Thread by @johnkonrad

I’m a merchant ship Captain who runs a large news company for commercial shipping.

Five years ago I had zero interest in Naval or military affairs but this guy @mercoglianos just kept calling me telling me shipping is in BIG trouble if the US Navy keeps ignoring the concerns of the security shipping industry.

I’ll be completely honest, I ignored him for years. We had the strongest Navy on earth, and nobody was close. How could this be that big of a concern?

I wasn’t completely oblivious. I’ve listened to @cdrsalamander’s podcast every week for over a decade. He gave similar warnings.

I even wrote early articles about China’s islands building campaigns and the US Merchant Marines’s aging sealift fleet. But those were mostly isolated concerns.

But Sal did not stop calling. Slowly I started putting in a heavy amount of work into naval and military research… and unfortunately I found that Sal was 🎯

It’s estimated the department of defense will spend over $1.7 trillion this year but, apart from some @MSCSealiftjob ads (which I am eternally grateful for) not a penny of that is going into my business.

My business makes money by focusing on commercial shipping concerns but I began to realize tsunami was about to capsize the industry. That tsunami would land at the crossroads of shipping and naval affairs.

So that’s where I have focused my efforts these past few years.

Why? A few reasons

1) Sal became a close friend and I enjoy working with him on hard problems

2) Sal is smarter than me, and much better informed on the topic.

3) it’s in impossible problem and extremely complicated problem to solve.

4) I tried, but failed to find anyone willing to work full-time on the project with Sal.

5) We failed to convince most people that this days was coming but the best and the brightest naval and military minds - people like @brentdsadler @NextNavy @JerryHendrixII @Admiral_Foggo @stavridisj @Lazarus_Navy @HunterStires @GordianKnotRay @cgberube @WWATMD @naval_gazing @salisbot @SebastianBae @CTReese2 @MAGTravF @ElbridgeColby @JoshuaSteinman @MaritimeAmerica @TrentTelenko @TPLevine85 @BDHerzinger - intellectual giants slowly started seeing what we were seeing and encouraged us to push on.

Some like @brentdsadler @JerryHendrixII started working with us on the issue! We even found a few like @GordianKnotRay @SobinNeil working on the same problems independently.

This was important confirmation that we were not wasting the only resource that truly matters.

6) I honestly could not think of anything more important to world, peace, and security than this project. Billions of people have been lifted from poverty from low cost and efficient shipping. Without it those people will starve and the world will slide back into the dark ages.

So I went all in.

Fortunately, for us - but unfortunately, for the rest of the world - this week’s ship attacks in the Red Sea are confirmation that @mercoglianos predictions and concerns were bullseye accurate.

But there is still a lot of work to do. we have an extremely powerful and connected network that is gaining enormous traction in policy circles and online but the large majority ( well over 99%) of both the public and policy influencers still think we are overreacting.

Despite the thousands of pages and hours of video @mercoglianos has documented still nobody like Peter Thiel is writing him a check to fix these problems.

But that’s OK because it is coming. Coming quick.

Why am I writing all of this??

Because what Peter Thiel says below is 100% accurate. Despite the fact that the prom we are working on, could lead to massive famine, energy, shortages, and even world war. Even though the majority of my own shipping community and the defense industrial complex still think we far out in left field with our concerns. Despite all of this, I go to bed each night with deep satisfaction that my efforts are making a difference. /1

This is all a distraction for my company, which profits when I focus on shipping - not naval - matters but I am confident that profits will follow hard work and - most importantly - I go to bed each night with a DEEP sense of satisfaction.

The key to life is:

Take close care of family then work hard on the most difficult problem you can find.

P.S. this is not my first rodeo. I I saw out the most difficult problems in the Maritime. We’re all when I was a captain and Macke gave me the taste of satisfaction.

Then - after the deep water horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico - every single person told me that understand the story was too complicated a problem to solve.

But Tom Shroder - former editor of the Washington Post magazine - Told me we could do it by focusing on the people who had stories to tell.

And he was right.

The book led to serious changes within the industry, reviews I am extremely proud of, bestselling status, and is still taught in some of the top colleges in the station.

None of this is to brag . It is instruction on how to live a fulfilling and consequential life.

Go find the hardest problem you can find and the smartest person working on it. Help them succeed and follow their lead.

It’s as much about the person as it is the problem.

Do you want to make a real positive difference in this world go find your Dr. Sal @mercoglianos and work hard to lend them a hand.

P.S.2. Despite many of the best naval minds, encouraging us that we are on the right track and despite the fact that. @mercoglianos’ hypothesis is coming true. And despite the fact that people like @maphumanintent (mastermind behind the Fufeng scandal) applying leverage I did not know existed.

Despite all of that, it is extremely difficult to convince people that we need to act right now.

And that’s what I enjoy most about this problem we are working on. Like a great book or video game it just keeps getting harder and more complex the further we press on.

I would not have it any other way.

P.S.3. if you prefer easy problems to solve then please go fix Siri’s voice to text function or convince @elonmusk to install a grammar checker on this darn app 🤣