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ftlsid's avatar

Great post- over the last year all of these ideas have really influenced how I act

> And yet, people will tell you to play within it, because it does provide certain guarantees that they find comforting. If you can play by its rules, and hold up the proper signals, it will do its best to give you a “fair price”.

recently realized it’s more accurate to say the market doesn’t even give you a fair price, since the people circumventing the market are skimming off the best goods, services, partners. It punishes you for using it

> But fairness is not how things ever worked.

this is so so so important

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KimSia Sim's avatar

> But the guy who shared a room with you for one year in university ended up solving the whole thing, just by talking to you 3 years later.

My story is a bit longer, and started with a birthday party I attended of a friend. But directionally, supports your point. I'm the one who solved the problem for my friend's company and continues to do so more than 10 years since said birthday party. I continue to reap financial reward from it.

> So, are you saying markets aren’t even real?

More like, weak ties are more real than markets. But knowing this fact and operating my life as if this fact is true, is a different story. I have operated my life more to the "markets are more real" notion.

Your article is a good reminder that I already knew this, but I haven't yet converted the knowledge into actions that are consistent with said knowledge. Which of course is as good as not knowing it.

> But fairness is not how things ever worked.

Not ever. Having said that, yes is also a sign of human progress that things are more fair now than past. More meritocracy though not absolute. And yes, people should also work towards things being more fair.

Having said that, at the individual level, not taking advantage of your personal (thus unfair) edge, so long as stay within boundaries of law and typical moral norms, is not automatically making the world more fair.

Maybe the best outcome for the world is that everybody makes full use of their personal, unfair advantage, reap the rewards, show genuine self-aware-ness and humbleness when people ask you about it, and then use some of that reward to benefit the world somehow.

I'm directing that last paragraph to myself. No response needed. haha

Now a fan. subscribing to you

> It’s no wonder then, that people are surprised by things like the unreasonable efficacy of cold e-mails.

Again, I have one success story amidst dozens of "nothing happened". I probably have hundreds more of "i shoulda but i didn't" examples.

A lesson popularized by Tim Ferriss book many years ago. probably one i should dust off the shelf and reactivate.

There's probably also a spammy way of doing the cold email. But that doesn't mean cold email automatically equals spammy.

A two in one lesson I need to learn.

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