Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) is an entrepreneur and essayist, the co-founder of Counsyl, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase, and a former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. His latest book, The Network State, explains how to build the successor to the nation-state, and is freely available online.
A purpose-driven life is good
Entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk use a single unifying principle for decision-making:
- Jeff Bezos: “Does this make the customer experience better?”
- Elon Musk: “Does this help us get to Mars?”
Being purpose-driven helps you better decide what is worth your time and what is not .
Win off Twitter to win on Twitter.
Understanding the ‘-isms’
- Wokeness and Maximalism have immense differences, but they are aligned on being against the current order, whether that is being against institutional racism or Klaus Schwab and the Great Reset
- Communism and Fascism are similar when pushed to the extremes, and they sum to totalitarianism and tyranny
- Wokeness and Maximalism are similar when pushed to the extremes, and they sum to anarchy
The hot new thing that changes every two weeks
The Current Thing: Everybody suddenly starts caring about one specific thing, then two weeks later they don’t care about it anymore and there’s a new current thing that replaces the old one
Resist the current thing and you will win, whether “you” are a nation or individual
We know what’s going on in Budapest or Bangalore, but we don’t know what’s going on in our own body.
America got a headstart
Americans had a massive advantage in the 1950s considering the rest of the world was in ruin: Japan was recovering from being nuked, China had communism vs. nationist civil war, India had just gotten independence, and Europe’s infrastructure and economy were devastated from WW2, and the Soviet Union was still recovering from its war with Germany
As a result, the American worker faced little competition on the global stage during this period and was artificially propped up
- Today, the passage of time and an internet connection results in more competition for the American worker.
- This dynamic places the nationalist socialist and the international capitalist at odds.
A personal dashboard
- A “personal dashboard” will replace the daily newspaper
- It will contain personal information on your fitness, diet, sleep, and family information like what your kids need that day, that month, etc.
- Reading the news is not the first thing you should do when you wake up in the morning
The impact of technology on conflict
- With testosterone levels as low as they are, people are less likely to physically respond to various types of conflict
- Examples of the extreme organization were prevalent throughout the West in the 20th century: factory workers taking orders from a foreman, platoon soldiers taking orders from their commander, players gathering around the quarterback, and school children circled around their teacher
- This organization is less prevalent in the West today due to the enabling of asynchronous work and screens
The most nutritious food is the stuff that doesn’t have nutrition facts on it.
Legacy media
- Straight news is boring, so the legacy media adds salt and sugar to the content to make it more interesting
- Failing restaurants add sugar to their meals as a last-ditch effort to attract patrons back to their restaurant, and the legacy media does the same with information
- Consuming sugar can be addicting, and chronic consumption of it can have delirious effects, as shown in the graphic below that tracks obesity in the U.S. over time
Conflict is attention, and attention is the currency.
