Epsilon Theory Podcast

A revamped Cursed Knowledge is back! This episode, Harper and Ben talk about the all too common trope of killing off female characters to motivate male characters. It's everywhere and it can tell us a lot about how hard it is to capture audience attention.

The City of Man always wins. The Visigoths always sack Rome. The Vandals always sack Hippo. Augustine always dies in the siege. Bad things always happen to good people ... at scale. Here's how we use generative AI to flip the script.

The student loan crisis is a Big Deal. And it is only a part of a Bigger Deal: the Myth of College. This issue will be front-and-center in the upcoming elections. We will all be handed our very own 'Yay, College' signs to raise high. More often than not, we will be asked to raise them in service of market-distorting policies which will make our problems worse.

The MacGuffin is the object of desire. It is the thing around which the plot of the story revolves. Here is the story arc of SBF and FTX, and the MacGuffin that anchored it all - the Magical Money Machine.

If you don't see that the crypto "industry" has become just as blindingly corrupt, just as oozingly fatuous, just as profoundly captured by the Nudging Oligarchy as the traditional financial services industry it was supposed to replace ... well, you're just not paying attention.

Mt Everest is a death trap. Everything about the mountain is designed to kill you. So why are so many people going up there? Why do we ignore the very real and very dangerous narratives that are right in our face.

What does farming have to do with investing? Quite a lot, actually. In this first of a series that takes on a life of its own, Ben discusses bees and bonds, eggs and ETFs, and more.

Part 2 of Ben's Notes from the Field series, in which he considers the question: what can a bird teach us about value investing? To everything there is a season.

There is no animal more important to the ascendancy of Western Civilization than the horse, and no invention more important than the horse collar. After all nothing shapes history like advances in productivity. Part 3 of Ben's Notes from the Field series here.

Marie Antoinette has a rather interesting historical footprint. For all that her image is iconic and her reputation infamous, it's not all the truth. The real Marie Antoinette has been lost to the cartoon of Marie Antoinette™. So I want to show you a glimpse at the real person behind the cartoon and take a closer look at how her cartoon got started.

The Golden Age of Hollywood was full of drama. On and off screen. It was the age of carefully cultivated images. Fake names and secret procedures. And it was the age of censorship. The Hays Code and the censorship office had more influence on the film industry than any actor, director, or producer ever could. They had full control over what Hollywood made. Well, almost. There were still a few loopholes left to exploit.

Part 13 of the Notes from the Field series discusses the Narrative Machine, which can help us see the invisible memes that drive our political behaviors. Because you're smart enough to make up your own damn mind.

What's in a name? Quite a bit actually. Names and titles can be all that's needed to make some one a hero or a villain. So we're looking at some villains who never got their proper title. People who were able to hide behind social standing and wealth to excuse their crimes.

Locks of Love is one of the most well known and well regarded charities in America. But things aren't always what they seem. Sometimes the smokescreen of common knowledge can obscure what's really going on. So join me in a look behind the curtain at America's most beloved charity.

Over the past 25 years, our leaders have intentionally constructed an Apocalypse Now world of proclamation and fiat, where our wealth has grown much faster than our economy. The bill is due for their hubris, and inflation is here to collect it.

We are the human animal. We are non-linear. We ARE a song of ice and fire. It's a song that has built cathedrals and fed billions and taken us to the moon. It's a song that can do all of that and more … far, far more … if only we remember the tune. The Pack remembers.

We live in a Cartoon Age, an era not of alienation per Karl Marx, but of alienation per Groucho Marx. What's the cause, what's the future, and what do we do about all this? It's a TL;DR cri de coeur in Part 12 of Epsilon Theory's Notes from the Field series.

This is Part 11 of Ben's Notes from the Field series. I don't need to calculate a Sortino ratio to know if my dogs are doing a Good Job. Same with active investment management. Same with active citizenship. It's all about embracing Convexity, not as a mathematical cartoon, but as a philosophy.

The inevitable result of financial innovation gone awry, which it ALWAYS does, is that it ALWAYS ends up empowering the State. When too clever by half people misplay the meta-game, that's all the excuse the State needs to come swooping in and crush them, just as they are with Bitcoin today they did with Bear and Lehman in 2008. Installment #10 from Notes from the Field.

What if I told you that the dominant strategies for human investing are, without exception, algorithms and derivatives? I don't mean computer-driven investing, I mean good old-fashioned human investing ... stock-picking and the like. And what if I told you that these algorithms and derivatives might all be broken today? You might want to sit down for Part 9 of the Notes from the Field series.

We've all fallen victim to a bad retcon at some point in our lives. When the story we've been following takes a turn no one was prepared for and we have to act like it all makes perfect sense. It's Sherlock Holmes coming back from the dead. It's the reveal that an entire season of Dallas was only a dream. It's the author changing their mind and trying to convince you that it's all part of the plan. I don't buy it. And neither should you.

The pecking order is a social system designed to preserve economic inequality: inequality of food for chickens, inequality of wealth for humans. We are trained and told by Team Elite that the pecking order is not a real and brutal thing in the human species, but this is a lie. It is an intentional lie, formed by two powerful Narratives: trickle-down monetary policy and massive student debt financing. Part 8 of the Notes from the Field series.

Epsilon Theory on Tape: Clever Hans by Ben Hunt

In Part 6 of the Notes from the Field Series, Ben observes that we think we are wolves, living by the logic of the pack. In truth we are sheep, living by the logic of the flock.

In Part 4 of the Notes from the Field Series, Ben identifies how the natural lines of a tree and shaping the tree to follow those lines over time is a lot like shaping a portfolio.

We've all felt insecure about our looks at one point or another. Especially in our chronically online world where how you look can be your whole brand. So with plastic surgery rates on the rise, let's peel back the layers of this industry and see how information (and lies) about procedures spread and examine the real price of beauty.

Someone once said there's no such thing as bad publicity. With all due respect, this person is an idiot. Publicity, both good and bad, can have major ramifications. Even if you don't play a part in creating it.

Birkin bags are one of the ultimate symbols of status. But how did that happen? And are they worth the hype?

There's a pose that very sick farm animals sometimes take when they're near death, where they lie down and twist their head way back into their shoulder in a very unnatural way. It's an odd sight if you don't know what it signifies, a horrible sight if you do. Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are starting to twist their heads back into their shoulders. I don't know if it's too late to save them or not, but I'm increasingly thinking that it is. We need to start thinking about the funeral, who's going to speak, and what they're going to say.

Move over Hollywood! Almonds are one of the most lucrative and fastest growing industries in California. Unfortunately they're not as good for us as you'd think.

The McDonalds Hot Coffee lawsuit is the archetypal example of nonsense litigation. But there's a lot more to the story than most people know.

It's the only question that really matters here in the Age of Nudge: why do we want what we want? A conversation with Luke Burgis, author of Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life.

The Olympic games are known as a time of triumph and glory. The truth is that a lot more work goes into creating and maintaining that narrative than you'd expect.

The Boston Molassacre was one of the great tragedies of the early 20th century. So why isn't it treated like one?

I want to change the language of crypto from mining to growing, and I don't mean in a metaphorical sense. This is a method for the tokenization of symbolic betting markets in positive social goods.

Harvey Weinstein is a terrible person who did terrible things. But he doesn't get nearly enough credit, or more accurately blame, for his role in destroying the integrity of the Academy Awards and fundamentally altering how Hollywood makes movies.

The Fast and Furious movies are famous for intense action and ridiculous plots. But the truth about how these stories get made has more to do with the drama happening behind the camera than in front of it.

We write a LOT about work. And the responses we get are ... weird. Once again, the most important narratives are the ones we tell ourselves.

The Long Now has severed the tether between taxation and spending – the most important policy relationship in our social lives. Here’s what we’re going to do about it.

They have mastered the art of stealing our tells. At scale. Here’s how we resist. At scale.

It’s time to start a fire. To burn, yes, but also to illuminate. How? Make – Protect – Teach.

The Long Now is the economic stimulus and the political fear that we pull forward from the future into the present. Tick-tock.

What made Bitcoin special is nearly lost, and what remains is a constructed narrative that exists in service to Wall Street and Washington rather than in resistance.

How do we change the world? Not through corporations and political parties from the top-down, but through men and women of good will from the bottom-up. Not as an alienated flock, but as a cooperative pack. Not with abstractions and transactions, but with making, protecting and teaching. Let's gooooooo!

Gell-Mann Amnesia: Despite having this searing experience with media articles where we actually have meaningful personal knowledge, we believe without hesitation the next story we read where we don’t! https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

Take back your vote. Take back your distance. Take back your data. How to make our way as citizens in a fallen world, with Clear Eyes and Full Hearts to make it better. Originally published November 19, 2018

Part 3 of a four-part series on what it means to have a polarized electorate and a monolithic market. The Fed, China and Italy are the Three Horsemen of the Investment Semi-Apocalypse. There’s a Fourth Horseman. And it will change EVERYTHING about investing. Originally published October 24, 2018

Part 2 of a four-part series on what it means to have a polarized electorate and a monolithic market. How do things fall apart in a monolithic market? Not with a bang but a whimper. Originally published September 4, 2018

Three fund collapses in three months, even as markets hit new highs. What do the Archegos, Greensill, and Melvin Capital blow-ups have in common? Leverage.

Part 1 of a three-part series on what it means to have a polarized electorate and a monolithic market. Today’s note: the Age of Ridiculousness and the decline and fall of the American Empire. Originally published August 8, 2018

We're going to Pack-source a slate of investment strategies for an inflationary world. Here are five tentpoles to organize and support that effort.