A running joke personal joke I have when frustrated by humanity is that every movement compelling enough to reach any scale reveals itself eventually to be “oops all reactionaries” The bigger the thing or the deeper down you go and eventually with fractal consistency “oops, all reactionaries!”
Anytime I have really hard contact with reality this turns out to be true. Reality has been particularly harsh over the last couple decades insofar as materialism has gone for the species.
I have been shielded from reality by the gracious people of the United States of America. And even then if you look too closely “oops all reactionaries!”
I think “oops, all reactionaries” turns out to be a decent lens for assessing our past, present and probably future. If it’s any good it has a core that should concern if you take it too literally. You then have to decide how seriously to take their literalism. If you get it wrong you might wake up dead.
Which I don’t love. Most people just want to go along to get along. Which isn’t to say that getting along in America is easy. We are a surprisingly competitive place for the richest nation state to have ever existed among a bizarre republic of slowly expanded frontiers and boomtowns. So we’ve got plenty of pockets where reality has always been all reactionaries.
We’ve hit our limits a million times and still have shockingly low density. Being an industrious people who enjoy markets this has worked out relatively well for the “empire” and it’s people.
America! It’s not bad and I recommend it even if we do functionally have feudal lords in the form of capital, labor and land managers at various levels of public and private parcels. But being civilized people trying to make a buck we really don’t like it when the shock troops are deployed at home.
We do seem to be ambivalent about it being deployed abroad. This has been my Ted Talk on homeland security. Really though beware the politics of wealthy heiresses.
We’ve had a couple of market trading days to adjust to the new world order being “absolutely no order” and it mostly seems fine. American can capture cartel leaders/heads of state that she dislikes. Weird but so far fine.
The only metaphors are crude puns (see what I did there) and Marco Rubio does every job memes. From the Golden Era of Iran-Contra to Manuel Noriega, it’s never been a better time to have an opinion on the Monroe Doctrine or a LatAm portfolio. Did you know Ollie North married his former secretary this summer? Fun!
Yellow face being racist, perverting the Monroe Doctrine into a pan-Asian accent inflected Capote character is definitely cancel worthy but if you can’t imagine it I’m sure generative AI would oblige.
What’s worse is that my stupid inner monologue mimicry made me I wonder if Xi Jinping has enough of an accent when speaking English for Donroe Doctrine to be amusing. Americans never know these things. Neither does Reddit
Being profoundly American, this is all upsetting except where it is amusing, because the chaos era is firmly here and it’s hard to make any predictions, first derivative included.
I used to do more victory laps about how my own investment thesis is predicated on increasing chaos. Now I’m just reminded of how much I didn’t want to be right about my own thesis when I started.
Hopefully that hasn’t affected my capacity to stay ahead of the game. The numbers look good but the final score remains to be seen.Because as they say, “hate the game, not the player.” I’m playing to win.
As if we don’t win at making better technologies that stabilize our world then we all lose. I am a progressive when it comes to investing in new technologies that improve material conditions.
We won’t look at Uncle Yud as fondly as Uncle Ted when it’s time for eulogies. We will conclude that Chesterton’s Fence included a bit too much in the enclosure even if strong fences make for good neighbors.
Being a reluctant conservative makes it worse that I love being first. I am a hipster in an era without use for hipsters except the knowledge of what is about to make money. Hipsters are a useless bunch except as fashion editors or as capital stewards.
I happen to own the domain chaotic.capital. You’d think this would be proof positive of being a progenitor or originator of this investment thesis, but it’s such a common sense worldview now it’s about as useful as an NFT after the 2022 crashes.
I have bragging rights and my own metrics page inside AngelList. Which isn’t nearly as much fun as I expected it to be. It’s not bad having some financial flexibility from making good calls, but my primary problems remain health not talent so it’s less enjoyable than I presumed. Thankfully that means I will continue at it based on my own pace and instincts. Good luck out there!
I hate to use a dictation software to write a piece that I typically write with my own two hands and ten fingers but I’m not entirely sure that I see the difference between typing out a hundred words a minute on a mobile phone versus saying something a little more slowly to a stenographer application. I use Wispr Flow
I’m sure if you are a Paul Kingsnorth type, you would be happy to remind us that we’ve lost the “steno-pools” filled with women whose job was knowing just how to speed their notes to keep the dictation flowing. Those jobs are gone as the personal computer made its debut.
I don’t mind writing as I can write just a little bit faster than I can talk. And I often find that my dictation is less pulled together than my writing. But isn’t it funny that we should have reached this point so many centuries later? Yeah.
The New Year shouldn’t really get going until after Epiphany. I’m not a Catholic, but I think the Holy Nights are a time for prayer and looking inward.
Alas, we seem to start the new near with a bang every year now. Concerns about Iran’s currency crisis was the big story in geopolitics as the chattering classes concerned themselves with socialist mayors in America were going on about collectivism’s warmth. I will take frigid individualism thanks to
Today I woke up to news of an early morning “snag and bag” of the President of Venezuela Nicholas Maduro and his wife being taken my American troops to stand trial.
The front page of the New York Times around 11am GMT
I’m in Europe so we had a bit more time with the news before Trump addressed the nation. It’s a little chilly where I am and I’m still worked up about the the warm fuzzy communism of the Zoomer youth who seem to think all problems are solved with more money and never seem to realize that it comes at gunpoint.
And despite running on an explicitly anti-war platform, Trump is now giving a press conference suggesting American oil companies are up for a forever war run by Marco Rubio. Rough day for our Secretary of State who is also probably as worried about Iran as anyone.
I suppose it’s now or never for a number of things. Toppling regimes named as narco-states and cutting off oil and capital flows as China does exercises in the straits. Things are malleable indeed.
Benjamin saw the logical result of fascism is to introduce aesthetics into political life. A hundred years later we have cultural war politics to serve as spectacle instead of transforming material conditions.
So I am horrified to have spent my New Year’s in Sarajevo only to see a socialist taking on the mayoralty of America’s most important financial center.
To go from seeing the history of a hundred years of European continental war to watching bratty millennial nepotism play act at collective action is frankly not a positive development.
Millions of Europeans did battle with communism and in America we are so coddled the swearing in ceremony of New York City’s democratic socialist mayor is celebrated.
If misery loves company then we should all suffer equally is a less aesthetic way of saying we are all in it together. Or as Sebastian Junger said “It was better when it was bad”
And I got to about May and realized I didn’t feel like I needed to put more into the organization. I had 4 medical procedures involving surgery. My father died. My best startups all raised rounds to scale. You can find your own way from there. It’s been a hard year despite the wins.
I get out of America with as much frequency as I can manage. I juggle this with an intense patriotism not only for America but for my home biome in Rocky Mountain west. I am proud to say I am from Montana when I am abroad.
My interest in being regularly abroad began as an effort to source deals and understand different technical ecosystems, but has ended up being my barometer of what reality is being played for what channels. Deals get done where the founders are and it will remain so.
Yet if I didn’t see other economies and live outside of the news ecosystems of America I’d have an understanding of reality that was incomplete.
The projections of your interests as an American are in constant tension with the ex monica and cultural attacks on it from its adversaries. America has quite a few and it is extremely dangerous now to be blind to their impacts.
I don’t think our world will be as open in the future and this saddens me. When I visit a young formerly communist city in Europe I mostly see enterprising young people who see an. American and have positive associations.
The vibes Zoomer Eassyerj Europeans have towards a middle aged American from Montana is surprisingly positive. I am feel lucky that is their emotional connection to America.
And we shouldn’t take that good will for granted. We want America to be a good friend to them. Capitalist Zoomers who experienced totalitarianism and socialism are good friends to Americans.
The Christmas story is almost too layered to with truth to hold any but universal mythic truths this far from its historical origin.
We hear parables of the unexpected guest who arrives late at night seeking shelter. We are taught about the faith we must have in our families even when they ask us to believe in the impossible.
The Gospel of Luke (2:1) says Caesar Augustus issued a decree that “all the world” should be registered, so “everyone went to their own town to register.”
Imagine putting a pregnant woman on a donkey just to be sure you’ve got the proper tax regime in place. Empire is as Empire does.
In America the census comes to you. In Rome the census journey was the means by which Jesus’ birth occurs in Bethlehem, aligning the birth story with messianic expectations.
Why am I thinking about systems of record keeping on this holy day? Well I suppose it’s because on religious holidays days I have the space to consider what our future systems of record may be and how we will weave together the miracles that may show us the future of who we are to be as humans and as Christians.
Accounting and record keeping are relatively new inventions in the grand scheme of human development. Tribal knowledge assumed we could keep track. Empires needed a bit more structure and a lot more systems of record keeping.
What will we need as the nation state change and reform and the empires of this century are formed more by context graphs and nodal pathways than census takers and taxmen?
We are reinventing the living records of decisions we once traced through men of power and means but are now stitched through corporate entities, personal trusts, accounting norms and our attempts to find sources of ground truth we can all agree upon.
Trust and power dictated that in the past but now we need new ways. We must explain not only what happened but how it happened and verify it across decentralized systems in open systems even when much of our knowledge is tied in closed systems and protocols whose rules we’ve never fully articulated expect to a few high priests how they run run.
Technical documentation becomes precedent as Jay Gupta of Foundation Capital said in a thread. I bet he didn’t expect that to end up in a Christmas story either. Funny how life and history works isn’t it? Merry Christmas to us all. And may the day bring you tidings of great joy. Or at least a protocol handshake that is a bit easier than heading to Judea by donkey.
There can only be one. One white boy. Oh no, sheesh we didn’t mean in the department. What on earth have you been reading? There is room for everyone to have a seat at the table in our modern world. Just one seat though. Were you expecting there would be more?
There can only be one Highlander. You know, the Scottish warrior Connor Macleod who is part of a race of immortals who must battle it out, do not age and only die if their head is taken? There can only be one of him. Except it’s a whole race. I don’t know how that works to be honest.
Immortals are driven to fight each other in “The Game,” where each beheading transfers power via a mystical energy surge called the Quickening, with the last survivor destined to win “the Prize,” a vaguely defined ultimate power. via Wikipedia
This very popular 1986 movie set between 1630s Scotland and 1980s New York City somehow turned into a mega-franchise with spin-offs and animes. It didn’t start out that flashy. I mean really look at how much content they had to pack into this poster to get people into the theater.
These days content usually the other direction, from anime to tv show to movie, but such was the power of Hollywood and its capacity for distribution in the eighties. Being a Baby Boomer movie director seems like it might have been a trip.
Things are not so rosy for the profession these days. Especially if you are a quirked up white boy like Duncan. We’ve lost them you see. This is a source of much consternation in the discourse. The children of the Higherlander generation definitely thought they would be more than one winner.
We’ve lost a whole generation of white men to diversity initiatives (launched by other white men) even though the lore being produced (by said white men) that white men were rightly battling it out for just one seat. The prize of real ultimate power seemed pretty clear. There can only be one.
Or at least this was the premise mythical of stories from ranging legendary Arthurian kings to actual Caesars of the Roman Empire. There wasn’t a team of Alexanders Who Were Pretty Good. The prize of real ultimate power is the stuff of myth. Sure actual power sharing is more complicated but humans love a final boss.
The American white boys (probably Ulster Scots) are suffering for the widening power sharing agreement reached in the great awokening diversity initiatives of the last generation. And no one even bothered to tell them until their hit middle age and didn’t end up as Highlander. We mostly told them it sucks to suck. You racist little shits just can’t compete.
I gather it wasn’t so bad when your enemy was other quirked up white boys. I don’t emotionally understand why as I was always expecting to have one seat as a token white girl. I must be less bothered having had lowered expectations. There is only one queen right? But there are lots of handmaidens if you are lucky.
Now if you want to be the Highlander you have to fight the whole globe. Highlander might be an Indian girl or a trans Guatemalan. That damned Netflix always caving in to the social expectations of elites forcing their luxury beliefs onto the suffering under class of millennial white boys. Didn’t you read JD Vance’s book? The American underclass is dysfunctional and suffering. They deserve it right?
But did they suck? Ah now that it’s too late we finally get to have the conversation about having deliberately changed the demographics of the elite winners of the Prize in American.
Which I assume is a wife, two kids, split level suburban home and a compact car. They weren’t expecting to be king. Maybe king of the cul-de-sac. And if you were forty in 2014 you didn’t get that. Well some of them.
Millennial American white boys expected they would have more seats at the table (having mostly seen themselves in power) rather than fighting it out to be Highlander.
Which is weird since I assume they saw the same movies, tv shows and animes as the rest of us. It’s hard out there for everyone. And the great game includes Everyone.
Zoomers get it. Shame it requires so much beheading. We’d better divvy up the spoils a bit more before the Highlander comes for our heads eh? Come on, at least give the boys a pilot or a term sheet or a job offer before this gets ugly. Just ask JD Vance.
Without getting into too much detail about my travel schedule I will say I’ve visited a few places with a lot of construction this year.
I’m talking about cranes on every corner level construction. If I did a full rotation as if I were Michael Bay getting an action shot, I’d see a half dozen cranes putting up major construction projects.
In some European cities (not the western ones) I saw entire neighborhoods being rebuilt from old multi-family buildings to massive mixed used developments. Cute streets and courtyards be damned, the millenial families want Instagram housing from Tallinn to Tirana.
Their elders are confused but new families need new condominiums. Let’s just hope they remembered to plan for water, power, and other infrastructure needs like new roadways. I’ll admit I’m skeptical in many cases. Maybe it’s good that they are just building willy nilly as it’s not like we get infrastructure investment without the pressure of new families demanding it.
Americans don’t see this amount of construction regularly and it is both inspiring and also a mess of pollution from debris to noise. It’s pretty miserable if you happen to enjoy walking. It is also miserable to live with.
It almost makes me sympathetic to the whines of older residents who want their homes to be worth more and use the chaos of new developments as a cudgel to stop new housing from being built.
There was a time in New York City when I first arrived there when it felt like new buildings went up all the time. You’d complain about jackhammers, trucks, and the ugly protective sidewalk sheds that are meant for safety.
I even knew a venture capitalist who left his job to make a classier sidewalk shed as the damn things almost never come down in a city under constant improvement.
I went through ULURP or Uniform Land Use Review Process hundreds of times in just a few years as an appointee in the community board system.
All anyone can do is complain about the lack of new building and construction. And who can manage to overcome the slog to build let alone turn a profit. American processes for building are more “cranky man tells at clouds” local meeting hell than Robert Moses.
Maybe the YIMBYs (I myself am a yes in my backyard sort) are barking up the wrong true with red tape reform efforts. The strongmen cut the Gordian knot of land reform by simply not giving a shit about process.
The Zoomers are ready to rage for radicalism with their reactionary political entertainment industry. It’s unclear to me if those types would remember to incorporate waste water treatment in their plans. It’s not hard to go from bullshitting to being covered in shit. So that’s worth considering too before we get too excited about a new round of futurism.
