Every so often, things fall apart.
In the words of those who lived it, here are the vibes and the semantic signatures of the twentieth century’s most devastating social collapses.
From the meaning in their words, wisdom for our future emerges.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
The cure for the cancer of gun culture and police culture is not to be found in reform laws around guns and police, but in reform ideas around culture, ideas that create a new dimension of American society that rejects LARPing and LARPers alike.
Inflation
What made Bitcoin special is nearly lost, and what remains is a false and constructed Narrative that exists in service to Wall Street and Washington rather than in resistance.
The Bitcoin narrative must be renewed. And that will change everything.
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Crypto
Recent Notes
The Grifters, Chapter 3 – Election Prediction
Polls create the plays. Election models create the score. Fivey Fox and “Nate Silver” announce the game. All to create engagement with a diversified media corporation.
No one understands how to create and sell a spectator sport better than Disney.
You Can’t Handle The Lie
Any news outlet that won’t let you see a lie does not work for you.
A Tale of Two Cults
There’s a moment when the real world peeks through the narratives that surround us, and we convince ourselves that this will be the truth that frees our fellow citizens/investors/neighbors from their delusions.
But truth is only one of the necessary conditions for this kind of change. The other?
Mercy.
Oh No, Here It Comes Again, That Funny Feeling
Three weeks ago, I didn’t see a narrative path for Trump to win a turnout-based election hinging on four or five swing states.
Today I do.
It’s the same funny feeling I got in 2016, but with a twist.
We are all MMTers (Still)
Stimulus is dominating market news, and even with an election coming up is playing an outsized role in political news. So what is the current fiscal stimulus really about?
Maybe more importantly, what is it absolutely, definitely NOT about?
How It Started. How It’s Going.
Once Daryl Morey’s new idea became the common knowledge of the NBA – once everyone knows that everyone knows that the way to win NBA games is to maximize 3-point shots and lay-ups – then it became a permanent feature of the way professional basketball is played. It became an equilibrium.
It’s exactly the same with politics.
Knowledge Takes the Sword Away
The corruption of media by missionaries means that we now live in a world of two sets of facts. It is a world which gives us two choices: to champion our truth, or to work toward eliminating the world-of-two facts structure.
To hell with OR. Let’s choose both.
“Quantile Tracking Errors (QuTE)” by Aguilar, Chengan, and Custovic
Aguilar, Chengan and Custovic dig into the concept of “tracking error” and find that current measures do a poor job of handling skewness and kurtosis. They propose a new approach to calculating tracking error – Quantile Tracking Errors (QuTE) – to address this weakness in traditional measures.
Meta Information
Sometimes a grift isn’t in what you say, but in the difference in what you say to different audiences.
It’s not the information. It’s the meta information.
Office Hours – 10.13.2020
It’s the October 13th Office Hours, where Ben and Rusty discuss all things narrative in an interactive format.
The Frustrated Money Manager
The frustrated money manager is almost always a smart, accomplished professional in his own field who believes VERY much in the existence of The Smart Money ™.
The frustrated money manager is almost always a liiiittttle bit on the make.
Like a Vatican cardinal.
Fell on Black Days
2020 has awakened us to the Black Days constructed while we slept.
Now we act, and not just to avoid the worst excesses of the Trumpist clownshow or the Socialist lunacies.
Now we change the entire freakin’ world.
For ourselves, yes. For our children, even more.
Scapegoating the Zeitgeist
One day we will recognize the defining Zeitgeist of the post-GFC Obama/Trump years for what it is: an unparalleled transfer of wealth to the managerial class.
This Wall Street Journal article is not an attack on that system. It is a defense. It is telling you that the system is fine … we just need to do something about these bad apple CEOs.
Hook, Line and Sinker
It is a literal golden age for CEOs whose talent is the creation and propagation of narratives.
Why? Because it works. And it works because we have accepted a financial and business media that has been redesigned into a cheering section.
TLDR: The Projection Racket (Part 2)
This is a short-form summary of our long-form note The Projection Racket (Part 2), located here. While it attempts to present the most accurate picture…
The Projection Racket, Pt. 2
The Projection Rackets will say that the solution to two-party dominance and the erosion of political self-determination is, like everything else, is to vote. Express yourself! Don’t you believe in democracy?
They are wrong. We, the people, CAN fix this. And if we want it enough, we will.
Why Am I Reading This Now?
Yesterday, 5 GOP Senators wrote a letter to Netflix, saying that their plan to adapt Liu Cixin’s “The Three Body Problem” for TV/film amounted to “complicity” with the CCP and their horrific mistreatment of the Uyghurs.
Why am I reading this NOW?
Brave New World
It may be a brave new world of Davey Day Trader, but it’s not enough to convince yours truly to drink Huxley’s soma. Or the Fed’s SOMA (System Open Market Account).
The Welding Shut of the American Mind
The closing of the American mind is evolving into its next stage: the welding shut of the American mind.
What’s the difference between closing and welding shut? A closed door can be opened. A welded shut door cannot. We can’t save the minds already lost. We can only prevent our OWN minds from being welded shut.
And we can. Together.
The UNITED States of America
My RBG story …
I thought she’d be all about women’s rights and legal theory this and legal theory that. I was SO wrong.
RBG’s death is an enormous loss for the UNITED States of America.