I often tweet thoughts. Here is a collection on various topics.
Wealth and Innovation
The value of property stems from its scarcity. The value of innovation blooms from its abundance. Knowledge has no limits.
Wealth is the ability to have what you want.
Thievery aside, the only way to gain wealth is by making others wealthier too.
Work creates wealth. Trade creates wealth. Innovation creates wealth exponentially.
wealth = ((resources + work) * trade) ^ innovation
The universal measure of wealth is time. Specifically, the time one must work to obtain something desired.
US dollars, blockchain ledger entries, and ounces of gold are intrinsically worthless tokens.
Wealth is the ability to obtain desired things. Four main things create wealth.
1. Resources. Theft is anti-resources.
2. Work. Coercion is anti-work.
3. Trade. Taxes & tariffs are anti-trade.
4. Innovation. Government regulation is anti-innovation.
Wages, salary, and fees accumulate by addition. Commissions, royalties, and taxes accumulate by multiplication. Investing accumulates by exponentiation.
Product price x percentage can be a helpful heuristic. But tipping should be proportional to the effort x care that went into the service. If so, the price on the bill is immaterial.
The first best habit a young person can practice to start building wealth is to keep track of precisely what’s in their pockets and accounts. Simply keeping track has a magical way of causing it to grow.
To accumulate wealth, keeping track is unimportant. With diligence and good judgment wealth will accumulate.
The value of one’s effort is greatest when young because the returns have the longest amount of time to compound. That is true starting shortly after developing good enough judgment to achieve positive returns. Many 20-year-olds’ time, if used well, is worth well above $1000 per hour.
Income changes with age. 50% of Americans will spend at least 1 year of their lives above the 90th percentile.
The wealthiest 1% own 50% of the world’s wealth. The most innovative 1% create 83% of the world’s wealth. Reducing innovation inequality would probably reduce wealth inequality.
The poorest people in the world are US law school students. They have no savings and large student loan debts. Most Americans, at retirement, have savings in the top 33%. So, “the rich” benefiting at the expense of those in poverty must encompass pro bono legal work for retirees.
There are two kinds of freedom: Having a significant amount of wealth and having nothing to lose.
In general, compensation is proportional to risk * accountability. This is worth considering when asking for a raise. It is also why startup founders deserve to get rich, stock options should vest, and golden parachutes are morally hazardous.
If economists had chosen the term “destructive creativity” instead of “creative destruction” maybe entrepreneurs would get more respect.
Even a family-run convenience store is a corporation. Calling corporations greedy merely says that they try to earn money. The pejorative phrase “greedy corporation” is meaninglessly imprecise.
Monopolies from innovation, whether through patents or the marketplace, make society more prosperous. Monopolies from political influence, coercion, or violence harm society. Good watchdogging recognizes the difference.
Corruption offends all compassionate people. It is irrelevant to a discussion of the principles of economic systems unless the discussion specifies how a system’s principles distinctly cause or prevent corruption.
Passionately legislating limits on malevolent uses of new technologies while giving insufficient disinterested foresightful deliberation has a high probability of regulatory capture by special interest groups and impeding beneficial improvements.
Startups and Investing
A startup company is an anti-social amount of work on an emotional roller coaster with a likely ultimate disappointment. But, it might make millions of people happier.
Innovation density (per person, per hour, and per dollar invested) is greatest in early stage startup companies.
Being able to risk embarrassment enables one to attempt things that can yield large successes. Embarrassing outcomes are less likely than expected and come fast enough to try again. Large successes are almost certain for those who can risk embarrassment.
At the earliest stages of a startup company, the CEO’s main responsibility is selling. That is selling the product to customers and the stock to investors. It’s about the same for public companies.
In business, don’t invent what you can buy. Therefore, in B2B, make the boring things your customers need. You can sell it more than once. Don’t make whatever provides your customer their competitive advantage. You can only sell that once. In fact, zero times.
The investment portfolio with the best returns bets everything on the one asset that will have the most future growth. Diversification is a hedge against the uncertainty of which asset that is.
Startup companies are the ones curing cancer, ending Alzheimer’s disease, creating crops to end hunger, and engineering microbes to slow climate change. Venture capital is philanthropy.
$1 donated to the Disease Foundation will help to relieve somebody's suffering in the near future. The same invested in the right startup will ensure that nobody in the farther future ever suffers the disease again. And give back $100.
VC investing is the most efficient philanthropy. To get funded, startups face intense competition to make things people want. They are held strictly accountable. Many fail. Nonprofits face light scrutiny. Unmeasurable goals let them declare every effort a success.
Charity is indulgence in self-esteem.
Science
To know the truth, learn something that might be true and try, seriously, to prove it false. Truth is confirmed to the extent of the effort that cannot prove it false.
Creativity supposes new ideas. Science attempts to prove them false.
A hypothesis is an idea that is intuitively true. A hypothesis becomes a theory after zealous, diligent testing fails to prove it false.
Does science discover things that engineering puts to practical use or does engineering figure out useful things that science then explains?
It is possible to be reasonable, rational, and wrong. It can be tempting, when right, to view a debating counterpart as unreasonable and irrational. The best debater admits when the other’s argument is reasonable and rational and explains why it is wrong.
Tokenization of concepts (words) and digitization (numbers) set humans apart from other animals. They enable error-free information transfer, which enables precision in a noisy world, which enables communication of complex concepts, which enables the modern world.
Two kinds of efficiency:
(a) Allocation of scarce resources (e.g. energy, time, money, attention) to uses in proportion to importance
(b) Allocation of scarce resources to uses in a waterfall from most towards least important
People tend to inaccurately estimate or even completely overlook event probabilities. As a result, in consideration of unpleasant but very improbable possibilities, people choose to incur, and policymakers impose, irrational costs for avoiding the possibility.
The notion that people evolved from monkeys insults monkeys. People and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor that was no more a monkey than it was a person.
We are all mutants. Everybody has some genes that are different from normal. Each of our unique combinations of mutations gives us a super ability in a certain situation.
We can culture human cells to save human lives. We can culture animal cells for meat to eat. Why not culture human cells to eat?
Various animal species have evolved to both discern and emit complex signals by touch, smell, and sound. Many species can discern complex electromagnetic signals (vision). Why have no animals evolved to *emit* complex electromagnetic signals?
Being aboard any modern commercial airplane is much safer than driving, even in the safest automobiles. A modern autonomous vehicle is safer than one driven by even the safest person.
When it was difficult to make ornate things such as frilly clothing, elaborate metal objects, and fancy fonts they became status symbols. Once technology made their production cheap, simplicity became fashionable.
Nomads have more leisure but farmers use land efficiently. Malthus underestimated technology. But perhaps the toil of farming at the cost of nomadic lands is a taste of his predicted doom.
Understanding a complex subject requires learning multiple levels of recursive exceptions.
Explaining a complex subject clearly requires recursing to the right depth for the audience and accepting the discomfort of being inaccurate. Inaccuracy helps clarity.
Researching a complex subject requires supposing exceptions and demonstrating evidence that they are correct.
Many social science publications are untrustworthy, consisting of an inferred intuitive conclusion with statistics implying a cause without explaining (a) how the cause leads to the conclusion and (b) how other causes would not lead to the same conclusion.
Few things in nature come in discrete values. Most things worth knowing can only be accurately described as amounts, degrees, or probabilities.
Information transfer is most accurate when binary. Human nature innately understands this. 1-bit binary identity grouping minimizes effortful analysis.
A diagnostic test that always shows a positive result will be correct for 100% of positive cases. But it’s completely useless.
Precision is specificity. Accuracy is correctness.
Pi=3.1 is very accurate but not very imprecise.
Pi=3.1295606 is very precise but not very accurate.
The choice of base-10 for the decimal system is arbitrary, likely a result of people using fingers to calculate. Had they used hands instead, base-2 might have become the standard. It would have been easier to teach people how computers do math.
Logic: When a low probability event occurs, if it is momentous, we tend to overestimate the probability of its recurrence.
Reason: When a momentous event occurs, even if it is low probability, it is reasonable to reassess its probability.
Crossing a street mid-block is safer than crossing at an intersection.
The Egyptians designed pyramids using papyrus. The Mayans used graph paper.
A rectangle is a Manhattan ellipse.
Mammals suck.
Environmentalism
Despite what they might say, sustaining the natural environment is less important than enjoyment, comfort, and convenience for people who eat meat or dairy, heat or cool single family homes, or drive to work.
If you want to preserve nature, let it be. Stay in the city.
NIMBYism and fear of climate change are similarly rooted in the comfort of a familiar environment.
Oil companies don’t pollute the air. Drivers do.
Owning a car enables personal opportunities. 92% of US households own one. Globally, it is under 20%. To slow climate change, which countries' people should be denied those opportunities?
The industrial revolution has come full circle. Electric cars are powered by burning coal.
Far more suffering is caused by greenhouse gas emissions than by radioactive waste.
A key market for new portable nuclear reactors is powering mining operations. Imagine how much easier it will be to mine coal for powering the electric grid.
Fossil fuels are mostly from ancient microbes, not dinosaurs or trees. The most effective way to capture and sequester atmospheric carbon is with microbes.
Coastal fauna distribute ocean nutrients in California forests. Fallout of wildfire ash over the American heartland distributes those nutrients, which are unavailable in synthetic fertilizer. Wildfires in California's resilient forests make the American food supply healthier.
GMOs help not harm nature. Species modified for a trait valuable to humans lose the balance of traits needed to survive natural selection. By producing more of what humans need, GMOs reduce demand for perturbing nature by harvesting its organisms.
Save endangered species. Store their DNA sequences on your hard drive.
Humanity
No species willingly gives up something of value, even for something of greater value!
(except symbiosis, nuptial, and familial favors)
Barter, our superpower, is distinctly but not innately human. It depends on our ability to share complex concepts using language.
Talk!
Misinformation is as old as media. We will survive amplification by AI like we did the printing press. Leaders fear misinformation out of both benevolence and fear of losing power. Few see a difference. It’s worth considering free press principles in regulating AI.
Print, film, and audio/video recording made it so that 99.9% of artists cannot make a living from their craft. AI only threatens the livelihoods of the remaining 0.1% and armies of non-creators profiting from their work.
What autocrat hasn't given autocracy a bad name?
Mediacracy: A system of government in which leaders are elected by the media.
Direct democracy was great until populations grew too large and only representative democracy was practical. Could online polls make direct democracy great again?
National democratic politics is like sports. Fans cannot affect the outcome but watch intently and root for their team with great passion.
US presidential races are like Super Bowls: spiritually important to fans of the game but of little concern to most people’s life decisions: where to live, what to study, what job to take, what to eat, etc.
Unlike hundreds of daily violent deaths among millions of starving homeless people under siege in Sudan, the daily trivialities of a US presidential race have a lower cost of news production and are just as effective for dragging readers’ eyes across ads.
"The News" is entertainment. Reality is mostly boring. If the media reported reality accurately, people would stop watching. The more the news excites passions, the less it is probably giving an accurate understanding of reality.
The wealthier a nation is, the less it matters which political party wins.
Better educated populations are wealthier. What would the world be like if we paid students to learn?
What would the world be like if employers could not ask job applicants about their academic degree?
The stronger the safety net, the higher a lefty can climb. The weaker the safety net, the more diligently a righty will climb.
Language and customs evolve from one generation to the next. The point in history at which modern culture displaced traditional culture is arbitrary.
The greatest advances in science resulted from questioning the dogma of the aristocracy in eras when that was safe. Current trends seem to be towards danger for questioning dogma. This might be exacerbated by the belief reinforcement of curated media.
Decisions are trade-offs with costs and benefits. Considering benefits while overlooking costs often harms intended beneficiaries.
Every law and regulation creates economic winners and losers among the governed.
A minimum wage picks winners and losers. A different minimum makes different cohorts. The least skilled are always losers, pushed to grey markets. With low unemployment, minimums are merely a cost to consumers. With high unemployment, it's regressive.
Rent control benefits current residents when voted in. Afterwards, rents are higher, less housing is built, buildings go unmaintained, new workers are excluded, especially low income ones, longer commutes mean less time with family, social mobility decreases, black markets arise.
Income tends to grow throughout a career. If women partnered with younger men, families would find it economically rational for men to take time off to care for children.
People fear losing valuable things. Control captures value. To keep control, leaders must sometimes act against the group’s interest. This is rationalized as benevolence since it is natural to trust one’s own motives over others’. Good leadership is self limiting. But rare.
Governments are riddled with principal-agent problems. Transparency, terms limits, and gridlock protect the governed.
Chimpanzee DNA and human DNA are 98.8% the same. How many gene edits would it take for a chimpanzee to gain human rights?
The idea that “screen time” is harmful to children is misleadingly simplistic. Spending youthful time programming computers is generally good for the child’s and society’s future. We might be better off by encouraging more screen time of the right kinds.
Is something art because the beholder sees it as such or because its creator declares it to be? Can AI generate true art?
Is AI-generated pornography immoral/degrading?
Most books can be well summarized in a tweet. But the effort of getting published is a filter on ideas worth considering.
Well considered pruning can turn any bush into a strong, tall tree or any tree into a beautifully shaped bush. Though, not every thought-provoking fact about plants is a fitting analogy for human endeavors.
Logic and Reasoning
When somebody feels strongly about a controversial subject, they are probably overlooking a relevant consideration. Subjects are only controversial when there are reasonable considerations on both sides.
Strong opinions are often the result of an oversimplification of something complex. Questioning them can be enlightening.
It is easier to think about what can be seen than what can’t. It is easier to think about what has happened than what might.
It is more comfortable to think about the past than the future. It is more useful to think about the future than the past.
Attributes of a particular time/place are not evidence that a comparable time/place was the same. They only show a single possibility.
Beware inferring a cause from a correlation. Four kinds of causes can make an AB correlation:
A causes B
B causes A
C causes A and B
random chance
When something looks wrong, figure out why it is that way before criticizing it.
Merely learning is selfish. Learning to teach is neutral. Learning and using the knowledge to create is respectable. If the creation is useful to others, the learning was noble.
Trying to prove others wrong is an effective way to learn. Failure is confirmation. Success is education. Keeping it to oneself helps to maintain friendly relationships. Trying to prove oneself wrong is equally effective but recurses faster.
The discipline to ignore the interesting things people say make it easier to learn from observing what they do. Perhaps it could be called a mental mute button.
A right to compensation is often sold under the word "protection". This is comforting but incorrect. Insurance offers compensation for, not protection from, harm. Only in a superstitious mind is a right to compensation protection.
News reports seem more enlightening when presented in the form of an expert interview even though the time spent asking questions could have been used to deliver even more enlightenment. The most enlightening news sources don’t use interview format.
Citations seem profound when the name of the source is prefixed with the phrase “Nobel prize winner”. The prefix “a Harvard study” does the same to even mediocre research. This is the Halo Effect. The merit of an idea is independent of its source.
Nobel prize winners were most insightful before they were Nobel prize winners.
Compromising is inefficient. When there are multiple choices, and it’s not clear which is best, splitting the difference ensures a suboptimal outcome. Research and rational consideration will tend to yield the best result more often than a gut feel will, even if based on much experience.
When an unfortunate venture reaches a situation in which no hope remains for achieving its objective, striving onward has a net effect somewhere between wasteful and harmful to others. Sometimes quitting is most honorable.
There are always two parties who can end a dispute.
If somebody is not trustworthy, at least they could have the courtesy to be predictable.
Driving is dangerous. Some cars are safer than others. By choose which car to buy, one is putting a price on a human life.
For people, places, and things, interestingness gradually declines as familiarity grows. When, occasionally, something uninteresting becomes interesting, it usually happens suddenly.
It is difficult to change one’s personality. But an extended period of humiliation usually cures arrogance.
Practicing occasional public failure frees a person, mentally, to take large risks. Many great things can only be accomplished by taking large risks.
The word "percent" is a warning sign that what is being said is misleading.
The more interesting a statistic is, the more likely it is misleading.
Language
Authentic scientists and honest experts rarely speak in absolutes.
The words “need” and “should” lack meaning unless accompanied by an explanation of a benefit of fulfilling or consequence of failure to fulfill what is allegedly required.
Statements using words like “enough” or “too” without the word “to” or “for” are meaningless and beg critical questioning. For example, discussing whether 20 minutes is too long or not long enough is meaningless without specifying whether it is for baking a loaf of bread or a pizza.
Any “why” question has an infinite number of correct answers. “How” questions are nearly as broad. “Who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” are much more specific.
An ounce of inaccuracy saves a pound of explanation.
It is difficult to read while listening to somebody talk. In a business presentation, do not expect the audience to remember more than a few words written in the slides.
In the old days we were glad to have a good day with no problems. In modern times we are thrilled to have an awesome day with no issues.
Seem expert → be clear
utilize → use
provide → give
initiate → start
individual → person
prior to → before
obviously →
The phrase “I’m sure” usually accompanies an assumption.
The phrase “with all due respect” usually precedes a phrase showing very little.
The phrase “last but not least” raises the question, “Which one was least?”
The phrase “split the baby”, which refers to the bible story of King Solomon, means destroying something two people want but can’t share. The phrase is often mistakenly used to describe compromising by “splitting the difference”.
What’s the past tense of the verb “can”?
Of common written languages, Korean is the most logical. Syllables are atomic and logographic like Chinese but phonemes are alphabetic like English such that learning pronunciation is simple.
Any analogy, extended far enough, falls apart. It is clearer to describe subjects directly, beginning with any prior knowledge needed to enable comprehension.
Law
In the US, statutes are laws from legislation by Congress. Regulations are made by the executive branch. Regulations are meant to be no more than rules for implementing the statutes. Chief executives (Presidents) of both major parties habitually exceed their constitutional authority.
Stare decisis is intended to maximize people’s certainty about the law. It is the legal principle that, where laws are ambiguous, they should be clarified (by courts or Congress) in whatever way most reasonable people would have supposed the law to be.
Health
The brain is the last body part for which doctors can still admit to having no idea how it works.
Many people worry more about genetic changes in crop plants than genetic changes in their own bodies.
Many people worry about long-term effects of traces of harmful chemicals in food and water but ignore long-term effects of the high concentration powerful chemicals that are their daily medications.