Epsilon Theory Podcast

Every narrative is built on memes that have evolved and adapted to human culture over centuries. But some environments change the way that those memes are expressed. The effects can be explosive.

Generative AI has the power to become one of the most significant innovations any of us will see in our lifetimes. In fact, it may already be there. In this episode, we discuss the impact of this new technology on all of us and the world we live in,. We talk about what the technology is, how it works, the risks associated with it and its potential to shift the power of search and discovery from the hands of big tech companies to everyday people. We also discuss Ben's first reader context on Twitter, whether the Rock could win a presidential election, the role of major universities in our society and a lost, but now found Beatles song.

In the same way that genetics governs how physical viruses reproduce within a host, memetics governs how narrative viruses reproduce within a culture. And the memes which govern our narrative virus are powerful.

Truffles are well known to be one of the rarest, and most expensive, delicacies available. What's not known is the cutthroat world of truffle hunting. Where it's not uncommon to see fraud, theft, sabotage, and even murder.

With primary season getting into full swing, there is a lot going on in the political world. Candidates are taking things up a notch with their aggressive tweets and comments to try to stay relevant as a Trump vs. Biden election seems more likely every day. And Trump and Biden themselves seem happy to sit back and stay out of the fray while enjoying their leads in the polls. In this episode, we break down the current state of election 2024. We discuss whether the primaries matter anymore and how things are playing out in narrative world. We also cover why inflation may not have been as low as it seemed in the most recent CPI report, whether Jack's pivot on Jared Kushner is warranted and the benefits of keeping a personal archive.

We know that Hollywood is a multibillion dollar industry that shows no signs of slowing anytime soon. So then why do so many studios report that their movies failed? Especially when most of these movies are incredibly popular and by all accounts should be financially successful. Well turns out Hollywood has some tricks up their sleeves and, as The Producers taught us, under the right circumstances you can make more money with a flop than a hit.

People traditionally look at war as something that is fought on a battlefield. And that is certainly true. But it is also fought in the world of narrative. The stories that are told by both the combatants in a war and other parties outside the war with a vested interest in its outcome can play a major role in how it plays out. In this episode, we look at the current Israel Hamas war through a narrative lens and how that is impacting the conflict.

Earthquakes, storms, volcanos, oh my. It seems the earth is always trying to kill us one way or another. These are dangerous powerful spectacles that can literally reshape the world. It’s understandable that we’re so fascinated by them. But why aren’t we afraid of them?

There was an explosion in the vicinity of a hospital in Gaza. The media immediately began reporting on it. Major newspapers put out front page headlines. Television stations brought on experts to voice their opinions, But there was one major problem: much of the information that was reported as fact turned out to be wrong. In this episode, we dig into the incident to try to understand what happened in the reporting of this story, why it happened, and what it tells us about the way the media operates in our world today.

Reality TV is a constant and ever growing part of pop culture. Everyone has a guilty pleasure show that they watch every week. It's created stars and scandals that have gained international attention. It's dominated the small screen for almost 30 years and the line between tv and reality has never been thinner.

The political world is becoming more polarized by the day. Whether it be on social media, in the news, or in the real world, extreme opinions continue to dominate any attempt to take a more balanced view. In our previous episodes, we have looked at why this is occurring, and why it is likely to get worse before it gets better. But that doesn't mean we should give up. There are many things those of us who don't want to give in to this polarization can do to better navigate this world and to find like minded people who also feel the same way. In this episode, we explore them and have an honest conversation about how all of us can be better citizens, and better people as the world around us becomes more challenging.

Invasive species are a known "bad thing". An organism that's introduced to an environment and ruins it. So why don't we do anything about them? Is there anything we can do?

Poll numbers show that the majority of Americans are not happy about the choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that we are likely to face in the next election. In this episode, we discuss how we got to this point. We look at the embedded problems in our political system that favor incumbents and how it has led us to where we are today. We also look at the political strategy used by incumbents and how they attempt to stave off upstart candidates by altering the system itself.

Airbnb has reshaped how we travel and disrupted the hotel industry. But most of the stories from both guests and hosts reveal nothing but disasters. So what's really going on? What's the real story of Airbnb?

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the tactics and tools used by upstart political entrepreneurs. Our political system is setup to heavily favor incumbents and candidates that are part of the political establishment. This presents an exceptionally difficult challenge for candidates who come from outside of that system. But social media and technology have given upstart candidates more tools at their disposal than they have ever had in history. And they are using them to both gain our votes and influence our opinions. We discuss how they do that and how all of us can maintain clear eyes and full hearts in the midst of their influence.

We live in a very safe world. And we've worked hard to make it safe. But sometimes we take that safety for granted. And sometimes we think that safety applies even when it really really doesn't.

Every virus needs carriers to spread. Even a narrative virus. We can learn a lot from what they have in common.

Political entrepreneurs are all around us. They influence what we think. They influence how we think. But we often don't recognize it. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the world of political entrepreneurs. We explain who they are, what they do and why they do it. We also look at what we can all do to protect ourselves from their influence.

The Bone Wars. A decade long battle of ego between two dueling paleontologists. It's a tale of obsession, sabotage, and academic backstabbing. This clash of titans brought new attention to the theory of evolution and helped make dinosaurs the cultural juggernauts we know them as now.

This is a story about a virus and the gain-of-function research that produced it. It's not what you think.

High inflation was the story of the investing world in the past couple of years. But that has recently changed. The common knowledge around inflation has now shifted from one that high inflation is here to stay to one that inflation is over. But is that change premature? In this episode, we finish off our discussion from our first episode and head back to narrative world to discuss the current story of inflation and the risks it might present for investors going forward.

Harper and Ben finally get a chance to talk about the Wizard of Oz and the not so wonderful behind the scenes production. Of course this was par for the course in the Golden Age of Hollywood as the studio star making system controlled everything. And we do mean everything.

Join Ben Hunt, Matt Zeigler and Jack Forehand as we break open the news to reveal the nudging language behind the headlines. Media bias is real, but not in the way you think. In our kick-off episode, Ben, Matt and Jack talk about why we're here - to break open the news reported by mainstream media to reveal the nudging language of narrative and story that drives us. We focus on the reporting of inflation as a perfect example of what we call Fiat News.

A revamped Cursed Knowledge is back! This episode, Harper and Ben talk about the all too common trope of killing off female characters to motivate male characters. It's everywhere and it can tell us a lot about how hard it is to capture audience attention.

The City of Man always wins. The Visigoths always sack Rome. The Vandals always sack Hippo. Augustine always dies in the siege. Bad things always happen to good people ... at scale. Here's how we use generative AI to flip the script.

The student loan crisis is a Big Deal. And it is only a part of a Bigger Deal: the Myth of College. This issue will be front-and-center in the upcoming elections. We will all be handed our very own 'Yay, College' signs to raise high. More often than not, we will be asked to raise them in service of market-distorting policies which will make our problems worse.

The MacGuffin is the object of desire. It is the thing around which the plot of the story revolves. Here is the story arc of SBF and FTX, and the MacGuffin that anchored it all - the Magical Money Machine.

If you don't see that the crypto "industry" has become just as blindingly corrupt, just as oozingly fatuous, just as profoundly captured by the Nudging Oligarchy as the traditional financial services industry it was supposed to replace ... well, you're just not paying attention.

Mt Everest is a death trap. Everything about the mountain is designed to kill you. So why are so many people going up there? Why do we ignore the very real and very dangerous narratives that are right in our face.

What does farming have to do with investing? Quite a lot, actually. In this first of a series that takes on a life of its own, Ben discusses bees and bonds, eggs and ETFs, and more.

Part 2 of Ben's Notes from the Field series, in which he considers the question: what can a bird teach us about value investing? To everything there is a season.

There is no animal more important to the ascendancy of Western Civilization than the horse, and no invention more important than the horse collar. After all nothing shapes history like advances in productivity. Part 3 of Ben's Notes from the Field series here.

Marie Antoinette has a rather interesting historical footprint. For all that her image is iconic and her reputation infamous, it's not all the truth. The real Marie Antoinette has been lost to the cartoon of Marie Antoinette™. So I want to show you a glimpse at the real person behind the cartoon and take a closer look at how her cartoon got started.

The Golden Age of Hollywood was full of drama. On and off screen. It was the age of carefully cultivated images. Fake names and secret procedures. And it was the age of censorship. The Hays Code and the censorship office had more influence on the film industry than any actor, director, or producer ever could. They had full control over what Hollywood made. Well, almost. There were still a few loopholes left to exploit.

Part 13 of the Notes from the Field series discusses the Narrative Machine, which can help us see the invisible memes that drive our political behaviors. Because you're smart enough to make up your own damn mind.

What's in a name? Quite a bit actually. Names and titles can be all that's needed to make some one a hero or a villain. So we're looking at some villains who never got their proper title. People who were able to hide behind social standing and wealth to excuse their crimes.

Locks of Love is one of the most well known and well regarded charities in America. But things aren't always what they seem. Sometimes the smokescreen of common knowledge can obscure what's really going on. So join me in a look behind the curtain at America's most beloved charity.

Over the past 25 years, our leaders have intentionally constructed an Apocalypse Now world of proclamation and fiat, where our wealth has grown much faster than our economy. The bill is due for their hubris, and inflation is here to collect it.

We are the human animal. We are non-linear. We ARE a song of ice and fire. It’s a song that has built cathedrals and fed billions and taken us to the moon. It’s a song that can do all of that and more … far, far more … if only we remember the tune. The Pack remembers.

We live in a Cartoon Age, an era not of alienation per Karl Marx, but of alienation per Groucho Marx. What’s the cause, what’s the future, and what do we do about all this? It’s a TL;DR cri de coeur in Part 12 of Epsilon Theory's Notes from the Field series.

This is Part 11 of Ben's Notes from the Field series. I don’t need to calculate a Sortino ratio to know if my dogs are doing a Good Job. Same with active investment management. Same with active citizenship. It’s all about embracing Convexity, not as a mathematical cartoon, but as a philosophy.

The inevitable result of financial innovation gone awry, which it ALWAYS does, is that it ALWAYS ends up empowering the State. When too clever by half people misplay the meta-game, that’s all the excuse the State needs to come swooping in and crush them, just as they are with Bitcoin today they did with Bear and Lehman in 2008. Installment #10 from Notes from the Field.

What if I told you that the dominant strategies for human investing are, without exception, algorithms and derivatives? I don't mean computer-driven investing, I mean good old-fashioned human investing ... stock-picking and the like. And what if I told you that these algorithms and derivatives might all be broken today? You might want to sit down for Part 9 of the Notes from the Field series.

We've all fallen victim to a bad retcon at some point in our lives. When the story we've been following takes a turn no one was prepared for and we have to act like it all makes perfect sense. It's Sherlock Holmes coming back from the dead. It's the reveal that an entire season of Dallas was only a dream. It's the author changing their mind and trying to convince you that it's all part of the plan. I don't buy it. And neither should you.

The pecking order is a social system designed to preserve economic inequality: inequality of food for chickens, inequality of wealth for humans. We are trained and told by Team Elite that the pecking order is not a real and brutal thing in the human species, but this is a lie. It is an intentional lie, formed by two powerful Narratives: trickle-down monetary policy and massive student debt financing. Part 8 of the Notes from the Field series.

Part 7 of Ben's Notes from the Field series reminds us that you don’t break a wild horse by crushing its spirit. You nudge it into willingly surrendering its autonomy. Because once you’re trained to welcome the saddle, you’re going to take the bit. We are Clever Hans, dutifully hanging on every word or signal from the Nudging Fed and the Nudging Street as we stomp out our investment behavior.

In Part 6 of the Notes from the Field Series, Ben observes that we think we are wolves, living by the logic of the pack. In truth we are sheep, living by the logic of the flock.

In Part 4 of the Notes from the Field Series, Ben identifies how the natural lines of a tree and shaping the tree to follow those lines over time is a lot like shaping a portfolio.

We've all felt insecure about our looks at one point or another. Especially in our chronically online world where how you look can be your whole brand. So with plastic surgery rates on the rise, let's peel back the layers of this industry and see how information (and lies) about procedures spread and examine the real price of beauty.

Someone once said there's no such thing as bad publicity. With all due respect, this person is an idiot. Publicity, both good and bad, can have major ramifications. Even if you don't play a part in creating it.