A Few Things: Techno-Politics, The New Renaissance, You Are A Billionaire, 10 Crypto Predictions
December 18, 2021
Good evening. How are you?
I am sharing this weekly email with you because I count you in the group of people I learn from and enjoy being around.
Thank you for reading.
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.”
- Thomas A. Edison
“The years teach much that the days never know.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
- Bruce Lee
“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.”
- Pablo Picasso
“The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more comfortable you will become.”
- Conor McGregor
A Few Things Worth Checking Out:
1. This was a great piece by Dr. Parag Khanna and Balaji on how we are transitioning from an age of geopolitics to one of techno-politics.
Some key snippets:
Not only has technology already changed the global order, but it is also changing the nature of both companies and states themselves. The 21st century belongs not to China or the United States—nor to tech companies as traditionally understood. It belongs to the internet.....
Put all these pieces together, and rather than a unipolar Pax Americana or a bipolar “New Cold War,” the future will be a decentralized race to the top as countries, cities, companies, and communities—physical and virtual—compete to attract talent and capital. We do not argue that states are irrelevant; rather, they will be more relevant if they embrace the arrow of history and work with the network and less relevant if they attempt rearguard actions against it. Such is the nature of great protocol politics.
2. Crypto and Blockchain technologies will unleash the new Renaissance. Historian (now investor) Josh Rosenthal has been discussing this concept and recently presented it below.
This chat below is short but mind shifting on what changed during the last Renaissance and what the new Renaissance could create.
3. Africa is absolutely huge. Thank you Manoj S for sharing.
4. Josh Wolfe did an interview in Vice in which he speaks about the “To-the-moon crash” which he says is coming.
Key section:
To The Moon is not fundamental analysis. It is an inducement. It is an encouragement of belief. And the only thing that is fueling that rocket ship To The Moon is the credulity of others. There’s always a case for optimism, optimism of human ambition and capability of great technological and scientific discoveries. But if your main argument for owning an asset is that other people will own it, not because it has intrinsic value, but because there’s a greater fool—i.e. let's just hype it up and pump it and promote it until more and more fools get in—eventually, the smarter people that induced the fools are leaving them as the bag holders. That to me is the great inequity.
To The Moon is a constant encouragement of people. These are all pressure tactics weaponized to induce people to be greater fools. And it's almost like a pyramid scheme: Get the next people in, and those people have every incentive to tell their friends, Yeah, I just made, you know, 20-50 percent in a day, and you got to get in on this. But they're not gonna be ringing the bell at the top and saying, It's time to sell. Because when we’re there, it's a rush to the exit. And that's when you see mass downturn.
5. The How To Take Over The World podcast had a super two part series on the life and past of Vladimir Putin. Arguably Putin is the most powerful man in the world.
6. Some markets charts that stood out:
B. You Are A Billionaire
The end of another year is a good time to remind ourselves of just how rich we all our.
You are a billionaire already, some of us many times over.
We are all time Billionaires and time is the only thing you can’t buy more of.
A million seconds is about 11 days. A billion seconds is 31 years.
If you had the opportunity to switch places with Warren Buffett, would you do it? You could be one of the richest people in the world. But you would also have to be 90 years old, and no longer be a time billionaire.
Would Warren switch places with you? 100%.
I think a lot about the idea of time.
I think about this Buffett and Gates conversation often:
The invisible clocks are ticking, let’s hope we use your riches wisely.
C. The Tech and Crypto Section:
1. The Unreal Engine 5 is an amazing technology by Epic Games. It will change film making and then the internet forever.
2. Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX was on the Acquired podcast discussing the history and strategy of FTX.
3. Last week, we had discussed the amazing Messari Crypto report (please read immediately), Ryan Selkis the author was on the Bankless podcast talking 10 Predictions for 2022.
4. The Uncommon Core had a great episode discussing Ethereum vs the other Layer 1 chains.
5. Great tweet storm on a list of innovations being built on ETH.
Thank you for reading and have a great weekend.
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