What does a world of digital assets look like? There is no clear answer. What is clear is that such a world is very different from ours.
@balajis has given one scenario: An age of global monetary competition. Conceptualized as a defi matrix.
As each asset class goes on-chain (i.e. on a blockchain infrastructure), it can be stored on a digital wallet. Allowing the asset to be traded against other assets. Not just cryptocurrencies, but national digital currencies, personal tokens, etc.
The defi matrix is a table of all pair-wise trades. It is Fiat/stablecoin pairs, fiat/crypto pairs, crypto/crypto pairs, and anything else that can be digitized. We will see an automatic market making of everything. Every possession you have, constantly marked to market.
A system like this affects how we interact with each other in the economy. We have more liquidity and less currency. Automated Market Makers (AMMs) would give a reliable 24/7 mark-to-market on everything, rendering cash less significant as a percentage of one’s total assets.
This could cause a minimum necessary currency. Individuals hold the minimum necessary currency needed to give to the state, but no more than that. Every unit of fiat beyond the minimum goes into the defi matrix. Searching for higher returns than you can get holding unnecessary cash. We all become yield farmers.
Assuming we have the pleasure of living until 90, each of those days represents any single day from our lives. This has the simultaneous effect of making each day feel overwhelmingly small but evermore so important.
What isn't as symmetrical as the days we have left are the relationships we participate in. Specifically, the relationship with our parents.
Tim Urban has used himself as an example of just how fast the days slip by us:
I’ve been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I’ve probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. About 3% of the days I spent with them each year of my childhood.
Being in their mid-60s, let’s continue to be super optimistic and say I’m one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that’s 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years.
When you look at that reality, you realize that despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life. If I lay out the total days I’ll ever spend with each of my parents—assuming I’m as lucky as can be—this becomes starkly clear:
It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
Coming to this realization can be disheartening.
Even if I use my (almost) 22-year-old self as an example and assume that I'll see my parents 30 days a year (with the same living age assumptions as above), that’s 1,140 days or roughly 3 years.
If we add that to the 90% of days spent with them up to graduating high school, and to 40% of the days between ages 18-22. I have used-up roughly 85% of my total in-person parent time. I am much closer to the tail-end than I ever would have thought.
What do we do with this information?
1) Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.
2) Priorities matter. Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you—not by unconscious inertia.
3) Quality time matters. If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.
Insight
Selecting Ideas - The Lindy Effect
Ideas are only as useful as their age. This is why most ideas have a finite life. They are not that useful. The length of an idea's life is a function of how good an idea is. Time kills most ideas. The Lindy Effect stated simply is that the older something is, the more likely it will be around in the future. The assumption being that the idea will be around at least as long as it has existed. The Lindy effect is exponential. For example, It doesn't take long for us to know the value of a book. You do not need to wait hundreds of years to know if a book is valuable. If people are still reading and talking about a book 20 years after its publication, then you know it has outlived millions of other books. By the Lindy effect, you know it will be relevant for at least another 20 years. Keeping this in mind when adopting new books, ideologies, or ways of living can be helpful.
This is very cool. Plan a trip without actually doing any planning. Just insert the city and type of trip you are looking for. The application does the rest. It matches you with similar trips other users have gone on.
