Ready to Die?

Good morning!

The only thing I know for sure about the coronavirus is that we are all born with a death sentence, anyway. This is going to be an accelerant for many, but the probability is 1 that we’re all gonna take a good ‘ole dirt nap at the end of this game. So we might as well enjoy the ride while we can.

If that sounds callous, it’s because “how else are we supposed to respond right now?"

I’ve been thinking a lot about “what if” and “what are my odds” and “f*ck I don’t want to think about that with 2.5 boys right now in my otherwise healthy 30s.” I'm sure many of you are in the same camp, but maybe I’m particularly prone to these thoughts because my typical domicile is in New York City, and because I’ve gotten easily eerily winded from workouts this past week. (Seriously, this is a wild coincidence if so many people are experiencing the same symptoms.)

The thing that helps me sleep is playing the percentages.

I’m not in love with feeling like I’m a pocket aces hand away from an early departure. But a 1 in 200 chance at dying early (maybe that’s an order of magnitude too high or too low) isn’t high enough to register as real.

I found this article helpful for answering the probabilities question, as it clearly outlines why the “infection fatality rate” is likely in the 1% maximum range in the near-term (even with some assumed healthcare system overwhelm), simply because of our lack of testing to date, and because there may be so many asymptomatic cases that will resolve without testing or even concern.

What would be really helpful, and what I haven’t yet seen is something that breaks down the conditional probabilities ("I have mild symptoms and I’m 50, now what?”), as it’s something that could a) help free up headspace for people worried about their mortality and keep focused at work, and b) help us understand how and when we should restart the economy.

Probably (knock on wood), I’m not going to die this year, and you aren’t either.

With that as a probabilistic baseline, it’s fair to start thinking about mitigating the horrific second-order effects of this health crisis, which I’m increasingly convinced is going to throw us into depression, unprecedented civil unrest, and maybe even global conflicts.

It's probably not a coincidence that two security minded crypto entrepreneurs (i.e. second order thinkers) are so closely aligned on this front. Read these threads from Ted Rogers, former President at Xapo, and Mike Belshe, CEO at BitGo, about the irreparable damage we might be doing to the economy. And indeed, we're now at 10 million newly unemployed in the U.S. in just two weeks.

Our leaders and media have now swung seamlessly from "the health crisis is fake news" to "the economic destruction is fake news, we'll bounce right back with stimulus." Wrong then. Wrong again.

Again it seems the probabilities are conditional:

Will “leaders" actually, ya know, lead? If so, maybe we’ll have a Nike Swoosh shaped recovery (I think V is off the table), and avoid a once in a lifetime depression. Probability: 10-20%.

Will our leaders continue to do exactly what they’ve been doing? Act reactively, and incompetently? Well, then we probably need to think about how we might start a peaceful tech-driven, decentralized revolution and overthrow the incompetent and corrupt via a "digital exit." Probability: 80-90%.

Not building, not having courage for what comes next will lead to a lost decade / generation, and a violent "Fourth Turning” that could prove worse than the coronavirus trigger. In spite of the stacked probabilities, I remain aggressively optimistic about our ability to prevent the Mad Max scenarios. It will simply take more courage than most (outside of frontline healthcare workers) have been willing to muster so far.

I hope we get passed the “gun to our head” moment of terror soon, and move on to more useful, veterinary aspirations.

The world needs leadership and courage badly right about now. More vets.

The odds are low you’ll get that from on high. Salvation lies within.

-TBI

P.S. Qiao breaks down more about how he’s thinking about the macro markets in a Pro piece below. And don't worry, there's *lots* of crypto content in tomorrow's above the fold.

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