The Comfort of Deferring to Expertise

When people come to me seeking my advice because they think I'm an expert in my field, I try my hardest not to let them down, and I give the best advice I can give. When people seem satisfied, I start to wonder whether it was wise of them to trust me because nobody knows my own imperfections as well as I do, but whether it is because of trust or image, there is a myth commonly held of the expert. This is why physicians are held in high regard and are respected. They are seen as experts in health. I am not the only one who feels this insecurity, and indeed there is a term for it: impostor syndrome.

When I start to doubt the veracity of my own advice and expertise, naturally I start to question the veracity of other people's advice and expertise, and certainly being sceptical of expertise can save us, e.g. the Commonwealth Bank financial planning scandal.

But at the same time, I understand the comfort of deferring to expertise. Before I went to the gym, every second person I met gave me advice on health and fitness. They'd tell me to buy a bike and then go into detail about different types of bikes, materials used for the types of bikes, and so forth, and yet others say different things, e.g. I should be playing soccer or tennis or badminton. Of course, deep down I knew that these people simply tried to sway me one way or another based on their own personal interests. If they were passionate about cycling, they'd naturally want to steer me towards cycling with them.

After I joined the gym and received advice from one fitness consultant, my friends stopped giving me amateur advice. When people asked me what I did for health and fitness and I told them that I was now a gym member and that my fitness consultant or personal trainer prescribed me this and that, that weight of expertise seemed to intimidate other people from giving me their half-baked views, and suddenly I feel calm and at peace because I don't need to listen to diverse viewpoints, evaluate, decide for myself, and feel ashamed if I made the wrong choice. I can just obey the expert, and typically no one dares to question the expert.

If I knew more about health, maybe I'd do my own research, but health is not my area of expertise, nor is it an area I am passionate about, so I am satisfied with deferring to the experts in this area. But in other areas, e.g. personal finance, I am quite passionate about finance and prefer to do things myself rather than rely on a financial advisor or financial planner, and given the bad reputation financial planners have had recently, I am glad I've taken this route.

There is probably no best way to handle uncertainty. In some areas you want to do it yourself and in some areas you want to outsource to an expert.

Crazy World

I don’t watch free-to-air TV much anymore because everything I watch is from the internet. I watch casual videos on YouTube and TV shows and movies on Quickflix. I do this because I cannot stand free-to-air television, which is polluted by singing contests and real estate renovation shows. But I still watch the news every now and then, and something that has come up recently is the terrorism scare. The government claims to have uncovered and stopped a terrorist plot in Australia whereby terrorists would pick random people from the streets and behead them. Of course, I have no idea whether this is true or not. When the government tells you something, it’s difficult to verify. It may be true. Nevertheless, I just get the feeling that all this seems suspiciously similar to the leadup the invasion of Iraq a few years back when the government kept scaring everyone about WMDs and terrorists hijacking planes. Of course, all this resulted in massive amounts of taxpayers money being funneled into the defence sector. Taxpayers money siphoned off of the defence sector. You then start to wonder who is funding Islamic State. These are Sunni Islam extremists. Surely the money comes from a Sunni area, e.g. Saudi Arabia. But hold on, aren’t the Saudis allies with the Americans. The Saudi Royal Family gives oil to the Americans in return for cash. What if this is just a conspiracy by the Middle Eastern and American elites to simply take money away from their citizens? You get to a point in your life when you look at an injustice and start to blame the victim. If the taxpayer is dumb enough to be led into giving up their money like this, you start to think this is the natural order, that this is how it is supposed to be.

What to do after you win the lottery

1. Tell no one. If other people know about it, they will be greedy.

2. To prevent the money being spent all at once, divide the money over time with an annuity or invest it and live off the passive income. Don't increase spending or live extravagantly or more than passive income.

3. Don't get into debt.

4. Don't help others too much. Don't bankroll friends and families' crazy business ideas. Say no to anyone who wants a handout or a loan. You need to help yourself first before you give it all to others. No one is to know of your wealth anyway (see rule 1).

5. Don't divorce. If you are single, don't get married.

6. Don't do drugs e.g. cocaine.

7. Don't gamble.

8. Be careful of being sued. Frivolous lawsuits are common. Protect your assets in retirement accounts or family trusts. Talk to a lawyer or accountant.

Replace Animal-Based Products with Plant-Based Products

I skipped the gym today. Last Friday I skipped the gym because there was alcohol in my system. Today I skipped the gym because the protein shake leaked out of the bottle in my gym bag and completely stained my gym clothes. Luckily, the protein shake seemed odourless, and there wasn’t that much leakage. Nobody noticed anything. I skipped the gym, brought everything home, and cleaned it all up. The problem, I think, was that I didn’t close the bottle properly.

The protein power that I’m using, which is Michelle Bridges Protein Blend with Ancient Grains, was starting to run out, and I didn’t want to buy the same protein powder simply because it is too expensive. I can get protein powder over three times cheaper from Bulk Nutrients. I just ordered the Earth Protein from this website. I purchased one kilogram for $27, not including $12 for shipping. I could have purchased more for the same shipping costs, but I want to try out a small amount before I get more. It would be even cheaper to bulk buy, of course. Earth Protein is simply pea protein mixed with rice protein. Interestingly, you can buy pea protein and rice protein separately from this website, mixed it together yourself, and you pay $25 per kilogram instead of paying $27 per kilogram. Paying $25 per kilogram for pea or rice protein is even cheaper than whey protein, which is $27 per kilogram. I am not buying pea and rice protein because it is cheaper or because I have any allergies or lactose intolerance. I just feel bad that animals are abused and tortured, and I feel that the only way to address this problem is to divert money away from animal-based products and towards plant-based products. I now also try to drink oat milk or almond milk. As much as possible, I direct my cash towards plant-based products. I use ethanol-blend fuel in my car and I’m starting to invest in agriculture ETFs. I am not a vegan. I still eat meat. I find it is far too difficult to eat only vegetables or salads for lunch. But as much as possible I eat only meat from free-range and grass-fed animals, and eggs I eat are also from free-range chicken.

Does caring for animals make me less of a man, less on an alpha male? I don’t think so. I am happy to attack people, but I usually only attack those who I feel have wronged me. Animals are completely innocent and defenceless.

Using E10 and Commodity ETFs to Destroy Animal Farming

I've always been a meat eater. Meat tastes good. I also love milk and cheese. But I've always been guilty of the industrial slaughter of animals that occurs in order to produce these goods. When I speak to people about this topic, there is a tendency to rationalise. For example, people say it is natural to kill animals. Even animals themselves kill each other. When I respond by saying that it is also natural for humans to kill humans (as humans have done often during human history) people criticize me for thinking too much about it. In other words, there is a tendency to just stick with the status quo, and if something just doesn't seem right, rationalise it away.

Animal cruelty takes place in an animal farm. If you care about animal welfare, you must study the business model of the animal farm and do everything in your power to disrupt it.

How do you disrupt a business? There are three ways: (1) increase costs, (2) reduce revenue, and (3) increase volatility of costs and revenue.

If costs rise and revenue reduces, the animal farm becomes unprofitable and will shut down. If the volatility of costs and revenue is high, e.g. if the price of feed fluctuates too much, then animal farms are less likely to start up due to unacceptable risk.

Many vegans already try to increase costs and reduce the revenue of animal farms by switching from meat to plant-based food. For example, if instead of eating beef you eat vegetables, the revenue of the animal farm decreases and furthermore because the land that is set aside to make vegetables to sell to the consumer is used for this purpose rather than being used to sell feed to animal farms, then the price of feed will go up.

That is simple enough, but there are two more ways I think we can disrupt the animal farm. One is to use ethanol blend petrol in our cars (E10 for most cars or E85 or E100 if the car is compatible). Proof that this works can be found in American renewable policy that forced petrol to be blended with ethanol. This causes the demand for ethanol to rise significantly, which in turn meant that corn being grown on farms was being sent to cars rather than to animal farms. Animal farmers then had to pay higher prices for feed. This resulted in much higher meat prices (see Ethanol Helps Boost Meat Prices - NPR).

With regards to increasing volatility in agricultural prices, this is where I recommend buying agriculture ETFs as part of your investment portfolio. Not only can it save animals' lives, agriculture investments can make you rich. For example, in Australia, you can buy the Betashares Agriculture ETF. These investments don't actually buy agricultural products like corn and soy and store them. That would be far too difficult. Rather, when you buy these investments, a team of financial experts buy and sell futures contracts for corn, soy, wheat, and rice. Buy doing so, your investment will approximate the prices of the underlying crops. When fund managers buy and sell agricultural derivatives on the market on your behalf, you are contributing to more speculation in these markets, which has the potential to increases prices and, more importantly, to increase price volatility, which makes the business of animal farms much riskier.

The bottom line is that we should be switching from meat products to plant products. This applies not just to what we put in our bodies, e.g. switching from cows milk to almond milk. This should apply to what we put in our cars and our investment funds.

Healthy Distractions

I finished work early today because there is not much work for me to do. I kept myself busy on the train by reading my phone, as everyone does. When I got home, I ate dinner and when I finished I had a shower. Normally, after a shower, I'd go to bed, but today I came home so early I had nothing to do for two hours.

Only a month or so ago my girlfriend and I broke up. It didn't affect me at first, but now I'm starting to feel bad, and there are times when, because I have no distractions, I start to think about things and all of a sudden I think about my girlfriend. There is other trauma in my mind. When your father betrays you, it's hard to forget, and the anger just stays in you.

I have a Quickflix subscription. I pay $10 a month and get to steam various shows and movies to my TV. I'm glad I paid for it because it's nice to distract yourself. I watched an episode of Boardwalk Empire. I love crime shows. I don't know why.

Monarchy is Dictatorship

I've just read Geeks for Monarchy about the rise of people who support monarchism and oppose democracy. I find this disgusting. How can anyone support this? Monarchism is effectively dictatorship. If you want monarchism, you risk becoming subservient to Hitler, Kim Jong Il, or Stalin. You could get a benevolent dictator or benevolent monarch or benevolent king, but who wants to roll the dice and risk being thrown in a concentration camp or gulag? I'd rather live in a democracy. Sure, democracies are not perfect. The views of the masses are, quite simple, stupid. People are on average, idiots, but most people want the same thing. They want freedom, they want happiness, they want peace, they want good health--and a democratic system allows them to force these desires on the elite rather than have the elite force their values on the people.

To all these monarchists, I say be careful what you wish for. Democracy is fragile. If our democracy collapses and the elites take over to establish an aristocracy, who is to say the policies of the aristocracy will benefit these hangers on? Perhaps they will be thrown into a concentration camp or thrown into a Colloseum-like stadium to be eaten by lions. Be careful what you wish for.