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
In the Trenches: A False Sense of Stability
In the first note from new Epsilon Theory contributor Peter Cecchini of Cantor Fitzgerald, Peter gives us a window into what a false sense of stability may mean for investors heading into the end of 2018.
Insert XS Pun Here
The iPhone XS launch is attached to the strongest pre- and post-launch narrative of any September launch since the iPhone 6. Does that tell you how to trade it? No. Can it help you think about how different outcomes might shape your thesis – and the thesis you believe other investors are following? Yes.
Why Hope?
It’s easy to feel like we need more than hope to pass through troubling times, and it’s usually true. But sometimes hope is exactly what we need.
Stalking Horse
A stalking horse is a familiar shape that a hunter hides behind in order to get close to his prey. Once you start looking for them in markets, you will see them EVERYWHERE.
It’s Twue, it’s Twue!
Using facts in your analysis doesn’t make your analysis a fact. Punchy language that leans on these ‘facts’ doesn’t often stand up to scrutiny.
An Ocean of Indifference
Sometimes the absence of a clear central narrative can tell us something about a stock, too.
Oh, hell, Martha, go ahead and burn yourself if you want to.
I can’t advise you on the Answers. I won’t advise you on the Answers. But I will advise you on the Process. Because that’s what we do for our fellow pack members.
Innocent Monsters
The paradox of the Widening Gyre is that even when you’re right, you may be wrong.
Getting Out: A Godfather Story
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
Vito got out. Michael never did.
Notes from the Diamond #3: Everything Has Its Price
Allocators and investors can learn a lot from professional baseball about how to structure incentives and compensation for portfolio managers. And how NOT to do it.
Never Give Up Hope
Enmity and competitive games can be beaten. Sometimes doing so requires someone willing to be booed by his home crowd.
Things Fall Apart (Part 3)
The Fed, China and Italy are the Three Horsemen of the Investment Semi-Apocalypse. They’re major market risks, but you’ll survive.
There’s a Fourth Horseman. And it will change EVERYTHING about investing.
Figaro
In Part 4 of the Three-Body Alpha series, we explore how narrative may shape the tendencies of certain trend-following strategies – and how investors should respond. We also talk Tesla, if you’re into that sort of thing.
They ALL Came in Through the Bathroom Window
When reading news, especially financial news, be vigilant for strings of causality. Most financial events are extremely overdetermined.
O God, Make Me Humble
We have built industry standards around minimizing the appearance of risk. As a result, we now have an epidemic of ability-signaling, when what we really need is humility.
Funding Secured
Shifting common knowledge on Saudi Arabia has infected the narrative around SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which in turn places unicorn valuations at risk.
The Tells of Fiat News
The mechanics of effective storytelling and the tells of Fiat News are very similar. Add knowledge of them to your news-reading arsenal.
The Grammar of Risk
Take it from a list of terrible pop songs (and one OK, if overrated song from the Doors): lessons that provide an answer instead of a process are usually lessons badly taught and badly learned.
Investment Diligence and the Cornelius Effect
Nobody likes to admit it, but the investment industry hires and invests with the smartest-seeming people that seem sufficiently likable. And it doesn’t work.
Putting the Real Back Into Realpolitik
“Order should not have priority over freedom. But the affirmation of freedom should be elevated from a mood to a strategy.” Yes, please.