I had a friend that cared deeply about food deserts. Food deserts are areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. I’ve been to corner stores in poor neighborhoods around New York City and I’ve personally witnessed the problem.
My friend cared so deeply about the subject that she worked full time for a non-profit that tried to address the issue. The organization had some funding and was able to send her to poor neighborhoods to give out nutritious food, educate people and host cooking lessons. She got a lot of satisfaction from the job but felt she wasn’t making a large difference.
Her view on the subject was that people who live in food deserts:
Want nutritious food but don’t have access to it.
If given access, they would consume more nutritious food.
Nutritious food isn’t necessarily much more expensive than less nutritious food.
People would benefit from being educated about the benefits of nutritious food and how to cook with it
She felt strongly about her axioms. So I told her that she should test her world view directly by running her own bodega. If her world view is correct, she would be incredibly successful. She would also make a large difference in the neighborhood as others would surely pick up her model. She would have a larger impact than working at a non-profit that relies on outside funding.
But most importantly, she would be master of her own destiny. She could test her ideas and work directly with the people of the neighborhood rather than some donor or bureaucrat.
Unfortunately for the world, she did not heed my advice, and instead pursued an expensive graduate degree at a private school, hoping to attain a higher status role in the non-profit world.
Lessons from testing my world view
Prior to this year, I had worked as an employee across a few different organizations; some small some large. I developed my own world view. My frustrations with my job often amounted to conflicts with my views and that of those around me. I loathed the boss plus 5 attitude, where you wait until 5 minutes after your manager left to leave work. I didn’t like forced meetings to discuss trivial topics. I thought review process was usually ceremonial and promotions were handed out without much regard to merit.
I was lucky enough to leave the corporate world and venture out on my own. There I can test my world view. I can do things like cut out the meetings (good) and introduce irregular working hours (not as good). But most importantly, I have full ownership. If I don’t like something, I am probably the only one that can fix it, and I’m usually allowed to do so.
Another thing on my mind and something that I’ve written about in the past is the irresponsible growth in the money supply due to covid. I thought a lot about how I can test my world view, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a huge value in hard money (a currency with a stable predictable supply). So to test my world view, I’ve begun investing moderately in Bitcoin. No matter what happens, I’ll have to confront the result. If it falters, I’ll have to reconcile why my world view didn’t hold up. If it does well, I’ll similarly renumerate on the subject since I’ll have skin in the game. But either way, it will help me feel more in control and force me to be more honest with beliefs.