Thread by @TaylorPearsonMe

Everything I know about Asymmetries, I learned from Woody Harrelson.

Most importantly: Always double tap.

Though I do love a good Woody Harrelson flick, I actually initially heard this phrase on redteams.net/rules

It is a both hilarious and enlightening site, written by a former special forces operative.

There are 73 rules in total, but Rule 0 is the one that always stuck out at me:

Always Double Tap

If you actually had a life as a teenager and thus spent much less time playing first-person shooter games than me, a double tap is where you shoot the bad guy an extra time even after you think he is dead.

Though it seems like a sort of cavalier and bravado-fused thing, Always Double Tap is a deeply true and useful way of understanding the role of asymmetries in our lives and how to deal with them.

The cost of a double-tap is always one additional round. This is not free, it has some cost associated with it as you might need that round later.

All other things being equal, you want to conserve ammunition.

By contrast, not double-tapping is usually not a big deal.

The bad guy usually is dead when he drops to the floor.

However, all other things are not equal.

They are highly asymmetric.

The cost of being wrong is very high - the bad guy may roll over and shoot you in the back when you walk past him or turn around.

Double tapping is a way of mitigating extreme downside volatility with only a small marginal cost: one additional round.

It’s a military equivalent to a cheap insurance policy.

You don’t need it most of the time, but you’re sure glad you have it when you do.

Though I think military analogies often get overused in business (wealth creation is positive-sum, warfare is not), there is no industry which better understands the role of asymmetries than the military.

It is literally a matter of life and death.

Consider another phrase popular in military circles:

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

This is also a statement of the role of asymmetries.

When you are operating at 95% of your max capacity, even a mild amount of volatility can you push over the edge and cause a mistake.

Counterintuitively, you will move faster if you slow down.

Let's say you have a road that's at 70% capacity, and the speed limit is 60 miles an hour.

Because of how the traffic flows, it's actually faster to slow everyone down to 45 miles an hour.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

@sama frequently mentions that he has never had a good investment where the founders did not reply to email quickly.

The only way they can do that is if they are operating at 80% capacity to be able to address unexpected emails.

Leaving at least a couple hours per day as buffer time in your calendar will actually make you more productive then scheduling everything to the gills.

You’ll be able to quickly solve problems (double tap) and seize opportunities.

Running your business or job at 70-80% capacity is faster in the long run than operating at 95% capacity.

Likewise in investing, using historical correlations and leveraging a portfolio to be “maximally efficient” reduces its robustness and durability.

You are better in the long term running at a more conservative level. It will make your portfolio more ergodic taylorpearson.me/ergodicity and likely to be there when you need it.

In many areas of life, it’s often faster to go the slow way.

And, make sure you remember to double-tap along the way.