I have a billionaire friend that I talk about this topic with often. We call it the wizard staff. You plant the wizard staff in the ground and watch reality bend around you. Or I have another mental model called the cardboard mall. Imagine a mall full of cardboard cutout people, who are only as real as you allow them to be. At any point in time you can simply decide to run through the mall at a full sprint knocking down every cardboard person in your way. The cutouts jeer at you. They make mean faces and murmur about you. They’re not pleased to be knocked down, but in the end they’re made of cardboard and there’s nothing they can do to stop you.

Replies (11)

That's really powerful imagery! The cardboard mall is incredibly disturbing, but... yeah... oddly accurate. I guess the cardboard cutouts are analog to the concept of NPCs. Why are people non-playable characters? Because you can't activate them to accomplish something. They're like part of the scenery.
I love this. My team always called it the "founder's reality distortion field." Cardboard cutout framing is awesome.
HODL's avatar HODL
I have a billionaire friend that I talk about this topic with often. We call it the wizard staff. You plant the wizard staff in the ground and watch reality bend around you. Or I have another mental model called the cardboard mall. Imagine a mall full of cardboard cutout people, who are only as real as you allow them to be. At any point in time you can simply decide to run through the mall at a full sprint knocking down every cardboard person in your way. The cutouts jeer at you. They make mean faces and murmur about you. They’re not pleased to be knocked down, but in the end they’re made of cardboard and there’s nothing they can do to stop you.
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
A couple of cycles in bitcoin gives you the foundation to do this. It's amazing how much you can shape your reality when you apply yourself.
HODL's avatar HODL
I have a billionaire friend that I talk about this topic with often. We call it the wizard staff. You plant the wizard staff in the ground and watch reality bend around you. Or I have another mental model called the cardboard mall. Imagine a mall full of cardboard cutout people, who are only as real as you allow them to be. At any point in time you can simply decide to run through the mall at a full sprint knocking down every cardboard person in your way. The cutouts jeer at you. They make mean faces and murmur about you. They’re not pleased to be knocked down, but in the end they’re made of cardboard and there’s nothing they can do to stop you.
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Try to get your billionaire friend to do less of this metaphorical discussion and more factual literal discussion of reality. Could undermine their billionaire sickness and strengthen their mental health, which does the world a lot of good when you do it for anyone, but billionaires have even more impact than the average person.
I dont like this statement. It assumes that all adaptations inflicted on the world are positive ones. It is unreasonable and arrogant in many cases, to presume that nature is imperfect, and that it can be improved on. Some of the most destructive adaptations have arrisen through the arrogance of the medical fraternity.
In changing yourself, you change the world. And the one thing you can master is yourself. So that's backwards, isn't it?