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
The Ghosts of Commentary Future
These are The Ghosts of Wall Street Commentary Future. And if their chains are not already clanking around in your inbox, they will be very, very soon.
Ten Times Faster Than The Sun’s Beams
The Wall Street Narrative Machine is in overdrive to create a “Yay, Value!” rally here at year-end.
Like any effective advertising campaign, it will work. I’m not saying this rally isn’t real.
I’m saying that you should reconsider what “real” means.
AMA? BITFD!
The American Medical Association is not a charitable organization.
The American Medical Association is not an educational organization.
The American Medical Association is a tax-exempt hedge fund and licensing corporation, designed from the ground up to enrich its executives and serve its own bureaucratic interests.
Burn. It. The. Fuck. Down.
Office Hours – 11.17.2020
It’s the November 17th Office Hours, where Ben and Rusty discuss all things narrative in an interactive format.
The Endemic Mindset
COVID-19 is endemic, and its mutations will likely be part of our lives going forward.
But there is another disease this virus has caused, and it is a disease of the mind. It is the endemic mindset. And we can eradicate it.
Today.
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.
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.