Last night I was alerted by @cflclosers that HBD was spiking again.

What a nice guy, alerting me to these things.
He did it last time as well.
I made money both times because of it.
I probably wouldn't have noticed.

In any case...

• I made my first ever HIVE >> HBD conversion last night.
• First, I powered up my excess Hive to a rounded number.
  • Everything over 3000 Hive, just for easier tracking.
• Second I made the conversion for 1000 Hive (2000 remaining).
  • I received HBD instantly and dumped back for 271.4 Hive.
    • In 3 days, my 1000 Hive collateral will be returned to me.
      • Minus 5% fee minus value of the HBD I converted.
• Need 428.6 Hive returned to me in 3 days to break even.
  • Anything extra is profit.

Why bring this up?

Because I THOUGHT I understood how the conversion mechanism worked, but I absolutely did not understand it, which really threw me on tilt the last time HBD was pumped. I thought I understood how it worked, and I made foolish decisions based on that bad information. I could have made a lot more money last time around if I knew that the conversion happens instantly and we instantly get HBD for it. It's a very interesting system. I know I talked trash about it last time but... it's pretty smart. Just complicated (ish). But like all things Hive now that I understand it, it becomes simple and easy. Funny how that works.

Classic Know-It-All

We've all experienced people that want to be the smartest person in the room. They never admit when they are wrong, and rather than admit they don't know something, they'll just make something up on the fly that sounds right. It's not a very good strategy for improvement, and only serves to peacock to the people around in hopes that this behavior somehow boosts one's reputation. Except... nobody likes a know-it-all, so I'm fairly certain this is a strategy that fails most of the time. Not sure why so many choose to employ it (likely a fear-based strategy).

Even the term "mansplain" came about because men employ this behavior far more often than woman... and end up being know-it-alls around women that actually know the topic much better than they do. I've seen it happen many times... it's... embarrassing to say the least. Of course terms like this, just like all left-wing politics these days, has been kicked up to 11 and are greatly overused inappropriately. Now any man explaining any topic is "mansplaining" regardless of the context or the tone. But that's a completely off-topic separate political post.

The best way to learn new things and make improvement is to not only fail, but admit failure. I suppose society itself makes this a difficult thing to do. No one wants to admit fault or imperfection. There's a certain punishment that comes along with that, and no one wants to bear the brunt of that weight that society itself places on us. Just another classic example of how toxic modern society is and how much room for improvement humanity has left to achieve. I often talk about how we are operating on less than 1% efficiency, but it's possible that even that is overexaggerating the reality of the situation.

Other examples of Know-it-all behavior:

This happens all the time in crypto because crypto is so new and contrary to every other capitalistic trend out there.

Economists

Never listen to a self-proclaimed expert economist when it comes to crypto. They have no idea what they are talking about. Anyone can guess better than they can, because their education only works (poorly) within the current economy. Because crypto is the opposite of the current economy, they're bound to extrapolate all the wrong information and come to all the wrong conclusions.

Venture Capitalists

These people are the worst. They think tech can't grow without them. They want to move in and claim ownership, and then extract maximum gains if the project succeeds. Considering only 1 in 10 projects are expected to succeed, they are looking to extract x100 what they put into a project that does make it.

In crypto, this means that every single project that has venture capital funding is basically doomed to be gimped until VCs have finally cashed out. SOL is number one on my shitlist in this regard. Just like LUNA, I haven't even done any research on it just because of the VC mania surrounding the project. Doesn't matter that it's in the top ten market cap (in fact that makes it worse). This chain is owned by VCs, making it dead on arrival (or ten years away from true decentralization).

Listening to a VC is like listening to Jim Cramer. Shark Tank? Mark Cuban? Do yourself a favor and just bet against everything they do. You can thank me later. These people are clueless and end up leveraging their own wealth to convince people they are smart. They are surrounded by yes-men and have no idea how full of it they are. Don't fall into the same trap they've built for themselves.

Banks

Just look at what bankers are trying to do with crypto. Wow, so smart bro. Just recreate the same exact system you already have... that doesn't work. Brilliant. Again, classic know-it-all syndrome. Banks could make trillions of dollars from this movement, but they have zero innovation and refuse to give up power in exchange for the value this would create.

Politicians

Show me a single politician that has the same ideals of a grassroots crypto movement. These people simply do not exist. The entire concept runs contrary to consolidating power and leveraging that power for self-gain. This is the definition of what politicians do. Crypto does not compute.

Ladder Anxiety

Fear of failure is a universal fear that extends into every activity we do. Some activities are more stressful than others. Whether it be competitive video games, public speaking, or just being in a room with other people, our ego and perception of ourselves is important, but can easily be taken to toxic show-boating levels, or even worse: crippling fear. This is the same kind of fear that can lead to being a know-it-all. Everyone wants to be the best without having to fail over and over again before they get there. That's not how life works. That's not how mastery works. Fake it till you make it, amirite?

Ass u me

They say when you assume you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'. Of course that's not always true, and sometimes we are forced to extrapolate and make guesses. We can't learn or grow without making mistakes. We can't be expected to know everything and have all the experience in the world when starting something new. Failure is unavoidable; it's how we deal with that failure that matters. Grace is required for maximum gain. Stay based.