The Master Speculator

In a world of conformists, be a sovereign individual.

Where there are humans, there are speculators

“Greed is good.” —Gordon Gekko

Speculation is the backbone of human progress. The innate desire of humans for risk-taking in pursuit of greater rewards, is what propelled us from a hunter-gatherer to the advanced life form that we are now as a species.

Be it planting crops amidst the non-trivial probability of harsh storms, going ahead with a military offensive on unfamiliar territory, or the conviction to commit resources for a risky endeavour, speculation weeds out the doers from the naysayers, the brave from the make-believers, and the strong from the pretentious.

The sovereign man in a conformist world

Extended periods of peacetime have led to a conducive environment for innovation, resulting in the greatest time period for value creation and wealth in human history.

Humans on aggregate now live longer, eat healthier, sleep better, and is more educated. The productivity levels of the average human today, far eclipse the output of the average human just a few decades ago.

As society gets more affluent, the need for speculation becomes less pronounced. Humans now no longer need to go to the risk-taking lengths of their ancestors just for the sake of a meal and a good night’s sleep.

As a result, we have witnessed a significant decline of the average human’s capacity to take good speculative risks. Those that retain said speculative skills becomes an increasingly rare breed, which in turn allows them to collect a disproportionate amount of societal spoils for their critical-thinking and risk-taking acumen.

Where the master speculator used to be celebrated just centuries back, today the master speculator is a scapegoat incurring the wrath of a weak conformist society addicted to instant gratification and ignorant of everything else to achieve it.

Dissuasion instead of encouragement, being a cynic instead of an optimist, an ever skeptic instead of delegating trust, and the nanny state telling you what to do with your own resources taking precedence over the individual’s free choice and self-expression.

There is no honor amongst conformists

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” —G. Michael Hopf

Choose freedom when everyone is sedated by comfort. Defend privacy when everyone is drugged by convenience. Take agency over your own lives when everyone is handing it over to the Big State. Embrace inequality as a fact of life instead of yearning for the utopia of an equal world that only exists in fiction. And be a staunch capitalist when everyone seeks refuge under the false assurances of socialism-communism.

Where comfort exists, speculation dies. Where speculation dies, conformity breeds. Where conformity breeds, individuality goes extinct. And a world without individuality, is a world devoid of progress and innovation.

In a world of conformists, be a master speculator — a sovereign individual.