By Venkatesh Rao

There is a theory in evolutionary biology that reciprocal altruism and cooperation first appeared as a solution to the food storage problem. If you were an early hominid and you killed a large mammoth, you could not possibly eat it all before it rotted. So you shared it. The best bank for your excess capital was your friend’s stomach. That way, you could play banker when your friend killed the next mammoth.

I was thinking of this little idea recently in the context of human wealth. Unless you are a professional investor (and probably even then), places to store surplus capital today where it will even be safe and/or not depreciate too fast (let alone generate a return) are getting incredibly hard to find. The stock market seems to be a secular,  bearish bloodbath. Volatility and unexpected temporary rallies are making short games dangerous.

Read more