A RiskHedge reader wrote me about Elon Muskâs startup Neuralink⦠[The Jolt with Stephen McBride] Give me the chip and a Swiss army knife… I got an incredible email from RiskHedge reader John about Elon Muskâs startup Neuralink, [which implanted its first chip in a humanâs brain last week](: Stephen, in today's Jolt, you led off with the question, "Elon Musk wants to put a chip in your brain. You in?" As someone who has been paralyzed from the waist down for the last seven years, my answer is, âOH, HELL YES!!â Give me the chip and a Swiss army knife, and I'll put the damn thing in myself! This is exactly what I meant when I said, âNeuralink is an experimental new technology that will help people who canât yet be helped.â Technological innovation is the ultimate problem solver. People used to die from routine infections⦠then, we invented antibiotics and vaccines. The world used to shut down after sunset, so we invented the light bulb. Hopefully, a decade from now I can write, âPeople used to be stuck in wheelchairs, until Neuralink came along.â The media loves to cover the dark side of technology. And there is a dark side⦠for example, [smartphones and social media are warping kidsâ brains](. For Neuralink, the approved narrative seems to be: Dystopian Frankenstein mind-control device. How about: Potential miracle cure for paralysis? Neuralink is further proof weâre entering a [golden age of invention](. Last decade, we got online dating and food-delivery apps. Now, innovators are  building Mars-bound rockets, developing cancer-killing pills, and helping paralyzed people to walk. Futureâs bright. - Remember this as critics lambaste Appleâs new VR goggles... Apple (AAPL) released its new âvirtual realityâ headset, the Vision Pro, last Friday. Hereâs Apple CEO Tim Cook wearing one: Source: Vanity Fair Iâll sum up the reviews so far: Who in their right mind will spend $3,500 on a pair of dorky, bulky ski goggles? True. But donât you guys know your tech history? Itâs easy to mock the flaws of Version 1 of any product. But this is the worst the Vision Pro will ever be. Itâs only going to get better⦠faster⦠cheaper⦠sleeker⦠and more stylish. Remember Appleâs Mac PCs? The new Mac in 1999 cost $2,500 in todayâs dollars. In 2024, you can buy a Mac thatâs 4,000 times more powerful and much slimmer⦠for half the price. Here they are side by side: Source: Apple Yes⦠Vision Pro V1 looks like a face snorkel. Itâs too expensive, and it has a battery that lasts just two hours. Vision Pro V4 will likely be a pair of lightweight glasses with see-through lenses⦠a battery that lasts five days without a charge⦠and a $1,500 price tag. Iâve seen predictions that Vision Pro will usher in some dystopian nightmare where weâre all walking around like zombies with a computer on our face. Iâd argue weâre living that nightmare today, where we slouch and squint while we type on keyboards and bump into people on the street because our heads are stuck in our phones. If Apple can fit all this tech into a pair of reading glasses, itâll make computing far more natural. Iâve criticized Apple for its lack of innovation and suggested you avoid its stock. Itâs great that Apple is pushing the boundaries and taking big swings once again. This is how progress is made. But I havenât changed my mind on its stock. Vision Pro wonât move the needle for Apple sales anytime soon. There are better moneymaking opportunities elsewhere, [like buying great up-and-coming disruptors profiting from megatrends](. - Todayâs dose of optimism⦠When I first read Matt Ridleyâs The Rational Optimist in 2010, it changed my life. It helped me see what was right with the world instead of getting bogged down in the constant doom and gloom. I learned almost as much rereading the book. The words on the page hadnât changed, but I had. Now that Iâm a dad, hereâs one great story that stuck with me: A farm worker named William Turnbull, born in 1870⦠started work at 13, for sixpence a day, working six days a week, from 6 am to 6 pm, usually outdoors whatever the weather, with just Good Friday, Christmas Day, and half of New Yearâs Day as his only holidays. On market days, he started herding sheep or cattle to town, carrying a lantern, at 1 am or 2 am. Thanks to technology and capitalism, weâre no longer forced to send our kids to work six days a week. And check out this chart showing weâre blessed with 4X as much time to do whatever we want as our ancestors had in 1880: Source: Fogel Work less; leisure more. Thereâs never been a better time to be alive. Stephen McBride
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