If you were a smart guy like MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor and you thought a stagflationary tsunami of enormous proportion was going to wash over the US economy regardless of who wins in November, what would you be doing right now?
I think you might be doing whatever you can to get liquid in the global reserve currency without spooking the marks.
Our kids are being rewired.
The data implicating the smartphone-based childhood are compelling but not conclusive – and may never be.
So how should governments, communities, schools and families decide what to do?
City of God / City of Man
An AI in the City of God
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.
Men of God in the City of Man, Part 1: Virus
This is a story about a virus and the gain-of-function research that produced it.
It’s not what you think.
Men of God in the City of Man, Part 2: Carriers
Every virus needs carriers to spread. Even a Narrative virus.
We can learn a lot from what they have in common.
Men of God in the City of Man, Part 3: Memetics
In the same way that genetics governs how physical viruses reproduce within a host, memetics governs how narrative viruses reproduce within a culture.
And the memes which govern our narrative virus are powerful.
Men of God in the City of Man, Part 4: Epimemetics
Every narrative is built on memes that have evolved and adapted to human culture over centuries.
But some environments change the way that those memes are expressed. The effects can be explosive.
Men of God in the City of Man, Pt. 5: Epidemic
Men of God prophesied as early as 2007 that God would make Donald Trump the President of the United States.
Our narrative virus gave these predictions fertile ground to take root.
Men of God in the City of Man, Pt. 6: Pandemic
Surprising outcomes in reality world that seem to confirm a narrative often produce explosive growth in its scale.
But also in its scope.
Men of God in the City of Man, Pt. 7: Mutation
Narrative viruses are not immune to events in reality world – especially when we have made those narratives part of our identity.
And when a narrative becomes part of our identity, it changes what we need to be true.
Men of God in the City of Man, Part 8: Zoonosis
Physical viruses sometimes jump from one species to another.
Narrative viruses sometimes jump from one culture to another.
All it takes is the right virus and a susceptible host.
Men of God in the City of Man is a nine part series about a narrative virus that infected the charismatic and Pentecostal churches in the United States. It isn't a story about Christian Nationalism. It isn't a story about January 6th. It isn't a story about why people voted for Trump. It is a story about a story. It is a story about the language that created a self-sustaining movement defined by its unwavering belief in a fundamentally corrupt electoral system.
Recent Notes
The Green Protocol: A New Vision for Crypto, Pt 2
The Green Protocol is a set of rules for the tokenization of symbolic betting markets in positive social good.
I think this is how crypto saves the world.
Our first step on this new path? Let’s plant one billion new trees in North America over the next ten years.
Cursed Knowledge #5: Hot Coffee
The McDonalds Hot Coffee lawsuit is the archetypal example of nonsense litigation. But there’s a lot more to the story than most people know.
Notes from Camp Kotok 2021
ET contributor Brent Donnelly with an end-of-summer compilation of the top–of-mind topics at Camp Kotok!
Prophet of the Pandemic
Sophocles knew it. Dostoevsky knew it.
Disruption to the biological order and disruption to the social order are one and the same.
Afghanistan and the Common Knowledge Game
When the State Department announced on August 12th that it was removing all remaining non-essential personnel from Kabul within 3 days and was considering a relocation of the US embassy to the more defensible airport, the fall of the Afghani government became common knowledge.
And that’s when everything fell apart.
The Afghanistan Narratives
We are in the very early innings of the narrative formation around responsibility for the outcome in Afghanistan. Steel yourselves for weeks of gaslighting from every angle. Hooray.
ET Podcast #13 – Wanting
It’s the only question that really matters here in the Age of Nudge: why do we want what we want?
A conversation with Luke Burgis, author of “Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life”.
Cursed Knowledge #4: The Olympics
The Olympic games are known as a time of triumph and glory. The truth is that a lot more work goes into creating and maintaining that narrative than you’d expect.
How a Narrative Goes Viral
It is a fact that migrants here illegally have spread, are spreading, and will spread Covid-19.
It is also a narrative. A dangerous, seductive, rapidly spreading narrative that will cause many of us to shut off our minds to other facts, which is what narratives DO.
How do we parse the two?
Sauron Remains Undefeated
Here’s my take on this weekend’s Senate wrangling over the infrastructure bill, and the implications for crypto.
The US Treasury is the Eye of Sauron — a gigantic panopticon tower that sweeps the world with its unblinking gaze, seeking out the owners of power, i.e. money.
And Sauron remains undefeated.
Nudging State, Noble Lies
In the world of Nudge, everyone is an ad man, and the government is just the biggest, baddest ad man of them all.
Cursed Knowledge #3: The Molassacre
The Boston Molassacre was one of the great tragedies of the early 20th century. So why isn’t it treated like one?
Ever Grande
The Chinese real estate developer Evergrande is the epitome of Too Big To Fail. It is truly Ever Grande.
So what happens if it does, in fact, fail?
Enemies Real and Imagined
I think there’s a non-zero chance that the delta-variant becomes something that markets really are focused on. Maybe that happens months from now. Maybe days.
But until that happens, the delta-variant narrative explaining markets is a wall of worry, an artificially easy hurdle to climb for a market that only really cares about a dovish Fed sticking to its transitory inflation story.
Welcome to Metaworld
The language of practically every topic of any social importance is now defined by people discussing how other people are discussing it. It’s true for the environment, race, politics and now – violent crime.
Welcome to Metaworld.
ET Podcast #12 – Proof of Plant
I think this is how crypto can change the world. Not as “money” and not as Bitcoin! TM and not as a security and not as this speculative coin versus that speculative coin. Not by facilitating a market of goods, but by facilitating a market of GOOD.
What is Robinhood?
What is Robinhood? It’s the conflation of gambling and investing. Which is … fine. I guess. But spare me the “we’re democratizing finance” BS.
Cursed Knowledge #2: Weinstein and the Oscars
Harvey Weinstein is a terrible person who did terrible things. But he doesn’t get nearly enough credit, or more accurately blame, for his role in destroying the integrity of the Academy Awards and fundamentally altering how Hollywood makes movies.
I’m So Tired of the Transitory Inflation “Debate”
When a famous person shakes his or her finger at you, they’re not telling you a fact.
They’re telling you how to think about a fact.
Litigation Finance
The formation of new “asset classes” and their associated narratives is a fascinating sight.
Using Burford Capital as a case study, new ET contributor Bruce Packard gives us a great primer on litigation-finance-as-an-asset-class.