Given today's networked economy with its extreme wealth disparity. Many wonder how they can contribute. How does one not get discouraged by the concentration of wealth? What can you do to exist within this kind of asymmetric economy and still find meaning and make a good living? Well, the usual solution offered by many is where people on youtube and other social media sites say they can teach you how to make money online or generate a ton of fall.
I argue that these kind of methods are more akin to get rich quick schemes because they fail to acknowledge that asymmetric network properties guarantee that only a few nodes will have the overwhelming number of links and therefore wealth.
I argue that rather than following someone else's so called recipe for success, you should learn to create and scale value for others by focusing on building things you find fascinating by doing so you can attract a decent number of links to your note, creating real value for others and enriching your own life all the while operating within an asymmetric rich, get richer network. This is the non trivial bonus. Talk for wealth, the middle class and the shape of networks.
OK. So uh if you take a look at today's network economy, as I talked about uh in the main section, the main episode, you know, we've got this extreme wealth disparity, we understand some of the mechanisms behind why that is, we've got this, you know, hub formation that occurs in networks and it is what it is, that's how complexity works. That's what you should expect when you run into these networks and these networks are driving today's current economy.
And so people are gonna, you know, obviously ask themselves, you know, unless they're in one of those big hubs already kind of concentrating their own wealth, how do they contribute, how do they become a part of it? It would, it make sense, it would make sense that a lot of people are asking themselves this question because, you know, there's this uh gap uh or, or, or this lack of middle class, right?
I mean, most people, you could argue are not necessarily, you know, uh contributing to the way they might want to into these networks. I mean, that's why we have this health disparity to begin with. So what can you do? What, how, how do you exist within, within this asymmetric economy? And I've already argued in the original part of the episode here um that you should expect this disparity that you should expect this kind of network topology.
And I don't think the solution is going to be you know, to separate the notion of wealth from that topology, I think you got to keep them bound to each other. I think the network topology is what it is and it, and it does reflect wealth, but that's not to say that you can't kind of de fatten or, or kind of de skew some of that curve. And so how do you do that?
And we talked about putting maybe, um you know, some uh kind of antitrust stuff in place, maybe some uh constraints, whether that's by the government or something else that puts a cap on how big organizations can get, you know, but rather than just kind of wait around for that to maybe happen, what can you do as an individual? And that's what I want to talk about in this bonus talk in this bonus section for this episode. You know, how does one that kind of come into that?
Well, the usual solution is I would say is kind of what you see a lot online now is that people are trying to get people up to speed on how to, um, you know, get online and make money online essentially, right? And this makes sense. I mean, again, if, if, if a lot of the economy is being driven by these networks that exist online, how do you contribute to that?
Well, you should find, you know, find out how to make money online, I guess whether that is kind of a side job and maybe that over time that makes more money and maybe that, that becomes uh your full time job. Who knows?
But you see a lot of this kind of popping up in advertisements, these kind of youtube videos or things on Twitter and I'm sure Facebook slash meta has it as well where, you know, people are coming on and saying, you know, maybe they will teach you how to make money on Amazon, right?
You can kind of become this reseller and you can jump on to Amazon and, and they're, and they're saying, well, look, I do it, you know, here, here's how many thousands of dollars I make a month and you can do that too and it's the internet and this is the way things work. And so if you just do what I do, you know, you can do the same thing. Another example might be what you see on Twitter. You know, it's, it's good to have uh a lot of uh you know, connections, a lot of links to yourself, right?
So that would be a lot of followers on Twitter, on Twitter. So people have done that. They have these big followers and then they kind of promote themselves by saying, hey, I can teach you to do what I do, I can get you a lot of followers online and stuff like this. Well, this is all kind of red flaggy, right? And, and the reason is because we understand that as a property of these networks, we should expect there to be a concentration of wealth.
We should and, and then that's the same thing as saying that only a few people uh percentage wise compared to everybody else, they're gonna have the overwhelming number of links to themselves. So if someone comes along and says, well, I can do, you know, I can make you a big note basically, right? Like I can, if you just do what I did, you can be, you can have a, be a node in that network that has a lot of links for yourself.
Well, I mean, so, so right away, you know, either you're, you're kind of like, well, if this is gonna work for a lot of people that would, that would mean that would be changing the topology and then the network wouldn't have a concentration of wealth. You, you're, you're basically saying a bunch of people can come in here and have a lot of those links come to themselves. I mean, there's only so many resources, there's only so so many connections that certain people can make.
So it doesn't make sense that everybody can have a lot of connections, right? Not really. But let's say you argue that no, maybe there is kind of a network like that where, you know, an overwhelming number of people can have that. Um You know, again, you're, you're shifting the topology by quite a bit, you're not really respecting the fact that you, you, you have these fat tail distributions, these burrito like distributions where very few people have the overwhelming number of links.
So again, you're kind of trying to get away from maybe what's natural there. Um But I think the real argument that that kind of goes against what, what I think is akin to a rich get richer scheme really is that there's no reason you should believe that you can, you can achieve what someone else did by following what they did. And that's a common thing if you go to the, the, the business section in the bookstore and that's, you know, the overwhelming number of books are really about that, right?
They're saying like, hey, I got successful and I figured out what works and now I can teach you to do the same thing. And I want to be clear here, I don't think a lot of people are being, you know, nefarious or bad. Like these are a bunch of schemers.
I mean, maybe some of them are, but you know, these, these so-called get rich quick schemes as I, as I, as I'm labeling them, the people probably think who are writing these books and who are making these videos, they probably think they have figured something out, right? But that's, that's really a survivorship bias, right?
I mean, if you come out on top of something, you're gonna look back at your own story and say, well, I did this and I did this and then you're gonna think that's how you got there. And maybe there's a little bit of truth to that. Maybe there's certain decisions you made that kind of put yourself in opportunities way, maybe there's certain kind of things you were leveraging. But at the end of the day, that's a lot that, that, that's a narrative, right?
And it's a lot of, it's gonna be quite a bit of a false narrative because that's just how it is again, going back to the causal opacity, right? You can't really uncover the reasons why certain patterns emerge. So when people get successful and there will always be a certain number of people who do get successful. I mean, people can be acting completely randomly and a certain number of people will be successful.
But that that random emergence of success will have people who have stories because everyone has a story. I mean, if someone wins a lottery, someone has a story, I got up and I was gonna pick my birthday numbers or, or I had a dream about something you hear this all the time, right? Like if you ask any lottery winner, they do have a story and it's easy to think about that story is like maybe there's some meaning to that, maybe, right?
But, but when you think of um kind of these things on, on, you know youtube or Twitter or they're trying to tell you how to make money. Those are the, you know, you don't think of those as lotteries. These sounds like, well, these people, these are real, right? This is people who have done something in an entrepreneurial fashion, they have been able to make money, they believe they found out a way to do it and they want to share that with you at face value.
That doesn't sound like anything particularly wrong with it, right? I mean, why not? But it's, it's pretty akin to the lottery scenario. I mean, at the end of the day, I, you know, people can be doing whatever and, and to try to uncover the reasons why certain people get successful and why they don't is, is kind of foolhardy.
And I, and I think you're not respecting the causal opacity and then under this particular scheme, you're not respecting the fact that that asymmetry in the networks has to exist, only a certain number of people are going to be able to be successful. And remember when I was talking about, uh you know, a number of episodes, uh you know, multiple realizable, I bring up a lot as, as this kind of property of complex systems.
Well, definitely this property uh you think about, you know, if you have like a block of metal and it can have a certain temperature, well, there's different ways that that temperature could be arrived at, it might be done through friction it might be done through radiation, you might kind of rearrange what, whatever there's ways to achieve the same thing.
And you see this in complex situations because again, if you have a complex system, you have many nodes that are interacting in many different ways. And but, but, but with all that interaction, there's only a certain number of high level properties that emerge from that. Well, it makes sense that there's many, many, many ways to achieve those same few high level things, right?
So when you have successful people that achieve a good outcome as we define it in society, it makes sense that there's many, many, many different ways to achieve that same outcome. That is what you should expect. It is not a recipe. So not only does the successful person not know how they got to where they are. That's true. I mean, they can argue against it, but you, you're, you're really just arguing against the fundamental property of causal opacity in a complex system, right?
You don't know, you can't peel back and see what came to what, how the different, you know, kind of build your balls bumped into each other and had this causal link all the way to the the the output that emerged, which is your success. You think you do because we, we do this all the time, right? We don't create the way we consume.
We think that we, you know, we consume these narratives, these nice causal structure, these simplistic, you know, A and then B and then C and then D and then this is what happened and it seems to make sense to us, but we can step back, you know, because you could always ask me and say, well, how do you know that's not how it work? Well, again, you gotta look at the properties of complex systems, right?
There's many, many statistically, there's many ways that all these kind of, uh, factors can contribute and come together to produce the same high level things when someone comes to you and says they have a recipe and they have a way to achieve something. I don't doubt that they believe that. Right. Because this is how people think.
But if we're being kind of intellectually honest about the situation, you, you, you, you, you should know that that's like a stat, pretty much a statistical impossibility that you're going to achieve the same thing just because you follow someone else's recipe.
Now, you might even know someone who said well, no, no, no, that's not true, Sean because somebody bought a course about a guy who said they were going to teach him how to make money and they, they took that course and now they're really successful. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's gonna happen too sometimes. But that still doesn't mean it was because they followed that person's recipe.
I mean, if anything, it's probably because getting the course and getting involved in the market, at least open yourself up to the opportunity where you could make money. And then statistically a few people within that population are going to make money. Right. It still doesn't mean it was the recipe that got them there and you should expect that that is not going to work for you if you follow that exact path.
And in fact, following the exact path of someone else is, uh, is going to lock you into a bad path because paths themselves don't really exist. These are not paths, it's a swirling world of variation and factors that come together and emits that emerges properties that, that we are associating with success.
So when you see things like that online where people are, um you know, do what I do and that can make you money and when you see it like in the stock, you know, for, for things related to, to stocks, like, hey, I can tell you what stocks to buy and, and, and uh you know, if you, if you do this kind of investment strategy, you're probably gonna make money most of us already get that. That's pretty Schey, right?
We understand that, you know, there's a lot of randomness in the stock market, the odds of you being able, I mean, you know, whether it's the efficient market hypothesis or whatever, I mean, that information is all available to all people all the time. So the idea that you're gonna be able to tell me something that, that allows me to kind of asymmetrically come on top in the market is a little bit ridiculous.
But when you hear something like, um, I, you know, this is a system that can make you money online. That doesn't sound obviously like a scheme to a lot of people because, well, it's entrepreneurial, it's a business, businesses have systems. So why not? You know, but again, it's really the same thing, right? I mean, if everyone was doing the system, everybody would be making money. There's no reason to expect that that particular system is gonna get, get that, that uh that same output.
In fact, you could achieve the same output as someone else by doing a completely different thing. And that's actually what you should expect. Statistically, if you think a swirling variation that makes up the complexity of a situation, your so-called quote unquote path is going to look very, very different. Nobody's stories are exactly the same.
So this whole notion whether it's the business section of a bookstore, uh somebody online trying to tell you how to, you know, make a bunch of money every month um is kind of ridiculous on its face. And that's just being intellectually honest with how these systems work. So that's a problem and I don't think that's the solution. So again, let's go back, right. I said that, you know, given today's networked economy, you got this extreme wealth disparity.
That can be pretty discouraging, pretty disheartening because how are you supposed to contribute to that? And you do need to contribute to that because that's the, the these networks with these networks properties. You know, we talked about the hub formation, we talked about Met CAF S Law. That is what's driving the economy. So you should probably plug into that if you want to be a part of it.
But if you've got the extreme asymmetry, you know, then what's the solution to, what are you going to do to make that possible? So the solutions, you know, even though you have people who are probably mostly honest people just saying, look, I've been successful, I want to tell you how to do the same thing. I'm not, I don't think they're necessarily trying to be Schey, you know, but these aren't, you know, the overwhelming number of people don't really understand how complex systems work.
So they're not gonna be thinking about the fact that wait a second, I, I I'm part of an asymmetry and why should I expect someone else to do that? They're not thinking in terms of multiple reliability, of course, things like that. But hey, you are a listener of non-trivial. So you are thinking about these things. So let's try to have a little more kind of uh maybe a smarter way to think about this.
Well, II, I would argue that these get rich, quick, uh quick schemes that will call them even though they don't look like schemes. Uh you know, they, they're not really gonna work because of the properties of complexity as we've, as we've discussed. Right? And I would say that rather than, you know, following someone else's so-called recipe, you should learn to create and scale value for others by focusing on building things that you find fascinating.
And if you do that, you can attract a decent number of links to your note, you can create really value. So, so I think it's like, you know, you know, you're looking at the network, you understand that that certain links are gonna attract more than others and you need to try to become a part of that, but you're not going to do that by being by, by following someone else's recipe, right? Again, multiple reliability, survivorship bias, causal opacity.
There's no reason to statistically how you want to think about that. Uh I believe you're gonna achieve those, those same kind of top level properties as someone else, those those outputs as someone else rather sorry, sorry, top level outputs, I should say as someone else. OK. But, but by understanding the properties how networks work, that doesn't mean you can't contribute and find a way to maybe get more links to yourself and the networks. So how might you do that?
Well, I think it comes down to building, I think everybody needs to be building things, finding ways to create value for others and to scale that value for others. And that's a very kind of entrepreneurial spirit to take on. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you to start a company for some people that does mean starting a business, starting a company, maybe having employees or working through contractors, maybe have a specific product that you're creating.
But it could be, you know, woodworking, it could be uh podcasting, it could be putting articles together, it doesn't really matter. You just need to find a way to create.
And, and why the reason I'm focusing on creating, on, on building is because it's in contrast to this notion of kind of passive consumption, if we go back to kind of your solution where everybody should get paid for their data, you know, and I'm, and I'm kind of challenging that for a number of reasons, go listen to the original, right part of the episode. But, you know, well, what is, how do you tie the value back to someone? And what do you, you know, is it even really valuable?
It's kind of this passive notion of, hey, I'm on your network. I could be, you know, I could be just a lazy slut and just consuming passive information and I'm still on your network. But hey, that's useful to you. Yeah. Yes. Right. But why don't you actually create something? Why don't you try to build something? And I think this is, it doesn't matter, you know what what domain you're, you're in, where you live, what age group you're in? Everybody can create.
And I think it's natural to create and I think it's, it's, if you really want to find your purpose in life and your passion, you're, you're not gonna find that unless you're building something you have to build, you have to create something, you have to gather the resources around you and bring those together in, in, in a way that has not existed before. OK?
And by doing that and, and this is this whole other conversation that, you know, all the fundamental patterns that I talk about in non trivial. They are there in the act of building, they're not there because I'm reading a bunch of books, they're not there because, you know, I, I understand a lot about science or I have a phd, you know. Yeah, I mean, those, those help me talk in, in maybe a more kind of scientific way. But those patterns are there in the act of building for me.
That's, that's typically building software. I build software all the time. I create uh you know, I create applications, I create products. I'm building solutions for clients. You know, I do that all the time, but it's the act of building that contains those fundamental patterns. If you go talk to an electrician, a woodworker, a painter, a sculptor.
If you go talk to someone who, you know, gives uh you know, talks or sermons or presentations or it doesn't matter if someone who is regularly building and creating things, I guarantee you, they, they, they know these same patterns but they don't use the same language because they're intuitive, they're baked in, they're timeless, they're profound and they exist in, in, they, they emerge out of the act of building something and when you constantly struggle through the act of creation, this is how these patterns emerge.
Now, I can go read a bunch of books. But when I read these books, I'm just winding into patterns that I know are already going to be there. It's interesting to me because I can see, oh here's, here's the pattern manifesting in this way. Here. It is in the case of democracy. Here, it is in the case of, you know, uh uh you know, growing networks in an entrepreneurial fashion.
Here it is um you know, uh your return to magic, you know, we saw in, in Paracelsus and is, is trying to bring medicine, you know, whatever it is, you can look at all these different stories you can read and read and read, but all that reading is doing and exposing you to patterns that you that should already be familiar to, to you. And I think they are, especially if you're creating all the time.
OK. So, so going back to contributing to the economy, I think you should look to build, create and that and that may make you money, it might not make you money. You remember when I talked in the rich, don't penny pants. You know, rich doesn't have to be money. It can just be enrich, right? To enrich your life with meaning with, with fundamental patterns that you see repeat, you get better at something you're creating value and then, you know, that other people are benefiting from that value.
I think that is something that everyone has to do. And if you do that, I think that is the way that you get into this kind of economy because the internet, you know, there's a lot of things about today's era that you can complain about.
But one of the good things about the internet and the good things going on today is you can be anywhere in the world and you can take the most esoteric random, not random, but you can take the most esoteric kind of a niche thing and you can, you can build something with it and you can scale with it, right? It doesn't, you don't decide to build your own software.
You could go on Patreon, maybe you're going on Twitter, maybe you're posting blogs to medium or substack, maybe it's something completely different and you can get a bit of a following and that following is not just to have a bunch of followers, it's a community you can have people that you connect with and talk to and you know, now you have more links coming into your nodes and that can be massively beneficial and it doesn't matter what it is, it could be fishing, it could be how to build canoes, it doesn't matter what it is, but you should be creating, creating a community or creating just something and then talking about it and just being yourself and that will attract more links to you and, and, and that is your, in my opinion, your best chance to potentially monetize as well.
Right? I mean, people tend to go after, you know, I, I think of the medical doctor as an example, right? There's a lot of crappy medical doctors out there right there are why? Well, because it, it attracts a bunch of idiots who just want to make money. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not here to call down the medical profession. There are a lot of great doctors.
You can't be a great doctor who's there to help you has a good bedside manner isn't just pushing a bunch of pills is interested in your health. Knows that maybe medication isn't always the answer. There are great doctors out there, but you get a lot of crap. You can say the same thing for, you know, data science or product management. These, these fields that are very, very popular right now.
They attract a lot of people and because of that people that tend to come to it, uh you know, just because they want to make a bunch of money and then they end up really sucking at what they do. I mean, statistically there's a good chance that you're gonna get a AAA, very crappy doctor. Right. Just statistically you're gonna get a AAA doctor. That sucks at what they do. You're gonna get a data scientist. That sucks at what they do. You're gonna get a product manager.
That sucks at what they do because statistically whenever something is popular, you're attracting a lot of people to it for the wrong reasons. OK. So, so, but, but people do this because they, they tend to think, oh, you know, follow your passion and follow what you love. That's such a hand wavy thing. Well, I'll tell you in today's day and age with the internet that actually has a lot of utility to it. There's a lot of meaning to that because you can build what your passion is.
The boat, you can actually get it out there, you can build these niche communities. And if you wanted to monetize that there is a better chance of monetizing something that you don't suck at is really, is really the lesson here. The internet allows you to, to, to, to create real value for something you are passionate about, to scale value for other people that you are passionate about it.
And because you're passionate about it, you're not gonna suck at it and you're actually gonna be pretty damn good at it. And that's the point. And so I think that you can respect the asymmetry that you, you, that, that look today's economy is built off these networks where you have to have nodes that have a number of links to it in order to generate wealth. That's true. You're not gonna get away with it as a fundamental property of complex systems. That's the topology.
But that doesn't mean that therefore only a few people can concentrate all the wealth and that you can't be a part of it a way to kind of de skew or de fatten that topology as opposed to, let's say the government coming in and maybe putting constraints in place is for you to build, take what you love and build and build and you know, you know, it can just be a side project, you can do whatever, but you have to be creating.
And if you're creating, you're gonna learn fundamental patterns that's gonna benefit all of the areas of your life, whether you decide to start your own business or whether you continue to be an employee, but you're now a kick ass employee because you're really, really good at what you do uh and on and on and, and that community can enrich your life, not necessarily in a monetary fashion, but maybe, maybe, maybe you're, you, you find a way to capital it to, to monetize what you do as well because once you have a network, you know, the, the the possibilities are endless.
So that's what I wanted to just do as a little quick bonus talk for this. You know, we talk about the networks, we talk about the properties we have to accept. In my opinion, the asymmetries that exist. This is how these networks form rich get richer, right? We talked about preferential attachment and all that stuff.
And I said, don't try to like artificially separate wealth from the topology and pretend you're gonna kind of add a bell curve to things and create a middle class respect that these typologies exist. Find a way to actually contribute to it, to be a part of it. And I think the way you do that is to take whatever interests you and build don't pass consume. Don't do a Jaren Laer thing. No offense to him.
He's got a lot of great points in his book, but don't do this idea where you expect to get paid for something just because you're on the damn network. I'm sorry. Right. Let, let, let's, let's own it. You know what I mean? Oo own who you are uh be self aware, understand what drives you go create that value and, and, and go create more links to yourself in a network.
Doesn't mean you get famous, doesn't necessarily mean you make a bunch of wealth, but it definitely will enrich your life because it's fundamental to create, it's a fundamental thing that people must do. So that's, that's my big solution. Uh So I just want to have a little extra conversation there for everybody that's all for this episode's bonus talk. Until next time you're listening to non-trivial, the podcast that uncovers the patterns that help you understand and navigate our complex world.