I'm launching a newsletter, Uncharted Territories!
Have you noticed how it feels like the world is mutating faster and faster? Like we can’t keep up with what’s happening.
I believe this is just the beginning. Thread 🧵
I believe that some of us alive today will live forever. Maybe you, reading this.
I believe AI will make our lives unrecognizably better. It will also push many into poverty.
2/12
I believe wealth will keep concentrating in the hands of a few, especially the hands of builders of aggregators.
I believe nation-states will drift into irrelevance.
I believe geography will matter less and less.
3/12
I believe remote work will do to white collar workers what it has done to blue collar workers over the last 50 years.
I believe Bitcoin will replace gold, cryptocurrencies will replace fiat currencies, and smart contracts will upend how we deal with each other.
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I believe tech corporations scientifically enslave us into unhappiness.
I believe Global Warming is a social organization issue.
I believe we don’t fathom yet the consequences of fertility collapse and are utterly unprepared for it.
5/12
I believe most people are not developing the crucial skills they will need to surf these trends. Instead, these trends will overwhelm and crush them.
I believe all these themes are interconnected.
6/12
This newsletter has been 10 years in the making. During which time I have written 500 pages of content. I never dared to publish them.
But writing about COVID over the last year showed me that people might be interested in what I have to say. So here I am!
What will I cover?
All the biggest problems that I believe are coming at us, from automation to inequality, global warming, or how to coordinate and think.
Here's a subset of topics:
Interested in receiving the newsletter? Sign up!
One free article a week, one premium article a week.
I'll keep all my COVID articles free, but on other topics, I'll split them. The premium articles will go deeper, take more examples, cover edgier stuff
9/12
Don't know me well? Here's the short version.
My COVID articles gathered over 60 million views. My theories, such as the Hammer and the Dance, were quoted by governments around the world. I talked with presidents and news anchors, gathered 70k followers and
10/12
over 40 million impressions on Twitter. I've written for the New York Times, I published a book and gave a TEDx talk on storytelling...
And now, I'm all in with Uncharted Territories!
11/12
Interested? Sign up to the free of premium newsletter!
Do you know anybody who might like how I look at things? Feel free to share the newsletter with them!
I look forward to this journey together. This will be fun.
1.5M futile COVID deaths in the West.
They compare to 18k in the Asia-Pacific region.
Who will be accountable?
Thread🧵
Those who apologize for Western countries say: We had it so much harder here. Did we?
For every disadvantage the West had, we can find countries in the East who did really well.
Sure, being an island and having a young population helps. But that doesn't determine the outcome
See? For example Indonesia and Philippines are similar in COVID advantages to countries like Vietnam, Thailand or Mongolia, except Id and PH were islands, yet did worse.
Also, Britain and Ireland are quite similar to countries liek Japan or South Korea, and yet here we are
It touches on many important topics: What's trust and who to trust, government failures, human biases, clashes of values, intellectual inconsistencies...
She interviewed me over email. It's hard to condense that kind of information. I had much more content in my email, so I pasted the entire interview in this article:
Lots of bad takes on Biden's proposed tax hike. I must be missing something. What is it?
1. Why do we need to increase taxes if we can print money?
➡️ Too much cash causes inflation. Take some of that cash out of the system through taxes. + tools, + precision on outcomes
2. If you print $ to increase capital gains and then tax them, ppl are worse off
A: You have $100 in stock, appreciates 7% in a year, 0% inflation, 20% capital gains tax➡️$105.6 at the end of the year
B: $100, 40% appreciation, 5% inflation, 40% capital gains tax➡️$118
3. It will disincentivize investments.
➡️What's these ppl's alternative?
Spending? That would be better for the economy. The savings rate of the top brackets is through the roof.
Capital flight? US income taxes are charged on global income, can't escape these like a business
Scientists have something to learn from musicians.
Their business models are changing in a similar direction. The ones who realize it quickly will gather an impact and wealth that few could have dreamed of before. 🧵
The currency of scientists is references to their published papers: The more references they get, the more successful they're considered, the more likely they are to get tenure, go up the ranks, and make $
That business model means they need to please their peers and the scientific journals.
Both of these are traditional gatekeepers who have a strong incentive about reputation. The more on the cutting edge the paper, the better. The more jargon, the more it looks advanced.
How many times have you heard excuses of why the West couldn't control COVID? Only islands, only authoritarian regimes...
Alternative interpretation:
To be clear, I'm not saying it was sufficient to do test-trace-isolate well to control the virus. But it was necessary: without it, you couldn't succeed.
The countries who did test-trace-isolate well also did other things, notably all have a good fence. nytimes.com/interactive/20…