The first iteration of this site launched in late-2018 as part of a digital marketing course I was taking. One of my early “place-holder” posts teased the headlines of essays I planned to write. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of those ideas were never put to page once the course ended and credit was earned.

Like I mentioned in Can You Step in the Same River Twice?, there’s a challenge in tackling the ideas that have sat on the shelves of your subconscious for so long that they’ve transmogrified into something else entirely. Or, as this post will highlight, other ideas that may have been worth pursuing 24-36 months ago have since been discussed elsewhere at length and no longer benefit from my input. Which dangerously assumes that some topics actually DO benefit from my input, a dubious prospect at best.

Here are three such examples of stories whose windows have passed me by, but still have a kernel worth sharing.

---

On Cynical Investing:

A couple years ago CNN posted a map of civilian casualties related to US military strikes in the Middle East. Next to each site, the graphic noted the military technology supplier of the particular warfare used.

Someone I follow on Twitter posted, in reaction to the image: “If you are 20-30 years old and can max our your IRA each year investing in General Dynamics/Raytheon/Lockheed, you can retire on a throne of blood and compound interest.” It’s truly amazing how…not entirely wrong he was? Especially in 2018, as tensions ratcheted up around the world, taking a net-long position on war and destruction seemed to be +EV, sad and cynical as that may have been to admit.

Investing can often feel like a dirty game, and its zero-sum nature means that the opportunities you pass on — for moral reasons or other — will often be scooped up by someone else. So, as individuals, what do we do? Full disclosure: I ended up taking a small position in Raytheon at the time, so I found the logic compelling enough to act, however I no longer directly hold shares in any of these companies.

---

On the Rise of the Individual (and their rising anxiety):

A lot has been written on this topic over the last few years so thankfully I can just link to others’ excellent work instead of trying and failing to match it! Some examples to check out:

• All American Despair (Rolling Stone)
• Childhood in an Anxious Age (The Atlantic)
• Is Meritocracy Making Everyone Miserable? (The New Yorker)

---

Various riffs on “Not Everything that Matters can be Measured”:

This is another popular theme lately as capitalism’s mandate of growth at all costs comes under increased scrutiny. Why are we chasing the ghost of 3% GDP growth each year at the expense of our families, communities, and relationships?

I still may dust off this topic if I can find new angles for addressing it, but again, so many others have done an excellent job in pointing out what markets can and, more importantly, can’t solve for.

I recommend checking out Russ Roberts’ essay Adam Smith, Loneliness, and the Limits of Mainstream Economics.