Our mediated cultural transition from sadness to generalized anger to focused anger at specific people and institutions of the Other Party is an entirely intentional effort by Big Politics, Big Tech and Big Media.
This is the Great Ravine, and it’s all going to get much worse before it gets any better.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
The thing about the Common Knowledge Game is that once it breaks, you can’t put it back together again. It’s over, people. This only gets worse. You can’t “reassure” voters and donors after we all saw what we all saw. pic.twitter.com/fAG8ARAASQ
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) June 30, 2024
California's new $20 min wage law exempts restaurants that bake and sell bread, where bread is defined to exclude bagels and croissants. Only benefits Panera. Newsom mega-donor owns >24 Paneras. Newsom says "part of legislative sausage-making". https://t.co/8xvHPQQ3CD
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) February 28, 2024
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Palate cleanser ...
The McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies is up and running at Vanderbilt, thanks to a $5m gift from Epsilon Theory pack members!
Already doing some really cool work on the TV News Archive at Vandy!https://t.co/0DMryw49uR
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) February 26, 2024
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
CNN just described the people attending the political ceremony marking Gen Qasem Soleimani’s death as “pilgrims”.
I understand why the theo-fascist generals running Iran use this loaded language. I don’t understand why CNN copies them.
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) January 3, 2024
There has been a lot of concern about how the regulation of ChatGPT and LLMs will play out
In our latest episode of Breaking News, I asked @EpsilonTheory if it is warranted.
He reminded me that the ship isn't turning around at this point.
Full episode:https://t.co/f6VjaABCOA pic.twitter.com/0JY2s1wvIn
— Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) December 18, 2023
The most important and informative thread you will read this week. Promise. https://t.co/gLRXPLmy3l
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 16, 2023
I think what many Americans are missing is that Hamas has been fighting a Total War with Israel for decades, and since Oct. 7 Israel is fighting a Total War back. There are no ceasefires and no negotiations in Total War, just an existential fight to the end.
Full episode below. pic.twitter.com/rufC4bn64z
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 11, 2023
A fantastic conversation with @howardlindzon!
This is the Great Unmooring, and we are entering the Great Ravine. https://t.co/nPE5kEhDW9
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 5, 2023
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Would be poetic if the SDNY prosecuted this murder. pic.twitter.com/gZOgvyE1qL
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 3, 2023
Man, those internal Michigan polls must be brutal. https://t.co/GsuIgydRZq
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 2, 2023
If you don’t see that there is an intentional effort by China and Russia to astroturf pro-Palestine protests in the West, you’re just not paying attention. https://t.co/NtajhkPPeW
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) October 31, 2023
What’s happening right now in the art world is also exactly what’s happening in the Democratic Party. And what already happened in the Republican Party. These are schisms that cannot be fixed. https://t.co/xS1CWTrtzI
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) October 28, 2023
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
With nominal US growth of 8%+ after the fastest, severest rate hike program ever ... if you don't see that the Fed's monetary policy models are completely broken, then you're just not paying attention.https://t.co/AaImC021a1
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) October 26, 2023
The widening gyre is political polarization, presided over by the Beast of Big Politics, Big Tech and Big Media.
Why can’t we see the Beast? Because common knowledge.
Because everyone knows that everyone knows that the enemy of America is not the Beast of the widening gyre, but the Other Party.
Polarization often isn’t an accident. It is the result of intentional narrative construction – constructions designed to make us believe that we are sane and unfairly judged, and that our opponents are insane and hypocritical.
Understanding how to recognize and respond to these constructions in the wild is now an indispensable skill of the citizen.
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
Death and Rebirth: In Precious Metals, Crypto, and the 6th Grade
“Nice yellow pants, freak.”
Nobody is immune to getting slapped with a label, especially when you’re a new kid in middle school. The trick is not selling out. The trick is owning your identity.
That’s true for Wall Street, too.
It’s All True
Eight thoughts that I can’t reconcile about about Justin Mohn, the 32-year-old in Levittown, Pennsylvania who murdered his father, cut off his head, and made a YouTube video showing off his trophy and saying he did it because his father, who worked for the US Army Corps of Engineers, was part of the “Biden regime” and was a “traitor to his country”.
It’s All True (Eight Thoughts on Justin Mohn)
Eight thoughts that I can’t reconcile about about Justin Mohn, the 32-year-old in Levittown, Pennsylvania who murdered his father, cut off his head, and made a YouTube video showing off his trophy and saying he did it because his father, who worked for the US Army Corps of Engineers, was part of the “Biden regime” and was a “traitor to his country”.
Men of God in the City of Man, Part 9: Pathogenesis
A single virus can cause disease of the body in several ways at once.
A single narrative can cause disease in society in several ways, too.
This is the story of a new disease from an old acquaintance.
The Intellectual Rot of the Industrially Necessary University
The intellectual rot of the modern University perverts and diminishes the works of its faculty and administrators, no matter how smart they are, no matter how well-intentioned they are. It is a rot that requires plagiarism and promotes antisemitism.
We require a new Reformation, and here are its theses.
Non-Linguistic Inflation Framing in the Wall Street Journal
We do a lot of work here to understand how the media frames issues linguistically, but we haven’t done much to see how that carries over in graphical narrative representations. Would the same patterns we see in the WSJ’s words be represented in the WSJ’s pictures?
Oh yes.
“Yay, College!”
Every once in a very great while, the direct beneficiaries of a yay-something narrative construction overplay their hand so egregiously, embarrass themselves so publicly, reveal their mediocrity so clearly, that the common knowledge propping up the yay-something narrative collapses.
This is the breaking of “Yay, College!”.
I Got You Fam
Last week, Jay Powell told you that the Fed intends to cut interest rates next year, not because they must, but because they can.
But inflation is a bird that always comes home to roost. And when it does, we will look back at Powell’s Christmas 2023 “I got you fam” pivot as a BFD in the Great Unmooring.
The End is My Beginning
Sir Steven Wilkinson returns home to Lancashire to say goodbye (?) to his father. There’s no true conversation to be had, only fragments to be gleaned, which will have to be enough. Tick-tock, everyone. Tick-tock.
The Changing Narrative of Women on Wall Street
Sure, you can do it. But you shouldn’t.
This used to be our common knowledge about risk-taking men on Wall Street. Today it’s our common knowledge about women.
And we are all paying a heavy price for that.
Pain, Political Vibes, and Being a Bat
The core problem for Team Blue isn’t the candidate, it’s the team. Specifically, it’s the very online population of Team Blue journalists, academics and political operatives and their pseudo-religious, dogmatic urge to explain why aggregate economic statistics are more meaningful than lived experience.
Argentina Leaps
The election of Javier Milei as Argentina’s president is a classic Great Unmooring event. Don’t get me wrong – I am totally rooting for the guy and I am not saying this is a Bad Thing TM. In fact, I think Milei is absolutely right to take a flamethrower to the Argentine central bank and entrenched public sector. But it is a profound unmooring all the same, not just for Argentina but for the world.
The Rick Rubin Of Advice: How To Have A Creative Second Act
The weirdest question I was ever asked, maybe in my entire life, was, “Can you make this sound more yellow?” The weirdest answer I’ve ever given to the weirdest question was, “Yes.” I replay that conversation in my head all of the time. There’s a perfectly good and teachable reason I was able to answer it. But to teach you that magic trick, we have to talk about Rick Rubin.
Why You Need A Personal Archive And How To Start One
A personal archive is a means for staying connected with the world and ourselves at the same time. It’s a simple yet life-changing way of seeing the world and your place in it.
Fiat News in the Fog of War
The obligation of the news media when major events are unfolding should be to act with more discretion and care, not less.
They failed at this most critical task this week. Utterly.
Generative AI Images and how Microsoft Doesn’t Understand the Internet
A sample of what you’ll find on the Epsilon Theory Forum – a safe space for full-hearted people to voice their concerns and hopes and observations about today’s world without the emotional cudgel of cancellation or the emotional crutch of an echo chamber. You know … what social media should be!
And yes, it’s for paid subscribers only, which is how we keep the trolls at bay.
Lessons From Biking 245 Miles Across France
ET contributor Kyla Scanlon was stuck. So she went biking with strangers who through the magic of talking became friends and confidants. And that’s how you get unstuck.
One Less Vulnerability
Yes, this is a note about oil prices. But more importantly it’s a note about all the changes in correlation and transmission to FX that have happened over the past few years.
Inflation in the Twenty-First Century: A Circular Flow No Longer
The flow of dollars between the US and China is no longer circular, and that has enormous implications for how the US finances its budget deficits.
New from ET contributor Kevin Coldiron!
The Time I Got A High School Paper Extension In A Bar: The Fourth Turning (But Not In The Way You Think)
Wanna guess what book both Steve Bannon and Al Gore handed out to members of Congress?
ET contributor Matt Zeigler knows it was “The Fourth Turning”, and he’s got a thing or two to say about generational theory.