The Impostors Way

Easy money leads to unsustainable growth. It disincentivises profitability and incentivises the emergence of monopolies (or monopoly-like entities). Monetary policy (printing money and lowering interest rates) have acted like industrial grade fertiliser in the field of business. A intended manipulation which has short term benefits but just as the depletion of the soil in farming, it might very well have detrimental effects on the sustainability of the business ecosystem.

Speculating keeps you humble, it reduces the amount of BS in the world. Speculation is making an educated guess. It is an opinionated take of how the future will look. A clear invalidation of this educated guess exists, meaning that one can know when the opinion was wrong. Speculation therefore needs to be differentiated from idealistic hopes for the future. In this essay I want to make the case for why adopting more of a speculative mindset reduces dissonance in oneself and contributes to a better understanding of the world. Further I want to put forward that focusing less on idealistic visions does not decrease the importance of morality in ones life or action.

This episode is about what boxing taught me about avoidance strategies.  When going through life we often get away with being ambiguous. We can  avoid being wrong by not investing ourselves into any view of what the  future will bring. But every now and then, and inevitably so, life  forces us to take a stance. Then we need to be nimble yet firm in our  opinions. These two modes of operation (running from a fight vs. not  getting hit) require completely different skill sets.

As individuals we do not want to experience dementia, erosion nor inflation if we have a choice. We want to be able to learn from the past, we want to keep tools and materials if we can and also keep money we’ve earned for future endeavours. As individuals we want to maintain state. All kinds of state we have, and we’ve covered three types here (information, physical resources and wealth). In this episode I want to unpack the mental model that helped understand this better. For me it is incredibly helpful to apply to different parts of life. Because the model is helpful for me I want to share it. I hope it serves you just as well. Written version: https://theimpostorsway.com/2022/04/03/24-cog-in-a-system/

As is usual in December I am getting into a reflective mood as the year ends. For this "mood" to be for any value to you I’ll focus on a few key concepts I’ve learned and otherwise let smarter people talk. Quotes from four impactful books I’ve read this year shall be my guide through this episode. Transcripts and links to the book can be found at: https://theimpostorsway.com/23

Let me give you a 15 min run-down in simple words. I'll simplify things to get the point across, so you can decide whether or not this topic is worthy of further exploration for you. Check out the reading material if you want to get to the nuances here: https://theimpostorsway.com/2021/12/12/22-inflation-in-simple-terms/

Transcript including sources and further reading: https://theimpostorsway.com/2021/12/11/21-what-is-the-metaverse/ Facebook recently renamed itself to 'Meta' and like many you might be wondering what the hell that means. What is a or the Metaverse, Meta for short. Why is Mark Zuckerberg so creepy and why this change has very little to do with Facebook. All this, tonight, for you, in 15min. Question: What's the Metaverse? To get to that understanding let's explore: Historical origin / buzzword Why are facebook and other companies like Nvidia moving in that direction? Are we going to live in the Metaverse anytime soon?

First Interview on the Impostors Way. Huge thanks to Till for joining me in what was a super fun discussion. We covered time preference, running, entrepreneurship and touched on many other topics along the way. Give it a listen and make sure to check out Till's work to learn more about Bitcoin and other low time preference things.

Exploring the question: Why does Bitcoin reduce violence? You'll learn about the nature of violence, property rights and Myanmar. In short, Bitcoin reduces the incentive of violence by ensuring that the holders wealth cannot be seized or stolen. Bitcoin offers peaceful, defensive property rights that persist any government change, any policy change and are valid internationally. They are trust-less and cannot be broken because of your religious beliefs, race, sexuality, etc.

Bitcoin offers real interest rates, a real savings tool. It gives the  saver a greater sense of confidence that every sum she is able to save  today will be buying her more in the future. Bitcoin has grown in  purchasing power year by year on average and offers a real interest  environment. This reduction in uncertainty motivates long term thinking. The  tradeoff with the future self is worth it. It pays off to avoid buying  shoes now that I don’t really need if I know I’ll be able to buy more  with that money in five years.