Book 1
Trading Chaos
How to counter the normal logic of stock markets for greater returns and less risk. Markets are not predictable. While the S&P 500 index has a historical average return of 8%, at any given time the actual returns may be much lower or much greater than this average. But that return is basically no effort. To get any greater return than 8% annual, we must take more risk, exert more effort or use contra logic. In Trading Chaos we describe the normal logic of markets and show contra logic techniques and tools for achieving higher returns with lower risks using a maximum of 30 minutes a day of effort.
To be Published: Jul 2023
Book 2
The Complexity Syndrome
The Problem. The reality of complex systems which dominate the world and relationships around us, defy our ability to grasp them with our cognitive skills. Our biology and mental machinery evolved thousands of years ago when our survival (as individuals, groups and species) depended on relatively complete mental simulations of simple, linear, certain, predictable and attributable phenomena. Our modern brains are no different – even though we have learned adaptations that allow us varying degrees of success in our lives. The Complexity Syndrome is this conflict between a single actual reality which is complex, non-linear, uncertain, unpredictable and non attributable and the way our minds work to create a simulation that we call reality. When others think their simulation is also reality, we have conflict, cognitive dissonance, tribal behavior and an inability to cooperate and collaborate effectively to solve really large and important problems.
To be Published: Nov 2026
Book 3
The Sovereign Delusions
The Consequences. The Complexity Syndrome reveals a set of asymmetries that dominate almost all interactions in modern human societies. These consequences can be grouped by 1) how we think of ourselves in relation to the reality of how each of us actually works “in here” (our reality simulation). 2) how we think of power, choice, risk, and choices “out there”. Together, these form our Sovereign Delusions that include artificial certainty, cognitive biases, forms of cognitive dissonance, our defaulting to binary positions across a simple one variable analysis (when there are tens, hundreds or maybe thousands of variables), a default to deferral to experts and to political power toward ends that we agree with, a disparaging of other positions from a standpoint of artificial certainty and the misinterpretation of facts, risks, rationality, planning and decision making.
To be Published: Mar 2027
Book 4
The Agile Way
What we as Individuals can do to mitigate the Syndrome and resolve the Consequences. The previous two books may make it seem that we are in desperate straights. Some might say we are doomed! But, as Julian Simon has pointed out, we humans have an unlimited resource: “human ingenuity.” By applying some tricks, and accepting that we can always be wrong about almost anything, we can evolve our approaches as individual persons to be increasingly learning oriented. Focusing on learning helps us to enhance our simulation instead of defending our beliefs (which just makes our simulation a bubble); toward trying things and then scaling them instead of planning the optimum solution (which can never be aligned with actual reality); toward multiplying our memeplexes, perceptual maps and talent stacks instead of assuming – as our minds will constantly tell us by default – that we know everything already and those other folks are idiots. This is the Agile Way. And it can take us to the future without any government law or use of coercion as we allow ourselves to flourish in cooperation and collaboration with others.
To be Published: Sep 2027
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