The Trump administration has flipped between a half dozen distinct narratives telling us what these tariffs are really about.
Why? Because they needed to wrap the truth in a better story. Time to go Narrative Shopping.
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.
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.
Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.
Crypto
Recent Notes
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 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 1: Virus
This is a story about a virus and the gain-of-function research that produced it.
It’s not what you think.
Derivative Hoops
A synthetic basketball lasted only one year (2007-2008) in the NBA.
But Synthetic Basketball? Oh, that’s here to stay.
When The Best Conference Speaker Is Your Uber Driver (Epsilon Connect 2023 Notes)
The best speaker at Epsilon Connect 2023 was my Uber driver.
Buckle up, honeys.
The United States of Bed Bath & Beyond
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.
Trading is a lot like Poker
With the passing of Doyle Brunson, it’s a good day to compare poker to trading.
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.
Dedollarization is Not a Thing
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.
Dark Forest: The Brutal Game of Modern Banking
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.
AI R Us
The scariest thing about large language model AIs isn’t their fundamental human-ness.
It’s the fundamental AI-ness of human intelligence.
Noseblind
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?
They Fought the Gyre … and the Gyre Won
He Gets Us gets a lot right about our world today.
But there’s something important He Gets Us didn’t get.
Metaphysics, Consciousness, Nature of Reality: a Thread from the ET Forum
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
“Yay, College!” Part 1: The Smiley-Face Super-Villainy of American Higher Education
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.
Hodor
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.
Epsilon Theory 2022 in Review – Foundation
2022 was our ninth year of publishing Epsilon Theory. It was also our best.
We’re changing the way the world sees the invisible water in which we swim – narratives.
And we’re just getting started.
Covid is China’s Vietnam War
Covid is China’s Vietnam War, and the current outbreak is their Tet Offensive.
This is how common knowledge changes, as now everyone knows that everyone knows that the CCP is not just a liar, but an incompetent, failed liar.
The Recipe for Agent Orange – The Projection Racket, Pt. 3
There is a true story of free market capitalism. It is one of humanity’s greatest and most important stories.
There is also a myth of free market capitalism. It is one of humanity’s most manipulated stories.
The MacGuffin, Part 2: The Story Arc of SBF and FTX
The MacGuffin is the object of desire.
It is the thing around which the plot of the story revolves.
Here is the story arc of SBF and FTX, and the MacGuffin that anchored it all – the Magical Money Machine.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.