The Age of Idiot

Notwithstanding the implicit provocation from the title of this blog, I would like to declare upfront that I too am, an idiot. And I've even the academic credentials too prove this, since statements such as these, usually get taken as the (understated) hallmark of the humility. Not in my case. It is an unbiased importune fact of my life that I'm a bona-fide idiot. Going by the in-vogue norm wherein a particular class, to which one belongs, bestows exclusive rights to one to exercise, (howsoever) indiscriminately. And since I do have academic credentials to prove my idiocy, which gives my right to being an idiot almost a nuclear license. Now; after having proved that I'm an idiot; in what follows, I would like to differentiate myself from the other ones. Please do keep in mind that this difference, is not due to some inherent human desire to be distinguished and gain congnizance from the fellow members, -notwithstanding the field of enterprise- albeit this is something which exist, deep within myself, as I've discovered; there does exist this "irremovable mediocrity" (just a fancy jargon which can be easily replaced by the term "retard") even in my idiocy.

And this must be so; for I've failed to see any value in Bitcoin. Well I somehow get that it is based on some mathematically exclusive invention, by whose inherent characteristic; it is limited in quantity. But there are a lot of such objects in mathematics. What makes this one special? Because there does not exist any method other than trial-and-error to find these objects. Try as I may, I still fail to see the monetary value of this curious fact to be north of $34,000; let alone even dream the fact that once this mathematical curiosity was evaluated at more than $60,000. As an idiot, I fail quite consistently, therefore this failure to observe value wasn't much of revelation for me. However I might never forgive myself for missing the fact that, there exist a huge number of thoughtful individuals, who did see the value. Enough to put money into it. God, this has brought pretty painful memories. Now, as I recall, at that time, Bitcoin had became a religion (maybe it still is); and quite aptly so. I could somewhat comprehend the reasons behind it. As absence of proofs and facts (related to tangible exclusive scarcity in its domain), sometimes gives rise to emotions and beliefs, especially after the bet has been made. After knowing that people, who are not exactly tech-savvy have poured their life savings into Bitcoin, because someone close to them (imagine a tech-savvy guy with verbiage on hashes, blockchain, cryptocurrencies and "it" factor) has convinced them; I decided to stay away from it. I think I've known too much, about retail investors of Bitcoin, rather than Bitcoin itself. Which has made me to stay away from this shiny emotional magical thing, forever. Moving on, even though the empirical evidence of a large number of such investors was there, even then, like a true idiot, I didn't learn any lesson. Then came NFTs (non-fungible tokens). As I've learned, NFT is a costly thing which I once thought to be as absolutely free. Like tweets of some celebrity. Or a digital painting which is in public domain. I didn't see any value in it. Again, like an idiot, I was wrong. 

Though as certain as death, I was and am an idiot; then how did I miss such goldmines? Please do keep in mind that, I'm not adjudicating the underlying commodity, whatsoever it may be, real or imaginary; my unforgiving blunder was the failure to assess the traction which, ahem, such an entity, would generate in money markets; in particular among retail investors. Invariably, as a seasoned idiot, I thought assessment such as these should be the second nature to me. Or, perhaps, I'm a different type of idiot. Someone who is much inferior. Hence the distinguishing spectrum of "mediocre-idiot'' was discovered, in myself, by myself. This revolutionary discovery immediately resolved a lot of (supposed) paradoxes, and helped me to finally learn the lesson and make critical-adjustments to my thinking. After artificially repairing my "mediocrity" in my idiocy, though it hasn't been cured completely nor it is on the acceptable standards, the comprehension flows freely, for the cause of rise in US equity markets just as the heart-breaking tragedy of Covid-19 was wrecking irreversible havoc on the entire world. 

Finance is not the only forte, where this new age has dawned. Geopolitics is another one, where it shines with equal opportunity. The haphazard departure of US from Afghanistan, the east-bound expansion of NATO and the weaponizing of dollar are just a few illustrious examples. Though most of them could be defended on the basis of some eclectic mix of tactics from Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and Cluasewitz. However defending a decision is one thing and having desired outcome from that decision is another. 

Not even the current social norms are untouched by this. Though this is a very generic grievance of every outgoing generation, nevertheless, the current heights which the current generation has reached, is simply breath-taking. Whether it be camping for days in front of a movie-theatre, or standing in line for more than 12 hours against a closed Apple store. These deeds are remarkable. I guess, as I've born in 1984; my generation lacked such perseverance for multimedia entertainment and repackaged electronics appliances; en-masse. I've even heard (right or wrong) that there are certain schools in US, who are changing the basic tenets of mathematics. Even if I could die a hundred times and get reincarnated with all my accrued idiocy from previous lifetimes intact; even then, I cannot arrive on such a revolutionary idea. But, now having somewhat cured this mindset, I don't find the idea of such deeds as fantastic or impossible. I take them in their full sincerity and the give them the respect they command. And I'm pleased to affirm here that there is an ongoing examination of the related fact that whether allowing such novelties expands or contracts the combinatorics of all possible outcomes, by yours truly.

However, since I'm neither a natural nor rigorously trained, in this field; the most dreaded event for me is that there might be some other incident, which may cross the vulnerable hypothetical line in my mind between fantastic and realistic; resulting in another failure. Therefore I've made the this hypothetical differentiating line as a transient quantum quantity, whose observation affects its measurement. Of course, this does have the substantial risk and a realistic possibility of being called a lunatic. Now to get involved in lexical labyrinths of the taxonomic adjudication of my mental condition is pointless, since as I've found that a million dollar Bitcoin would negate all such trivial considerations out of debate. 

Please note that the aforementioned argument is still valid if the Bitcoin goes to zero under the hammers of incoming regulations or under pressure from a cryptocurrency devised, promoted and enforced by a (group of) sovereign nation(s). The subtle thing here is the sanctity of the hypothetical differentiating line is immune to such changes. For nothing could be measured since any observation would automatically trigger changes in the measurement. As the system under consideration has become quasi non-causal thus only the instantaneous probabilities, based on the convincing clout on the social media for the targeted group, matters. In fact, this, is, one of the main investing strategy of a leading hedge fund. 

There are other inane discoveries which I've garnered laboriously. And at this point, I've zilch confidence in every one of them, nevertheless they work, and that's all that matters. Isn't it?