The further back in history you look, the more general your takeaways should be. General things like people’s relationship to greed and fear, how they behave under stress, and how they respond to incentives tend to be stable in time. The history of money is useful for that kind of stuff. But specific trends, specific trades, specific sectors, speci

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“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes”

-Wilde

In his 2022 book, What We Owe the Future, philosopher William MacAskill introduces the phenomenon of “early plasticity, later rigidity.” During and immediately following periods of rapid change, there is a brief window to participate in the creation of a new normal. Over time, however, that window closes, and things calcify and become rigid again.

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