(highlight:: The biggest takeaway from history is that the characters change but their behaviors don’t. The technologies, trends, tragedies and winners – the events that take place – are always in flux and can be nearly impossible to predict. But the behaviors that drive people into action, influence their thoughts and guide their beliefs, are stable. They’re the same today as they were 100 years ago and will be 100 years from now.
Markets change, but greed and fear never do.
Industries change, but ambition and complacency don’t.
Laws change, but the tribal instincts of politics don’t.)
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(highlight:: My deepest forecasting belief is that you can better understand the future if you focus on the behaviors that never change instead of the events that might.
And those behaviors have a common denominator: They follow the path of least resistance of people trying to simplify a complex world into a few stories that make sense and make them feel good about themselves.)
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(highlight:: When you go through life thinking low-probability events are zero-probability events, you’re bound to get stuck in an illusion that what happened to someone else couldn’t also happen to you.
That’s especially true when you add up the low odds of lots of unfortunate events. If next year there’s a 1% chance of a new disastrous pandemic, a 1% chance of a crippling depression, a 1% chance of a catastrophic flood, a 1% chance of political collapse, and on and on, then the odds that something bad will happen next year – or any year – are … pretty good. “History is just one damn thing after another” the saying goes.)
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- [note::This is weirdly comforting i.e. "bad events are a statistical inevitability" or "bad events have always and will always happen, so it's best to just accept them and be ready for them when they come"]

(highlight:: Imagining an unrealistic world where progress and success don’t demand a fee, and a belief that hassle, nonsense, disagreement and uncertainty are bugs rather than a cost of admission to getting ahead.
Jeff Bezos recently talked about the realities of loving your job:

If you can get your work life to where you enjoy half of it, that is amazing. Very few people ever achieve that.

Because the truth is, everything comes with overhead. That’s reality. Everything comes with pieces that you don’t like.

You can be a Supreme Court Justice and there’s still going to be pieces of your job you don’t like. You can be a university professor and you still have to go to committee meetings. Every job comes with pieces you don’t like.

And we need to say: That’s part of it.)
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(highlight:: Most things worth pursuing charge their fee in the form of stress, doubt, uncertainty, dealing with quirky people, bureaucracy, other peoples’ conflicting incentives, hassle, nonsense, and general bullshit. That’s the overhead cost of getting ahead.
A lot of times that price is worth paying. But you have to realize it’s a price that must be paid. There are few coupons and sales are rare.)
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(highlight:: As Michael Batnick says, “some lessons have to be experienced before they can be understood.” Every generation has to learn on its own, over and over.
The question, “Why don’t you agree with me?” can have infinite answers.
But usually a better question is, “What have you experienced that I haven’t that would make you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have?”)
- View Highlight
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(highlight:: The biggest takeaway from history is that the characters change but their behaviors don’t. The technologies, trends, tragedies and winners – the events that take place – are always in flux and can be nearly impossible to predict. But the behaviors that drive people into action, influence their thoughts and guide their beliefs, are stable. They’re the same today as they were 100 years ago and will be 100 years from now.
Markets change, but greed and fear never do.
Industries change, but ambition and complacency don’t.
Laws change, but the tribal instincts of politics don’t.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: My deepest forecasting belief is that you can better understand the future if you focus on the behaviors that never change instead of the events that might.
And those behaviors have a common denominator: They follow the path of least resistance of people trying to simplify a complex world into a few stories that make sense and make them feel good about themselves.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: When you go through life thinking low-probability events are zero-probability events, you’re bound to get stuck in an illusion that what happened to someone else couldn’t also happen to you.
That’s especially true when you add up the low odds of lots of unfortunate events. If next year there’s a 1% chance of a new disastrous pandemic, a 1% chance of a crippling depression, a 1% chance of a catastrophic flood, a 1% chance of political collapse, and on and on, then the odds that something bad will happen next year – or any year – are … pretty good. “History is just one damn thing after another” the saying goes.)
- View Highlight
-
- [note::This is weirdly comforting i.e. "bad events are a statistical inevitability" or "bad events have always and will always happen, so it's best to just accept them and be ready for them when they come"]

(highlight:: Imagining an unrealistic world where progress and success don’t demand a fee, and a belief that hassle, nonsense, disagreement and uncertainty are bugs rather than a cost of admission to getting ahead.
Jeff Bezos recently talked about the realities of loving your job:

If you can get your work life to where you enjoy half of it, that is amazing. Very few people ever achieve that.

Because the truth is, everything comes with overhead. That’s reality. Everything comes with pieces that you don’t like.

You can be a Supreme Court Justice and there’s still going to be pieces of your job you don’t like. You can be a university professor and you still have to go to committee meetings. Every job comes with pieces you don’t like.

And we need to say: That’s part of it.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Most things worth pursuing charge their fee in the form of stress, doubt, uncertainty, dealing with quirky people, bureaucracy, other peoples’ conflicting incentives, hassle, nonsense, and general bullshit. That’s the overhead cost of getting ahead.
A lot of times that price is worth paying. But you have to realize it’s a price that must be paid. There are few coupons and sales are rare.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: As Michael Batnick says, “some lessons have to be experienced before they can be understood.” Every generation has to learn on its own, over and over.
The question, “Why don’t you agree with me?” can have infinite answers.
But usually a better question is, “What have you experienced that I haven’t that would make you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have?”)
- View Highlight
-