Mike Cernovich

Sundays with Cernovich – Does Anyone Read Anymore?

I used to read a book or two a week. Old habits die hard, and I travel with books….which go unopened as I scroll Twitter. Does this sound familiar? You’re not alone:

Out for dinner with another writer, I said, “I think I’ve forgotten how to read.”

“Yes!” he replied, pointing his knife. “Everybody has.”

“No, really,” I said. “I mean I actually can’t do it any more.”

He nodded: “Nobody can read like they used to. But nobody wants to talk about it.”

Read, “I have forgotten how to read” by Michael Harris.

My creative apex was in 2015 – before I became big on social media. “It’s the dose that makes the poison,” the proverb goes, and there’s not a day I don’t think about leaving social media forever. We’re all sick of social media, and we can’t turn away.

(Bookmark Cernovich.com because this is where most of my new writing will appear.)

Speaking of being alone, I return to this 2010 essay, based on a speech given to West Point plebes:

We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don’t know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don’t know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they’re worth doing in the first place. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of expertise. What we don’t have are leaders.

What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision.

See, “Solitude and Leadership,” by William Deresiewicz.

Peter Thiel discusses America’s lack of vision in Zero to One:

In the 1950s, people welcomed big plans and asked whether they would work. Today a grand plan coming from a schoolteacher would be dismissed as crankery, and a long-range vision coming from anyone more powerful would be viewed as hubris.

Will Thiel lead a cultural revival in Los Angeles?

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel reportedly is fed with up with all the political antics in Silicon Valley. Thiel is relocating his home and personal investment firms to Los Angeles from San Francisco, the Wall Street Journal reported. Read more: WSJ: Tech Luminary Peter Thiel Parts Ways With Silicon Valley | Newsmax.com Important: Find Out Your True Retirement Date in Minutes Online! Go Here Now

Today’s music recommendation comes courtesy of NPR’s addictive “Tiny Desk Concert” series, and the featured group is The Crossrhodes.

Part gospel, part political protest, you’ll enjoy the beats with insightful lyrics:

“You got less influence on your kid than the average rapper
Got the nerve to walk around with your chest poked out
While your daughter is getting turned out
Your son is getting smoked out

Check back tomorrow for more articles, and every Sunday we’ll have a politics-free highlight reel for you.

P.S. Be sure to spend time with friends and family today.

Zero to One and the Contrarian Question

By Mike Cernovich Leave a Comment

Zero to One begins with what Peter Thiel calls the contrarian question (and it’s a question he asks during job interviews): “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?” This question serves as the basis for Thiel’s business ideas.

The contrarian truth can be political, social, or financial. I have used the contrarian question without knowing it existed for my own journalism. “What important stories are the media refusing to cover?”

Thiel later applies contrarian thinking to starting a company, “The business version of our contrarian question is: what valuable company is nobody building?”

While we take PayPal for granted, the idea of sending money via email was a contrarian truth. It’s obvious to us now. It wasn’t obvious then.

PayPal had to pay people to use their serve ($10 for each new user, with a $10 affiliate bonus for every friend you referred.) If you have to pay someone to use your product, then clearly it’s ahead of its time.

“Most answers to the contrarian question are different ways of seeing the present; good answers are as close as we can come to looking into the future.”

Today a contrarian truth could be that BTC and other cryptocurrencies are the future. When I mentioned opening a BTC account, most people told me it was a scam and crazy. Maybe they are right, or maybe BTC is the future.

My own contrarian truth hit me years ago. I believed that masculinity and free speech were the future. Rather than write a general-interest mindset book, I put a Gorilla on the cover and sold my book primarily to a male audience. People said this was crazy, bad branding, and that I’d alienate 50% of my potential audience (women).

Men loved Gorilla Mindset and I have a large female audience, too.

Thiel is a magician (masculine archetype)

Zero to One mentions the word secret dozens of times. There’s an entire section devoted to secrets, and Theil asks in his book, “Why aren’t people looking for secrets?”

Those who have read Carl Jung or “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine,” would see Thiel is a magician.

Indeed Zero to One is premised on the idea of alchemy. When you take a business from 0 to 1, you create something out of nothing.

(Guardians of the Secret, Jackson Pollack)

What is your contrarian truth?

When I ask that question, even of people anonymously, the answers are often disappointing – too banal.

Finding a contrarian truth requires you to love secrets, to marvel at life’s mysteries. Without that genuine curiosity, you’re unlikely to see what others miss.

A contrarian truth should be shocking and outrageous, as by definition you are going against the crowd. As Thiel later writes, “If you can identify a delusional popular belief, you can find what lies hidden behind it: the contrarian truth.”

What is Peter Thiel’s mindset?

On conflict. “Sometimes you do have to fight. Where that’s true, you should fight and win. There is no middle ground; either don’t throw any punches, or strike hard and end it quickly.”

On free will. “You can expect the future to take a definite form or you can treat it as hazily uncertain. If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.”

On vision. “In the 1950s, people welcomed big plans and asked whether they would work. Today a grand plan coming from a schoolteacher would be dismissed as crankery, and a long-range vision coming from anyone more powerful would be viewed as hubris.”

Go from Zero to One.

Zero to One is a must-read for anyone who wants to think more deeply about the world. Yes, there’s a lot of stuff in there about start-ups and business, and that’s what most reviews focus on.

Most news and commentary is a commodity business. Why read Carlos Slims blog (NYT) when you can read Jeff Bezos blog (WaPo)? It’s the same SJW, anti-Trump hoaxes. The same is true of Vice, Buzzfeed, and Daily Beast. If every newspaper except for one failed, would anyone notice or care? If every basic blog except for one closed down, what would be lost?

The Internet commoditized the distribution of facts. The "news" media responded by pivoting wholesale into opinions and entertainment.

— Naval (@naval) May 26, 2016

I treat a business book like a work of philosophy, which the financial and tech press lacks the intellectual depth to do.

Zero to One is not another basic bitch business book. It’s a work of philosophy by a philosopher.

Buy it now.

Will Bitcoin go to $10,000 in 2019?

By Mike Cernovich Leave a Comment

Bitcoin has hit $10,000 yet again! Haters will say that Bitcoin is down from its highs, and this shows they are frauds. Here’s why.

Traders rush in and out of a position or stock. Investor’s hold assets for the long-term, and regularly buy into these assets. This is known as dollar cost averaging.

Dollar cost averaging Bitcoin

Let’s say a person bought at regular intervals, disciplined.

May 12, ’18 – $8,441
Sep 12 ’18 – $6,354
Jan 12 ’19 – $3,686
Apr 12 ’19 – $5,061

Average purchase price – $5,885

Today’s value – $10,400

BTC is up over 70% vs. S&P 15.3%

Cryptocurrency isn’t magic. It isn’t special. It’s an investment, and like every other investment class, certain timeless principles apply.

Investing is a mindset, as is trading.

Traders think they will buy at the lowest point and sell at the highest point. They are speculators, and 99% of them will lose it all.

Investors make intelligent, calculated purchases of assets, realizing you’ll never buy a the lowest or highest point.

To paraphrase Warren Buffett, “It’s far better to buy a wonderful investment at a fair price than a fair investment at a wonderful price.”

Listen to my Bitcoin podcast.

Take your gains.

Once long-terms capital gains rates kicked in, I began selling Bitcoin at $9,000 and continued selling up to $16,000. I sold off 50% of my investment. I’m so far up on Bitcoin that my current holdings could go to zero, and I’d be up far more than if I had invested in the DJIA, Nasdaq, or in real estate.

Bitcoin was a once-in-a-generation investment opportunity for the common man. That’s why when it hit $700, I wanted everyone who read me to buy some. Opportunities like this almost never come up in a lifetime.

Pay your taxes.

I have no idea why people think they’ll get away with tax evasion. Bitcoin gains are taxed like every other investment — either long-term or short-term capital gains.

Yes, these investment principles are covered in Gorilla Mindset, which contains a chapter on money.

If you invested in Bitcoin the way I did, you’re not following the price daily and don’t care about day-to-day fluctuations. You’re focused on its long-term store of value.

Learn timeless principles on money and life in Gorilla Mindset today.

— — —

Mike Cernovich is a journalist, author, and filmmaker.

His Bitcoin wallet is here: 1AUR4tyzDaiAG6inAMgStVX5TyBCLXeFcj

Stay updated here:

Why I’m Relaunching Cernovich.com

By Mike Cernovich 1 Comment

Long-time readers said I lost my way, as they grew to enjoy my mindset content, cultural criticism, life advice, and mindset material while despising journalism and current affairs. I didn’t lose my way, but instead stepped up as we are living in historical times. Great men and women make history. HOWEVER….

I missed writing daily about timeless subjects. I missed discussing mindset, lifestyle, and books. I missed our deep conversations about the world.

Thus, I’ve relaunched Cernovich.

There’s no fancy design, it doesn’t even have a cool header year. You’ll find a few typos, too, as there’s no copy editor. It’s just me, and you, talking about life.

What you will find at Cernovich is daily writing, including book reviews, cultural commentary, and positive thinking.

Even my writing on current affairs will contain guiding principles that you can apply to your life, and use to understand the world.

I’ll be publishing articles almost every day, and yes, I am working on my book Audacity: How to Go from Nobody to Somebody (more on that later).

Anyhow, be sure to bookmark Cernovich, as that’s where you can find the writing and podcasting you’ve come to expect.

– Mike

Altered Carbon’s Experiment in Consciousness

By Mike Cernovich Leave a Comment

Altered Carbon is the most beautifully shot series in history, although the nudity may be a bit much for a family-friendly audience. Film noir meets cyberpunk meets a Raymond Chandler detective novel, Netflix’s production of Altered Carbon has me optimistic that Amazon, which purchased the film rights to Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, will create something spectacular for cyberpunk fans.

Brian Tallerico has the best Altered Carbon episode summaries. Read those here.

Visually compelling, Altered Carbon carries on the myth of the mind-body dichotomy, as represented by cortical stacks (your self, memory, and consciousness) and sleevs (physical body). Characters fly freely through different sleeves, although less experienced users do develop a form of sea weariness (they get sleeve sick) when landing in a new body.

Is it true that one day we may become immortal, shifting our selves from one body to the next? That seems unlikely, based on what we know about consciousness.

Which are you more likely to hear people say, or to say yourself:

I have a body.
I am a body.

This has been studied, and the vast majority of people say they have a body. We think of ourselves as a mind within a body, even though we are also a body within a mind.

This is largely because we experience consciousness, or the sense we exist, and feel as if we are in a body. (Read more: A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain.)

You think of yourself a person because you’re in a physical body. Would you still be you if you were in another person’s body? You tastes, preferences, and even risk tolerance would change if you were put into a different physical body. Your physical body is having a conversation with your mind, and thus mind and body are not separate.

Your brains best guess of what you hear, your consciousness imposes meaning on the world, based on expectations formed through your sensory perceptions.

Your consciousness is a result of your body. You are a woman because of your biology, and this feminine identity is distinct from a male identity.

A woman whose consciousness was implanted into a hyper-masculine body would not be a “woman trapped in a man’s body.” She would become a man, in every sense of the world, as her body would rewire her consciousness.

Although Thomas Nagel explored these themes in “What is it like to be a bat?” Daniel Dennett prefers lions:

Dennett waited until the group talked itself into a muddle, then broke in. He speaks slowly, melodiously, in the confident tones of a man with answers. When he uses philosophical lingo, his voice goes deeper, as if he were distancing himself from it. “The big mistake we’re making,” he said, “is taking our congenial, shared understanding of what it’s like to be us, which we learn from novels and plays and talking to each other, and then applying it back down the animal kingdom. Wittgenstein”—he deepened his voice—“famously wrote, ‘If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand him.’ But no! If a lion could talk, we’d understand him just fine. He just wouldn’t help us understand anything about lions.”

“Because he wouldn’t be a lion,” another researcher said.

“Right,” Dennett replied. “He would be so different from regular lions that he wouldn’t tell us what it’s like to be a lion. I think we should just get used to the fact that the human concepts we apply so comfortably in our everyday lives apply only sort of to animals.” He concluded, “The notorious zombie problem is just a philosopher’s fantasy. It’s not anything that we have to take seriously.”

Consider, too, how your consciousness influences what your body sees.

Your sense of self or “I” is a creation – or what Anil Seth calls a hallucination – of your perceptions.

The sensory information coming into the brain hasn’t changed at all. All that’s changed is your brain’s best guess at the causes of that sensory information, and that changes what you consciously hear….We don’t just passively perceive the world. We actively generate it.

The world as we experience comes as much from the inside-out as from the outside-in.

Will we ever be able to move from one sleeve to another, as in Altered Carbon? Perhaps we would, although you may not recognize yourself at the end of the journey.

P.S. If you find the mind-body problem interesting, you’ll love Gorilla Mindset, which solves it in a practical, life-improving way.