Welcome back to the 1st Law Newsletter - Friday Edition.

In this email:

• The evolution of money through time

• Conflicts around the world

• Quote Purpose

Money as Technological Remittance

What is money? Do you understand what it is that you have you spent your working life trying to acquire? Honestly, money is complicated... It feels like the financial system is set up in a way that purposefully makes it difficult for the average person (or even the intelligent person who does not deliberately seek out information) to understand.

Recently, I heard an interesting description of how we can think about money and its purpose: understand money as technological remittance/ transfer of value. First, all we had was bartering, then we minted coins from precious metals, and now we have fiat currency (including credit, loans, fractional banking, etc...). Each new form of money was facilitated by an advance in technology.

One of the biggest issues throughout history had been the debasing of money. This began when people started altering coins to be less than 100% pure by adding alloying metals to maintain the weight. With fiat money today, debasing occurs everyday... billions are printed in the form of loans and 'stimulus', and every extra dollar that gets printed lowers the value of the money that you earn/ already have. The craziest part of the system is that it's not even printed by the government!

Now, in the modern age with looming AI and quantum computing, the next form of money could very likely be cryptocurrencies. One of the major advantages to crypto is that it cannot be debased. Nobody has the power to create more of it - the amount of currency is either fixed, or increases at a preprogrammed and known rate. It very likely will not be Bitcoin or Ethereum that 'wins' mass adoption in the long run, but I am placing my bet (or prayer...) that the next global reserve currency will be a decentralized cryptocurrency.

Around the world today

In our perpetually distracted world, I would like to draw your attention back to some of the conflicts that are currently going on.

The Ukraine - Russia conflict: This conflict has been going on since 2014, although the current war (which started with a Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022) is 650+ days old and counting, with no end in sight. Estimated # of people killed so far: ~200K since 2014.

The Israel-Arab/Palestine/Hamas conflict: There has been tension in the region since 1948 when 700k Palestinians were displaced from what is current day Israel. Multiple wars have been fought throughout the years including (but not limited to) the Six-Day war, the first and second Intifada, the Lebanon war, two Gaza wars, and now Israel v. Hamas which has already been going for 100+ days. Estimated # of people killed so far: ~60K since 1948.

Houthi terrorism in the Suez Canal & Red Sea: The Houthi (a Yemen-based political and military organization) is disrupting trade in the Red Sea. This arose as the Houthi showing support for Hamas and Palestine. This conflict could lead to an increase in the cost of goods in North America and the world due to cargo ships being forced to take longer routes around the south end of Africa instead of cutting through the Red Sea.

I hope this was not too much of a downer, I just feel like we forget what is happening in the world because we have it so good in North America.

Quote I Want To Share

Do not rush. Keep stacking good habits and you will become the person you wish to be. I think this quote is a great reminder that you have to trust the process. Look at Joel Embiid... A few years into the league and people were saying he was a bust... The man just scored 70 points in a game! Keep your head up and keep striving, you got this!

Thanks for reading!

Lucas