To distribute it, you need to spot it 1st
So how do you spot the future in the present?
Example: COVID
In early March, the future was SK and IT. They had gone through a wave before most other countries. They had taken ≠ measures with ≠ results.
Which one would you rather be?
Defining a successful strategy for COVID was as easy as: "Hey guys, looks like SK is doing it well. Let's do the same!"
Distributing the future meant looking at what already worked and spreading it. You could do that in many ways.
Don't know how a new outbreak will evolve? Look at early regions/countries.
Don't know what measures work? Look at countries that performed well
Discussing scientific papers is more of the same: distributing their insights was distributing the future. Masks look like they work? Let's shape the future by spreading the word.
More broadly, you can distribute the future by taking past trends that are unlikely to stop.
Tech adoption is an example. If a tech's adoption curve picks up momentum, odds are it will keep it.
Same thing for worldwide GDP growth: it's pretty stable
between 2 and 4%. You can make bets on where it's going by projecting from the past.
Or for population: its underlying drivers are ppl in (fertility rate, immigration) minus ppl out (life expectancy, emigration).
The biggest ones (fertility, LE) are usually sticky, and the others (migration) are usually small, sticky, or both
That's what VCs do when they invest: they look at early trends in industries or companies that make continued growth likely.
The look for S curves unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/s-curves
Knowing which past trends are most likely to continue in the future is the best way to increase confidence in your forecasts of the future.
And forecasting the future with accuracy makes you rich.
I'll go into much more detail on how to make accurate forecasts in my next premium article.
Analogies have a bad rap vs. 1st principles. But both have a role to play.
When should you use Analogies vs. First Principles?
It depends on the novelty-complexity relationship.
The more you've seen a situation, the more you can predict what will happen next without understanding it. The ancients might not have known how the solar system worked, but they knew the sun was going to come up tomorrow.
So you can use analogies when you've seen something a lot and it's very replicable.
That's how a lot of the medical sciences work today, for example. We're not sure how things work, but if they work over and over again, let's keep doing them.
Here's one way to understand vaccines vs. variants, why they're still good even if there are breakthroughs, and why you should protect yourself even if vaccinated:
Think of the virus like an invading army, and vaccines like your defense army. Thread 🧵
If an enemy army is about to invade, how are you better off: with, or without a defense army?
Obviously, with a defense.
Does it mean you will always win?
No.
The enemy might have lots of soldiers (high viral load), or its soldiers might be seasoned by war (aggressive variants).
The stronger it is, the more likely it is to run over your defenses, ravage you, and kill you.