to turn you into a valuation expert for any specific good or service, but to challenge how you think about money and value more broadly. These … Continue readingMoney, Value and Valuation
There’s a simple method to find the true value of anything. Picture yourself stranded on an island, absent government, markets, law enforcement, infrastructure and those who manage it. Under those conditions, anything that is synthetic drops to a value of zero. Money, gold, crypto, contracts, intellectual property—all … Continue readingTrue Value Survives Under Pressure
Back in the old days, when we lived in an information poor environment, people were still pretty amazing at recognizing patterns. But these patterns were built on limited data points, as most people only had their own personal experiences to pull from. As a result, … Continue readingThe Good Ol’ Days
There is more to the human brain than just classical computation. Humans can easily understand concepts and deal with ideas that are beyond the limits of any classical computer. For example, the concept of infinity can be generally understood by an intelligent 8 year old. … Continue readingUnderstanding Beyond Computation
Something grounded on nothing can occupy a useful space within society for a time. But what lends that something its legitimacy, is the collective buy-in and trust from the public. As soon as that trust is eroded, useful fictions lose their usefulness and plummet in … Continue readingCollective Buy-In
The world is the best that it has ever been, but the average person wouldn’t know it. This is partly due to us all getting fed a steady diet of fear and negativity from almost all of our media outlets. Regardless of political affiliation, your … Continue readingPathological Scarcity of Gratitude
Elon Musk, at the peak of his wealth, was worth approximately $360 Billion ($360,000,000,000). Most people don’t really understand how much money that is. So to put it in perspective, let’s equate dollars to days. If $1 million ($1,000,000) equaled 1 day, $360 Billion ($360,000,000,000) … Continue readingCompounding Unequal Distribution