Weekly Interest: Cars, ‘Subprime’ Index Funds, Basic Laws of Human Stupidity Cipolla

Cars

Since Ken's story went public, back in 2008, car freaks have held him in the kind of regard normal people reserve for Seal Team Six. He became the car hobbyist's übermensch, a regular guy who, through superhuman focus and insane determination, led him to a remarkable automotive achievement. Ken had been working in machine shops since he was 16 years old, and although his day job was as a process engineer, he'd always messed with cars. In that way, he was like us. If he could build a Lamborghini in his spare time, we'd think, the least we could do is just shut the hell up and finish the BMW 2002 or '66 Mustang languishing in our garage.

https://jalopnik.com/the-man-who-spent-17-years-building-the-ultimate-lambor-5954486

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_rod

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locost - DIY race car

https://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/viewtopic.php?t=10853&start=60

Investing

https://www.epsilontheory.com/ive-got-a-secret/
Basically that if everyone is doing the same thing, then that thing becomes overvalued. Obviously.

Human Behavior

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Cipolla#Humorous_essays

Cipolla produced two non-technical, popular essays that circulated in English among friends in 1973 and 1976, and then were published in 1988, first in Italian, under the title Allegro, ma non troppo ("Forward, but not too fast" or "Happy, but not too much", from the musical phrase meaning "Quickly, but not too quick").[citation needed]
The first essay, "The Role of Spices (and Black Pepper in Particular) in Medieval Economic Development" ("Il ruolo delle spezie (e del pepe nero in particolare) nello sviluppo economico del Medioevo", 1973), traces the curious correlations between spice import and population expansion in the late Middle Ages, postulating a causation due to a supposed aphrodisiac effect of black pepper.[citation needed]

The second essay:

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)
These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:
Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Corollary: a stupid person is more dangerous than a pillager.

Financial Independence

FreeUrChains said,

You should play Fable II or Fable 3 for the PC. In the game as you are questing, the only way to gain money while questing is to either not quest and take jobs, and/or invest in buying and renting out houses and businesses. Every 5 min you have a $ pop above your head for the investments you have. I loved the concept and of course ended up owning every house and business in both games. (still wanting more investments ? I had over $500,000 poping above my head every 5 min (IG) while i went out to kill the werewolves or evil men. If you increased/decreased the rents on a city/town, it’s economy would decrease or increase and would construct/destruct more houses, and your morality would change too. A very fun and advanced economic system for the financial aspect of the Game.
https://earlyretirementextreme.com/progressquest-your-career.html

skunk1980 said,

@Jacob – ah gotcha. i do agree. there was a point in my life where i said no more to video games. i mark this as the end of childhood. ive since then instinctively resisted “adulthood” — i.e. the video/virtual game of modern society. i think true adulthood has begun this year: embracing the inner nomadic human animal.
i feel like a domesticated cat trying to escape the house but who is unable to survive in the wild. =\

That does not make someone an adult.