Our brains evolved to tell stories before they evolved to speak.
This has fundamental implications for our susceptibility to communication in the networked age.
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 outcomes of NFL games are inordinately influenced by officials relative to other sports. This is not new. The Narrative environment faced by the NFL in 2021, however, IS new.
I’m not sure they’re ready for it.
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.
Called It - Election Edition
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
Language is a Virus: Mike Pence edition
This is not a note about Mike Pence.
This is a note about language.
This is a note about how viral words of *therapy* have infected blue tribe brains and viral words of *war and conflict* have infected red tribe brains, words that change the way we see the world and speak to the world. Words that change the way we THINK.
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, 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, 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. 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, 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.
The Launch of FiatNews.com
Today we announce the beta launch of FiatNews.com, an Epsilon Theory sub-site devoted to the measurement of opinion content in news.
Our goal? Giving citizens the ability to know when they’re being told how to think.
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.
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.
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.
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.