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.
This is an exclusive subscriber-only preview of the first six chapters of Rusty Guinn’s upcoming book Outsourcing Consciousness: How Social Networks are Making Us Lose Our Minds. The book explores how evolution, polarization, and technology are slowly transforming humanity into a hive mind - and what we can and can't do about it.
The Long Now is everything we pull into the present from our future selves and our children. We are told that the economic stimulus and the political fear of the Long Now are costless, when in fact they cost us … everything.
Tick-tock.
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.
Men of God in the City of Man
Amid the Widening Gyre of politics and the black hole of financial markets, the only anchor is us, together, walking with Clear Eyes and Full Hearts. Experience Ben's original 4-part series.
Outsourcing Consciousness
The Long Now
Men of God in a City of Man
Things Fall Apart
Recent Notes
I’m Not a Raccoon! I’m the Lone Ranger!
Price drives the transaction volumes of non-cash-flowing, non-productive things. Not the other way around.
There are prominent people at the intersection of Wall Street and crypto who know this to be true – who know that the “Yay, network effects!” narrative is BS when it comes to Bitcoin – but who promote the narrative anyway.
Why? Because they know that it’s narrative – even false narrative – that DOES drive the price.
The Only Winning Move
It’s privacy and big tech again in today’s Zeitgeist, which is all about mutually assured surveillance. And for Epsilon Theory, it hits home. I think it will hit home for you, too.
The Problem with Brussels Sprouts
Some things are only palatable when they have been transformed into a cartoonish version of themselves. For financial professionals that raises a moral question: how much emphasis on the Cartoon of expertise about us is too much?
Mailbag: A Modern Vocational Curriculum
We get a lot of email and responses, but we REALLY got a lot about our comments on a curriculum that could replace the signaling-minded post-secondary degree industry. We publish them here.
We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat
Financialization is not a mean-reverting phenomenon. It’s too good of a gravy train for Wall Street, corporate management and the White House to stop now. So they won’t. Like any self-respecting Great White shark, the Nudging State and the Nudging Oligarchy never stop swimming. They never stop eating.
Want to survive these financialized waters if you’re potential shark food? You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife?
“De Blasio’s ‘pay parity’ hypocrisy” is a feature article in today’s NY Post, and a central article in today’s media Zeitgeist.
Dig a little deeper into the “scandal”, and you learn that the “evidence” is complete horseshit.
It’s an article specifically designed to manipulate someone like me … someone who is VERY predisposed to believe the worst about Bill de Blasio because I dislike his politics SO MUCH.
It’s a rage engagement, one of two primary forms of Fiat News used to win the Game of You.
Election Index: Beyond the Debates – 6.30.2019
The first debates have come and gone, and winners and losers identified. Yet in narrative world, we see a slightly different story. We learn about it in the June 30th edition of Epsilon Theory’s Election Index.
The Upside Down
Everything is topsy-turvy in the Upside Down of Stranger Things. That’s the Big Baddie in the picture above, known as the Mind Flayer.
Financial media is a Mind Flayer, too, especially when it comes to coverage of crypto and tech companies.
Office Hours – 7.9.2019
It’s the July 9th Office Hours, where we dive into all things Libra, Facebook and get an update on market narratives.
Raking it in
A few months ago, we noted how important it had become for public figures and corporations to control their own cartoon, lest someone control it for them. Well, now that advice has itself become the narrative. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
The Spanish Prisoner
Mark Zuckerberg is not The Spanish Prisoner. He’s the guy running the con.
Libra, the cryptocoin promoted by Facebook, is a classic Spanish Prisoner con. This is how the State and the Oligarchy co-opt crypto. Not with the heel of a jackboot. But with the glamour of convenience and narrative.
ET Pack Gathering #1 – Northeast US
It’s the Pack Gathering, a small conclave of like-minded people interested in talking ideas and enjoying good, genuine company.
The first event will take place in our headquarters town of Fairfield, Connecticut. New England and Mid-Atlantic, this is your event.
Here We Go Again
“You just recently hours ago met with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping,” Carlson said. “Are you closer, do you think after that meeting, to a trade deal?”
“I think so,” Trump replied. “We had a very good meeting. He wants to make a deal. I want to make a deal. Very big deal, probably, I guess you’d say the largest deal ever made of any kind, not only trade.”
He just can’t help himself. And neither can we.
Life in the Gyre
I was mad, and I was going to write an article about what had made me mad.
Except I was wrong. And the truth about what is happening in media should be much more concerning. It is seductive in ways that will make it difficult to resist for anyone who hasn’t decided to pay attention to those who would tell us what the crowd thinks the crowd thinks.
The Solution To The Fintech IPO Shortage
There’s a narrative that exists in Fintech that isn’t really present in most other early stage technology businesses. It defines why they’re different, who succeeds and who fails at getting to a liquidity event and a long-term growth trajectory.
ET Election Index: The First Debate, Part 2
In which we call the Prime Minister of New Zealand, see emerging narratives about identity everywhere, leave issues and policies behind, and are told that the torch is being passed from old, heterosexual white men.
Narrative Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry
Missionary activity isn’t always intended to mislead. But when it is, it is almost always aided by another sociopathic tendency – the complete unwillingness to admit error. What’s worse – we are practically designed to empower it.
ET Election Index: The First Debate
We discuss the narratives emerging in media from the first debate, from eye rolls to Spanish lessons, and from an economy that “doesn’t work for everyone” to language of equality and human rights.
Pirate Bay
This is a flat-out damning article about Amazon, relating example after example of how the company screws over legitimate authors on their industry-dominating online bookstore by allowing (if not encouraging) counterfeit publications.
So why does it seem like I am being told how to FEEL about Amazon in this article? Why am I reading this NOW?
We Didn’t Say it WASN’T a Press Release
It isn’t just that cannabis always seems to make the top of the Zeitgeist. It’s why – and sometimes the answer is, “Because people are paying for it to be at the top.”