Who doesn’t like to be the center of attention? Who doesn’t want to cash in on likes and more and more followers? The prospect of quick fame and approval is tempting. In today’s connected world, it’s easier than ever to articulate thoughts and share them with the world.
A supposedly ideal world that has many pitfalls
I follow many different stakeholders on Twitter and am always amazed at how much they know, how much they share, and about the echo chambers they create. At first glance, it is an ideal world with access to the knowledge and wisdom of outstanding personalities and visionaries.
Nothing but nonsense condensed through repetition
But this world also has its pitfalls. In all of the loudness, the focus on the subtleties can easily get lost. We no longer weigh arguments carefully, we no longer look at possible other perspectives, we think we are the center of the world and trumpet supposed wisdom. Followers share these thoughts without reflection, and in the end, there is nothing but nonsense condensed through repetition.
It is a bullshit bubble.
A flood of data that creates noise
Besides, this bubble is also a flood of data that creates more disadvantages than advantages.
Admittedly, I like Twitter as a kind of news feed. But that is a fallacy. Because in the end, the amount of data only creates noise that suppresses the essential information.
This amount of data doesn’t give me an edge in knowledge, because when I find out about it, it’s no longer secret or confidential.
Rather, there is a risk that I will overweight the information.
This recency effect is a typical cognitive bias. It has been proven that new incoming information has a greater influence on a person’s memory than earlier incoming information. Accordingly, we also give such fresh news an unjustified high weighting.
A sad conclusion
The overall conclusion is kind of sad, at least for me, when I look at it honestly. I could easily spend 5 hours a day on Twitter but wouldn’t be one bit smarter than before.
In doubt, I would only be angry at myself for wasting time or sad about the current state of the world. In this regard, I often have to remind myself how little sense this chase for information, followers, and likes makes. It doesn’t move us forward.
Content and substance need time
There are no shortcuts in life. We seem to forget this fundamental principle of evolution when we are on the internet.
One of the oldest and most useful heuristics
Yet it is one of the oldest heuristics. Content and substance cannot be created within a few minutes or seconds. What comes spontaneously is either art or not well thought out.
If I have a spontaneous thought and write one of my rare tweets about it, I often realize a few days later that I haven’t necessarily made the world a better place.
Content takes time. It takes several years to write a doctoral thesis on a subject. I don’t understand an author’s thought process if I only read the blurb of the book or a summary. I have to read particularly good books twice to understand them.
There are no shortcuts in life
The internet pretends to provide shortcuts with access to experts. It makes us feel like we ourselves are experts in highly complex fields after watching a few YouTube videos.
But I don’t become a surgeon because I listened to three lectures on human anatomy at university. It’s the angler-geologist phenomenon. The angler thinks he is a geologist because he digs for worms in the ground.
The chasing of likes and followers is detrimental to our actual goal
In the meantime, I don’t share much content on Facebook or Twitter. I don’t want to be the loudest. I don’t claim to speak any judgments about the complex things of this world.
Chasing likes would lead to nothing, which is also the reason why I like the TEV Blog so much.
The TEV Blog is my reflection chamber
In this chamber, I don’t want to lecture anyone. That’s why I often change old articles and delete the “You should do this” and replace it with an “I do this because”. It is a learning process and I am happy when I realize mistakes or errors.
I don’t want to sell anything here. That is why there is no advertising on the TEV Blog. I only write stuff, and sometimes kind readers who are often wiser than the author write back in the comments or by private message.
Time will tell
Time will tell if this blog really offers added value to readers. Putting advertisements everywhere for this blog would have no influence on the quality and therefore no influence on the added value. In the end, it’s like evolution. The antifragile will endure, and the fragile will pass away.
Moreover, I believe that chasing likes and followers is detrimental to our actual goal of good and proper wealth management. They add an element that makes us vulnerable to mistakes.
If I go hunting, I have to stand up to all the other hunters. But wealth management is not hunting. Wealth management is not a competition. It’s not about having more or accumulating more than someone else. What matters is the long-term strategy we pursue, not how we perform against short-term benchmarks.
We measure our results against the goals of our strategy
We, therefore, measure our results against the goals of our strategy, not against the results of others. If we know the destination, we know when we have arrived. Likewise, we know when we are moving away from it and need to adjust our path, or if we need more time or can even slow down a gear and enjoy life a little more instead.
Switching the benchmark
Sometimes, I even think I benefit from not knowing what I actually want.
Rather, it may be more crucial to know what I don’t want. The idea behind this has something to do with antifragility. If we could strip everything fragile from ourselves, then in the end all that would inevitably remain would be antifragility.
So we don’t have to know what antifragility is in order to create antifragility or come close to it.
Reduction is the key
The decisive factor, then, is reduction. The absence of war means peace. I don’t need to know how to define peace if I can eradicate wars.
This banal switch in our thinking allows us to live much better than if we chase after specific things.
I want to live healthily. Maybe it is enough if I try to banish as many unhealthy habits from my life as possible. I don’t have to adhere to a particularly healthy lifestyle slavishly. Reduction is the key to success.
Avoiding risks is, in my view, more important than identifying opportunities
The same reduction considerations apply to finances.
I want good wealth management for my family and me. Then I should look to avoid risks and not aim to get the best return.
In my view, avoiding risks is more important than identifying opportunities.
If I don’t know what the best strategy is, then I try to avoid the strategies that have already failed. This includes all the tricks and gimmicks that investors use to try to be better than the market, such as day trading, swing trading, and whatnot.
They look at the possible return. I look more at the risk in my investments.
With this in mind, I wish my readers peace and confidence on their journey and, of course, …
… all the best!
