If your market includes everyone, it includes no one. I knew I’d do better with a tighter market. Ideally, as Peter Thiel describes in Zero to One, a tiny niche I could monopolize. But even this was broad enough for me to lose focus. The real break-through for choosing actions to get traction came when I got down to the smallest unit possible.
Tag: future
Lessons from Building Praxis – Part 6
It takes a lot longer to exhaust all possible bootstrap growth activities than you think. When money is not an option, you get way, way more creative. Every time you think you’ve reached a true stopping point, where nothing more can be done without money, you discover a new batch of things you can do to move forward.
The State is at War — with the Future
What we’re seeing is the latest bit of backlash from a political establishment scared witless by technologies which threaten to make it superfluous.
Lessons from Building Praxis – Part 4
Ever heard that riddle about whether you should take a million dollars or a penny, doubled each day for a month? Take the penny. You’ll end up with $1.3M if it’s a 28-day month, and as much as $10.7M if it’s a 31-day month. Doubling is extreme, but even growth of a fraction of a percent compounded every single day can achieve mind-boggling results. When you’re trying to go from idea to inception, progress each day is crucial. You can’t get stuck waiting for one big leap. You need to take at least one step every single day.
Socialism Is Dead; Participatory Fascism Has Triumphed
Unlike full-fledged socialism, which leads to totalitarian rule, mass poverty and economic decay, participatory fascism not only placates people’s wish to participate in the formal process of government decision-making but also permits private entrepreneurs enough room for maneuver that they can in some cases get rich; also enough that they can keep national output at a tolerably high level and in some cases even generate positive economic growth.
A Kind Word on Behalf of the Mexicans
They are in the great majority of cases good and decent people seeking what most people seek—an opportunity to work toward building a better life for themselves and their children. For those of us who know them more intimately than most, it is painful to hear the ignorant and malicious statements that circulate about them, especially perhaps on social media, where people are frequently unrestrained in letting loose the most vitriolic and baseless accusations.
Work Smart, Not Hard
If you really want to succeed in the modern world, observe the folks around you who are working the hardest and figure out how to accomplish the same result with less effort. In the end, you’ll be the one with the mansion while they’ll be collecting unemployment.
Selfish Reasons for Civilized Behavior
The nihilist in me isn’t too interested in moralizing to my children about right and wrong. Yes, I believe in ethics and morality, but no, I do not believe that we are obligated to anyone but ourselves to be good and moral people. If we aren’t obligated to anyone but ourselves, then any reason why find to be good and moral must necessarily be selfish. Right? I think so. And after polling some friends on what they considered “civilized behavior,” here are some actions and the selfish reasons to perform them.
Indifferent to Human Suffering
The lack of compassion and empathy for the millions of people who have been and are being murdered, tortured, brutalized, kidnapped, enslaved, and extorted by the state and its enforcers is truly staggering.
Why I (Still) Blog
The liberty-lover family is facing tough times. We will make it through; we always have throughout history. But the near future will probably be hard and not all of us will make it to the better times beyond that.