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文章代表作者个人观点，少数派仅对标题和排版略作修改。

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会当凌绝顶，一览众山小。

痛点

在《如何高效实践卡片式写作？》和《如何用卡片法写论文？》两篇文章中，我为你详细介绍了卢曼的卡片盒式（slipbox）笔记和写作方法。尤其是谈及了它在学术写作中的用法。

我很欣喜看到，有的读者不仅认真阅读，而且加以创新，并且做了输出分享。

当然，下次如果能把我的专栏名称写对（是「玉树芝兰」），就更好了。

不知你在实践中，有什么心得？

我个人的体会，是卡片式写作里面，最影响积累和写作心境的，是后顾之忧。这次咱们来谈谈这个问题，以及解决方法。我主要担心的，是写了的东西，将来再也找不到了。

你看，用卡片式写作，原本的要旨，就是写得轻松愉快。如果总是担心笔记写好了，将来却找不到，哪还有什么写作的积极性呢？

你可能会纳闷儿：

老师，你为什么不用个靠谱一点儿的笔记工具呢？

其实，我用的笔记工具，包括 Drafts， Evernote 和 Devonthink，还是比较靠谱的。我说的找不到，并不是笔记被意外删除，而是被淹没。就是你忘记了它的存在。而且除非是浏览每一则笔记，否则你根本无法通过简单的检索找到它。

你可能会说，老师，别危言耸听了，哪里会有这样的事儿？

遗忘

如果你只有几十条笔记，那么这样的事情不是很容易发生。然而，一旦你的笔记达到成千上万条，这种事儿就是不可避免的了。

因为你会遗忘。

也恰恰因为你会遗忘，所以卡片式笔记才是一种不断采撷珍贵想法进行积累的有用方法。

如果你记得有这条笔记，还可以通过关键词检索等方式，把它找回来。可有的时候，你可能连写过它，都不记得了。

我就不止一次遇到这种事儿。例如说，2018 年，我就很惭愧地写下了这样一则笔记：

顺着链接，我看到了自己 2015 年曾经记下的笔记。

右上角的那个小图标，代表当时是用马克飞象记录的。

于是，在回顾笔记的时候，我写下了这样一段话：

看到自己 2018 年的时候，就已经充分意识到了链接的功能，真的是很羞愧。没有坚持下来，每次都是重新发现，重新造轮子。刘备需要的是一个根据地。我们每一个知识工作者的根据地，应该是一个链接出来的图知识库。这东西才是你赖以生存的工具。有了它，调用它，才能让你充分体会到什么是真正的科研效率与乐趣。

这段话说明什么？说明王老师经常「三省吾身」，不断迭代改进？

不。说明写这段话的时候，我连 2018 年做过的这个反省，也忘了。

查找

即便你记得一条笔记似乎已存在，找寻的时候，也未必会很轻松。特别是，如果你的笔记应用中，还包含了大量采集的网页和文档时。

例如，我新写了一篇 Python 技巧笔记，打算跟以前的相关笔记进行连接。于是搜索一下 Python 这个关键词看看。

1484 条啊！怎么办？难道一条条翻找不成？

尽管 Evernote 和 Devonthink 都支持自动化辅助联想功能。然而，对于这种大海捞针的任务，也是杯水车薪。

特别是，现在的笔记软件，还远远称不上是真正的「人工智能」，尤其是在处理中文的时候。

况且，咱们之前提到过，这种依靠关键词相似程度找寻相关笔记的方式，不利于你建立远程联想。

自动的不行，怎么办？

就得依靠手动操作了。根据笔记的相关度，建立链接，尤其是「远程联想」链接。这是一件经常要做，往复迭代的重要工作。然而，这事儿说起来容易，做起来也不是那么简单的。

以刚才的事儿来举例。你新写的 Python 技巧，到底应该跟将近 1500 条笔记中的哪一条连接呢？虽然，已有的链接帮助你构建了笔记之间的关系。你也可以把「入口」笔记放在索引中。但是你顺着这索引，实际走一走，就会发现自己婉若进入了米诺斯的迷宫。

之前的链接，可能会带着你来回穿梭，然后，不知不觉又回到你之前本已到访过的地方。在真实世界走迷宫走成这样，可能会让你头脑发乱，心里发慌。

怎么办？

解法

实际上，解决的方法，并不复杂。既然我们刚刚已经提到了迷宫。那么，怎么才能高效地从迷宫走出呢？

你可能立即联想到这样一张图。

对，即便是再难走的迷宫，如果你手头有这样一张俯视图，那么一切问题都迎刃而解。

把卡片笔记节点和笔记链接构成的网络，进行可视化，也就是我们破解笔记被淹没的一个好方法。

之前写《如何高效实践卡片式写作？》那一篇的时候，我曾经给你看了这样一张图。

于是很多读者都留言，问我这张图是用什么工具做的？我一直没有回复，是怕误导你。

因为这个工具是基于自然语言处理的自动化链接分析，而不是咱们说的卡片笔记网络链接分析。更遗憾的是，到目前为止，它还不支持中文。你仔细看那张图就会发现，其中的所有关键词，全都是英文。中文关键词它一个都不认识，只好忽略掉了。

另外，尽管可以做笔记分析，但这款软件的强项，其实是做更为专业的 Twitter、新闻和搜索引擎检索词的共现网络分析。

工具

虽然现成的工具，似乎都不合乎咱们的要求。但是不要紧，咱可以自己做一个啊。

依靠着 Streamlit 的赋能，我采用 Python, networkX 和 Pyvis 替你做好了一个 Web 应用。而你只需要 直接用就行。

我制作了一个样例笔记本，其中有 20 篇样例文献阅读笔记。

这是 Web 工具简约的主界面：

可视化之后的结果，是这个样子的：

你的笔记展示为节点，他们之间的链接方向也做了标明。你可以方便地缩放，以便更清晰探寻笔记关联结构。

你看，当你悬停鼠标在某个笔记节点上，还能给你展示笔记内容，方便你寻找对应关系。而且，作为交互式的可视化结果，你还可以像下面这样拖动节点，从而以更好的角度来查看。

另外，这款工具还为你提供了笔记子网络过滤功能，通过检索获取包含某笔记的最大连通子图。甚至，你还可以限定检索范围，把那些不包含在当前笔记本里的其他笔记过滤掉…… 这些功能，可以帮你更好地聚焦。

怎么样？挺好玩儿吧。

我还专门为你做了一个视频教程，不仅给你讲解这款工具的使用方法，也回答了之前读者提出的「卡片式文献笔记如何做」问题。希望能对你的学习和科研有帮助。

另外，因为这个 Web 应用 涉及到数据传输，为保护你的隐私，我已将该应用的源代码开源，托管在 Github 上。你可以先查看 源代码，确认没有记录存储你的笔记信息后，再放心大胆使用。你也可以利用该源代码，参考 这篇教程，搭建自己的私有应用。

小结

小结一下，这篇文章主要给你谈了以下几点体会：

• 卡片式笔记创作的「后顾之忧」，主要来源于笔记数量的增长，可能带来的「淹没」与「丢失」；
• 目前的技术条件下，人工的链接方式，尤其是「远程联想」，尚且无法完全被所谓的「智能方法」替代；
• 可视化方法有助于你分析自己的卡片盒，帮助你更好地建立链接，从而最大化激活笔记网络效用。

如果你对我的笔记网络可视化工具有使用体会和改进建议，也欢迎你在留言区交流分享。

延伸阅读

你可能也会对以下话题感兴趣。点击链接就可以查看。

• 如何快速写作论文初稿？
• 如何用卡片法写论文？
• 如何高效实践卡片式写作？
• 如何用人工智能帮你找论文？
• 如何选研究题目？

> 下载少数派 客户端 、关注 少数派公众号 ，了解更精彩的数字生活 🍃
https://sspai.com/post/59951

Published on May 21, 2020May 21, 2020 • 1,165 Likes • 86 Comments

Ray DalioInfluencer

Co-Chief Investment Officer & Co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, L.P.

Note: To make this an easier and shorter article to read, I tried to convey the most important points in simple language and bolded them, so you can get the gist of the whole thing in just a few minutes by focusing on what’s in bold. Past chapters from the series can be found here: Introduction, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Additionally, if you want a simple and entertaining 30-minute explanation of how what a lot of what I’m talking about here works, see “How the Economic Machine Works,” which is available on YouTube.

In Chapter 1 (“The Big Picture in a Tiny Nutshell”), I looked at the archetypical rises and declines of empires and their reserve currencies and the various types of powers that they gained and lost, and in Chapter 2 (“The Big Cycle of Money, Credit, Debt, and Economic Activity”) and its appendix (“The Changing Value of Money”) I reviewed the big money, credit, and debt cycles.  In this chapter, I will review **the rises and declines of the Dutch, British, and American empires and their reserve currencies and will touch on the rise of the Chinese empire. **

**While the evolution of empires and currencies is one continuous story that started before there was recorded history, in this chapter I am going to pick up the story around the year 1600.  My objective is simply to put where we are in perspective of history and bring us up to date.  **I will begin by very briefly reviewing what the Big Cycle looks like and then scan through the last 500 years to show these Big Cycles playing out before examining more closely the declines of the Dutch and British empires and their reserve currencies.  Then I will show how the decline of the British empire and the pound evolved into the rise of the US empire and US dollar and I will take a glimpse at the emergence of the Chinese empire and the Chinese renminbi.

**That will bring us up to the present and prepare us to try to think about what will come next.  **

The Big Cycle of the Life of an Empire

**Just as there is a human life cycle that typically lasts about 80 years (give or take) and no two are exactly the same but most are similar, there is an analogous empire life cycle that has its own typical patterns. ** For example, for most of us, during the first phase of life we are under our parents’ guidance and learn in school until we are about 18-24, at which point we enter the second phase.  In this phase we work, become parents, and take care of others who are trying to be successful.  We do this until we are about 55-65, at which time we enter the third phase when we become free of obligations and eventually die.  **It is pretty easy to tell what phases people are in because of obvious markers, and it is sensible for them to know what stages they are in and to behave appropriately in dealing with themselves and with others based on that.  The same thing is true for countries.  The major phases are shown on this chart.  It’s the ultra-simplified archetypical Big Cycle that I shared in the last chapter. **

**In brief, after the creation of a new set of rules establishes the new world order, there is typically a peaceful and prosperous period.  As people get used to this they increasingly bet on the prosperity continuing, and they increasingly borrow money to do that, which eventually leads to a bubble.  As the prosperity increases the wealth gap grows.  Eventually the debt bubble bursts, which leads to the printing of money and credit and increased internal conflict, which leads to some sort of wealth redistribution revolution that can be peaceful or violent.  Typically at that time late in the cycle the leading empire that won the last economic and geopolitical war is less powerful relative to rival powers that prospered during the prosperous period, and with the bad economic conditions and the disagreements between powers there is typically some kind of war.  Out of these debt, economic, domestic, and world-order breakdowns that take the forms of revolutions and wars come new winners and losers.  Then the winners get together to create the new domestic and world orders.  **

That is what has repeatedly happened through time.  The lines in the chart signify the relative powers of the 11 most powerful empires over the last 500 years.  In the chart below you can see where the US and China are currently in their cycles.  **As you can see the United States is now the most powerful empire by not much, it is in relative decline, Chinese power is rapidly rising, and no other powers come close.  **

Because that chart is a bit confusing, for simplicity the next chart shows the same lines as in that chart except for just the most powerful reserve currency empires (which are based on an average of eight different measures of power that we explained in Chapter 1 and will explore more carefully in this chapter).

**The next chart offers an even more simplified view.  **As shown, the United States and China are the only two major powers, you can see where each of their Big Cycles is, and you can see that they are approaching comparability, which is when the risks of wars of one type or another are greater than when the leading powers are earlier in the cycle.  To be clear, I didn’t start out trying to make an argument and then go looking for stats to support it; doing that doesn’t work in my profession as only accuracy pays.  I simply gathered stats that reflected these different measures of strength and put them in these indices, which led to these results.  I suspect that if you did that exercise yourself picking whatever stats you’d like you’d see a similar picture, and I suspect that what I’m showing you here rings true to you if you’re paying attention to such things. 

For those reasons I suspect that all I am doing is helping you put where we are in perspective.  To reiterate, I am not saying anything about the future.  I will do that in the concluding chapter of this book.  All I want to do is bring you up to date and, in the process, make clear how these cycles have worked in the past, which will also alert you to the markers to watch out for and help you see where in the cycles the major countries are and what is likely to come next.

The chart below from Chapter 1 shows this play out via the eight measures of strength—education, innovation and technology, competitiveness, military, trade, output, financial center, and reserve status—that we capture in the aggregate charts.  It shows the average of each of these measures of strength, with most of the weight on the most recent three reserve countries (the US, the UK, and the Dutch).[1]  

As explained in Chapter 1, in brief these strengths and weaknesses are mutually reinforcing—i.e., strengths and weaknesses in education, competitiveness, economic output, share of world trade, etc., contribute to the others being strong or weak, for logical reasons—and their order is broadly indicative of the processes that lead to the rising and declining of empires.  For example, quality of education has been the long-leading strength of rises and declines in these measures of power, and the long-lagging strength has been the reserve currency.  That is because strong education leads to strengths in most areas, including the creation of the world’s most common currency.  That common currency, just like the world’s common language, tends to stay around because the habit of usage lasts longer than the strengths that made it so commonly used.     

We will now look at the specifics more closely, starting with how these Big Cycles have played out over the last 500 years and then looking at the declines of the Dutch and British empires so you can see how these things go.

**1)    The Last 500 Years in About 4,000 Words **

**The Rise & Decline of the Dutch Empire and the Dutch Guilder **

• In the 1500-1600 period the Spanish empire was the pre-eminent economic empire in the “Western” world while the Chinese empire under the Ming Dynasty was the most powerful empire in the “Eastern” world, even more powerful than the Spanish empire (see the green dashed line and the red solid line in chart 2).  The Spanish got rich by taking their ships and military power around the world, seizing control of vast areas (13% of the landmass of the earth!) and extracting valuable things from them, most importantly gold and silver which were the money of the time.  As shown by the orange line in the chart of the relative standing of the great empires, the Dutch gained power as Spanish power was waning.  At the time Spain controlled the small area we now call Holland.  **When the Dutch became powerful enough in 1581, they overthrew the Spanish and went on to eclipse both the Spanish and the Chinese as the world’s richest empire from around 1625 to their collapse in 1780. ** The Dutch empire reached its peak around 1650 in what was called the Dutch Golden Age.  This period was one of great globalization as ships that could travel around the world to gain the riches that were out there flourished, and the Dutch, with their great shipbuilding and their economic system, were ahead of others in using ships, economic rewards, and military power to build their empire.  Holland (as we now call it) remained the richest power for about 100 years.  How did that happen?
• The Dutch were superbly educated people who were very inventive—in fact they came up with 25% of all major inventions in the world at their peak in the 17th century.  **The two most important inventions they came up with were 1) ships that were uniquely good that could take them all around the world, which, with the military skills that they acquired from all the fighting they did in Europe, allowed them to collect great riches around the world, and 2) the capitalism that fueled these endeavors.  **
• Not only did the Dutch follow a capitalist approach to resource allocation, they invented capitalism.  By capitalism I mean public debt and equity markets.  Of course production existed before, but that is not capitalism, and of course trade existed before, but that is not capitalism, and of course private ownership existed before, but that is not capitalism.  By capitalism I mean the ability of large numbers of people to collectively lend money and buy ownership in money-making endeavors.  **The Dutch created that when they invented the first listed public company (the Dutch East India Company) and the first stock exchange in 1602 and when they built the first well-developed lending system in which debt could more easily be created.  **
• **They also created the world’s first reserve currency.  **The Dutch guilder was the first “world reserve currency” other than gold and silver because it was the first empire to extend around much of the world and to have its currency so broadly accepted.  Fueled by these qualities and strengths, the Dutch empire continued to rise on a relative basis until around 1700 when the British started to grow strongly.  
• The numerous investment market innovations of the Dutch and their successes in producing profits attracted investors, which led to Amsterdam becoming the world’s leading financial center; the Dutch government channeled money into debt and some equity investments in various businesses, the most important of which was the Dutch East India Company.
• **At this time of prosperity, other countries grew in power too.  As other countries became more competitive, the Dutch empire became more costly and less competitive, and it found maintaining its empire less profitable and more challenging.  Most importantly the British got stronger economically and militarily in the classic ways laid out in Chapter 1. ** Before they had become clear competitors they had military partnerships during most of the 80+ years leading up to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.  That changed over time as they bumped into each other in the same markets.  **The Dutch and British had lots of conflicts over economic issues. ** For example, the English made a law that only English ships could be used to import goods into England, which hurt Dutch shipping companies that had a big business of shipping others’ goods to England, which led to the English seizing Dutch ships and expanding the British East India Company.  Typically before all-out war is declared there is about a decade of these sorts of economic, technological, geopolitical, and capital wars when the conflicting powers approach comparability and test and try to intimidate each other’s powers.  At the time the British came up with military inventions and built more naval strength, and they continued to gain relative economic strength.   
• As shown in the chart of relative standing of empires shown above, around 1750 the British became a stronger power than the Dutch, particularly economically and militarily, both because the British (and French) became stronger and because the Dutch became weaker.  As is classic the Dutch a) became more indebted, b) had a lot of internal fighting over wealth (between its states/provinces, between the rich and the poor, and between political factions)[2], and c) had a weakened military—so the Dutch were weak and divided, which made them vulnerable to attack.
• **As is typical, the rising great power challenged the existing leading power in a war to test them both economically and militarily.  **The English hurt the Dutch economically by hurting their shipping business with other countries.  The British attacked the Dutch.  Other competing countries, most importantly France, took this as an opportunity to grab shipping business from the Dutch.  That war, known as the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, lasted from 1780 to 1784.  The British won it handily both financially and militarily.  That bankrupted the Dutch and caused Dutch debt and equities, the Dutch guilder, and the Dutch empire to collapse.  In the next section we will look at that collapse up close.  
• **At that time, in the late 18th century, there was a lot of fighting between countries with various shifting alliances within Europe.  **While similar fights existed around the world as they nearly always do, the only reason I’m focusing on these fights is because I’m focusing just on the leading powers and these were the leading two.  After the British defeated the Dutch, Great Britain and its allies (Austria, Prussia, and Russia) continued to fight the French led by Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars.  **Finally, after around a quarter-century of frequent fighting since the start of the French Revolution, the British and its allies won in 1815.  **

The Rise & Decline of the British Empire and the British Pound

• **As is typical after wars, the winning powers (most notably the UK, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) met to agree on the new world order. **That meeting was called the Congress of Vienna.  In it the winning powers re-engineered the debt, monetary, and geopolitical systems and created a new beginning as laid out in the Treaty of Paris.  **That set the stage for Great Britain’s 100-year-long “imperial century” during which Great Britain became the unrivaled world power, the British pound became the world’s dominant currency, and the world flourished.  **
• **As is typical, following the period of war there was an extended period—in this case 100 years—of peace and prosperity because no country wanted to challenge the dominant world power and overturn the world order that was working so well.  **Of course during these 100 years of great prosperity there were bad economic periods along the lines of what we call recessions and which used to be called panics (e.g., the Panic of 1825 in the UK, or the Panics of 1837 and 1873 in the US) and there were military conflicts (e.g., the Crimean War between Russia on one side and the Ottoman empire with a coalition of Western European powers as allies on the other), but they were not significant enough to change the big picture of this being a very prosperous and peaceful period with the British on top.  
• **Like the Dutch before them, the British followed a capitalist system to incentivize and finance people to work collectively, and they combined these commercial operations with military strength to exploit global opportunities in order to become extremely wealthy and powerful. ** For example the British East India Company replaced the Dutch East India Company as the world’s most economically dominant company and the company’s military force became about twice the size of the British government’s standing military force.  That approach made the British East India Company extremely powerful and the British people very rich and powerful.  Additionally, at the same time, around 1760, the British created a whole new way of making things and becoming rich while raising people’s living standards.  It was called the Industrial Revolution.  It was through machine production, particularly propelled by the steam engine.  So, this relatively small country of well-educated people became the world’s most powerful country by combining inventiveness, capitalism, great ships and other technologies that allowed them to go global, and a great military to create the British empire that was dominant for the next 100 years.  
• **Naturally London replaced Amsterdam as the world’s capital markets center and continued to innovate financial products. **
• **Later in that 100-year peaceful and prosperous period, from 1870 to the early 1900s the inventive and prosperous boom continued as the Second Industrial Revolution.  **During it human ingenuity created enormous technological advances that raised living standards and made those who developed them and owned them rich. 
• This period was for Great Britain what “the Dutch Golden Age” was for the Dutch about 200 years earlier because it raised the power in all the eight key ways—via excellent education, new inventions and technologies, stronger competitiveness, higher output and trade, a stronger military and financial center, and a more widely used reserve currency.
• At this time several other countries used this period of relative peace and prosperity to get richer and stronger by colonizing enormous swaths of the world.  As is typical during this phase, other countries copied Britain’s technologies and techniques and flourished themselves, producing prosperity and, with it, great wealth gaps.  For example, during this period there was the invention of steel production, the development of the automobile, and the development of electricity and its applications such as for communications including Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone and Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb and phonograph.  This is when the United States grew strongly to become a leading world power.  These countries became very rich and their wealth gaps increased.  That period was called “the Gilded Age” in the US, “la Belle Époque” in France, and “the Victorian Era” in England.  As is typical at such times the leading power, Great Britain, became more indulgent while its relative power declined, and it started to borrow excessively.
• As other countries became more competitive, the British empire became more costly and less profitable to maintain.  Most importantly other European countries and the US got stronger economically and militarily in the classic ways laid out in Chapter 1.  As shown in the chart of the standing of empires above, the US became a comparable power economically and militarily around 1900 though the UK retained stronger military power, trade, and reserve currency status, and the US continued to gain relative strength from there.
• **From 1900 until 1914, as a consequence of the large wealth gaps, there became 1) greater arguments about how wealth should be divided within countries and 2) greater conflicts and comparabilities in economic and military powers that existed between European countries.  As is typical at such times the international conflicts led to alliances being formed and eventually led to war. ** Before the war the conflicts and the alliances were built around money and power considerations.  For example, typical of conflicting powers that seek to cut off their enemies’ access to money and credit, Germany under Bismarck refused to let Russia sell its bonds in Berlin, which led them to be sold in Paris, which reinforced the French-Russian alliance.  The wealth gap in Russia led it to tumble into revolution in 1917 and out of the war, which is a whole other dramatic story about fighting over wealth and power that is examined in Part 2 of this book.  Similar to the economically motivated shipping conflict between the British and the Dutch, Germany sank five merchant ships that were going to England in the first years of the war.  That brought the United States into the war.  Frankly, the complexities of the situations leading up to World War I are mind-boggling, widely debated among historians, and way beyond me. 
• **That war, which was really the first world war because it involved countries all around the world because the world had become global, lasted from 1914 until 1918 and cost the lives of an estimated 8.5 million soldiers and 13 million civilians.  As it ended, the Spanish flu arrived, killing an estimated 20-50 million people over two years.  So 1914-20 was a terrible time. **

The Rise of the American Empire and the US Dollar After World War I[3]

• **As is typical after wars, the winning powers—in this case the US, Britain, France, Japan, and Italy—met to set out the new world order. **That meeting, called the Paris Peace Conference, took place in early 1919, lasted for six months, and concluded with the Treaty of Versailles.  In that treaty the territories of the losing powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman empire, and Bulgaria) were carved up and put under the controls of the winning empires and the losing powers were put deeply into debt to the winning powers to pay back the winning countries’ war costs with these debts payable in gold.  The United States was then clearly recognized as a leading power so it played a role in shaping the new world order.  In fact the term “new world order” came about in reference to US President Woodrow Wilson’s vision for how countries would operate in pursuit of their collective interest through a global governance system (the League of Nations) which was a vision that quickly failed.  After World War I the US chose to remain more isolationist while Britain continued to expand and oversee its global colonial empire.  The monetary system in the immediate post-war period was in flux.  While most countries endeavored to restore gold convertibility, currency stability against gold only came after a period of sharp devaluations and inflation.
• **The large foreign debt burdens placed on Germany set the stage for 1) Germany’s post-war inflationary depression from 1920 to 1923 that wiped out the debts and was followed by Germany’s strong economic and military recovery, and 2) a decade of peace and prosperity elsewhere, which became the “Roaring ’20s.”  **
• **During that time the United States also followed a classic capitalist approach to resource allocation and New York became a rival financial center to London, channeling debt and investments into various businesses. **
• Other countries became more competitive and prosperous and increasingly challenged the leading powers.  Most importantly Germany, Japan, and the US got stronger economically and militarily in the classic ways laid out in Chapter 1.  However, the US was isolationist and didn’t have a big colonial empire past its borders so it was essentially out of the emerging conflict.  As shown in the chart of the standing of empires above, Germany and Japan both gained in power relative to the UK during this interwar period, though the UK remained stronger.  
• **As is typical, the debts and the wealth gaps that were built up in the 1920s led to the debt bubbles that burst in 1929 which led to depressions, which led to the printing of money, which led to devaluations of currencies and greater internal and external conflicts over wealth and power in the 1930s.  **For example, in the United States and the UK, while there were redistributions of wealth and political power, capitalism and democracy were maintained, while in Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain they were not maintained.  Russia played a significant peripheral role in ways I won’t delve into.  China at the time was weak, fragmented, and increasingly controlled by a rising and increasingly militaristic and nationalistic Japan.  To make a long story short, **the Japanese and Germans started to make territorial expansions in the early to mid-1930s, which led to wars in Europe and Asia in the late 1930s that ended in 1945.   **
• As is typical, before all-out wars were declared there was about a decade of economic, technological, geopolitical, and capital wars when the conflicting powers approached comparability and tested and tried to intimidate the other powers.  While 1939 and 1941 are known as the official start of the wars in Europe and the Pacific, the wars really started about 10 years before that, as economic conflicts that were at first limited progressively grew into World War II.  As Germany and Japan became more expansionist economic and military powers, they increasingly competed with the UK, US, and France for both resources and influence over territories. 
• **That brought about the second world war which, as usual, was won by the winning countries coming up with new technologies (the nuclear bomb, while the most important, was just one of the newly invented weapons).  Over 20 million died directly in the military conflicts, and the total death count was still higher.  So 1930-45, which was a period of depression and war, was a terrible time.  **

The Rise of the American Empire and the US Dollar After World War II

• As is typical after wars, the winning powers—most importantly the US, Britain, and Russia—met to set out the new world order.  While the Bretton Woods Conference, Yalta Conference, and Potsdam Conference were the most noteworthy, several other meetings occurred that shaped the new world order, which included carving up the world and redefining countries and areas of influence and establishing a new money and credit system.  In this case, the world was divided into the US-controlled capitalist/democratic countries and Russia-controlled communist and autocratically controlled countries, each with their own monetary systems.  Germany was split into pieces, with the United States, Great Britain, and France having control of the West and Russia having control of the East.  Japan was under US control and China returned to a state of civil war, mostly about how to divide the wealth, which was between communists and capitalists (i.e., the Nationalists).  Unlike after World War I when the United States chose to be relatively isolationist, after World War II the United States took the primary leadership role as it had most of the economic, geopolitical, and military responsibility.    
• The US followed a capitalist system.  The new monetary system of the US-led countries had the dollar linked to gold and had most other countries’ currencies tied to the dollar.  This system was followed by over 40 countries.  Because the US had around two-thirds of the world’s gold then and because the US was much more powerful economically and militarily than any other country, this monetary system has worked best and carried on until now.  As for the other countries that were not part of this system—most importantly Russia and those countries that were brought into the Soviet Union and the satellite countries that the Soviets controlled—they were built on a much weaker foundation that eventually broke down.  Unlike after World War I, when the losing countries were burdened with large debts, countries that were under US control, including the defeated countries, received massive financial aid from the US via the Marshall Plan.  At the same time the currencies and debts of the losing countries were wiped out, with those holding them losing all of their wealth in them.  Great Britain was left heavily indebted from its war borrowings and faced the gradual end of the colonial era which would lead to the unraveling of its empire which was becoming uneconomic to have.
• During this post-World War II period the United States, its allies, and the countries that were under its influence followed a classic capitalist-democratic approach to resource allocation.  New York flourished as the world’s pre-eminent financial center, and a new big debt and capital markets cycle began.  That produced what has thus far been a relatively peaceful and prosperous 75-year period that has brought us to today.
• **As is typical of this peaceful and prosperous part of the cycle, in the 1950-70 period there was productive debt growth and equity market development that were essential for financing innovation and development early on.  That eventually led to too much debt being required to finance both war and domestic needs—what was called “guns and butter.”  **The Vietnam War and the “War on Poverty” occurred in the US.  Other countries also became overly indebted and the British indebtedness became over-leveraged which led to a number of currency devaluations, most importantly the breakdown of the Bretton Woods monetary system (though countries like the UK and Italy had already devalued prior to that time).  **Then in 1971, when it was apparent that the US didn’t have enough gold in the bank to meet the claims on gold that it had put out, the US defaulted on its promise to deliver gold for paper dollars which ended the Type 2 gold-backed monetary system, and the world moved to a fiat monetary system. ** As is typical, this fiat monetary system initially led to a wave of great dollar money and debt creation that led to a big wave of inflation that carried until 1980-82 and led to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  It was followed by three other waves of debt-financed speculations, bubbles, and busts—1) the 1982 and 2000 money and credit expansion that produced a dot-com bubble that led to the 2000-01 recession, 2) the 2002-07 money and credit expansion that produced a real estate bubble that led to the 2008 Great Recession, and 3) the 2009-19 money and credit expansion that produced the investment bubble that preceded the COVID-19 downturn.  **Each of these cycles raised debt and non-debt obligations (e.g., for pensions and healthcare) to progressively higher levels and led the reserve currency central banks of the post-war allies to push interest rates to unprecedented low levels and to print unprecedented amounts of money.  Also classically, the wealth, values, and political gaps widened within countries, which increases internal conflicts during economic downturns.  That is where we now are.  **
• During this prosperous post-war period many countries became more competitive with the leading powers economically and militarily. The Soviet Union/Russia initially followed a communist resource allocation approach as did China and a number of other smaller countries.  None of these countries became competitive following this approach.  However, the Soviet Union did develop nuclear weapons to become militarily threatening and gradually a number of other countries followed in developing nuclear weapons.  These weapons were never used because using them would produce mutually assured destruction.  Because of its economic failures the Soviet Union/Russia could not afford to support a) its empire, b) its economy, and c) its military at the same time in the face of US President Ronald Reagan’s arms race spending.  As a result the Soviet Union broke down in 1991 and abandoned communism.  The breakdown of its money/credit/economic system was disastrous for it economically and geopolitically for most of the 1990s.  In the 1980-95 period most communist countries abandoned classic communism and the world entered a very prosperous period of globalization and free-market capitalism. 
• I**n China, Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 led Deng Xiaoping to a shift in economic policies to include capitalist elements including private ownership of large businesses, the development of debt and equities markets, great technological and commercial innovations, and even the flourishing of billionaire capitalists—all, however, under the strict control of the Communist Party. As a result of this shift and the simultaneous shift in the world to greater amounts of globalism China grew much stronger in most ways. **For example, since I started visiting China in 1984, the education of its population has improved dramatically, the real per capita income has multiplied by 24, and it has become the largest country in the world in trade (exceeding the US share of world trade), a rival technology leader, the holder of the greatest foreign reserves assets in the world by a factor of over two, the largest lender/investor in the emerging world, the second most powerful military power, and a geopolitical rival of the United States.  **And it is growing in power at a significantly faster pace than the United States and other “developed countries.”  **
• At the same time, we are in a period of great inventiveness due to advanced information/data management and artificial intelligence supplementing human intelligence with the Americans and Chinese leading the way.  As shown at the outset of Chapter 1, human adaptability and inventiveness has proven to be the greatest force in solving problems and creating advances.  Also, because the world is richer and more skilled than ever before, there is a tremendous capacity to make the world better for more people than ever if people can work together to make the whole pie as big as possible and to divide it well.  That brings us to where we now are.  

As you can see, all three of these rises and declines followed the classic script laid out in Chapter 1 and summarized in the charts at the beginning of this chapter, though each had its own particular turns and twists.    

Now let’s look at these cases, especially the declines, more closely.

A Closer Look at the Rises and Declines of the Leading Empires Over the Last 500 Years

The Dutch Empire and the Dutch Guilder

Before we get to the collapse of the Dutch empire and the Dutch guilder let’s take a quick look at the whole arc of its rise and decline.  While I previously showed you the aggregated power index for the Dutch empire, the chart below shows the eight powers that make it up from the ascent around 1575 to the decline around 1780.  **In it, you can see the story behind the rise and decline. **

**After declaring independence in 1581, the Dutch fought off the Spanish and built a global trading empire that became responsible for over a third of global trade largely via the first mega-corporation, the Dutch East India Company. ** As shown in the chart above, with a strong educational background the Dutch innovated in a number of areas.  They produced roughly 25% of global inventions in the early 17th century,[4] most importantly in shipbuilding, which led to a great improvement in Dutch competitiveness and its share of world trade.  Propelled by these ships and the capitalism that provided the money to fuel these expeditions, the Dutch became the largest traders in the world, accounting for about one-third of world trade.[5]  As the ships traveled around the world, the Dutch built a strong military to defend them and their trade routes. 

As a result of this success they got rich.  Income per capita rose to over twice that of most other major European powers.[6]They invested more in education.  Literacy rates became double the world average.  **They created an empire spanning from the New World to Asia, and they formed the first major stock exchange with Amsterdam becoming the world’s most important financial center.  **The Dutch guilder became the first global reserve currency, accounting for over a third of all international transactions.[7]  For these reasons over the course of the late 1500s and 1600s, the Dutch became a global economic and cultural power.  They did all of this with a population of only 1-2 million people.  Below is a brief summary of the wars they had to fight to build and hold onto their empire.  As shown, they were all about money and power.

• Eighty Years’ War (1566-1648): This was a revolt by the Netherlands against Spain (one of the strongest empires of that era), which eventually led to Dutch independence.  The Protestant Dutch wanted to free themselves from the Catholic rule of Spain and eventually managed to become de facto independent.  Between 1609 and 1621, the two nations had a ceasefire.  Eventually, the Dutch were recognized by Spain as independent in the Peace of Munster, which was signed together with the Treaty of Westphalia, ending both the Eighty Years’ War as well as the Thirty Years’ War.[8]  
• First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654): This was a trade war.  More specifically, in order to protect its economic position in North America and damage the Dutch trade that the English were competing with, the English Parliament passed the first of the Navigation Acts in 1651 that mandated that all goods from its American colonies must be carried by English ships, which set off hostilities between the two countries.[9]
• The Dutch-Swedish War (1657–1660): This war centered around the Dutch wanting to maintain low tolls on the highly profitable Baltic trade routes.  This was threatened when Sweden declared war on Denmark, a Dutch ally.  The Dutch defeated the Swedes and maintained the favorable trade arrangement.[10]
• The Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667): England and the Netherlands fought again over another trade dispute, which again ended with a Dutch victory.[11]
• The Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678) and the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674): This was also a fight over trade.  It was between France and England on one side and the Dutch (called the United Provinces), the Holy Roman Empire, and Spain on the other.[12]  The Dutch largely stopped French plans to conquer the Netherlands and forced France to reduce some of its tariffs against Dutch trade,[13] but the war was more expensive than previous conflicts, which increased their debts and hurt the Dutch financially.
• The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784): This was fought between the Dutch and the rapidly strengthening British, partially in retaliation for Dutch support of the US in the American Revolution.  The war ended in significant defeat for the Dutch, and the costs of the fighting and eventual peace helped usher in the end of the guilder as a reserve currency.[14]

The chart below shows the Dutch power index with the key war periods noted.  

As shown, the seeds of Dutch decline were sown in the latter part of the 17th century as they started to lose their competitiveness and became overextended globally trying to support an empire that had become more costly than profitable.  Increased debt-service payments squeezed them while their worsening competitiveness hurt their income from trade.  Earnings from business abroad also fell.  Wealthy Dutch savers moved their cash abroad both to get out of Dutch investments and into British investments, which were more attractive due to strong earnings growth and higher yields.[15] While debt burdens had grown through most of the 1700s,[16]the Dutch guilder remained widely accepted around the world as a reserve currency so it held up solely because of the functionality of and faith in it.[17]  (As explained earlier, reserve currency status classically lags the decline of other key drivers of the rise and fall of empires.)  As shown by the black line in the first chart above (designating the extent the currency is used as a reserve currency) the guilder remained widely used as a global reserve currency after the Dutch empire started to decline, up until the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, which began in 1780 and ended in 1784.[18]

The simmering conflict between the rising British and the declining Dutch had escalated after the Dutch traded arms with the colonies during the American Revolution.[19]  In retaliation the English delivered a massive blow to the Dutch in the Caribbean and ended up controlling Dutch territory in the East and West Indies.[20]  The war required heavy expenditure by the Dutch to rebuild their dilapidated navy: the Dutch East India Company lost half its ships[21] and access to its key trade routes while heavily borrowing from the Bank of Amsterdam to stay alive.  And the war forced the Dutch to accumulate large debts beyond these.[22]  

The main reason the Dutch lost the war was that they let their navy become much weaker than Britain’s because of disinvestment into military capacity in order to spend on domestic indulgences.[23] In other words, they tried to finance both guns and butter with their reserve currency, didn’t have enough buying power to support the guns despite their great ability to borrow due to their having the leading reserve currency, and became financially and militarily defeated by the British who were stronger in both respects.

Most importantly, this war destroyed the profitability and balance sheet of the Dutch East India Company.[24] While it was already in decline due to its reduced competitiveness, it ran into a liquidity crisis after a collapse in trade caused by British blockades on the Dutch coast and in the Dutch East Indies.[25]  As shown below, it suffered heavy losses during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and began borrowing aggressively from the Bank of Amsterdam because it was too systemically important for the Dutch government. 

[26]

As shown in the chart below the Dutch East India Company, which was essentially the Dutch economy and military wrapped into a company, started to make losses in 1780, which became enormous during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. 

As deposit holders at the Bank of Amsterdam realized the bank was “lending” freshly printed guilders to save the Dutch East India Company, there was a run on the Bank of Amsterdam.[27]**  As investors pulled back and borrowing needs increased, gold was preferred to paper money, those with paper money exchanged it for gold at the Bank of Amsterdam, and it became clear that there wouldn’t be enough gold.  **The run on the bank and the run on the guilder accelerated throughout the war, as it became increasingly apparent that the Dutch would lose and depositors could anticipate that the bank would print more money and have to devalue the guilder.[28]  Guilders were backed by precious metals, but as the supply of guilders rose and investors could see what was happening they turned their guilders in for gold and silver so the ratio of claims on gold and silver rose, which caused more of the same until the Bank of Amsterdam was wiped out of its precious metal holdings.  The supply of guilders continued to soar while demand for them fell. 

**The Bank of Amsterdam had no choice since the company was too important to allow to fail both because of its significance to the economy and its outstanding debt in the Dutch financial system, so the Bank of Amsterdam began “lending” large sums of newly printed guilders to the company. **During the war, policy makers also used the bank to lend to the government.[29]  The chart below shows this explosion of loans on the bank’s balance sheet through the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (note: there was about 20 million bank guilder outstanding at the start of the war).[30]

[31]

Interest rates rose and the Bank of Amsterdam had to devalue, undermining the credibility of the guilder as a storehold of value.[32] Over the years, and at this moment of crisis, the bank had created many more “paper money” claims on the hard money in the bank than could be met so that led to a classic run on the Bank of Amsterdam, which led to the collapse of the Dutch guilder.[33]  It also led to the British pound clearly replacing the Dutch guilder as the leading reserve currency.  

What happened to the Dutch was classic as described in both Chapter 1’s very brief summary of why empires rise and fall and in Chapter 2’s description of how money, credit, and debt work.  As for the money, credit, and debt cycle, the Bank of Amsterdam started with a Type 1 monetary system that morphed into a Type 2 monetary system.  It started with just coins that led to the bank having a 1:1 backing of paper money by metal, so the bank provided a more convenient form of hard money.  The claims on money were then allowed to rise relative to the hard money to increasingly become a Type 2 monetary system, in which paper money seems to acquire a value itself as well as a claim on hard money (coins), though the money wasn’t fully backed.  This transition usually happens at times of financial stress and military conflict.  And it is risky because the transition decreases trust in the currency and adds to the risk of a bank-run-like dynamic.  While we won’t go deeply into the specifics of the war, the steps taken by policy makers during the period led to the loss of Dutch financial power so are worth describing because they are so archetypical when there is a clear shift in power and the losing country has a bad income statement and balance sheet.  This period was like that and ended with the guilder supplanted by the pound as the world’s reserve currency and London succeeding Amsterdam as the world’s financial center.  

Deposits (i.e., holdings of short-term debt) of the Bank of Amsterdam, which had been a reliable storehold of wealth for nearly two centuries, began to trade at large discounts to guilder coins (which were made of gold and silver).[34]  The bank used its holdings of other countries’ debt (i.e., its currency reserves) to buy its currency on the open market to support the value of deposits, but it lacked adequate foreign currency reserves to support the guilder.[35]  Accounts backed by coin held at the bank plummeted from 17 million guilder in March 1780 to only 300,000 in January 1783 as owners of these gold and silver coins wanted to get them rather than continue to hold the promises of the Bank of Amsterdam to deliver them.[36]

The running out of money by the Bank of Amsterdam marked the end of the Dutch empire and the guilder as a reserve currency.  In 1791 the bank was taken over by the City of Amsterdam,[37] and in 1795 the French revolutionary government overthrew the Dutch Republic, establishing a client state in its place.[38] After being nationalized in 1796, rendering its stock worthless, the Dutch East India Company’s charter expired in 1799.[39]

The following charts show the exchange rates between the guilder and the pound/gold; as it became clear that the bank no longer had any credibility and that the currency was no longer a good storehold of wealth, investors fled to other assets and currency.[40]

[41]

The chart below shows the returns of holding the Dutch East India Company for investors starting in various years.  As with most bubble companies, it originally did great, with great fundamentals, which attracted more investors even as its fundamentals started to weaken, but it increasingly got into debt, until the failed fundamentals and excessive debt burdens broke the company. 

As is typical, with the decline in power of the leading empire and the rise in power of the new empire, the returns of investment assets in the declining empire fell relative to the returns of investing in the rising empire.  For example, as shown below, the returns on investments in the British East India Company far exceeded those in the Dutch East India Company, and the returns of investing in Dutch government bonds were terrible relative to the returns of investing in English government bonds.  This was reflective of virtually all investments in these two countries. 

[42]

The British Empire and the British Pound

Before we get to the collapse of the British empire and the British pound, let’s take a quick look at the whole arc of its rise and decline.  While I previously showed you the aggregated power index for the British empire, the chart below shows the eight powers that make it up.  It shows these from the ascent around 1700 to the decline in the early 1900s.  **In it, you can see the story behind the rise and decline.  **

**The British empire’s rise began before 1600, with steadily strengthening competitiveness, education, and innovation/technology—the classic leading factors for a power’s rise.  **As shown and previously described, in the late 1700s the British military power became pre-eminent and it beat its leading economic competitor and the leading reserve currency empire of its day in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.  It also successfully fought other European rivals like France in a number of conflicts that culminated in the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s.  Then it became extremely rich by being the dominant economic power.  At its peak in the 19th century, the UK’s 2.5% of the world’s population produced 20% of the world’s income, and the UK controlled over 40% of global exports.  This economic strength grew in tandem with a strong military, which, along with the privately driven conquests of the British East India Company, drove the creation of a global empire upon which “the sun never set,” controlling over 20% of the world’s land mass and 25% of the global population prior to the outbreak of World War I.  With a lag, as is classic, its capital—London—emerged as the global financial center and its currency—the pound—emerged as the leading global reserve currency.  As is typical its reserve status remained well after other measures of power started declining in the late 19th century and as powerful rivals like the US and Germany rose.  As shown in the chart above, almost all of the British empire’s relative powers began to slip as competitors emerged around 1900.  At the same time wealth gaps were large and internal conflicts over wealth were emerging.  

As you know, **despite winning both World War I and World War II the British were left with large debts, a huge empire that was more costly than profitable, numerous rivals that were more competitive, and a population that had big wealth gaps which led to big political gaps.  **

As I previously summarized what happened in the 1914 to post-World War II period, I will skip ahead to the end of World War II in 1945 and the start of the new world order that we are now in.  I will be focusing on how the pound lost its reserve currency status.  

**Although the US had overtaken the UK militarily, economically, politically, and financially long before the end of World War II, it took more than 20 years after the war for the British pound to fully lose its status as an international reserve currency. ** Just like the world’s most widely spoken language becomes so deeply woven into the fabric of international dealings that it is difficult to replace, the same is true of the world’s most widely used reserve currency.  In the case of the British pound, other countries’ central banks continued to hold a sizable share of their reserves in pounds through the 1950s, and about half of all international trade was denominated in sterling in 1960.  Still, the pound began to lose its status right at the end of the war because smart folks could see the UK’s increased debt load, its low net reserves, and the great contrast with the United States’ financial condition (which emerged from the war as the world’s pre-eminent creditor and with a very strong balance sheet).  

The decline in the British pound was a chronic affair that happened through several significant devaluations over many years.  After efforts at making the pound convertible failed in 1946-47, the pound devalued by 30% against the dollar in 1949.  Though this worked in the short term, over the next two decades the declining competitiveness of the British led to repeated balance of payments strains that culminated with central banks actively selling sterling reserves to accumulate dollar reserves following the devaluation of 1967.  Around this time the deutschmark began to re-emerge and took the pound’s place as the second-most widely held reserve currency.  The charts below paint the picture.  

On the following pages we will cover in greater detail the specific stages of this decline, firstly with the convertibility crisis of 1947 and the 1949 devaluation, secondly with the gradual evolution of the pound’s status relative to the dollar through the 1950s and early 1960s, and thirdly with the balance of payments crisis of 1967 and subsequent devaluation.  We will focus in on the currency crises.  

1)     The Pound’s Suspended Convertibility in 1946 and Its Devaluation in 1949

The 1940s are frequently referred to as “crisis years”[43] for sterling.  The war required the UK to borrow immensely from its allies and colonies,[44] and those obligations were required to be held in sterling.  These war debts financed about a third of the war effort.  When the war ended, the UK could not meet its debt obligations without the great pain of raising taxes or cutting government spending, so it necessarily mandated that its debt assets (i.e., its bonds) could not be proactively sold by its former colonies.  

As such, the UK emerged from World War II with strict controls on foreign exchange.  The Bank of England’s approval was required to convert pounds into dollars, whether to buy US goods or purchase US financial assets (i.e., current and capital account convertibility was suspended).  To ensure the pound would function as an international reserve currency in the post-war era, and to prepare the global economy for a transition to the Bretton Woods monetary system, convertibility would have to be restored.  However, because the US dollar was now the international currency of choice, the global economy was experiencing a severe shortage of dollars at the time.  Virtually all Sterling Area countries (the UK and the Commonwealth countries) relied on inflows from selling goods and services and from attracting investments in dollars to get the dollars they needed while they were forced to hold their sterling-denominated bonds.  The UK experienced acute balance of payments problems due to its poor external competitiveness, a domestic fuel crisis, and large war debts undermining faith in the pound as a storehold of wealth.  As a result, the first effort to restore convertibility in 1947 failed completely, and it was soon followed by a large devaluation (of 30%) in 1949, to restore some competitiveness.[45]

Coming into the period, there were concerns that too quick a return to convertibility would result in a run on the pound, as savers and traders shifted to holding and transacting in dollars all at once.  However, the US was anxious for the UK to restore convertibility as soon as possible as restrictions on convertibility were reducing US export profits and reducing liquidity in the global economy.[46]  The Bank of England was also eager to remove capital controls in order to restore the pound’s role as a global trading currency, increase financial sector revenues in London, and encourage international investors to continue saving in sterling [47] (a number of governments of European creditors, including Sweden, Switzerland, and Belgium, were having increasing conflicts with the UK over the lack of convertibility).[48] An agreement was reached after the war, under which the UK would reintroduce convertibility swiftly, and the US would provide the UK with a loan of $3.75 billion [49]** (about 10% of UK GDP).  **While the loan offered some buffer against a potential run on the pound, it did not change the underlying imbalances in the global economy. 

**When partial convertibility was introduced in July 1947, the pound came under considerable selling pressure. ** As the UK and US governments were against devaluation (as memories of the competitive devaluations in the 1930s were fresh on everyone’s minds), [50] **the UK and other Sterling Area countries turned to austerity and reserve sales to maintain the peg to the dollar. ** Restrictions were imposed on the import of “luxury goods” from the US, defense expenditure was slashed, dollar and gold reserves were drawn down, and agreements were made between sterling economies not to diversify their reserve holdings to the dollar.[51] Prime Minister Clement Attlee gave a dramatic speech on August 6, 1947, calling for the spirit of wartime sacrifices to be made once again in order to defend the pound:     

“In 1940 we were delivered from mortal peril by the courage, skill, and self-sacrifice of a few.  Today we are engaged in another battle for Britain.  This battle cannot be won by the few.  It demands a united effort by the whole nation.  I am confident that this united effort will be forthcoming and that we shall again conquer.”[52]

Immediately following the speech, the run on the pound accelerated.  Over the next five days, the UK had to spend down $175 million of reserves to defend the peg.[53] **By the end of August, convertibility was suspended, much to the anger of the US and other international investors who had bought up sterling assets in the lead-up to convertibility hoping that they would soon be able to convert those holdings to dollars.  **The governor of the National Bank of Belgium even threatened to stop transacting in sterling, requiring a diplomatic intervention.[54]

**The devaluation came two years later, as policy makers in both the UK and the US realized that the pound couldn’t return to convertibility at the current rate.  **UK exports were not competitive enough in global markets to earn the foreign exchange needed to support the pound, reserves were dwindling, and the US was unwilling to continue shoring up the pound with low interest rate loans.  **An agreement was reached to devalue the pound versus the dollar **in order to boost UK competitiveness, help create a two-way currency market, and speed up a return to convertibility.[55] ** In September 1949, the pound was devalued by 30% versus the dollar. ** Competitiveness returned, the current account improved, and by the mid-to-late 1950s, full convertibility was restored.[56]  The charts below 

The currency move, which devalued sterling debt, did not lead to a panic out of sterling debt as much as one might have expected especially in light of how bad the fundamentals for sterling debt remained.  That is because a very large share of UK assets was held by the US government, which was willing to take the valuation hit in order to restore convertibility, and by Sterling Area economies, such as India and Australia, whose currencies were pegged to the pound for political reasons.[57]  These Commonwealth economies, for geopolitical reasons, supported the UK’s decision and followed by devaluing their own currencies versus the dollar, which lessened the visibility of the loss of wealth from the devaluation. Still, the immediate post-war experience made it clear to knowledgeable observers that the pound was vulnerable to more weakness and would not be able to enjoy the same international role it had prior to World War II.

1) The Failed International Efforts to Support the Pound in the 1950s and 1960s and the Devaluation of 1967

Though the devaluation helped in the short term, over the next two decades, the pound would face recurring balance of payments strains. These strains were very concerning to international policy makers who feared that a collapse in the value of sterling or a rapid shift away from the pound to the dollar in reserve holdings could prove highly detrimental to the new Bretton Woods monetary system (particularly given the backdrop of the Cold War and concerns around communism).  **As a result, numerous arrangements were made to try to shore up the pound and preserve its role as a source of international liquidity. ** These included the Bilateral Concerté (1961-64), in which major developed world central banks gave support to countries via the Bank of International Settlements, including multiple loans to the UK and the BIS Group Arrangement 1 (1966-71), which provided swaps to the UK to offset future pressure from potential falls in sterling reserve holdings.[58]

In addition to these wider efforts, the UK’s status as the head of the Sterling Area let it mandate that all trade within the Sterling Area would continue to be denominated in pounds and all their currencies would be pegged to sterling. As these economies had to maintain a peg to the pound, they continued to accumulate FX reserves in sterling well after other economies had stopped doing so (e.g., Australia kept 90% of its reserves in sterling as late as 1965).[59]  Foreign loans issued in the UK during the period were also almost exclusively to the Sterling Area. The result of all this is that for the 1950s and early 1960s, the UK is best understood as a regional economic power and sterling as a regional reserve currency.[60]  Yet all these measures didn’t fix the problem that the UK owed too much money and was uncompetitive, so it didn’t earn enough money to both pay its debts and pay for what it needed to import. Rearrangements were essentially futile stop-gap measures designed to hold back the changing tide. They helped keep the pound stable between 1949 and 1967. Still, sterling needed to be devalued again in 1967. 

By the mid-1960s, the average share of central bank reserves held in pounds had fallen to around 20%, while international trade was overwhelmingly denominated in dollars (about half). However, many emerging markets and Sterling Area countries continued to hold about 50% of their reserves in pounds and continued to denominate much of their trade with each other and the UK in sterling. This effectively ended following a series of runs on the pound in the 1960s. As in many other balance of payments crises, policy makers used a variety of means to try to maintain the currency peg to the dollar, including spending down reserves, raising rates, and using capital controls. In the end they were unsuccessful, and after the UK devalued by 14% versus the dollar in 1967, even Sterling Area countries were unwilling to hold their reserves in pounds, unless the UK guaranteed their underlying value in dollars.

Throughout the 1960s, the UK was forced to defend the peg to the dollar by selling about half of its FX reserve holdings and keeping rates higher than the rest of the developed world—even though the UK economy was underperforming. In both 1961 and 1964, the pound came under intense selling pressure, and the peg was only maintained by a sharp rise in rates, a rapid acceleration in reserve sales, and the extension of short-term credits from the US and the Bank of International Settlements. By 1966, attempts to defend the peg were being described by prominent British policy makers as “a sort of British Dien Bien Phu.”[61]  When the pound came under extreme selling pressure again in 1967 (following rising rates in the developed world, recessions in major UK export markets, and heightened conflict in the Middle East),[62]** British policy makers decided to devalue sterling by 14% against the dollar.**

After the devaluation little faith remained in the pound as the second-best reserve currency after the dollar. For the first time since the end of World War II, international central banks began actively selling their sterling reserves (as opposed to simply accumulating fewer pounds in new reserve holdings) and instead began buying dollars, deutschmarks, and yen. As you can see in the chart below on the left, the average share of sterling in central bank reserve holdings collapsed within two years of the devaluation.  At the same time the UK was still able to convince Sterling Area countries not to diversify away from the pound. In the Sterling Agreement of 1968, Sterling Area members agreed to maintain a floor on their pound reserve holdings, as long as 90% of the dollar value of these holdings was guaranteed by the British government. So although the share of pound reserves in these Sterling Agreement countries like Australia and New Zealand remained high, this was only because these reserves had their value guaranteed by the British in dollars. So all countries that continued to hold a high share of their reserves in pounds after 1968 were holding de facto dollars with the British bearing the risk of a further sterling devaluation.[63]

[64]

By this time the dollar was having its own set of balance of payments and currency problems, but that is for the next installment of this series when I turn to **the United States and China.  **

---

[1] We show where key indicators were relative to their history by averaging them across the cases. The chart is shown such that a value of “1” represents the peak in that indicator relative to history and “0” represents the trough.  The timeline is shown in years with “0” representing roughly when the country was at its peak (i.e., when the average across gauges was at its peak).  In the rest of this section, we walk through each of the stages of the archetype in more detail. While the charts show the countries that produced global reserve currencies, we’ll also heavily reference China, which was a dominant empire for centuries, though it never established a reserve currency.

[2] A good example of this is the popularity of the Patriot movement in the Netherlands around this time: Encyclopedia Britannica, The Patriot movement,  https://www.britannica.com/place/Netherlands/The-18th-century#ref414139

[3] While most people think that the ascent of the US came after World War II, it really started here and went on across both wars—and the seeds of that rise came still earlier from the self-reinforcing upswings in US education, innovation, competitiveness, and economic outcomes over the 19th century.

[4] Rough estimate based on internal calculations

[5] Rough estimate based on internal calculations

[6] Rough estimate based on internal calculations

[7] In this piece, when talking about “the guilder,” we generally refer to guilder bank notes, which were used at the Bank of Amsterdam, rather than the physical coin (also called “guilder”).

[8] Encyclopedia Britannica, Eighty Years’ War, https://www.britannica.com/event/Eighty-Years-War

[9] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Anglo-Dutch Wars, https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Dutch-Wars

[10] Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740, 219

[11] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Anglo-Dutch Wars, https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Dutch-Wars

[12] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Dutch War, https://www.britannica.com/event/Dutch-War

[13] Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806, 824-825

[14] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Anglo-Dutch Wars, https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Dutch-Wars

[15] There was a general rise in foreign investment by the Dutch during this period. Investments in UK assets offered high real returns. Examples include Dutch purchases of stocks in the British East India Company, and the City of London selling term annuities (bonds) to Dutch investors. For a further description, see Hart, Jonker, and van Zanden, A Financial History of the Netherlands, 56-58.

[16] Hart, Jonker, and van Zanden, A Financial History of the Netherlands, 20-21

[17] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 13  

[18] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Anglo-Dutch Wars, https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Dutch-Wars

[19] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Anglo-Dutch Wars, https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Dutch-Wars

[20] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Anglo-Dutch Wars, https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Dutch-Wars

[21] de Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 455

[22] de Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 126

[23] de Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 685-686

[24] de Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 455

[25] de Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 455-456 & https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Dutch-Wars

[26] This chart only shows the financial results from the Dutch East India Company reported "in patria," e.g., the Netherlands. It does not include the part of the revenue and debt from its operations in Asia but does include its revenues from goods it retrieved in Asia and sold in Europe.

[27] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 17

[28] “Guilder” in this case refers to devaluing bank deposits in guilder from the Bank of Amsterdam, not physical coin. For details on the run, see Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 16.

[29] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 17-18

[30] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 16

[31] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 34

[32] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 15-16

[33] The Bank of Amsterdam was ahead its time and used ledgers instead of real “paper money.” See Quinn & Roberds, “The Bank of Amsterdam Through the Lens of Monetary Competition,” 2

[34] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 19, 26

[35] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 19-20

[36] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 16

[37] Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 24

[38] de Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 685-686

[39] Encyclopedia Britannica, The Dutch East India Company, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dutch-East-India-Company; also see de Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 463-464

[40] Historical data suggests that by 1795, bank deposits were trading at a -25% discount to actual coin. Quinn & Roberds, “Death of a Reserve Currency,” 26.

[41] Note: To fully represent the likely economics of a deposit holder at the Bank of Amsterdam, we assumed depositors each received their pro-rated share of precious metal still in the bank's vaults when it was closed (that was roughly 20% of the fully backed amount, thus the approximately 80% total devaluation).

[42] Gelderblom & Jonker, "Exporing the Market for Government Bonds in the Dutch Republic (1600-1800)," 16

[43] For example, see Catherine Schenk, The Decline of Sterling: Managing the Retreat of an International Currency, 1945–1992, 37 (hereafter referred to as Schenk, Decline of Sterling)

[44] See Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 39

[45] For an overview of the convertibility crisis and devaluation, see Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 68-80; Alec Cairncross & Barry Eichengreen, Sterling in Decline: The Devaluations of 1931, 1949, and 1967, 102-147 (hereafter referred to as Cairncross & Eichengreen, Sterling in Decline).

[46] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 44

[47] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 31

[48] Alex Cairncross, Years of Recovery: British Economic Policy 1945-51, 124-126

[49] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 63

[50] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 48

[51] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 62

[52] As quoted in Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 62-63

[53] Ibid

[54] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 66-67

[55] For more detail, see Cairncross & Eichengreen, Sterling in Decline, 139-155

[56] See also Cairncross & Eichengreen, Sterling in Decline, 151-155 for a discussion of other contributing factors

[57] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 39, 46; for further description, see https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-sterling-area/

[58] For further description of these and other coordinated policies, see Catherine Schenk, “The Retirement of Sterling as a Reserve Currency After 1945: Lessons for the US Dollar?”

[59] John Singleton & Catherine Schenk, “The Shift from Sterling to the Dollar, 1965–76: Evidence from Australia and New Zealand,” 1162

[60] For more detail on the dynamics of the Sterling Area, see Catherine Schenk, Britain and the Sterling Area, 1994

[61] As quoted by Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 156

[62] Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 174

[63] For fuller coverage of this, see Schenk, Decline of Sterling, 273-315

[64] Data from Schenk, "The Retirement of Sterling as a Reserve Currency After 1945: Lessons for the US Dollar?," 25

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Bridgewater Daily Observations is prepared by and is the property of Bridgewater Associates, LP and is circulated for informational and educational purposes only.  There is no consideration given to the specific investment needs, objectives or tolerances of any of the recipients.  Additionally, Bridgewater's actual investment positions may, and often will, vary from its conclusions discussed herein based on any number of factors, such as client investment restrictions, portfolio rebalancing and transactions costs, among others.  Recipients should consult their own advisors, including tax advisors, before making any investment decision.  This report is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the securities or other instruments mentioned.

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Published By

Ray Dalio

Co-Chief Investment Officer & Co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, L.P.

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86 comments

Peter Turchin and others have done a lot of work on historical cycles, naming the field "cliodynamics." If you haven't checked out the field, you might be interested https://aeon.co/amp/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads

The 'history' in this post is mostly wrong.

Hi Ray. You are definitely vibrating on the correct frequency. Thank you for the time and effort you put into educating the world when you could be on a beach or skiing somewhere nice. Kind Regards, Demetrios James Zissopoulos

Thank you Ray Dalio for such a great article. So we are in the changing world order, how can we as an individual investor make profit from this? Any idea?

You said: “I tried to convey the most important points in simple language and bolded them.” Unfortunately, in the version on “https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-cycles-over-last-500-years-ray-dalio/” all are bolded. This is the second time I wrote you about this issue. Please give a correct link or send me a PDF file, which is the version as you described. Thanks, Xiaoling Wu
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-cycles-over-last-500-years-ray-dalio/?trackingId=uyaU8QYITcSdAWoF%2BREnZQ%3D%3D

《How to take smart notes》这本书主要写给有学术写作需求的人看，但是其方法论是通用的—— Zettelkasten，有一群爱好者推广此方法很久了，我也关注了一年多。所以看他引入部分我就觉得熟悉。名字的拆解很直观，Zettel: Note， 笔记。Kasten: Box，就是笔记盒子的直译。

这个笔记方法简述如下，所有的笔记都可以记成一张张小卡片，放到一个盒子里。彼此之间产生连接。你会得到一个网状的知识库，最后想法和文章可以由小卡片们组成而成。

ZettelKasten

这个方法出自一个德国社会学教授 Niklas Luhmann，他靠这个方法著作等身，身后还留了很多遗稿。大家疑惑如何做到这么高效，发现他的卡片盒，于是还有专门研究他笔记方法。

During his almost 40 years of research, he published more than 70 books and over 400 scholarly articles on a wide variety of subjects, connecting sociology with such diverse topics as biology, mathematics, cybernetics, and computer science. That’s more than seven books every four years for his whole career — in addition to a boatload of articles. And those books are no hastily thrown together nonsense. They are classics that made him one of the most important sociologists of the twentieth century. When asked how he published so much, Luhmann used to answer “I’m not thinking everything on my own. Much of it happens in my Zettelkasten. My productivity is largely explained by the Zettelkasten method” (original in German).

From Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive

他所在的大学还有电子化他的笔记的尝试：ZK I: Zettel 1 (1)

Zettel

注意卡片下方的圆点及连线，这个就显示了笔记之间的关系。可惜这方面的研究大多是德文的，不为世人所知，非主流。

这本书废话比较多，因为把发明人背景及方法背后的逻辑都介绍了一遍，再加上如何做学术写作的部分。主要方法论可以看那个爱好者网站 Zettelkasten 及这篇文章 Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive。当然我觉得他能写那么多东西也是归根于用了这个方法，处处都有引用。

这个方法的好处就是你在阅读中或者随处蹦出的灵感都可以写成小卡片。小卡片的背面你可以写上书名章节页码。但是如果你是用一本笔记本来做同样的事，那么你的阅读和素材都是线性的。最后你不可能改变他们的顺序，同一主题的笔记之间可能也隔了很远，你需要靠自己的脑子来重新对他们进行整理，最后得到他们之间的关联。而小卡片这种方法是很自然，你不应该因为时间的顺序线性地管理你的笔记，而是让他们分散开来，重新变成一个网状的系统。这也是知识应该有的结构，所有的 Wiki 都是一个网状的结构，而不是树状的。从数据结构的角度来分析，笔记卡片是一个个节点，通过把节点连起来可以得到一个图。实际操作起来我认为两个是最重要的，一个是用标签来分类，这样天生避免了树状结构，索引的时候也可以找到最相关的内容。二是笔记之间的关系链接要明确。

第一点：Tag not category，一是 Category 容易得到彼此割裂的笔记，一个笔记往往隶属一个分类，树状结构容易出现。Tag 可以让一个笔记同时属于好几个主题，容易构成网状结构。这符合现实，比如这篇文章的有关笔记同时可以属于 #productivity #methodology #softwares #writing。

Tree

Web

Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive

另一个要素是要把笔记之间链接起来，这样才能形成一个网状机构，孤立的笔记是没有意义的，增加笔记的过程是将新知识嵌入到现有系统的过程，这和人类的记忆模式也很类似。发散的结构让你回头整理笔记的时候你往往发现一些新鲜的链接，这种连接往往是你的学术发现的起点。特别是当你的笔记系统积累到一定程度的时候。最传统的做法可以参考上面的电子化之后的图，同一个主题的应该用同一个标号，逐渐递增，不同层级可以增加序号的位，比如 1.0，1.1，1.2，1.1.1，1.2a，这个层级的分类可以自己把握，主要是更好地得到笔记之间的关系。

但我看到目前电子笔记的时间比较少运用这种方法，因为电子化之后链接可以快速得到，检索也远远比纸质笔记方便。所以一般直接在笔记里面相关笔记的 link 就好。还可以专门建一个索引页来整理所有相关笔记的关系，同时列出他们的链接。

Tags with links

Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive

再从输出的角度看这个笔记方法的优势，原理很像备菜。即做任何事情不要把材料准备和处理材料放在一起。大厨们做菜，帮厨们把材料早就已经准备好了，这样做菜是一气呵成，这也是现代流水线的精髓。写作也是如此，你在写作的时候再去找素材，东一榔头西一棒子，往往事倍功半。

那么如何在实践中利用电子设备运用这个方法。原始的媒介是纸质小卡片，一个大木盒子。你肯定觉得现在有电脑了我们肯定能更好地运用这个办法，其实不然。

纸质卡片的优势在于你可以平铺，实体化的东西在视觉上让你觉得更能的更能对应你的思维。电脑中所有的笔记都是电子化的，有些藏得很深，你很难可视化他们的关系，即使彼此之间加链接方便多了，最后的问题可能是怎么看他们的关系，当然最好的办法是有一个网状的 Visulization，有些软件专攻这方面。所以是否能模拟卡片平铺对我来说也很重要。

Zettelkasten 这个爱好者网站里推荐了几个软件，比如 Archive，avAlT，iAWriter，Bear 等等，每个都有人介绍过自己的实践经验。《How to take smart notes》这本书里推荐的是 Zkn 3。选择很多，各有利弊。选择是困难的，因为试用一个要付出时间代价，有沉没成本，每人需求又不太一样，以下我讲一下我自己的经验，算是比较私人的体验和评价，仅作参考。

在讨论什么软件符合 Zettelkasten **之前，必须先明确我现在 Workflow 的准入标准，因为这会筛掉一批软件。

一，开放平台，即我的数据不能放在他家，因为万一哪天迁移会有很大麻烦，Ulysses 就是个教训。这样就筛选掉了好几个，nvALT、Bear（虽然我一年多前尝试这个方法用的就是 Bear）。这里面开放平台做得最好的是 iAWriter，它作为一个编辑器可以直接编辑 Dropbox 里面的东西，所以你的东西都可以安心地放在那。

二，全平台，最好是网站。由于我现在手里的设备明显变多，且系统也多样化，macOS，iOS，iPadOS，android，ChromeOS 等等，工作栈全平台化势在必行。这样又把苹果专有的 iAWriter 筛掉了。不得不说，很多非常优秀的软件往往都是苹果专属的，小而精。但为了全平台我只好舍弃。

另外对 Zettelkasten 的要求我总结为三点：网状结构，标签管理，能够链接笔记，平铺卡片视图。

不满足网状结构的软件比较少见，只要满足标签管理和链接笔记的往往天然是网状结构了，虽然形式上还是有可能是以传统笔记本的树状结构呈现。最典型的反例就是 Onenote，完全模仿传统笔记本，一层一层剥洋葱，直到最里面的笔记。这种显然不能很好体现 Zettelkasten 的**。

能满足所有条件的我首先想到的是 Evernote。Evernote 如果能稳扎稳打一点，它应该是笔记软件的不二之选。不过国区分离、设备数量限制、不断要求买会员让我不看好它的未来。虽然我从它初始的时候开始用，支持了很久，见证了他的全盛期间，买过会员。但这家公司的策略令人摸不着头脑，国区独立之后支持了 Markdown 更让 Evernote 显得不思进取。

Evernote 还有一个缺点是卡片视图时卡片大小不会变，是方方正正的豆腐块。这一点 EverMemo 可以弥补，卡片大小随着内容多少变化。它是便签形式的软件，实时同步笔记到 Evernote（Evernote 的接口开放做得很好），几年前很「火」（大概 2013-2014 年，查了一下发现 https://github.com/daimajia/EverMemo 最近的 Commit 是六年前，作者是北师大计算机系的学生），我用了好一阵子，后来不知什么原因销声匿迹，巧的是大约是上个月他们宣布恢复这个项目。如果你选择用 Evernote，Evermemo 可以作为一个很好的入口软件（它甚至还有社交功能）。

Evermemo

最硬核的方法还是 VimWiki，优势是全平台，且生成笔记非常快速——新建笔记即自动生成链接，笔记间的切换也格外便利。问题是移动端不太友好，学习曲线很陡峭。但是自由度高，数据掌控度也高，有条件的可以一试。

Vimwiki

https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki/blob/master/doc/lists.png

最后的最后，根据以上所有的要求，我选择了 Google Keep。可能还是因为我被 GSuite 收买了（No surprise)，Keep 整合得比较好，可以无缝衔接使用。最重要的是它可以平铺成卡片，大小可变。轻量，你打开它做笔记是没有**负担的。唯一的缺点是 link 这个功能不够完善，虽然没有办法轻松生成短链，但是点开每个笔记实际上搜索框里出现的 URL 就是对应那个笔记的，可以直接复制黏贴到相关笔记里。但是有 label 作为 tag 用基本上能很好地解决笔记连接的问题。还有手写功能，这就很好地解决了笔记的普适性的问题。

Google keep

Note Taking Apps Showdown: Google Keep vs. Evernote

除了以上标准外，还有几个我喜欢的点：

• 卡片平铺后可以加颜色做区分，不同的 Tag 可以加不同的颜色，或者相关笔记之间可以加不同的颜色，一目了然。
• 不用的笔记可以 Archive。
• 笔记里面有网页链接它会主动抓取网站的信息。
• 可以加 Reminder，会出现在你的 Google Calendar 上。
• 如果你给一个笔记加 Repeated Reminder，它会在那个时间点提醒你的时候复制一个新的笔记。这个功能很适合做日记之类有时间重复性的写作。
• 和 Google doc 整合很好，拖拽卡片直接放到 doc 里面。

我们刚才说了如何做笔记，如何整合笔记进行输出这一步 keep 也做得很好。写作不是线性的过程，写作是片段最后整合排列的过程。这种将许多卡片扔到一个文档重新整理的功能正是这种思路的体现。这个拖拽功能，可以方便文章的构建。

Google keep drag & drop

How to Add Google Keep Notes to Google Docs

因为这一篇重点并不是案例 Keep 本身，而是从方法论的角度选用最合适的工具。所以省略其他的优点，比如浏览器插件快速记录，分享等。

目前我选择使用 Keep 作为我的主要工具，是当下我能找的的最优解，当然我的各项要求会多一点，你如果放宽一下标准，说不定能找到更适合自己的工具。本文只是抛砖引玉。

《How to take smart notes》还花了很大的篇幅讨论了学术写作，学术写作额外的要求：引用收集，Reference management。严谨的学术论文必须要知道笔记里某个观点是从哪里来的。纸质时代，作者需要在笔记后面写上出处。电子时代我们已经有很多类似的且非常专业的软件。比如 Mendeley，EndNote，往往很贵且平台专属。书里推荐 Zotero，我很同意，因为我在本科毕业写论文的时候用过，对论文引用的生成支持非常好。好处是开源，但随之而来的问题是没有 iOS 专属版本，毕竟在 iPad 上用网页的体验还没有那么好。

我还注意到最近一款叫 Roam Research 的软件也进入笔记战场，这个软件主打的就是网状笔记，快速链接。优势是知识结构的可视化做得很好。有这方面需求的人可以了解一下这款软件。可以说是 Vimwiki 的软件版及可视化加强。

Roam Research

原推

可能有人会问我为什么不考虑 Notion，毕竟它最近太火了，仿佛世界上所有人都在用它。我对 Notion 敬而远之，原因是虽然是网页版，但用起来很「重」，数据也并不开放。它的优势之一是「笔记化数据库」，归根结底也不是一个自由的网状结构。总之它可能是一个很好的综合性笔记平台，但不适合本文想要讨论的方法。

最后，讨论了这么多数字时代我们笔记的选择，但我认为我们实际的效率和产出很难超越 Niklas Luhmann 老爷子。抛开他的天赋和水平，数字笔记虽然给我们很多便利，但当我们能够用手去触摸那些实体化的笔记，并且将他们平铺开来，再追寻着笔记之间简陋的号码来将他们分门别类收纳的时候，我们是不是会对自己所拥有的笔记有更好的认识，与实体接触的过程可能是我们理解知识的一个重要的部分，这种实体化又是数字时代难以模拟的。我们希望能和实体世界用数字化的方式重新建立联系，这可能是接下来的发展方向。数字笔记最大的问题是屏幕，因为最好的场景是铺开的，一个屏幕终究是局限的，不管铺开的是小纸片还是参考资料。让我们回忆一下实体时代的笔记整合过程：

Notes

Bret Victor on Twitter: "this is a photo of my study space at this very minute…"

不知道有朝一日能不能在数字世界重现这种模式，也许可以靠 AR？一群笔记卡片飘在空中。
https://sspai.com/post/60466

​​1 背水一战

前两天说阅文新合同和肖战模式的时候，我说了这是腾讯的背水一战。很多人无法理解，这明明是作者和用户被逼到极致了，腾讯依旧那么庞大那么赚钱，依旧是**互联网的超级巨头，怎么就背水一战了呢？
因为，大公司的逻辑，是不太一样的。对于腾讯这种千亿级别的超级巨头来说，他的兴衰不在于做出一个爆款游戏，赚到几亿盈利。而在于，他是否抓到了大时代的方向。只有大时代的大浪里才有广阔的市场空间可以容纳他的超大体量和增长速度。

2 巨人的倒下

一个最简单的例子是诺基亚。

将时间调回 2007 年，此时全球手机市场上横据着一个叫诺基亚的超级巨头。它占据着高达 49% 的市场份额，有着非常健康的现金流，并且还因为产品质量过硬而拥有超高的用户口碑，甚至至今都有诺基亚耐摔防弹的梗。但之后的剧情大家都熟悉，短短的五年间，这家巨头的市场份额从 50% 一路跌到 5%

那么问题来了，你认为诺基亚决定命运，至关重要，背水一战的关键时刻，是哪一年？

是第一次丢失市场第一宝座的 2011 年？

还是失守 5% 市场底线的 2013 年？

抑或彻底跌出主流榜单的 2015 年？

这些年份都涉及到非常关键的指标，看起来都像是生死存亡的时刻。

但对手机行业了解的人会告诉你，真正的答案是：2007 年，诺基亚看起来最如日中天的时候。

因为这一年，在左下角，出现了一家叫 Apple 的公司。他们在这一年的一月开了一个发布会，表示，我们要重新发明手机。— — 他们做到了

事后来看，2007 年是诺基亚最后的战略窗口期，苹果面世，智能机时代到来。作为功能机时代的巨头，如果诺基亚第一时间拥抱智能机时代，和安卓合作，那么靠着过往的资金技术积累和渠道优势，他们很大机会能守住市场，新时代也未必没机会重回王座。
但他们没有及时调整，或者还抱有幻想。错失了这个战略窗口期，当后面安卓阵营智能机大爆发时，他们立刻兵败如山倒了。
2010 年，尽管诺基亚还依然拥有着 33% 的市场第一份额，但所有人都知道，他们的时代结束了。

“巨人倒下了，身上还是暖的” 这句话，便是源自与此。
巨人太过庞大，所以你不能像小公司那样用身子暖不暖来判断巨人的情况。巨人的命运，早在大时代的路口便已决定了。

而腾讯现在，正走到一个新时代的十字路口前，这个路口，叫做，新文创

3 腾讯的基石是社交，还是社交带来的流量？

不过，在介绍新文创之前，我想先简单为大家梳理一下腾讯的现状。

腾讯的崛起在于他两次抓到了大时代的方向。

第一次，是 1999 年，国内互联网时代开启，腾讯抓到了 QQ 这张船票，事后证明，即时通讯软件，是一张 PC 时代的头等舱船票。拥有 QQ 的腾讯靠着 QQ 导流，可以说是人挡杀人佛挡杀佛，在各个领域攻城拔寨所向披靡，甚至引发众怒。

第二次，是 2009 年，移动互联网时代开启，腾讯又抓到了微信这张船票，通讯社交，这又是一张头等舱的票，拥有微信的腾讯再度复制了 PC 时代的神话，连接万物，将触角伸到了各个领域。并且更聪明的以投资形式介入各个业务。

这是腾讯崛起的根本，至于有人说赛马机制这些，还是那句话，坐上电梯的时候，你是站着坐还是趴着坐抑或原地做俯卧撑，都不影响你升到顶楼。

关键是两次坐上大时代的电梯。

这个战绩非常辉煌，在国内只有抓到了淘宝 + 支付宝的阿里可以媲美。百度的问题在于，PC 时代抓到了搜索引擎这张头等舱船票，移动时代突然发现大家都用各种 APP 用不着你百度搜索了，搜索引擎的信息之海由此干涸。而百度地图这些小船票又承载不了百度这艘大船，所以无奈的陷入颓势。各种被争议的操作，本质是颓势下的动作变形导致。

但当你仔细研究腾讯后，你会发现，连接万物的表象背后，其实核心模式从来没变过。那就是流量 + 业务。对，没错，不是社交，而是社交带来的流量加上业务。

投资了 B 站快手斗鱼等一长串公司，建立了微信 QQ 公众号浏览器等无数渠道入口，一切目的的核心都是获取流量，而所有流量最终都是要落到游戏 / 广告 / 金融三个功能上实现盈利的。甚至在很长一段时间内，腾讯的主要盈利点，是游戏业务。也让无数人戏称，腾讯是一家游戏公司。

但是，有一个致命的问题在于
腾讯是不是一家优秀的游戏公司？

这个问题非常尴尬，从数据来看，腾讯无疑是世界上最优秀的游戏公司，营收流水能把索尼暴雪任天堂这些甩开几十里。

但你问任何一个游戏玩家，他们都会告诉你，任天堂索尼暴雪才叫知名游戏公司，他们做出的才叫好玩的游戏。

腾讯从来没有做出过一个备受称赞的好游戏。

英雄联盟是收购，DNF 和 CF 是代理，吃鸡是入股 + 代理，王者荣耀和手机吃鸡则是以上这些的移动化。作为目前世界上营收最高的游戏公司，却从来没有自己做出一个好的游戏，这个奇特现象的背后就是腾讯的致命弱点。

腾讯的模式是流量 + 业务，单比业务，他并不厉害，厉害的是流量 + 业务这个模式。他在吃鸡等多个战场后发致胜的关键，不在于他的游戏比网易的荒野行动做的好，而在于他的流量远胜网易。

同样的问题也适用于金融业务，腾讯是一家优秀的金融公司吗？当年，微信凭借着抢红包这招瞬间火遍全国，一个晚上干了支付宝八年的活，让支付宝满口黄连，此事也被马云称为「偷袭珍珠港」。但是，微信钱包爆发的原因是因为功能真的做的比支付宝好吗？还是因为他的流量比支付宝大？

所以，流量才是腾讯的核心命门。理解了这个，我们就可以重新考虑一个问题。

一直以来大家的认知都是腾讯的核心是社交平台，只要社交战场不失腾讯帝国就稳如泰山，这个认知我觉得是错误的，大家都被表象误导了。准确来说，是社交平台天生自带了源源不断的流量，便宜的流量灌溉着游戏广告等业务，让腾讯可以四面开战。

腾讯帝国的基石，是社交平台带来的流量，而不是社交平台本身。

那么，想象一下，如果有一天，社交平台不再能带来流量呢？

4 内容和管道
这是一个完全反直觉的观点，通讯社交是大众刚需，怎么可能没有流量呢？

但不幸的是，这类事情曾经发生过不止一次。

在移动互联网时代开启的 2009 年，你认为移动端用户数最多的公司是

A 腾讯    B 阿里  C 百度   ？

答案是以上三个都不是，2009 年国内移动端用户数最多的公司，是一个叫移动梦网的神奇网站，他在 2009 年就有了惊世骇俗的 9000 万月到达用户数（你可以理解为当时的月活叫法）。

是不是难以置信？
因为这是**移动旗下的网站，**移动把当时自己旗下所有移动端用户业务都整合进这个平台里了，移动梦网就像一个大超市，囊括了短信、彩信、手机上网（WAP），手机游戏等各种业务。手机 QQ，手机彩铃这些最早的移动端业务，当时都不过是这个平台的功能之一。

按照逻辑，掌握着你手机号和网络信号的**移动，必然是移动时代当之无愧的霸主。他们推出的移动梦网，也必然是 QQ，微信一样的超级平台。但结果大家都知道，移动互联网时代开启后，舞台是各个新兴互联网公司的。

同样的情况，在世界范围内多次出现。

2007 年英国电信运营商提供的移动互联网应用产生的流量占其移动互联总流量的 60%。但随着互联网公司的加入，用户越来越倾向于选择互联网巨头的主流应用，运营商开放其移动互联管道成为不可避免的趋势。到 2009 年，英国电信运营商自身提供的移动互联网应用流量只占其移动互联总流量的 20%。

这个现象，叫做，管道化。
运营商认为掌握了手机号和网络信号就掌握了新时代的网络，但用户最终选择了网络中的各种 “内容”，也就是应用服务，掌握网络的运营商变成了单纯的一个管道。管道依然是无比重要不可或缺的，但他不是舞台的**。

你认为掌握了社交软件的平台天然会掌握社交软件内的流量，但有没有可能，整个社交平台像运营商一样变成一个外在的管道。利润和流量都集中到管道流淌的内容里呢？

如果你觉得不可能，那么告诉我，这些是啥？

这还只是短视频领域，我就不说淘宝钉钉这些了。微信越来越频繁的使用封禁操作，在我看来，背后就是整个社交平台逐渐管道化的大趋势。

5 头条系的釜底抽薪

很多人不理解微信封禁短视频的理由，实际上，稍微思考一下就能明白。以目前短视频的渗透率，如果微信不对抖音们进行封禁，那么你的微信群会被他们大量占领，你朋友圈的时间线，也很快会被各种短视频刷屏。

这时，广告商就要思考一个问题了：

如果我有一万的广告预算，我是投在腾讯平台？还是直接投给抖音呢？

我在微信朋友圈打广告效果好，还是让抖音给我的短视频多一点推荐效果好呢？

反正都是可以在朋友圈刷屏的嘛。

此外，京东，拼多多这些生态伙伴以及内容作者们也会开始思考：

我是和腾讯合作，还是和抖音这些短视频平台合作？谁才是真正的流量控制者？

如果短视频大量占据了用户的时间线，那么微信这个社交平台，是不是就变成了一个运营商那样的管道，失去了对流量的控制了？

大家都知道，打败微信的, 绝不是另一个微信，而应该是别的东西。

只是之前大家还不太能想象出是什么东西但现在，局势已经明朗了，短视频平台就可能是这个产物，他的打败方式不是取代微信的社交平台地位，而是取代微信的流量和用户时长。社交平台依然会存在霸主也依然是微信，但可能不再占据舞台的**了。

所以，很快的，微信对短视频平台进行了封禁。

ps: 我认为，在腾讯自己的短视频平台取得行业优势之前，微信不会开放这块功能，因为这等于将流量的支配权拱手让出。

但是，封禁这个办法治标不治本，短视频的用户时长占比依然在不断升高。

用户表示，我就爱看短视频，如果你不让我看，那我换个平台继续看。抖音们的日活在不断暴涨。

而且，重点是，大家发现，这短视频抢的，就是你即时通讯的时间。

用户时长这块，短视频已经马上要对即时通讯完成反超了~~

用户时长的变迁很快体现在广告投放上。

今日头条的巨量引擎已经成为第一了。有趣的是，百度百青藤也反超了腾讯优量平台，但原因不是百度进步了，而是腾讯下滑了~~

但这还没完，大家还发现，短视频作为娱乐内容，居然还会去抢游戏的时间。

如果我是腾讯，我一定会表示，这是不是坑爹。一个短视频，既打社交平台，又抢甲方爸爸，现在居然还挤压我游戏时间。

然而，然而，这还是没完，今日头条表示，我有了流量和用户时长，我也可以做游戏啊！

王侯将相，宁有种乎！！！感受萨弗隆的烈焰吧，啊不，感受流量的威力吧

— — "长期看好，持续投入，不会计较短期得失"

惊喜就是：— — 去年先招 1000 人，今年表示这才是热身，我还要再招 1000 人。

来啊，战个痛

头条系的决心其实也容易理解，因为头条和腾讯一样，走的都是「kill time」的路线，即通过占据用户时间和流量为基础来向其他业务蔓延。因此，只要短视频占据了用户时长，必然会向剩下的全部娱乐场景开战。社交通讯，手机游戏，影视剧，甚至网络小说和综艺都在这个打击范围内，APP 工厂的名头也源自与此。

（没错，四月份的时候，头条的小说已经闷声不响的千万日活了）

而目前的用户时长和娱乐之王，正是腾讯。上一个 APP 工厂，也正是腾讯。

新时代的浪潮来了，但这个舞台上，站着一个演技戏路都和腾讯高度类似的演员。
一山是可以容二虎的，但一个舞台上，绝不会有二个一样的演员。

而且，这个敌人和过去不同，腾讯过去的战役，不管是 QQ 堂打泡泡堂，还是吃鸡打荒野，微信钱包打支付宝，腾讯都有流量优势。只要功能和你类似，慢慢就能靠流量耗死你。但现在，腾讯面前的这个对手，在流量上，并不占劣势。

这是腾讯第一次在流量不占优势的情况下开团。

更重要的是，这是一场卫国战争，腾讯做电商，或者微信钱包打支付宝，都是靠着流量进攻别人业务，是发生在别人领域上的局部战争，打下来固然好，打不下来也无关痛痒缩回来再战就是。但是目前这个敌人，是从社交到文娱到游戏到网络小说的全面战争，对手想一口吃下整个文娱战场，把战火烧到流量大本营来了。

腾讯的流量保卫战就此打响。

6 流量保卫战

其实，腾讯的这场流量保卫战，从 2018 年开始就开始了。2018 年 2 月份，过年期间，抖音起势，基本以每天百万级的增长速度狂飙突进，震惊全网。那段时间几乎每天都能看到无数的抖音小视频在微信群，朋友圈刷屏。而腾讯敏锐的感觉到，抖音 + 今日头条的娱乐组合，对腾讯的文娱帝国有极大威胁，因此果断宣布，封禁抖音。

随后的故事大家印象应该特别深，还记得之前小马哥和张一鸣在朋友圈的亲自 battle 吗？

现在回过头看，大佬们显然早就意识到，那是很重要的一个关口，所以都亲自上阵了。

老大都上了，其他人还能落后？随后是漫长的公关口水战

但是，不管口水战怎么打，最终还是要靠产品说话的。但一个无比致命的问题出现了，腾讯惊奇的发现，自己居然打不过。

各路产品全部折戟

甚至帝国长子，不败神话— — 微信直接出马。上线微信视频号也无法扭转战局。

前文说了，腾讯的产品，从来没有在不占流量优势的战场上打过仗。腾讯的产品，百度的技术，阿里的运营，这句话，其实应该是 “腾讯的流量，百度的技术，阿里的战略”

腾讯可能也发现了这个问题，没流量优势，正面上高很难，再这样靠短视频产品强打等于是送人头，浪费钱和资源是小事，错过时间窗口麻烦就大了，于是他们开始思考新的办法。

7 新文创

他们找到的这个破局办法，叫做 “新文创”

OK，说了这么多，咱们终于可以开始说新文创了。

新文创的思路简单来说就是，短视频们靠着内容把我这个社交平台给管道化了，那么，我最好的方法不是去和短视频平台拼刺刀，而是去控制最上游的内容生产。只要内容源头都在我这里，短视频平台不就不攻自破了吗？到时候扶持自己短视频平台也好，狭内容号令平台也罢，都有主动权。

而且除了短视频，长视频战场这招一样能用。不管新的时代主角是不是你短视频，抓到上游内容，结合下游的社交平台这个渠道，腾讯的流量帝国便可以成功渡劫新时代。

这个从内容源头 IP 做起，打通整个内容产业链的思路，就叫 “新文创”

这个思路曾经有过多次成功案例。

QQ 音乐怎么都打不过网易云音乐怎么办？给流量，投广告，学功能？可这帮听歌的全是文青，死活不挪窝那好，我给你版权全买了，你连歌都听不了，你还能不走？

再比如王者荣耀

我根本不用和你拼平台拼功能，只要拿着王者荣耀的 IP，你下游的游戏解说也好直播主播也罢，全被我控制。以版权制内容，以内容制平台，就不用和你打产品肉搏战。

以前，腾讯是产品和你一样，流量比你大。

那么现在就是，产品和你一样，内容比你多。而且我还可以通过内容掐你的流量来源。

理解了这个战略，你会发现很多谜题，全部迎刃而解了。

肖战为什么会火呢？因为陈情令火的

那么陈情令是谁出品的呢？答案是腾讯

而陈情令又是根据动漫《魔道祖师》改编的，那么动漫原著是谁出品的呢？答案还是腾讯。顺带一提，这个漫画连载平台也是腾讯的。

而魔道祖师动漫又是根据同名小说来改编的。那么小说是在哪火的呢？答案是晋江，但是问题在于，晋江背后还是腾讯。

你以为这就是全部了？还不止，肖战的经纪公司是哇唧唧哇, 这还是一家天使轮腾讯就进来的公司。

顺带，你可能耳熟哇唧唧哇这家公司，创造 101 就是他们和腾讯一起搞的。

简而言之，网文 - 动漫 - 影视剧，流量明星 + 综艺，腾讯的新文创闭环已经全部打通了。他的第一个试水产品，就是陈情令和肖战。

现在你明白，为什么很多人说肖战是纯血流量了吗？

因为这是第一个，全程都在安排下制造出的流量。他的每一个环节，都不具备偶然性。

不具备偶然性，换一种说法，就是可以流水线生产。将文娱创造变为工业化生产。

传统文创里的明星，讲的是天赋 + 机遇，但这个效率实在太低了，我一个公司几千人，要等你灵感闪现，那咱们这别玩了。

而工业化就是，24 小时三班倒，出来就能上线，上线就能拿市场，给你流量你必须得火。

今年选秀我会出十个人，这十个人都必火。

为什么，因为我从选秀时就会给他们大量镜头，给流量，造话题，他们肯定会火。

如果不火，接下来会有十部影视剧等着他们，这十部剧又全是我力捧出的大火原著改编，角色也全是根据他们量身打造。

如果还不火，那么我还有一轮综艺等着他们上。

一轮接一轮的信息轰炸，热搜轰炸。他们凭什么不火？
如果这还不火，那就调整人设，提升转化率

从上到下每个环节全都工业化流水化，批量生产文娱内容，你以为 A 剧比 B 剧好看，C 明星比 D 明星有趣，你以为你自己选的。其实，ABCD 全是我的。

这是非常高明的战略，效率完全超越了传统文娱小作坊，一旦成型，工业化流水线生产的流量明星流量剧很快会占领内容市场。

而且，新文创这个战略，本身的收益也不错。因为流量明星他不用经过游戏等业务转化，直接就可以盈利。还可以在流量上反哺各个业务平台。
之前我科普过，哪怕你眼里非常简陋的一个手游，都要技术要程序要 UI 设计师要原画美术，其实团队挺庞大，而且都是高技术人才薪水很高。所以游戏的开发成本是非常高的。
而流量明星的歌曲呢？

3 元一首，粉丝数百数百的买
这个就赚多了。

这就是肖战不能轻易倒下的原因，不止赚钱，背后还涉及到一个可批量复制的模式，他是这个模式能否走通的风向标。

这也是阅文风波的原因，因为在这个模式里，最上游的网文小说，是必须要拿到手里的，这是 IP 源头，而且会直接影响下游的流量明星。

多年来有一个问题始终困扰着流量明星：

没有演技怎么办？

现在腾讯给出了一个极具想象力的答案：我把原著作者签了，让作者根据流量明星量身打造，要啥演技本色出演就行。

我们选的小鲜肉人设是这个，下面剧情请加戏份多围绕他写，另外，根据市场调查，配个 CP 比较容易上热搜，你给他配个 CP 吧。

啥，你说你的剧情里没这个设计？不好意思，这不是你的剧情了，换人来写。

现在你应该明白了为什么阅文拼了命要拿作者著作权搞聘请制了。

除了著作权，腾讯顶着巨大压力也要走免费模式的原因还是这个。

番茄小说这些对手，背后又有头条的流量，又玩免费模式，我不搞免费，会丢掉 IP 市场。到时候全网火热的头部 IP 小说都在他们那里。丢了小说市场事小，无法配合影视内容完成新文创战略，抢占内容市场事大。所以腾讯宁可抛弃自己这么多年成熟的付费模式也要搞免费模式。
免费才有更多读者，我的 IP 才大，未来的影视剧才容易火。

此外，腾讯打破了多年来佛系经营思路，对外围生态公司只入股不管事的原则，开始空降管理层的操作，也源于此。

因为你再细心一点就会发现，目前接管阅文的掌舵者，正是新文创的提出者，也是目前腾讯影业的掌舵者。

世界线在此全部收束，一切全都连到一起了。

这一系列操作，其实都是腾讯新文创战略的具体体现。
新文创是事关腾讯文娱帝国存亡的战略总决战，是新内容时代的船票，从上到下一切业务都要为这个大战略服务。

但，如果仅仅到此为止，只能说腾讯将迎来大战，背水一战的背水二字，又是从何而来呢？

8 时代的召唤

因为，当腾讯定好战略调集好资源准备抢占内容新时代的时候，他犯了一个致命的错误。
阅文新合同引发争议，肖战更是连续热搜还多次被点名，这些舆论风波看起来和以往没什么区别。但问题在于，这次点名肖战的并不是观察网这些冲锋陷阵的传统媒体中的新媒体。而是一些大家之前没听说过，但是你一听名字就觉得不好惹的传统媒体。

比如说，《检察日报》《光明日报》《解放日报》

“检察”“光明”“解放”，典型的粉丝没多少，但真的能代表月亮审判你的主。

为什么现在他们纷纷入场？
我认为单一一个肖战不足以让他们发文，核心也许在于，腾讯展露出的 “新文创” 这个方向。

文章的开头我说了，对于腾讯这种千亿级别的超级巨头来说，关键在于是否抓到了大时代的方向。腾讯面对迎面而来的视频时代内容时代，提出了 “新文创” 战略，思路是“围绕 IP，工业化流水线式的内容生产”。
这个思路没有错，对于即将到来的内容时代堪称高屋建瓴的思路。但他们忽略了，在视频时代，内容时代之外，还有一个更大的时代潮流。

这个潮流，叫做，“大国崛起”，或者用之前我说过的那个叫法，叫做 “入关”
产能输出，文化出海，纵横亚非拉，走向新世界。

感受一下最近一个月马云的发言，
“平均每天一场，和抗疫一线还有海外医生在线交流”“完成 150 个国家和地区的”

而阿里面对新时代，选择的思路大家都知道，是新基建

然后，具体操作是，AI 诊断，支援全球

阿里云业务海外大扩张

你看，什么叫做大局观，这个就很大局观有没有。

想抓到大时代的方向，最好的办法就是完成时代赋予自己的使命，走向新世界。阿里的新基建这边，不说做的如何，至少目前看起来还蛮像回事的。

然后转头一看新文创这边

我就不说你速成起来的明星能不能冲出国门了

都折腾成 “盛世警钟” 了，兄弟。

而且注意关键词和发言人：【青少年价值观培养关乎民族未来】，这话其实挺重了。

所以我认为，就目前腾讯这个新文创的思路，应该是有问题的。

他只关注到了对国内内容市场的争夺，但忽视了这样搞可能会导致原本就处于萌芽期的国内文娱行业彻底失去对外输出能力。重点是，这个搞法，还忽视了对青少年价值观的影响。
再展开说就牵扯远了咱打住。

反倒是国内其他几家文娱巨头，面对这个大时代潮流交出的答卷我觉得都不错。
这个，讲的是大时代下普通人喜怒哀乐的故事

这个，讲的是年轻人勇闯新世界的故事

而这位就厉害了，讲的是一个文化出口的故事。切题准，答案棒，我觉得给满分都不为过。

有人说那简单，入股啊，全给买了。先不说人家卖不卖，如果入股真能解决所有问题，雅虎应该还活的很好。入股可以加强业务联系，但最终还是要战场上见真章。

腾讯自己这边，一直以来，新文创的出众点就是网文，这是目前国内最具生命力和创造力的文化商品，是国内少数可以文化反输出的阵地，国外甚至有外国人以东方文化开始写网文。

结果，现在你说网文业务不赚钱所以我给调整了。说实话，网文底子这么好，不思考怎么去拓展海外市场，去海外市场赚大钱是你自己的问题啊。自己没能力开拓怪我咯？

难道斗破苍穹不能拍成哈利波特七部曲吗？

你说国内没有这么好的电影团队，那我就又有话要说了

2015 年刘慈欣已经和腾讯有沟通了，腾讯还给了一个首席想象力架构师的头衔。

结果回头你还是做游戏。

你说刘慈欣当时有没有和腾讯说过流浪地球的事呢？我觉得肯定有。

腾讯有没有机会进入呢？必然有，在 2017 年有一次机会，吴京掏钱那次也有机会。

天时地利人和，有资源有人脉，你自己还喊着要做新文创，给你机会你不中用啊！

结果最后是苦哈哈的郭帆团队套到吴京这条战狼拍出了流浪地球。

作为国内文娱超级巨头，一不能冲锋陷阵文化输出，二不能大胆开拓新市场，老想着靠流量收割已有市场搞内卷，这个新文创的思路我觉得是走不远的，也是必定是要调整的。

对于巨头来说，赚钱很重要，但有时候有比赚钱更重要的事

这才是背水一战真正的意义。

而现在的疑问就在于，腾讯有没有时间进行战略调整了。

​

参考资料：

字节跳动和腾讯的全面战争，现在才算是真正开始酝酿从肖战的 105 张买起到阅文新合同，背后是腾讯的背水一战

腾讯互娱接管阅文，发生了什么？
https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404503865771819361