Good Morning Friends
Last year, when I wrote about The Creator Economy, I mentioned how Institutionalized Media was becoming less and less trusted because it was becoming clearer and clearer that they were reporting based on an agenda. This was obvious to anyone that looked at CNN vs FOX coverage of the same story. How can both versions be true? Or rather, what is the probability that one is always true and the other is always false? Until now, they have all been allowed to slide because the sheer girth of their respective footprints has captured millions of consumers in their respective political echo-chambers. To each side, the news they consume is their “truth”. The problem now (as I have discussed ad-nauseum) is that the binary political echo-chambers are becoming an irrelevant perspective upon which to report their slanted news. The spectrum of political beliefs of the actual electorate is too complicated to pigeonhole a single person into one of the 4 quadrants, let alone one of the 2 big tent parties. This means that you simply cannot paint stories with such a wide brush anymore. The NYT’s and other’s peculiar non-handling of the FTX crimes drives a wedge into such truth and displays the visceral need for more nuanced, independent, and truth seeking journalists. This gap is sure to widen over the coming months. The sad part is that, by definition, that is what journalism was supposed to have been all along.
Journalism aside, there is still a major need for opinion papers and thought leadership, as facts can be nuanced, and solutions are not always obvious. This is where personalities like myself and many others come into play. We take the facts, analyze and coalesce them into a directional thesis and try to articulate their effect on markets or society. I’ve always thought of knowledge as large bubbles, each one representing a big concept or particular domain. Within each concept bubble is an infinite number of smaller bubbles representing all of the detailed data points that make up the knowledge of the greater concept. You don’t have to know all the data points to have a grasp on the concept, but the more you learn, the greater your grasp. True thought leadership comes from having a firm grasp on many different concepts. This is because when you put these larger concepts together they fit into even larger macro bubbles that enable you to opine on more complicated worldviews. It’s hard to discuss socio-economic issues without the grasp of both sociology and economics (which btw Nassim Taleb believes are both phony sciences).
I say all that to say this: in this moment in time, where Institutionalized Media is so siloed, yet their reach is still so immense, it is more important than ever to place trust in thought leaders who are multi-disciplinary, have deep knowledge of many different concepts, and can hold competing ideas in their head at the same time. I will say that part again because it is a famous quote:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Having just one or two thought leaders is not enough. Everyone should have several to many thought leaders, and examine their opinions against each other, and against their own. Like the separations of powers that governs the US Constitution, the perspectives of your thought leaders should provide a form of checks and balances against your biases and opinions. Otherwise you are subject to whatever political-mind-virus-du-jour inhabits your media diet.
Here is a sample of some of my thought leaders, and the various opinions they hold on topics I think are important. Green is definitively Pro, Red is definitively Con, and Yellow is either unknown (like Warren Buffett’s opinion on Trump’s Twitter Reinstatement), or ambiguous/nuanced (like Elon/Naval/Nassim on Wealth Redistribution).
You will notice that there is no topic on which all of my thought leaders agree, although there are a few thought leaders who are very much aligned with each other (like Elon and Naval).
Here are a few interesting notes:
Chamath and Balaji alignment: despite Chamath being a registered Democrat and Balaji being ultra-Libertarian, they align unusually on Wealth Redistribution. Chamath as a Sri Lankan refugee and person of color, is in favor of making the starting line more equal for everyone. Balaji is a true meritocrat, and as such despises nepotism and generational wealth being passed down to those that didn’t earn it. He is in favor of a substantial death tax that allows children of the rich to still be “rich”, but not “children’s children’s children rich”. It is only by allowing yourself to be open to hearing opinions of others that you can zoom in to each one of the concept bubbles and really analyze the particular nuances of everything.
Nassim Taleb anti Trump Reinstatement on Twitter: Nassim is contrarian on almost everything so maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise. However, because he is so politically moderate I thought he would err on the pro-1A side, but he dropped this completely valid gem on Nov 29th:
Having multiple thought leaders skeptical on Crypto: there are actually many more people I follow and respect who are skeptical on Crypto/web3. There are also many people I respect who are skeptical of AI being of any real substance, and there are people I respect who are fervently anti-Wealth Redistribution.
Like I said earlier it is important to have checks and balances on one’s own thoughts and opinions lest you fall into an echo chamber of regurgitated party line rhetoric. I encourage everyone to think deeply about the thought leaders they respect, and see how much diversity they are actually consuming. If everyone you respect is saying the same thing on every topic, or you are having a hard time truly understanding the other side of an issue, I highly recommend actively searching for a contrarian viewpoint. If nothing else, you may further solidify your position by being able to dissect the their steel man argument. Or, you might stumble upon a thought leader who you align with on one thing very much, but not on something else. And that person might have opinions on yet a third topic that.. wait for it… changes your mind. This is the true gold standard of intelligence and antithesis of hubris. Changing your mind is the most freeing thing that you can do, along with admitting “I don’t know”. Too often our American culture has instilled in us the apparent need to have to know everything, and additionally, be so ardent in our knowledge that we never adjust our position.
I will leave you with a question that Shane Parrish asks many of his guests on the popular The Knowledge Project podcast:
What’s the last thing that you’ve changed your mind about?