The Era of Asymmetry: One Person Can Make a Difference

The world is changing and this is scary for most people. But in the gist of chaos is a ladder, there are many opportunities that rise if you can understand what is happening. See where the trend is going and get in front of it. That means you gotta figure out the new rules and where the power is going. Fortunately, the power is going to the individual with agency. 

I found a long write up on One River Weekend Notes by Eric Peters:

“The distribution of power is crumbling,” said Sparks. investor, entrepreneur, iconoclast. “Nothing is defensible. The Houthi thing was a warning,” he continued. “Our latest technologies empower individuals and small bands of marauders. 

A few AI programmers create something overnight that eviscerates a business that took 40yrs to build.” People see it clearly in software, but they don’t see it in everything. “You used to need a million-man army to win a war.” Not anymore. “You used to need 20k programmers to dominate a market.” Now it takes seven brilliant programmers and Claude. 
“This shift is so profound, the consequences are extreme. People don’t yet realize what that means for the world, far beyond tech,” said Sparks. “Even the physical world is becoming easier to disrupt. To lift 3mm barrels a day from the ground requires an army like Exxon, but what good is all that oil if you can’t move it.” Hormuz. Suez. “In a decade we’ll look back and connect the Ukraine and Iran wars. This is the most important conflict in 5,000 years. How war is being waged is evolving at an utterly unprecedented pace, creating all sorts of non-linear potentialities,” said Sparks. 

“The utilization of laptops, AI, and drones has created a true dystopia.” We ran this theater for years in Ukraine. “The Iranians come along and get attacked by the Americans, and their view is that if you’re going to take us down, we’re going to take you down – they have a fatalistic culture.” Suicide bombers, literally. “In Ukraine they take out $5mm tanks with $3k drones. It’s the parable of the Hormuz Strait. And how many drones do you now need to close a global chokepoint?” Not many. “You just need to cause chaos. This is the form of nihilism I fear most. 

The small will become disproportionately more powerful over the coming decade.” Those with the least to lose will emerge as the most dangerous. “And the drones will play a central part. They will become cyber viruses manifested in the physical world.”

The point of all this? Yes, it’s scary stuff on the geopolitical and military side. But the real point to me is that the little guy (us) still has a big chance. Individuals really matter. Whether on the battlefield or in the business world, we will see the rise of individuals empowered by technology. Literal humans with our own Iron Man suits so to speak. In this case, AI and cheap technology.

All that we need to bring to the table is courage, creativity, ingenuity and a will to take action. Don’t believe the doomers or blackpillers, It’s an amazing time to be alive. So remember that life is what you make of it.