30 Jan 2023
Sebastian - Mediocristan Influencer
Sebastian is a "Mediocristan" Influencer. If that sounds dismissive, you haven't heard the whole story.
Around 2010, I read a book called "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives". The author, Leonard Mlodinow, makes a strong case against our being able to earn any specific reward or opportunity. In the last chapter, he urges us to focus on the one variable over which we have the most control: "at bats".
To put the whole baseball analogy together, the chance of hitting any single pitch is more random than we'd like to believe, but the more times we can manage to step up to the plate, the more chance we'll have of eventually lucking into a home run.
At the time, it was a pretty novel idea to look for success outside your day job. Or, if you did chase a dream, the idea was to chase ONE dream 100%, to lock yourself in the basement and write a novel, quit your job and build an "indie game", to move to Hollywood, to buy a charter boat, etc.
That was 2010. We no longer need any encouragement to make "side bets". But the early century's small bets are out of fashion now, replaced by a new "micro bet" industry that is among the largest in the world. Instead of taking several small bets that might pay off, we take billions of "free" bets that won't pay off.
The average American social-media user spends two hours a day on social media platforms, much of it fueled by the idea that they are one ten-second post away from "going viral", gaining so much social capital that they can quit their job and live on their wit. It does happen, of course, we see examples every day, but remember that there are 500 MILLION tweets a day (that's just Twitter), so it isn't going to happen to you, and no one is getting richer than the bookies.
These micro bets feel free because they're taken on our employer's time or while waiting in line or when we're "not feeling productive anyway." But two hours a day add up fast. I'll let you do the math.
In truth, we are becoming a society of degenerate gamblers, addicted to bets with a substantial but hidden cost.
Sebastian's journey is interesting to me because he had success with a small bet with visible costs--even if it was taken in the digital world.
