Secrets Continued…

Brent is too smart to be reading my emails, but he does. He thoughtfully replies to some of my ranting with his own rants. Below is how he breaks down secrets:

There are only two pieces of value related to secrets: tactical value and identity value.

The tactical value is one dimensional. Secrets prevent other people from building a better mental model of reality and adapting their behavior to that model. Effectively, secrets prevent other people from being able to more fully optimize for their own self interest.

The identity value stems from shared secrets. You gain access to a computer system by presenting a secret that you share with the authorization subsystem. You mark yourself as a member of the in-group by displaying your knowledge of the group's shared secrets (e.g., jargon, uniform, rituals, handshakes, the password at the door of the speakeasy, etc).

Both types of secret-derived value are nasty forms of anti-merit and are only valuable to a person who isn't in a position of natural strength. To the person with no weakness, secrets have no value. Lionel Messi doesn't need to know the password to get into the speakeasy. His status has transcended membership of some petty local in-group. And he could describe to the Provo high school soccer team *exactly* how his Argentine national team will advance the ball and score against them, but the high schoolers would still be unable to stop the albiceleste.

What it boils down to is that secrets are an anti-meritocratic way of establishing and preserving an advantage, but that advantage is always tenuous. Do you want to be truly free? Address your weaknesses, rather than stockpiling secrets. Does your strategy depend on secrecy? You should work out a better strategy.

A powerful example from the world of cryptography, whose entire existence revolves around secrets: AES works even though literally every would-be attacker knows exactly how the algorithm works. Now that is power.

-Brent Thomson

Thanks friend for making today’s email less time consuming to write because you did the hard work. I love sharing brilliance of my network.

In other good news, Kelly Slater and Kalani Miller just got their Stack this week and love the product! Cannot wait to share with all of you when it’s ready to order. Look how beautiful these humans are

happy 420 SP