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240 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 2023
"...You’d see people persuaded by risk, jealousy, and tribal affiliations in ways that are familiar to you.
You’d see overconfidence and shortsightedness that remind you of people’s behavior today.
You’d find people seeking the secret to a happy life and trying to find certainty when none exists in ways that are entirely relatable.
When transported to an unfamiliar world, you’d spend a few minutes watching people behave and say, “Ah. I’ve seen this before. Same as ever.”
Change captures our attention because it’s surprising and exciting. But the behaviors that never change are history’s most powerful lessons, because they preview what to expect in the future. Your future. Everyone’s future. No matter who you are, where you’re from, how old you are, or how much money you make, there are timeless lessons from human behavior that are some of the most important things you can ever learn."
"Things that never change are important because you can put so much confidence into knowing how they’ll shape the future. Bezos said it’s impossible to imagine a future where Amazon customers don’t want low prices and fast shipping—so he can put enormous investment into those things.
The same philosophy works in almost all areas of life.
I have no clue what the stock market will do next year (or any year). But I’m very confident about people’s penchant for greed and fear, which never changes. So that’s what I spend my time thinking about.
I have no idea who will win the next presidential election. But I’m confident about the ways people’s attachment to tribal identities influences their thinking, which is the same today as it was a thousand years ago and will be a thousand years from now."
"That’s what this book is about: In a thousand parallel universes, what would be true in every single one?
Each of the following twenty-three chapters can be read independently, so there is no harm in skipping and choosing as you wish. What they have in common is that I’m confident each of these topics will be as relevant hundreds of years from now as they were hundreds of years ago.
None of the chapters are long, and you’re welcome for that. Many are derived from my blog at the Collaborative Fund, where I write about the intersection of money, history, and psychology.
The first looks at how fragile the world is, with a personal story about the scariest day of my life."
"Compelled to save money, Captain William Turner shut down the fourth boiler room on his giant steamship for its passage from New York to Liverpool. The decision would slow the ship’s voyage by one day—an annoyance, but worth the savings as the passenger-ship industry struggled economically.
Little did he or anyone else know how fateful the decision would be. The delay meant Turner’s ship—the Lusitania—would now sail directly into the path of a German submarine.
The Lusitania was hit with a torpedo, killing nearly twelve hundred passengers and becoming the most important trigger to rally U.S. public support for entering World War I.
Had the fourth boiler room been operating, Turner would have reached Liverpool a day before the German submarine had even entered the Celtic Sea, where it crossed paths with the Lusitania. The ship likely would have avoided attack. A country may have avoided a war that became the seed event for the rest of the twentieth century..."