Titanic Blush

The world is foggy these days. It’s hard to see even my fingertips when I reach out my hand. Almost like the air around me is a palimpsest polluted by an endless stream of headlines. 

I’m not the only one facing a state of existential limbo. My day-to-day is normal – lots of coffee, cycling, and reading in between hunting for a new analyst job. In fact, most people’s routines seem normal to me. Where I’m seeing the uncertainty creep in is from the big picture. Our actions haven’t just much, but our experience of them has.

It’s fair to say that current events at a global level feel intense:

The bifurcation of the global political system along the US-China axis, a war in Ukraine, the end of Pax Americana, fighting in the Middle East, pressure on Taiwan, inflation, central bank digital currencies, whatever AI is going to be, decarbonization, etc.

This is basically a gigantic list of stuff we can worry about but do relatively little to change. But conversations about each of these topics are happening around us, loudly, all the time. The air we breathe is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% other gasses, and 50% toxic argumentative fluff. 

I think, as social animals, we’re predisposed to bickering. Part of our nature is an inclination to value things like actions, aesthetics, objects, etc. More often than not, we disagree on precisely the value of different things. Markets serve to set prices on goods and services based on supply and demand. 

In theory, the same goes for the marketplace of ideas. Some ideas are in demand, some are oversupplied. An idea’s “value”, just like the price of a good, depends on the market you are in. If there are lots of people who agree with you, you have a valuable idea. And vice versa. 

It may be more accurate to talk about the value of ideas in terms of their costs, however. We don’t really sell our ideas. There are plenty of aphorisms about how it’s impossible to change other people’s minds. So, most of us are really in the business of defending our ideas. 

The equation therefore gets inverted. The more people that agree with you, the lower the cost of defending your idea. There is safety in numbers. If you have an idea that is unpopular, that can be expensive to hold on to. In a debate, you’re apt to be outnumbered when it comes to mouths. 

I find myself struggling with this frequently these days. When reading, I’ll find an interesting perspective on a current event. Or an analysis of a social issue. Then such a topic will come up in a social setting and I’ll blab about what I read. The problem is, I either i) didn’t read the room correctly or ii) haven’t kept a pulse on the majority viewpoint. 

To make matters worse, my ghoulish complexion makes it obvious when I get uncomfortable in conversation. Usually, I relegate myself to small talk for the rest of the night. 

Even when I retreat from the battlefields of these conversations, they still affect me. I don’t live under a rock. Whether it is the majority or minority viewpoint that is “correct” on a given issue, I don’t know. What I do know is that the complexity of the questions being discussed is baffling. The combination of fierce opinions and uncertainty spills over into my conscious experience of my day-to-day.

There’s a definite temptation to escape from the fray by focusing on myself. The cult of self-improvement is, as Fukuyama pointed out in The End of History, the last moral respite. It’s difficult to attack people that are doggedly trying to outdo themselves. Their behavior rarely affects you directly, so the best that you can do is shake your head. Bryan Johnson, the former tech tycoon turned longevity-maxxer, is one such hermit of our century. For example, when he discusses his diet (which is vegan) he explicitly states that he does it for scientific and not moral reasons.1

But global affairs have the same effect on observers as a car accident. It’s terrible, but impossible to look away. And in such a plugged-in world, looking away is even less feasible. Somehow, we have more insulation from viewing a car accident in our own city than from viewing the atrocities happening in Israel and Palestine, halfway across the Earth. 

The French word debrouillard is used to describe an insightful person. The direct translation is roughly someone who cuts through fog. In 2023, though, it’s hard to have insights. Everything is so complicated. And generating insights is too active. Fighting a fog successfully means adopting a passive strategy. One where you are solid and know your position, regardless of changes in the atmosphere.

One way to do this is to focus on yourself. But that’s going a bit far. Leaning into one’s job and hobbies, and improving our immediate surroundings seems like a better bet. Slightly less narcissistic, slightly more useful. Long walks are also never a bad idea.

From a more corporate perspective, this top-down angst is distracting. Taking time to write down what is and isn’t within the scope of your company’s influence is a productive exercise. It can help keep delegates on track while supporting a thorough risk management mindset. Ignoring this anxty zeitgeist doesn’t make it go away. But pivoting your business to take advantage of the trend is probably an even worse idea. How these global events will shake out, no one knows. And how they will affect economies, even fewer know. If you really want to bet on it, maybe keep the stakes low.

As usual, there is a bit of a horseshoe dynamic present. Becoming an immortality-seeking hermit leads you down a bad path. Trying to be a future-telling wizard is also a poor choice. The middle ground is the best path to becoming a successful debrouillard, in my opinion. Informed, but grounded.

1

Most diets do have an accompanying moral code. The reason that Johnson’s “diet” doesn’t have a moral code is because he looks at foods in terms of chemistry. He doesn’t use heuristics that aid caloric restriction. See my post on Dietary Tribalism.