Visual Intelligence – sharpen your perception

A few cliff notes that i remember about the book

• When we describe a scene, we should aim to be thorough and use objective language and not leading (subjective). For example, when looking at a picture of a older lady and baby, we should not jump to the conclusion that she is the baby’s mother. We simply do not have enough information to reach this conclusion. This is similar concept of being more rational (limiting your language to more discrete descriptions).
• When we look at a painting, the interesting thing is not the painting itself, but our life experiences affecting how we describe the painting. For example, a dentist will tend to look at a peron’s tooth first, a doctor look for medical signals and an architect will admire the background. This is what is interesting about paintings beause it creates discussions from the alternative viewpoints created by people’s life experiences.
• The perceiving eye vs the observing eye. When we look at an item we see it and recognise for what it is. We make a decision on this item in a snapshot (honed in from our forefathers – lest we get eaten by bears). We do not have the luxury of time to take a step back to really understand what is happening and examine our first impressions. So understand your first impressions and examine their weighting regiously. Take a step back and use our perceiving eye.
• So really we should consider it in two-fold action. We can perceive and try to fit within our existing mental models, but we should also describe only what is happening and to free our mind from jumping to conclusions.
• This is the next level and you can really see the problems created by using particular language. You are there to sell and enforce your language set and have the person react to this new language system.
• When using the perceiving eye, it pays to turn your head and not be target focused and only look at one thing. We should observe the communiation /language that leaks from the body. Touch is something small and can be perceived greatly by a women because you are invading her persona space. Something that does not happen daily. We are separated from our connection with the physical word – focusing on the experience of our minds
• Understand that things are different from another angle. If you control frame or tackle the problem from the side this is enough to break down any resistance or to apply force from another angle. Just like in bjj – there is only resistance on one side. And you can try to overpower on the one side or seek another path which is easier. To complain that they are ‘too strong’ releases you have the onus to seek another solution/path. Take a step back and revaluate your choices and actions.

My takeaways:

• Guard the language that I use and recognise my first impressions and provide weighting accordingly
• Keep my thoughts in the present and actually listen to what the person has to say
• Don’t get caught up in my thoughts and use my perceiving eye

My takeaways from the Sovereign Individual

I recently read this book and is what I learnt:

• The recent period of middle class and less inequality was a outlier and not the norm. Throughout history you will you find examples where there was a wealth disparity between peoples. This is in effect of compounding your habits (or wealth) where in those productive people kept on producing. Causing inequality of outcomes
• the internet will break down abritrage opportunities. No longer will your job be priced to be done in the country you live in if someone else from a lower cost location can do it. Note that this is also includes your fellow countrymen living in those lower cost locations. Those lower cost locations are no longer the deprived locations as seen in ages past.
• the internet forces you to compete with everyone, and also gives you opportunity to network with anyone. Harder to get in, but when you do – there is alot more money to be made
• we live with the tyranny of location – the internet will allow you to be break free from that and thus the government will act more like businesses nowadays, trying to entice the best customers

After understanding the above things, here is how to put it into practice

• Build that second and third income on the internet
• Put a discount factor on buying properties that have no location advantage. If we break free from the tyranny of location than it will be of fact that the old idea of living next to the city is not as advantageous – you can work from next to the beach, on a farm, in a low cost location
• Look for places that are advantageous. e.g. close to nature, next to airport, good community

My Takeaways – When Money Dies: The Nightmare Of The Weimar Hyper Inflation

My takeaways from this book

• always hedge your bets
• those that converted their marks to other currencies retained more of their value
• the government is not going to tell you the truth and will appeal to your patriotism to stay/right the sinking ship
• those with fixed incomes (pensions, etc) get absolutely destroyed because their income stays fixed
• the blue collar were earning more than white collar during this time. Related because the blue collar could shop their skills around to those willing to pay, whilst those with jobs only had the one source/method of income
• blue collar would demand wage rises due to the increasing cost of living. The government would print more money to appease those people, creating a positive feedback loop when the government would not be able to stop
• the mark was losing value every day so Farmers were withholding produce as long as possible for a better price. Restricting supply and thus increasing
• Inflation (hyper-inflation) would not be linear and you would see an exponential increase
• Within the bubble, new/the government would keep this inflation informaiton from the masses. People actually felt that the prices were rising rather that the money was being devalued
• hard choices need to be made (and strong armed) and having a republic would be deterimental as opposing groups try to advance their objectives. the incentive for the masses will rule and will prioritise 1st order effects over 2nd order effects.

Related takeaways

• Raising taxes is politcal suicide. it is easier to tax the populace through increasing the money supply. it is kind of stealth tax because the numbers and effects are not 1-1 correlated. It takes time for the effects to be felt. M2 velocity to increase.
• whilst increasing taxes there is a headline number and easy calculation that a taxpayer can produce
• it took 50 years for UK to pay back debts back to the US, whilst it took US only a few years of inflation to get rid of the WW2 debt
• the luxury items produced during a bull phase lose alot of value during a depression as these goods are ‘nice to have’ rather than essential. People were bartering their pianos, valuable possessions just for a sack of potatoes
• These items (piano) were illiquid and not fungible. WSB suggests stacking the sats and the crypto because this is the boat in a rising tide that is slowly creeping up. All is fine when it is at your ankles, but once it reaches past your mouth and over – where you can no longer stand. Everyday is a struggle.

Books to read in 2021

It is important to read long form content versus short form attention grabbing content (aka news). This is because as a predictive ability, do you make any decisions based upon this news that you receive? Non-whatsover so therefore it is a giant waste of time.

Better to dedicate your time which will change (hopefully improve) your decision making ability. The goal is to read 12 per year which equats to 1 a month. A high target if we are honest to ourselves and not working on any side biz.

1. The Fourth Turning. The Strauss–Howe generational theory, also known as the Fourth Turning theory or simply the Fourth Turning, describes a theorized recurring generation cycle in American history and global history. It was devised by William Strauss and Neil Howe. File this under learning about the macro system
2. Principles by Ray Dalio. File this under learning about personal operating system
3. Zero to one: Notes about startups Files this under about business

Principles by Ray Dalio – My takeaways

I’ve read his book and provides insights that I have not yet viewed from others. The book is more of a framework on how to live life rather than any guide.

Be radically open minded. If two people have different views than only 1 person can be right. You cannot be right 100% of the time (impossible) so it is essental for you to find out whether you are wrong and understand from the other persons viewpoint.

Usuaully the average of the group of people provides the best result, 3 people thinking is better than one (usually). Learning from other people scales, because you will only have so much creativity and analysis and it will come only from the one system (yours).

Action – Never be dismissive of other people’s idea. Seek to understand their mental models, or the basis of their thoughts. This will also help you to fill the baseball cards on their characteristics.

Understand that people are wired differently. And you project your thoughts on how you think through this person. You can try to predict their actions – but better to be antifragile and react to their thinking. The author recommends baseball cards to determine a persons behaviour. This is just like creating a network tree with people’s traits. It will allow you to deal (‘beat’) them more effectively.

Action – start making baseball cards and network tree at my new work place and of the people in my life.

Ego, blind-spots and weaknesses – This person is perfect is irrational thought – how can a person be ‘perfect’. Therefore, this person must have their own demons and insecurities that are unknown to you. Letting your ego and blind-spots get in the way will cause you to miss the potential rocks or problems that are around you.

Action – take the Myer-Briggs test and then also ask my friends what i can improve in. This will provide the benefit of exposure. It is only your ego that gets in the way…

Think about the second and third order effects – We spend most of our time thinking about the immediate consequences of our actions. It’s hard not to, we do something and then there is a reaction to our movement. It is hardwired into our brains.

For example, we are hungry so we load up on that fantastic looking burger. The first order consequence is now we are full. However, what I didn’t tell you is that we are fat, majorly overweight. The second order consequence is that we are adding to our already obese proportions. The third order is now we are at more risk of heart attack. That burger is no longer so good.

We usually find that the first order and second order effects are on opposite ends of the spectrum. That is first order usually feels good in the short term, but long term it is not. And making decisions for the second order feels good in the longer term, but not the short. We could equate first order effects as our reflection of desire.

Action – Start looking at things through the lens of 1st, 2nd and 3rd order effects.

Think faster and look at items through levels. If we were to multiply 62 * 12, we could say this is approximately 60. We can be precise but it is at a cost of time. And if we were calculating by calories it is not worth the effort. But if we were looking at millions, then it is. By the pareto principle (80/20) we can see things that are majorly true but not totally.

This applies to discussions that we have. When we are discussing about a topic on one level (generally), there will always be a person that interrupts us with a minute exception violating this rule. Whilst this exception does exist, it could be so rare that it should not warrant a mention when we discussion.

Action – Make decisions quicker. Waiting to make decisions until 100% is unknown will result in you acting to slow. Remember the money is to be made in the frontier and the frontier is a risky place. Makes bets that will cause pain but now wipe you out.

A book review from the other side – Men are from Mars. Woman are from Venus

This book was recommended to me by a female friend. After reading it – I believe it helped her navigate the world of relations of the opposite sex. It is written by John Gray who is a self help author. In the wiki he puts forth that his divorce prior to writing the book caused him to re-evaluate his relations with the opposite sex.

I briefly skimmed through it found points that I agree with – but without any context. Just that this is the way things are and this is how the other person thinks. There is no reasoning for the people from Venus or Mars, this is how they are.

Now without giving reasons for the way things are – this book would be more appealing to Women. As men, we need a possible reason for how things are, it is in our nature (this is not really written into the book).

To save you time, here are the points the book

• Men and women are different
• Men like caves… and women like to talk
• Men need to do something, to be ‘valued’ and women like to be ‘listened to’
• Be more caring and understanding .. (like what the media tells us)

My 2c – Really, it all boils down to emotional intelligence and solipcism. We always project how we would react onto how others behave. We should always respond rather than predict and see what another person does rather than the way act.

Lessons i learnt from the book Principles by Ray Dalio

From the book ‘principles’ by Ray Dalio one of the takeaways was to be very open minded. I think we spend a lot of time thinking that we are right, but what we fail to consider is what if we are wrong. If there are two people with different opinions it should be in the interest of both parties to find out who is wrong. This is because both people cannot be right.

I remember the first time i heard about BTC i dismissed this about funny thing that this guy on the site just bought and sold (this was during the first bull market). It was more of a quick rich scheme rather than the future. And today when it was in the news again, I see that it has increased even more – if only I had bought some.

The other thing is buying a house back in 2016 – i could have bought somewhere in Toongabie or something like that. I did not consider any facts and was ignorant to the macro events happing around me.

What am i missing now with other people’s opinion? Of course we always think ourselves to be right – that is how we can be confident. But we need to remember that our ego needs to take a back step so that we can learn opposite information and improve.

Get feedback quick and often. It is quicker to learn something to do rather than read. This is so you can find out what you don’t know and this provides you feedback. When driving you use your eyes to find out where you’re going. If you only read how to drive, they don’t tell you many things that you have to understand for the first time.

For this to work that feedback needs to be raw – be transparent and truthful to your actions. Otherwise the feedback is false information and you cannot correct.

Look to feel uncomfortable. This means that you are experiencing something new. If it is comfortable then you are not challenging yourself. Confident people are usually those who master doing new things without fear.

Another aspect of this is not to fear what others think of you and stand in your way. The more you do the more it becomes more comfortable and you gain mastery.

Look at second and third order consequences. We usually think in first order consequences and this can usually be thought of as dire. We are hungry so we eat. However if we eat too much or too little we suffer the second and third order consequences. That is obesity and an early death.

Generally you find first and second order consequences providing opposite effects on your body. Therfore, next time you think about giving in to your desire consider the second and third order consequences.

Usually we overweight the first order consequences versus the second and third order. We might be worried about going outside for coronavirus (because we have a chance to get it) but our other falculties are affecting the longer we keep at it. People are isolated and suffer, the economy suffers. Is there anyone weighing the effects of continuous lockdown?

I review Heavens River

Bobiverse Book 4

The book goes into what happens to Bender and Bob’s search for him. All in all i thought it was an enjoyable listen on Audible with good naration. The book continues with world building and details a bit on how society has developed after Bob’s rescue of them.

I think the format of Bob is getting tiring and to keep track of all the ‘Bobs’ out there is no easy task. I mean if one Bob is as productive as the Bobs spoken about in the book then we really should really see lots of advances in technology.

The premise of the book is the same that is Bob is a computer programmer than can solve many multi-dimensional problems by himself and with enough time. This is probably unrealistic unless he ‘frame jacks’ as the man-hour situation is still costant. No leverage is provided having a whole company work for you – there is only so much more efficiency you can get with a 24hr day (x3 work), no tiredness (x2?) and the ability to frame jack (x10?). This would equat to a (x50) efficiency coefficient.

The character is getting a bit tired from one point of view with the same history and same manerisms after 3 books already. It is refereshing that there are a few new characters (with minor roles) and the interaction with another alien.

I think this will be the last book for me – even if there was another book, I think I have had enough of the Bob and the relentless teasing of whether Guppi has developed a mind of his own.

The sovereign individual – my takeaways from this great book

This is a book written in 1997 about the future – and it has been suprisingly accurate. Now, the author may have been lucky with his predictions but it was also useful to have a another vantage point of the future. And the author, James Dale Davidson, brings up many good points that we should take into account in our decision making.

Talks about cycles in human civilisation and the current cycle is started by the invention of the internet. The internet allows the connection and remote production of invdividuals. No longer are they bound by where they are. Therefore, this has a profound effect on governments – because now people have choice.

Systems change slowly over time and only until there is a sharp breaking point (sudden inflexion) do we know that it was heading to disaster. In the case of Rome, how can we pinpoint where it ended. We can see the times when the emperors fell but actually the line of emperors beforehand were paying lip service to the status quo. Only going through the motions – electing civil officials for 1 year, christianity as the state religion, etc.

The book was written in 1997 and 20 years later many of its predictions have come true; cybercurrency (bitcoin), massive printing by governments (2020), the rise of developing economies and the reduction of USA, the effect of the cybereconomy vs china.

Do we look at the current world power – USA and note that there are some details which show the self-serving nature of those in charge and the behind the scene groups driving their own agenda? It certainly looks like things are moving in ONE direction and the trump administration may be seen as either a sign to right the ship or the continual decline.

The book points out that you can never make out what leads to the fall of rome at the time (confirmaiton bias), and it was only after the effect do you attribute reasons for the downfall. The based on the result, if a captain was controlling and pushed the team and won the game – he would be seen as a brilliant leader. However, if the captain lost the game he could be seen as a little-napolean giving those underneath him little room to move.

thinking about the control of government in economic rather than political terms. Three basic alternatives with different set of incentives: propietors, employees and customers. Proprietor – a hereditary leader who for all internets and purposes owns the country. E.g Brunei. Proprieters set the price (tax) and the people have no choice due to monopolization of violence.

Government controlled by its employees would seldom have incentives to either reduce goverment costs or the price charged to their customers. However, where conditions impose strong price resistance, in the form of opposition to higher taxes, the goverments controlled by employees would be more likely to let their revenues fall below their outlays then cut back outlays (spending). the incentive is for inclined toward chronic deficits.

Government controlled by its customers would have incentives to reduce their operating costs as far as possible while delivering the minimum. This is because of competition (from other governments). Examples include medieval merchant republics (like venice) who needed protection provided by the government. They did not seek to profit from their control of government’s monopoly of violence. A goverment controlled by its customers sets tax rates not to opimize the amount the government can collect but rather to optimise the amount that they customers can retain.

Get it on amazon here today.

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