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Are you ready to build the future?

The following post is based on the great book "From zero to one" in which Peter Thiel and Blake Masters present their ideas about whats kind of entrepreneurship is needed to build a glorious future. 

Optimist vs Pessimist

There are basically two ways we can feel about the future: Either we are optimistic and feel the future is going to be better than the present or we are pessimistic and feel the future is going to be worse that the present.

Determinate vs Indeterminate  

The second question is concerned with the felt influence we have on the future. Does the future appear  determinate meaning planable to a sufficiently high degree? Or do we think the future is indeterminate, we are "a lottery ticket", and have no influence on how our life will be tomorrow? 

Based on how you feel about these two questions you will belong to one of the following groups:



You are a Determinate Optimist if you think the future is going to be great and it is in part great, because you have a plan how to make it happen. You have a vision and a plan how to make this vision become reality. You are ready to focus on a very specific field because it is the contribution you can make to a better future. 

You are an Indeterminate Optimist if you have the gut feeling that the future is somehow going to be better, but you have no idea in which ways. Therefore it is logical to you to work in a rather general field like Law or Business Administration instead of specializing in something that might not be needed anymore in the vague future. Instead of buying stocks of single companies, you try to diversify as much as possible by investing in index funds, which model exactly your view of the future: You believe the economy will improve on average,  but you do not have an idea which companies will contribute to that growth. If you are a politician, you do base your decisions based on polls, since you do not have an idea yourself of where to go next. If you are a company, you try to minimize your risk by performing A/B tests all the time. This way you might make incremental improvements compared to the present, but you will never come up with something new. By definition, the unconventional can never be found through a majority vote.

You are a Determinate Pessimist if you have an idea of how the future looks like, and it does not look good to you. You can see the iceberg coming, but it is too late to change course so all you can do is to prepare yourself for the moment when the ship starts sinking. 

You are an Indeterminate Pessimist if you have the gut feeling that something bad will happen in the future, but you have no idea what it could be. Since you can not prepare yourself for whatever bad is coming, you try to enjoy the moment as long as it lasts. In the words of Jordan B. Peterson, you don't believe in sacrifice, which he defines as "suffering in the present for a benefit in the future". It is unreasonable to invest in anything, since you do not believe it will pay off later. Therefore you spend your money on short term pleasure like traveling or partying. 

Who can build the future?

Out of these four groups only the determinate optimist is building the future. All other groups are either not motivated to advance because the future looks dark (determinate pessimists) or not able to come up with something new (indeterminate optimists and pessimists). 

In their book Thiel and Masters discuss the questions whether indeterminate optimism can exist without determinate optimists. If everyone believes the future is going to be better, but no one actually does the work of building this future, then eventually the future is not going to be better and the optimism will slowly turn into pessimism. 

Why is this useful?

With the help of this model, interesting things can be derived. You can apply it to yourself, to people surrounding you, or to political movements. In order to obtain a truthful image, you should not focus on peoples words or intentions, but on the actions they take. Through their actions people reveal what they really believe in. Keep this in mind when you next think about your future, make plans with other people or go to the ballot box.
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