Of Two Minds

If those on the opposite side of the trade are viewed as threats rather than friends, it’s time to revise the analysis. Of the many self-generated dangers investors face, few are more dangerous than confirmation bias, the comfort we experience seeking out views that confirm our own positions and our resistance to studying opposing views.

Self-reliance in the 21st century is uniquely challenging because we’ve become overly dependent on globalization and financialization. As things unravel, the one surefire strategy is to chart a course for greater self-reliance. Improving self-reliance has no downside, only upside, and everyone can increase their self-reliance incrementally in small ways.

The momentum of franchise success and centralization of power are fatal. Loonshots are like moonshots, only crazier and trickier to commercialize.

Some decades are easy and expansive, others are painful but necessary to lay the foundations for future progress. Many people reject the idea of historical cycles due to their imprecision. I understand the appeal of this objection, but it is nonetheless striking that transformative decades tend to manifest in cycles rather than evenly over time.

Looks like we need another $500 billion or so. Hum baby! Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but two predictions are easy: 1) governments that do not yet impose wealth taxes will do so within the next five years and 2) governments will impose windfall taxes on all outsized unearned gains, from any source, anywhere on the planet.

We can only choose one: open, dynamic stability (evolution) or autocracy (instability and collapse). When the fundamentals of life change, every organism must evolve or die. This is equally true of human organizations, societies and economies. Evolution requires conserving what still works and experimenting until something comes along that works better.