Every global thematic shift has agents which enact it; and this usually comes in many forms. It has become clear to me the emerging theme is efficiency.
We already see power transitions across all of these industries playing out to the most potent agents with the veneer of efficiency - what I think is a correct terminal case is the world converging to Yarvinian oligopoly vs. a democracy in the search for societal efficiency; all forms of capital and access will be downstream from the select few who are in power and this transition consists of people are the ones who have 'exposure' and 'leverage' to each of these big meta categories and more probable than not, will be playing the game under the guise of being an 'agent' of efficiency.
Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, Trump, JD Vance can be summarized as agents of political efficiency
Polymarket and Hyperliquid can be summarized as agents of financial efficiency (financialization)
Similar equivalences can be made with public markets (increased global appetite for activist macro, the era for market makers/HFTs), private markets (massive push into Paradigm, YC, a16z as a form of contrarian people investing), defense (Palantir, Anduril),
It becomes clear the most convex bet is to get into the right circles + have exposure to “breadth-first” endeavors (having exposure to all types of efficiency vs. being pigeonholed as simply the enabler/agent for one) to ride this transition in power. The nuance of how to do this is not a trivial question...more to come.
there are thousands of ivy league/oxbridge grads, thousands of crypto millionaires, even more corporate slopco successes, yet most are trapped. credentialed, capitalized, yet empty. running on scripts, their existence legged into repetition and a primal yearning for the idiosyncratic. well-polished automata - great on paper, yet without poetry in their souls.
once you’re done tickboxmaxxing, you ought to endeavor to venture from the realm of the mechanical to the idiosyncratic.
the thing that is invariant throughout any discipline is that mastery is always beyond logic, it is in the nuance which expands your view of what’s possible.
now, an extremely simple way to get exposure to this. whenever learning or reading something - think in levels, assume the linkages are trivial - everything you know is level 1 reasoning. now ask yourself “what is the nuance? what am i truly missing? what is beyond the chains of implication signs? what is level 2? level 3? level 4?
i yield this may come across as highly trivial but it is super potent to force yourself to do it and bring constant focus to uncovering and pushing beyond logic.
the best ideas are simple and universal, the nuance is in taking them very seriously.
society has conditioned us to always permeate interaction with pleasantry.
you meet a friend, it's over dinner
you go on a date, it's over drinks
you reminisce together, it's over a walk in the park
mfs will get oneshotted by the fact that eventually you realize connection is generally not formed by co-consumed stimulusmaxxing. rounds and rounds and rounds of shared hedonism weaved into every implication sign, endless chatter about “opinions” and “favourites” - all dopamine overlays. there is minimal poetry in slopmaxxing together.
from the first meeting of a stranger to the good friends, everything is done with the backdrop of dopamine gathering in synthesis.
if your primary objective of "doing nice things together" is encouraging closeness, you're in a way not understanding the concept of togetherness. what do you remember when you think of the best meal you've had? the feeling? the experience? the delight? and then the people you were with - pleasantry as an overlay is beta, forgettable, and at the extremes, a complete distraction from connection.
in the army, the bonds and connections made are lifelong, truly meaningful, and immeasurably intense - a group of bravehearts from all around coming in as strangers and leaving as brothers. and you know what's interesting? there is only one thing that is invariant within their transitionary period - suffering.
taleb said that courage is the only virtue that can't be faked; there is a clear homomorphism to the self: suffering is the only feeling that can't be faked.
the biggest blocker to connecting and doing something is and always will devolve to veneermaxxing, with suffering, pain, challenge, hardship - there is no veneer. if dopamine is an overlay to one's veneer, suffering is a substrate from it.
reflecting backwards, the true meta to experience maximum connection-forming convexity may very well then be to go and extend an invitation to your counterparty to enjoy a warm summer evening of suffering, together.
