Fragments & Reflections (SIM #84)
I've had so many things running through my head lately that it's been hard for me to get organized thoughts into a coherent SIM. Given it’s been a while since I shared anything, rather than worrying about cohesion, I thought I’d share fragments, some of which might be future SIMs. Also, if there’s anything in particular you want to see me focus my attention on, please feel free to make suggestions. A forewarning, this runs long and I also included a number of interesting links/references at the end.
Women’s volleyball has become one of my favorite sports to watch; I just finished watching Nebraska beat Wisconsin to go to the Final Four and I’ll likely watch most, if not all of, the Final Four. I’m going to have to catch some of this action live next season. I’m particularly impressed with the defense; so much energy and athleticism.
In my experience, particularly as I’ve been paying closer attention the past ~15 years, the power of the story almost always seems to win out over intellectual honesty and competency. I tend and want to believe that in the long run, competency, effort and financial discipline win out, but I’m beginning to fear that in algorithmic, influencer-driven systems, that our short attention spans and lack of trust in information that doesn’t come from our often biased-yet-trusted sources destines us for increasing amounts of self-serving BS in sound bites that align with our various tribal sensibilities.
In the business world, I see raising and having access to capital as a powerful advantage and it’s usually the better storytellers, often promoters approaching carnival barkers, that typically start with this advantage. I don’t begrudge true believers, but I see promoters use copious amounts of misleading information often supported by the intentional omissions of relevant information (buyer beware).
In politics, I genuinely like the story of draining the swamp and made note of it several years ago. I spend a lot of time thinking about competency and complexity and while I believe it takes a non-traditionalist to enact significant change, my expectation is that it takes a competent leader and team to make sure the swamp isn't replaced with an inhabitable desert. Non-traditional for non-traditional sake doesn’t pass muster with me. That said, I am genuinely hopeful (not optimistic, but hopeful) that I’m wrong about the competency of the Trump administration. As I’ve highlighted frequently, I dislike the politics of both parties, and my significant dislike of Trump as a candidate relates significantly to his character and willingness to overtly express hate, which I believe makes it easier for all sides to focus on what’s wrong with others as opposed to focusing on making things better. The primary reason I’m not optimistic is my opinion that Trump selects his lieutenants based on loyalty over competency and I’ve rarely seen that prove durable. That said, I’m cheering for some successful swamp draining and progress, recognizing it’s going to be bumpy regardless of who is responsible for implementing such a strategy.
With how fragmented our information sources are currently, our innate flaw of confirmation bias (SIM #24 & SIM #50) is being feasted upon - my ask is that you please try to be cognizant of it in your own life. We're all guilty of it and when you combine it with the power of the story and the fact that we’re so quick to use the word “evil” (Elon Musk tweet) and we’re on a very slippery slope to justifying truer forms of evil. We so easily believe the negative when we're predisposed to it and its coming from a “trusted” source. There is clearly significant harm throughout society and I believe the vast majority of it relates to power structures and the complex often unpredicted and frequently disagreed upon outcomes of policy and action. This isn’t an excuse for such negative outcomes, but rather simply highlighting that in our day-to-day, we come across very little that’s intentionally evil. When we demonize, we dehumanize (SIM #51 - Demonize).
An interesting data point I heard; not sure the veracity, but fits with what I’ve seen and heard from folks. Shortly after the election, Rs were already noting an improvement in the economy and Ds were already noting a worsening of the economy. If true, perhaps humanity is hopeless against influential algorithms praying on their sensibilities and tribal tendencies.
Debanking as a new rallying cry. Having personally been debanked, I believe those in crypto, weed and anything higher on the risk curve should understand this risk; I tie very little of it to politics and significantly more of it to policy, in this case the complexity and outdated anti-money laundering laws. Tying this back to an earlier fragment, my biggest frustration with folks like Elon Musk and Marc Andreesen, who are clearly gifted individuals in their domains, is how they reduce these incredibly complex topics to "evil" and "political" to serve their own interests. We’re now in an environment where anything the other political party does gets treated as treasonous for political reasons; we’re about to see the Ds do it to the Rs with the switch in power.
Speaking of crypto, outside of Bitcoin as a potentially compelling alternative store of value, like gold, I still don’t understand the asset inflation of cryptocurrencies. It seems a lot like the greater fools theory (leading to speculative excess). Unlike AI, which I link back to machine learning on steroids, where the productivity effects on society are present and growing, I’m not noticing the value creation of crypto upon society writ large. This could very well be my shortcoming, but it feels a lot like any other form of speculative gambling with a mismatch in the impact on making our lives better. That’s not to say that blockchain technology doesn’t have some highly desirable value creating characteristics and applications; I’m simply not noticing them at any discernible scale for how prevalent and aggressive their supports are (at least what I see in my algorithms). That said, typically some good comes out of speculative bubbles (Boom: Bubbles & the End of Stagnation).
Who are we supposed to trust for information? Our individual and tribal confirmation biases are creating a toxic mix of compromised news in all directions, typically without any real exposure to the counterpoints. As a trivial example, I was sitting with a friend that voted for Trump who was sharing a video of Biden falling asleep as funny and I asked him if he ever shared any of the silly videos of Trump falling asleep or any of his other goofier moments (swaying to music for 30 minutes) and he hadn’t seen any of it amplified.
I’m not that far along in my exploration yet, but the Abundance movement resonates with me - What is Abundance. In addition to long espousing an abundance over scarcity philosophy in business, I find the optimism of the word itself to be useful for framing conversations toward solutions rather than disproportionately focusing on how messed up everything is because others always screw things up.
Our democracy is being abused by win at all costs tactics (SIM #5 - Win At All Costs). There’s very little true patriotism or rolling up our sleeves and doing our part. It’s time for a leader that pushes personal agency as the highest good. Life isn't fair or easy on an absolute basis, but we should strive for lifting ourselves and others up. I think I’m a utilitarian at core, a concept that resonated with me in my late teens.
I've been working on a version of "What I Believe" that I'm hoping I feel is ready to share in the coming weeks. I've been challenged – SIM is a respectful community, so I don't get attacked – by those with fairly strong political opinions leaning left and right. Regardless of politics, I've been clear that my biggest frustration with Trump is how intentionally divisive he is (his Thanksgiving post) and I’ve spent little time highlighting anything policy related.
For those that want to look deeper at some of the things I find interesting:
Two great articles from The Prism (Gurwinder) that resonate and relate to the fragments above – The Intellectual Obesity Crisis & Why You Are Probably An NPC – the second one is longer and if you read it, please reflect about where you fit in an intellectually honest way
I initially stumbled across Tangle last October (2023) and shared a couple of articles from it with friends and I continue to find it a source of insightful, balanced articles and perspectives - as an example, here’s the founder’s write up on the United Healthcare CEO’s Shooting
Abundance Links
A Simple Plan – This is an article from 2022.
The Breakthrough Institute referencing Abundance
The Rise of the Abundance Faction and Abundant vs Moderate and Progressives Against Abundance – there’s a wealth of related material on this website, most of it long form.
For those leaning optimistic or at least hoping that Trump’s can make progress with draining the swamp, here’s one of the best articles I’ve come across - Bringing Elon to a Knife Fight from Eating Policy (Author of Recoding America)
Love And War and Status commenting on a David Brooks article; I particularly liked this long comment & debate on the article, with a longer conversation about meritocracy
Multi-Bagger First Principles – a presentation from a microcap portfolio manager in Canada that starts with an engaging reference to a professional gambler that exploits human bias – a related antidote, for those that watched Steph Curry bury a late-game three pointer in the Olympics, I thought it was a terrible shot to take, albeit, I was ecstatic with its outcome.
Josh