I’ve a Bayesian theory around why “believe in science” and “believe in technocratic progress” are so high, even if the counter-evidences are strong. Thread 🧵 1/N

Backyard !

This is why never do contracting unless as part of your own Agency. In contracting, much of the stability of FTE has been taken out, demanding more feudal slavery/time from you and leaving less time for private venture. Corporate job doesn’t build equity unless you get stock options. And contracting reduces the chance to build meaningful equity for private venture. Of course, S&P500 / SOXX is there to DCA, as mentioned earlier, you/I need to build equities for a cash-flow stable business to build long-term wealth. DCA-ing worked at past, when job stability was a thing.

Whoever “licks the arse” better and manages the optics better, are retained. It’s not just Labor Market, it’s also about human psychology and politics. “…consistent corporate performance will be rewarded with long-term retention and predictable career advancement no longer reflects the realities of the modern labor market”

Tell this to a Korean or Indian boss: “output-based compensation contract, an employee who completes their work faster is rewarded with temporal autonomy rather than a higher volume of busy work” Great article though.

This is the way to go. Not some chronically stressed corporate wage-slave fucked by Tax, fucked by sociopathic boss, fucked by next wave of terminations, fucked by inflation by central banks, fucked by CoL inflation by a businesses with MOAT to be able to pass down inflation to customers: “Prior to industrialization, the vast majority of human labor was decentralized, task-oriented, and functionally self-employed: in agrarian societies, local communities, and craft guilds, workers possessed direct ownership of their tools, their workshops, and the physical output of their labor. In other words, we could say the pre-industrial economy largely operated as a localized gig economy. Manufacturing workers, such as spinners, weavers, and smiths, were not compensated for their time, but were rather paid task-rates or piece-rates for their specific output. Furthermore, work patterns were deeply precarious and characterized by extreme seasonal variations.”

⚡️Higher ed is entering its margin call. The deeper truth is that the university system built a cost structure around a belief regime that is breaking. For decades, the degree was sold as a conversion machine: tuition in, professional security out. Families tolerated insane prices because the credential still looked like the bridge to the white-collar middle class. That bridge is weakening. Syracuse matters because it is not some tiny failing college nobody has heard of. It has brand, athletics, alumni, history, and real institutional weight. If a school like that is openly talking about enrollment shortfall and budget deficit, the weaker layer underneath is already in worse condition. The demographic cliff is the mechanical trigger. Fewer 18-year-olds means less demand. International weakness removes a high-margin release valve. But the deeper problem is that the product is losing pricing power at the exact moment the operating model needs pricing power most. Universities have fixed costs everywhere: faculty, buildings, debt service, administration, compliance, athletics, housing, financial aid, student services, maintenance. When enrollment misses, revenue drops faster than expenses can adjust. Each missing student is not just a missing body. It is lost high-margin tuition against a cost base that cannot shrink smoothly. That creates a nasty loop. Enrollment misses. Discounts rise. Margins compress. Programs get cut. Quality perception weakens. Brand softness increases. More discounting is needed. The institution starts managing decline while still pretending it is managing growth. AI makes this much more dangerous. College was monetizing access to the professional ladder. AI is now attacking the bottom rungs of that ladder: junior analysts, first-year lawyers, recruiters, entry-level consultants, support engineers, junior marketers, basic white-collar process work. If those jobs become harder to get, slower to reach, or less secure, the expected return on the degree compresses. That hits demand before the academy is psychologically prepared to admit the model changed. The future splits hard. Elite schools become luxury-network assets. Low-cost public options gain relative strength. Healthcare, engineering, accounting, skilled technical paths, and credential-mandated fields hold up better. Expensive mid-tier private universities with broad general degrees get squeezed. Small private colleges and tuition-dependent regional schools face mergers, cuts, closures, debt restructuring, or permanent discounting. Higher ed is downstream of white-collar repricing. When professional security gets repriced, the institutions that sold access to professional security get repriced next. The degree market is becoming a confidence market. And confidence is bleeding.

Syracuse announced a financial deficit this week after missing their enrollment target. They cite demographics geopolitics, but the answer is much simpler: There are 5.7k higher ed institutions in the US, charging way too much for something that is worth less than ever

Bonnie Hunt added to the warmth of the Newton family from the Beethoven’s 90s !

Employers do not care of employees. (Not talking about few good ones). They raised their profit margin by 50% or more from covid but they will barely hike pays. The work culture is dead and corporates killed it. There are no promotions or pay hikes left. It is all useless.

When I worked in a factory and got the work done I swept the area. Then there was some waiting. Supervisor tells me to sweep. I tell him I finished that already. He says just sweep it again. It’s not about productivity. It’s a master and slave thing.

I had a Korean Boss, once. Absolute worst years of corporate life: stressful, extremely manipulative (very cheesy when he needed my slave labour, ignored completely when someone else’s work was needed), political, somewhat “overtly articulative”.

How to create billions of dollars from air (space) $SPCX Step 1: Buy Twitter for $44B (Oct 2022), fire most staff, lose most ad revenue. Step 2: AI startup xAI “acquires" X for $125B - $1B cash generated, zero value created. (Mar 2025) Step 3: SpaceX "acquires" xAI at $250B -$1.25T combined valuation. Nice 100% return in a year. (Feb 2026) Step 4: List SpaceX at $1.75T, 4% float, get index inclusion rules changed, shorten lock-ups, let leveraged ETFs squeeze it higher. Increase valuation $500B in 4 months. (June 2026) X stake now up 180%. Financial engineering masterclass. Step 5: Combine with Tesla.

Barring exception you don’t get wealthy by investment alone. It’s either a windfall startup equity/exits or stable business cashflows invested sensibly over years. Later is more probabilistic ! Business > Cashflows > some invested to business and some invested into strategic long-term investments > Sell business or continue long term depending on nature of the business and stability of margins.

TL;DR Depending on most urban humans, will keep you uncertain. Depending on Nature & God, will keep you certain and truthful.

Great advice from Warren Buffett. Charlie Munger also avoided IPOs saying "Well, there are a whole lot of things I don’t think about. And one of them is companies that are losing $2 or 3 billion a year and going public. It’s not my scene."

Companies these days would extract value from you and discard you cleanly when convenient. There is zero loyalty no matter how many all-nighters, heroics, amazing things you did. It’s hardly about meritocracy. It’s about whoever great at managing optics and handling politics. Target FIRE / Independence as if life depends on it, if you are honest corporate worker.

We need more people like Toby, less like “Silicon Valley” TechBros hyping up tech, pumping-and-dumping companies and preaching technocracy. Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition amzn.asia/d/0b6OYd9N

A guy I used to work with hit me up last night. Dude was making $260k in tech. Nice house, $4,700/month mortgage, two cars, vacations every few months. Got laid off 6 months ago. Still nothing. Said he’s down to $22k and burning $5,500 a month. Wife at home, one kid. He told me he checks his bank app before he even gets out of bed now. This is someone I saw winning in real life. Save your money. Because when it flips, it flips fast.

There's basically 3 jobs in the 'economy of the future': 1. Guy who goes into traditional white collar businesses, fires 80% of people and replaces them with AI 2. Guy who builds in deep tech for the real world (biotech, space, hardware, manufacturing, hardcore engineering) 3. Guy who is Chad relationship sales-maxxer (relational jobs) If you are not positioning to be in one of these categories, I am afraid, unfortunately anon, you will be in the permanent underclass where Dario gives you 3 tokens a week, the State gives you universal basic fiat, and you get slopboxes (bugs) delivered to your door by robots for dinner.

A good friend (age 45) of mine lost his long time tech job ($200 k per year) a few months ago. He is a very talented guy, not obsolete skills at all. He is not finding a replacement job at anywhere near is previous salary. He said he declined one offer at $95,000 because of the huge pay reduction. He built a lifestyle based on closer to $200,000 per year. Whether it is a bit of age discrimination or economy or Ai related, don't count on that $200 k lasting until age 65. I am hearing anecdotal scenarios like that, especially in tech. If you lose a high income job and you are already near 50, it is really tough to get another job at the same pay level.