For the last two decades, the smartest play in the economy was "Bits." If you could write code, publish digital content, or build software, you were mining gold with zero marginal cost.
I built my career on Bits. I ran a digital publishing company. I lived in the abstract.
But the wind has shifted.
With the rise of Generative AI, the cost of creating "Bits" is dropping to near zero. AI can write the blog post, code the website, and generate the image in seconds. Basic economics teaches us a brutal lesson: When supply becomes infinite, value approaches zero.
We are entering an era of Cognitive Inflation. The digital world is about to be flooded with synthetic competence.
I realized recently that the thing I am trying to protect by moving toward physical creation is Reality.
In the digital world, there is always an "Undo" button. It is a hallucination of control. But in the physical world—at Oak Haven—the data is empirical.
I crave this friction. In a world of synthetic media, consequence is the only thing that feels real.
This is not a rejection of technology; it is a reordering of the hierarchy. I am not abandoning Bits; I am demoting them.
I am using my digital skills not as the product, but as the leverage to protect the physical work. The "Bits" (this website, my writing, my code) are now the servants of the "Atoms" (the soil, the craft, the life).
The Pioneers of the next decade won't be the ones lost in the Metaverse. They will be the ones who use high-tech leverage to steward low-tech reality.
The Protocol: Anchor your value in things that cannot be simulated. Hedge against the hallucination by investing in empirical data.