All Epsilon Theory Content

All Epsilon Theory Content

 

Everything we have published at Epsilon Theory since 2013, an archive of more than 1,000 evergreen notes.

The United States of Bed Bath & Beyond

By Ben Hunt | May 16, 2023 | 72 Comments

A grown man made a wager. He lost. He made another wager. He lost again. End of story.
– Tony Soprano

This is the story of weak men and rapacious men.
This is the story of Bed Bath & Beyond.
This is the story of America today.

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Trading is a lot like Poker

By Brent Donnelly | May 16, 2023 | 1 Comment

With the passing of Doyle Brunson, it’s a good day to compare poker to trading.

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An AI in the City of God

By Ben Hunt | April 11, 2023 | 191 Comments

The City of Man always wins.

The Visigoths always sack Rome. The Vandals always sack Hippo. Augustine always dies in the siege. Bad things always happen to good people … at scale.

Here’s how we use generative AI to flip the script.

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Dedollarization is Not a Thing

By Brent Donnelly | March 31, 2023 | 30 Comments

People like to throw around the phrase “gradually, then suddenly” as a witty rejoinder to suggest a dedollarization of the world is a nonlinear process that will unfold any day now. That only sounds smart when Hemingway says it.

There is no structural dollar depreciation or dedollarization story. Global usage of the USD is stable and changes in the value of the USD are cyclical.

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Office Hours Recap 03/24/2023

By Harper Hunt | March 28, 2023 | 2 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 03/24/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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Office Hours Recap 03/17/2023

By Harper Hunt | March 20, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 03/17/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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Dark Forest: The Brutal Game of Modern Banking

By Ben Hunt | March 17, 2023 | 89 Comments

I think that the Big Banks’ collective deposit of $30 billion in uninsured accounts with First Republic is the first step in solving the Dark Forest problem of the American banking system.

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Office Hours Recap 03/10/2023

By Harper Hunt | March 14, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 03/10/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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Office Hours Recap 03/03/2023

By Harper Hunt | March 6, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 03/03/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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AI R Us

By Ben Hunt | March 2, 2023 | 270 Comments

The scariest thing about large language model AIs isn’t their fundamental human-ness.

It’s the fundamental AI-ness of human intelligence.

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Noseblind

By Rusty Guinn | March 1, 2023 | 23 Comments

The half-life of just about every major news story is one week.

Barring major new developments, practically nothing captures our attention beyond six.

So how do we stay focused on things that matter for much longer than that?

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They Fought the Gyre … and the Gyre Won

By Rusty Guinn | February 15, 2023 | 61 Comments

He Gets Us gets a lot right about our world today.

But there’s something important He Gets Us didn’t get.

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Office Hours Recap 02/10/2023

By Harper Hunt | February 13, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 02/10/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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Office Hours Recap 02/03/2023

By Harper Hunt | February 6, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 02/03/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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Office Hours Recap 01/27/2023

By Harper Hunt | January 30, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 01/27/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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Metaphysics, Consciousness, Nature of Reality: a Thread from the ET Forum

By Ben Hunt | January 23, 2023 | 196 Comments

The craziest thing happens when there’s no audience, when you’re talking with other actual human beings for the right reasons … you not only have actual conversations, you not only move quickly past politics into subjects that are far more interesting and far more relevant to our actual lives than politics, but you make actual friends

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Office Hours Recap 01/20/2023

By Harper Hunt | January 23, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 01/20/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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“Yay, College!” Part 1: The Smiley-Face Super-Villainy of American Higher Education

By Ben Hunt | January 22, 2023 | 70 Comments

The modern American system of higher education – especially its most prominent public and private universities – is less our Superman than our Homelander, a smiley-faced faux superhero who does The Man’s dirty work in exchange for wealth, privilege and … our cheers.

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Hodor

By Rusty Guinn | January 10, 2023 | 39 Comments

The Story of Adequate Liquidity doesn’t exist and shift on the margin. Instead, it exists in two states: it is normal, or it is broken. Once the threshold between these states is crossed, it is very hard to tell the old story. Sometimes impossible.

There is almost no price too high to keep that story from jumping over that threshold.

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Office Hours Recap 01/06/2023

By Harper Hunt | January 9, 2023 | 0 Comments

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 01/06/2023 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

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