Social Media, Social Incentives & Money

I've been fortunate to travel to many places. Recently I visited the top of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii and watched the sun set into the clouds.

As the orange ball slowly dropped, all the colours of the rainbow began to pulse from the horizon, culminating in the darkness gradually taking over. What emerged was the most beautiful night sky I've ever seen. Never in my life have I seen so many stars. This might have been the closest I'll ever get to space and it truly felt like I was seeing the planet from above.

At this moment I couldn't help but think about how our ancestors used the stars to navigate, how they used them to determine calendars and predict weather, and how they found patterns that created the Godly constellations that inspired many rituals we still undertake today. They looked up at the stars and believed in Gods. It was such an awe inspiring moment that I was overcome with a feeling that our existence does feel in part, quite supernatural and remarkable.

Years ago I had a similar experience when I sat at the top of the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico. An overwhelming feeling of connectedness to our ancestors and at the same time, a simultaneous appreciation for just how advanced our ancestors were, how much our civilization has advanced, and how much it hasn't because of how much we're still the same as our ancestors despite these advancements.

When I reflect on these moments I think there was a distinct event in my life that has shaped how I've felt during these experiences.

When I was fifteen years old I had the fortune of travelling to South Korea. It was the first time I experienced complete and utter culture shock. I could not read, speak or understand Korean. We didn't have anything like Duolingo back then. The Internet was in its infancy so I had never seen pictures of South Korea nor had I ever met anyone from there.

When we arrived in Seoul I remember being blown away by the size of the city—both in density and also the height of the buildings. I had never seen a city so large, densely populated and as advanced as Seoul.

Despite the density I didn't look like anyone there. I didn't see one other caucasian person over our two week trip, let alone a white awkward teenager. On the plus side, this afforded me my first night club experience.

Everything was so foreign to me. The food, language, culture, customs, people, buildings, roads… everything. Hell, I couldn't even use chopsticks when we landed!

I felt so alienated and a lot like the white tiger we saw at the Seoul Grand Park Zoo. Everyone staring at you because you're different. Interested and friendly, but also cautious.

Often people were snapping photos from afar of the 총아 (white boy) with some of the most brave coming up to attempt a friendly "Hello, how are you?" with a heavy Korean twang or to ask for a selfie with me and my family with a series of hand gestures (well before selfie was a term).

At the turn of the millennia, South Korea also just felt so advanced compared to back home. They had smaller cell phones than I'd ever seen. New touch screens on everything including fridges. I even saw a prototype holographic TV from Samsung. When we still had a cathode ray tv, it felt like being teleported to the future.

It was a weird feeling and made me realize how celebrities, minorities or new immigrants to the west must feel.

Despite this feeling, I remember having a distinct awareness of just how friendly, respectful and hard working the Korean people were. Everyone was reaching out to have a new experience and connect with someone new that didn't look like them either. That motivation to connect with others is so ingrained in our DNA that often it transcends physical appearance, age, race, culture and language.

This was remarkably apparent when, about ten days into our trip, we were wandering around one of the large electronics markets. At one point in this huge market we came across a group of Korean men, women and children gathered around laughing uncontrollably. I walked up to see what was so funny.

I stood alongside them, as the only white boy in the semi circle, and instantly understood what was going on.

Playing on one of the new flatscreen televisions situated at the front of one of the vendors a prank TV show was playing. This was when flatscreen TVs were tens of thousands of dollars in North America, so this was the first time I had seen one in real life. I don't remember what the show was called, but it was like a blend of "Just for Laughs Gags" in Canada and "America's Funniest Home Videos" in the US—where unsuspecting victims were pranked in a bit of slapstick manner.

On the screen a man was walking along in a large open square and all of sudden a kid kicked a ball straight into his nuts. The man stopped abruptly and bent over instantly in pain, clutching his groin.

All of us watching simultaneously let out a collective groan and then burst out with laughter as it happened to Korean man after Korean man on the TV show. Each time a man took a ball to the groin, a bystander on the show would go over to them to see if they were okay.

It was at that moment that it hit me.

We're all fundamentally the same.

Despite not being able to speak to these people. Not looking like them. Not living in the same location, sharing the same culture and customs, being the same gender or age, and not having met before or having a shared past or education that has shaped our world views, we were participating in a shared experience and all feeling the same emotions. Communicating perfectly with our eyes, facial expressions and body language, we all felt the pain of the men on TV and, a bit sadistically, took joy in their pain knowing they weren't seriously hurt.

That experience changed my life forever and is a single point in my life that I can trace a lot of decisions in my life to.

Realizing at fifteen that all people have wants and dreams, that they all want to be loved and feel accepted, and that we're always trying to not only survive, but to thrive and advance has had a profound impact on the way I view the world.

As I grow older, learn and experience more, I re-discover just how important that trip was.

The realization that across time and space we, as humans, share a common thread has had a major influence on how I interpret world events, treat others and think about our society. That no matter who you are, what you look like, where or when you grew up, we're all connected by things that make us fundamentally human. And there are some things that are universally understood—like getting hit in the nuts. It's in our DNA.

Undoubtedly this has shaped how I have experienced other profound events in my life (and whether I even feel that they are profound in the first place)—the death of a loved one, the sunset on top of Mauna Kea, sitting atop the mesoamerican pyramids of Teotihuacan built by our ancient ancestors thousands of years ago.

Which have in turn significantly influenced how I think about the most important thing that impacts our social fabric—our mediums for the exchange of information, goods, services and scarce resources (commerce).

More specifically, the Internet and money.

Driving Forces for Social Change

Throughout history, certain forces have consistently driven social change. As Dave McClure once said—"get them laid, paid or made. If you can do all 3 you're golden."

He was referring to building product and is basically a shortened version of tapping into one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins. Generally, I think he's correct and this applies to everything in life. Every decision we make is to satisfy these "sins" or to avoid them.

Our primitive urges towards greed, lust and fame are so ingrained in our DNA, because they are what kept us alive, that they are very difficult to resist. Even for some of the most disciplined.

Tapping into these core social constructs that live in our hippocampus and are easily reinforced because of our addiction to dopamine has happened every time major societal shifts or world events have occurred.

Three biggest takeaways I had were:

1. That fundamentally, we're all motivated by the same underlying drives—security, connection, and meaning. The packaging varies by culture but the core is universal.
2. That whoever has the largest megaphone ends up winning, especially when it aligns with tapping into people's primitive urges. And especially with respect to money and monetary policy.
3. That the question we need to ask is: how can we tap into those primitive urges in a positive way?

We're continuing to see an increase in populism as the wealth and power gaps widen. As Ray Dalio pointed out, we've seen this story repeat time and again. It's no secret that you can't please everyone and with the rise in social media we've seen a rapid increase in tension and populism because keyboard warriors are emboldened by their pseudo anonymity, and anyone can have a megaphone that reverberates around the planet in mere seconds.

This is a superpower that still seems to be wildly under appreciated.

Given that we know these forces drive human behaviour, the challenge becomes designing systems—whether technological, economic, or social—that channel these instincts toward outcomes that benefit the collective rather than just the few. Money and the platforms that move it have never been more influential. The question is whether we'll use that influence wisely.

Had I not had this trip to South Korea and experienced this extreme culture shock at such a formative age, my life and world view would be very different. I have my parents to thank for that experience.