The difference between losing and being a loser

I have an acquaintance I've been watching from afar. He is an aspiring entrepreneur with a business idea that hasn't gotten off the ground yet. From his social media posts, I know that this has been a challenge for him. His proposal has been rejected again and again and this clearly wears on him.

Now as I continue to observe him online, I see that some of his words and actions are self-defeating. For example, when he was rejected for a grant, he publicly shamed the organization. I know from my experience that it is never fun to endure a defeat like that. But I also know that applying for a grant, or a job, or anything where you have to market yourself, can still yield dividends even when unsuccessful. These failures can still result in making new connections and finding other opportunities for success. But by publicly shaming the organization that denied him, he made sure his failure would have no positive side to it.

I have also seen him refer to his own genius many times. He might be extremely intelligent. The writing he posts online is certainly eloquent. But I deal with many extremely intelligent professionals. You know what they don't do? They never tell you how smart they are. They just thrive at what they do and that speaks for itself.

I recently read a post where he says something about how he couldn't get hired for a certain job in his community due to politics. It was an odd statement, since I know he doesn't have experience in that particular field, and that is why he couldn't get that job. I would think people with experience in that field might find this post a little insulting.

All in all, I worry that despite his years of dedication and hard work, his approach is that of a loser.

What is America's Future?

This post is full of spoilers from The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver.

The election of Donald Trump sucked away my optimism for the country's future. It isn't just his election that did this to me, but the spotlight it shines on the fact that we have an electorate willing to accept him as president. If not Trump in 2016, what kind of person might be elected in 2020 or 2014?

Chuck Marohn's mention of The Mandibles in his Strong Towns podcast pulled me in: In the near future, the United States defaults on its debt and the economy collapses. The Mandible family fortune, along with any members' expectation of a big inheritance, is wiped out.

Increasing poverty hits the Mandible family hard. Several units of the extended family are forced to live under one roof with scarce food. Willing Darkly-Mandible, a precocious scion, is wired for these times, foreseeing the increasing hardships and creatively supporting his family's difficult adaptations. When the cramped household is removed from the house by gun-wielding squatters, Willing guides the family hundreds of miles out of the city to an uncles farm.

The United States becomes too poor to continue asserting itself internationally. China reclaims Taiwan and annexes Japan. Indonesia invades Australia. There is genocide in Madagascar. But America is impotent to intervene.

There a history between present day and the novel's opening in 2029. America was involved at some point in a military quagmire in New Zealand of the likes of Vietnam and Iraq. The United States is temporarily hacked back to the stone age, with an uncertain foreign entity shutting down all electronic devices and communications for an extended period. And with the US over-leveraged in debt, Russia, China, and other collaborators establish a new world currency that knocks the legs out from under the US dollar.

I've never been much of a doomer before. I suppose I've always understood that things could go very wrong and our complex society could fall apart. Some kind of nuclear mess is always a possibility, but I've always thought enough cool heads in charge will steer us away from such a calamity. But after the recent election I have no confidence that our federal government will be wisely managed. I worry that the economic collapse described in The Mandibles is possible.

I suppose I'm not going to worry about this enough to prepare. In the novel's scenario, cash, savings, and abstract investments become worthless. Tangibles, especially property, remain valuable. The nation doesn't fall as far as it does in Kunstler's World Made by Hand series. American civilization endures in The Mandibles, only much poorer. Cities are destitute, but livable--perhaps more so with fewer cars.