Is the world moving faster?

Let's investigate how “time is speeding up” and see how what used to take decades/years is now unfolding in months/days (+ how that impacts our future).

1/

First, what's an idea? Idea’s can be thought of as beings (non-sentient) that float through consciousness.

Similar to a virus, their goal is to propagate and find new hosts.

Good idea’s change the world, bad ones can destroy it.

2/

They exist as a connective tissue between humans. When an idea is shared, it becomes the basis for cooperation.

Fictional idea's form cooperation: money, counties, corporations etc.

3/

Idea’s that are strongly held and exist in the lower level “Operating System” of humans (morality, religion etc) tend to create features that are incompatible with each other (and can't find compromise).

4/

Thus, when a person “infected” with a low level idea encounters someone they’ll try to spread the idea - if the other person contains a conflicting low level idea, conflict can ensue.

5/

The rate at which idea’s spread is limited by the bandwidth / connectivity of the idea to the person.

The less connectivity & bandwidth of information, the slower an idea spreads between nodes.

6/

The internet has increased the velocity at which people disseminate and receive information, with more people connected to the network, idea’s spread quicker.

"Software" can be downloaded faster to the person's "OS" which influences behavior.

7/

When idea’s spread faster, the feedback loop of decision making speeds up (given it's an idea one can act on).

From micro to macro, idea's spread rapidly leading to quicker decisions in individuals & groups.

8/

Faster rate of change means: shorter job tenure [parents stayed at a job ~20 yrs -> avg now is ~2yrs], companies grow (and die) quicker, political lines shifting in real-time.

9/

Consensus amongst networks is arrived to faster (in the context of markets: “elation -> BUY” - “fear -> SELL”) leading to increased volatility.

10/

Compound this with the advances in Machine Learning, we are outsourcing our need to make decisions: Hedge Funds run by ML algos, Gmail finishing our sentences, GPT-3 writing High School essays.

11/

Takeaways:

• Be discerning with idea's: does this create division between people? Does it upset me?

• If 'yes', discard immediately. As a node in the network it's your responsibility to share what is beneficial to others. Bigger following == more responsibility.

12/

• Wealth generation (and loss) occurs at a rapid clip. Be early & practice optionality to reduce downside (see: @nntaleb).

• Institutions by design, can't keep up with the rapid change of the markets (see: Fed relying on "past" (read: outdated) data) .