Open Architecture

Adam Smith’s big insight was that win-win (the wealth of nations) beats win-lose (nations fighting). Open-Architecture, breaking down walls, and opening roads, can be frightening in a world where wealth is built in containers. You can’t tell someone who isn’t relaxed to relax. They need to start feeling it in their bones. They need to breathe.

In pure-play meritocracy, only the best would win. In reality, we all need to eat. So friction allows us to talk our own book. There are 7.9 Billion people on the planet. Very few are “the best”. Particularly in the early stages of setting yourself up, while you are living hand-to-mouth, relaxing is a challenge.

If you don’t have the capital and confidence to believe you can adapt and adjust as problems change. Walls are built because of fear. As fear subsides you get a trust premium. You release all the wasted resources we put into worrying, guarding, fighting, and defending. 

Berlin

Showing Apples

Wealth Compounds. Even if you start from what seems like scratch, but isn’t. That is because despite the valuable notion of Private Property, wealth creation is a team sport. The best part of being human is we can learn from other people’s successes and failures. We don’t have to invent the wheel ourselves if we do the required reading. There is a scene in Good Will Hunting where a know-it-all tries to embarrass people he feels superior to. Will had done the reading, and showed the guy some apples. Meaning he taught him some best practice. A better way to live. One of the biggest lessons from history is progress doesn’t have to be Win-Lose. Countries like Singapore and the Asian Tigers have leapfrogged the middle steps. England, Germany, France and Japan all rebuilt after being torn apart by the World Wars. With conscious, direct, practical steps. Removing barriers to trade and prosperity is possible. It has been done before. We can let go of the mistakes and apply the learnings. We can open up.

Find a better way

Stealing from Friends of Friends

A Ponzi Scheme is when the money you pay to join gets paid to someone who is already in the scheme. The promise is that you will then get paid by new recruits. Normally a multiple of the amount you initially paid. It seems like magic. Because it is. If you cut out the noise, you are effectively stealing money from each person you recruit. But they then recruit others so it “cancels out”. When new recruits run dry, and they will run dry, the last people to enter are the final losers. So instead of stealing from your friend, you are stealing from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. The layers make you feel better. A Ponzi Scheme is wealth extraction. Typically from the vulnerable. Perpetrated by well meaning believers. The way to spot a Ponzi Scheme is to look at the Fundamentals. How is money being made? What real problem is being solved? What real Win-Win wealth creation is going on? If you can’t answer that, then it is Win-Lose wealth extraction. Then the “product” is other people’s money.

Be wary of layers