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in order to not look like a damn loser (no sex, no status) within these groups, decisions are subconsciously made so that status is maximized WITHIN this period. Because sex/status is so important, short term gains are heavily preferred b/c cool/sexy.

The only long-term relationship young people have are usually with parents & family. This biases towards being conservative. They're "anti-cool". Even if the advice is sorta correct ("looks like a bubble to me, back in day when I blah blah blah") it is ignored.

What makes this worse is that the only "good" advice is usually wishy-washy and boils down to "think for yourself, here's 100 books and 100 years of data." While "correct", it's also not sexy. It's like the old wise sensei being ignored and shunned for the hot new cobra kai.

there's also the INTERNAL audience younglings carry with them. Like an overly critical IFS family. This adds to a cacophony of voices pressuring towards high risk - high reward actions while adding *just* enough doubt & friction so that the actions are fucked up or mistimed.

Let's take the recent crypto moves. In terms of overall percentage gain, they aren't that high. double triple, whatever. Compared with the leverage you can get with traditional methods, it's a lukewarm "meh". They only *seem* high because they're prominent in the social story.

Compare to VC investing which seeks 10x , 100x returns. The increased volatility/risk/long-term-holding of the "asset" demands an increased return.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1339803542756839424 …

BUT there *is* an advantage for those who understand how social stories develop. The actually "cool" people can milk the wannabe "cool" people by selling them the leftover dream. Even though it's usually past its "Good By XXX" date and sometimes even expired.

Another issue is that one can imagine buying 10 dollars of bitcoin at 1 cent and feeling like they missed out. yet the personality required to have done that and held that is NOT who most people are but tantalizingly provides the illusion that it "could've been"

Normally this type of penny-stock buyer mentality is gated from the public imagination because it's wrapped up as ownership percentage in a company so it avoids obviously wrong market cap calculations. e.g. forking dogeCoin as notADogeCoin and sell 1 coin for 1 dollar to friend.

So everything combines into a blinding bias towards the short-term because that flashiness is viscerally felt as "sexiness". People don't want to BE Warren Buffet, they want to have his wealth in a younger more virile body.

Given a choice, the best investment is to invest in "Self". What that means specifically is do whatever it takes to be able to think for yourself with courage. The erect dick may be brave, but that's just b/c it doesn't actually think all that much.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1346861300027068417 …

the only *valid* reason to invest in crypto is a true belief in what it can do for the world because that helps dampen the effects of volatility and social pressure on the ego.

This "belief" is not just short-term virtue signaling "down w/ the system! but also wanna have sex? me potentially rich in future but am also like motorbike vagabond sexy risk-taking wanderer bad-boy anti-hero"

It's more of a willingness to go down with the ship. Much like having a child, adopting a pet, or investing in a startup or kickstarter. You have to be willing to never get the principal back and sink good after bad to fully realize the value.

without the self-knowledge to know when you're deluding yourself it's very easy to *think* you actually believe in this Brave New World. Yet the time horizon expectations being completely whack are a red flag that it's pseudo-understanding and head nodding.

Here's a fun phrase: 暴富 It means "exploding wealth". Many younglings nowadays want to "explode with wealth overnight" because they simply can't stand their everyday life.

If the YOLO play doesn't work out there's very high danger of suicide depending on your social net. If you're the only child on who multiple generations have placed their hopes and dreams...then...you end up like my friend. ded.