Inheritance and Individuation

Inheritance is the means by which intellectual, genetic, and material wealth are transferred from one generation to the next. But what does successful inheritance look like?

While it’s the material inheritance that’s usually implied by the term, hurdles to all three types of transference exist. The genetic variety is perhaps the most overlooked,i the intellectual one the most complicatedii and the material one the most readily pulled out from under your feet. For material inheritance, the hurdles are (at least) two-fold. The first is the challenge of maintaining one’s wealth long enough for it to be passed on. As Nassim Taleb notes:

People become rich by not going bust (particularly when others do). 

Given a sufficient number of years lived,iii the chances of going bust are significant. In fact, most do.iv It’s only the few “lucky ones” that survive.v

The other hurdle to material inheritance, at least in the temporarily non-feudal world we currently inhabit, is taxation. Thankfully, Ra/Vishnu/Adonai/Satoshi created Bitcoin to address that little niggle.

Yet even if wealth is maintained long enough for it to be relayed to the next generation, it’s a corrosive offering if not accompanied by a healthy smattering of the other two types of inheritance. Not only can material wealth spoil a kid rotten, indulging them in crippling comfort, but it can also be used to mask otherwise glaring mental shortcomings. Only discipline, even hunger, can forge the next generation. None of this “I just want us to be friends” shit will turn them into anything other than blind bats, stumbling about in the dark, shrieking their heads off, and only satiated by fruitvi or blood.

Succumbing to the weakness of giving your children “an easier life” has long been recognized as a terminal mistake. This is why the Levites, one of the twelve tribes of Israel, was the only one to be denied a piece of the ancestral homeland. M. Hacohen writes:

Why did the Levites have no share in the land? Because according to the Sages, the Levites did not suffer slavery in Egypt, and the Land of Israel is one of the things which can be acquired only by suffering. Only he who has suffered exile and persecution will truly inherit the land.

Only through fire can our inheritance be earned. If we haven’t faced adversity in our life, if we haven’t earned our inheritance yet, if we’re not our own fucking men… maybe it’s time to move out:

mircea_popescu:vii US folk can’t admit they suck anymore than classical japanese can admit emperor is a dumbass. but that aside, kids moving away is a good thing anyway.
bitcoinpete: mircea_popescu: how so? not that i disagree…
mircea_popescu: individuation happens with hardship. the point of fambly sticking together is to control hardship through approaching it a certain way, much like a ship approaches waves a certain way. the bow is not the kids.viii

Individuation, the process by which we become distinguishable from the mob, that which makes us citizens of the world and not just citizens of fiat, is our purpose.

Only then can we inherit the Earth.

___ ___ ___

  1. No one imagining, a priori, that *they* might be infertile. “Have you seen the size of this thing? How could it not work?” Or that they might not have genetic gifts, such as athleticism, that others don’t. “My kid is gonna play in the NHL someday!” Uhuh, right.
  2. Being an effective parent, that is, raising kids without the braindamage of CoinDeskers, Ethereumers, and MaidSafers, is far tougher for everyone involved than that either A) Spreading seed, or B) Hiring a tax lawyer. Fostering a disciplined and inquisitive mind is the greatest gift you can bestow upon your children, which explains why almost no one gets it right.
  3. Of which there is little shortage these days, despite their negligible quality.
  4. Or they will when they sort out that millenials have too much student debt to buy their shitty suburban “houses” and that they can’t all cash out on their “equity” at the same time. And that the NYSE and NASDAQ are utter shams.
  5. Rassah: There aren’t a lot of smart people in bitcoinland… I have a feeling Bitcoin Pete isn’t one either, but is regurgitating things other smart people are saying in his blogs. A beneficial service I guess
    BingoBoingo: Well, if pete isn’t smart then he’s been incredibly lucky.
    via #bitcoin-assets. And yes, Rassah is he of Mycelium Entropy fame.
  6. Nature’s candy.
  7. Via IRC:
  8. While deflecting hardship may well be the point of family sticking together, it’s also the case that families intentionally run headlong into otherwise adrift hardships. When done intelligently and beneficently, this is useful in exposing otherwise sheltered children to the world. Unfortunately, hardships that shelter rather than unshelter result in neotenic 30-year-olds with zero fucking coping skills.

12 thoughts on “Inheritance and Individuation

  1. Jay says:

    Rassah is confused about what being smart is. Ideas, good or bad, don’t spontaneously generate in our heads- we encounter them in our explorations of the memetic jungle, (hopefully) assess their validity, modify them, then carry them with us as tools for understanding the world. Pete, you’ve been dishing up some powerful solvent for cleaning up the mess of weak ideas out there in cryptoland-more please.

  2. […] for survival.viii His was the road less traveled. And as it always and everywhere is, this was formative. With this, Genghis shaped our modern […]

  3. […] offspring while those of us with a functioning cerebral cortex, those of us capable of being Individuals, step out of the way of the MegaEvilGovCorp trawler to enjoy our freedom of expression on the […]

  4. […] workers are straight fucked. Thankfully, highly-skilled, highly-educated workers, that is, the individuals, are poised to earn more than ever before. This is because Computer Times promise to bring the […]

  5. […] to the other. It happens all the damn time. In the forward direction it’s called “individuation” and in the reverse it’s called “senility” and both are a part of pretty […]

  6. […] borders up for grabs. Is it any wonder I’m using this blog and Bitcoin as my platform for individuation? […]

  7. […] geographically fixed and move only when forced to a) for political reasons, b) for work, c) for individuation, exile retains the same effect of isolating one from one’s family, home, familiar […]

  8. […] unencumbered by individuation telling those imbued therewith that displays of power are “sociopathological”iii is […]

  9. Mitchell says:

    Individuation, the process by which we become distinguishable from the mob, that which makes us citizens of the world and not just citizens of fiat, is our purpose.

    But ?

    • Pete D. says:

      Just because you work from causes, doesn’t mean you have no desire to grow a pair and move out of your mom’s basement. If for no other reason than to get laid more !

      “Purposes” here are really ideals, as opposed to facts – that is, imaging how the world should be rather than how it is. Fact-based thinking is definitely a skill, arguably one possessed by individuals alone.

  10. […] where the former servant becomes distinct from his master, not unlike a child who grows up and individuates from his parents, and in doing so kills the mother and father inside of him – so, in Roman times, that the […]

Leave a Reply to This Is The Bitcoin Empire. This Is The New Yasa | Contravex: A blog by Pete D. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *