R³ Faith Hope Love

Faith, Hope, and Love: An R³ Fantasy

In the cosmic dance of ideas, certain frameworks echo across disciplines, transcending the boundaries of economics, philosophy, and even faith. One such framework is the probabilistic triad of R³: resources, risks, and rewards. By aligning this with the Pauline virtues—faith, hope, and love—we can explore a fantastical yet grounded narrative about transformation, community, and the persistent question of what endures.

Fig. 7 Faith in Resources & Resourcefulness, Hope in Transformative Ventures, Charity of Community Consensus. Enter the conversation between Thiel and Kasparov, where Warren Buffett’s philosophy becomes the antithesis of transformation. Buffett’s investments in Mars Bars rather than ventures to Mars are emblematic of his alignment with the static needs of the herd. His logic, though profitable, is anti-progressive: when humanity reaches Mars, people will still crave chocolate, so why bother with the risk of the journey? Thiel and Kasparov, in their critique, embody the hope of transformative ventures, of collapsing adversarial odds into cooperative futures. For them, Buffett’s wealth is a monument to stasis, a triumph of faith in the predictable over hope in the transformative

At the input layer of resources, faith becomes the cornerstone. Faith in what? In one’s resources—both tangible and intangible—and, more crucially, in one’s resourcefulness. It is the belief that the tools at hand, no matter how crude, can carve a path through the unknown. Faith doesn’t merely reflect optimism; it embodies a conviction in the agent’s ability to act within the system, to tame odds through ingenuity. Faith, then, is the lens through which resourcefulness reframes scarcity as opportunity, chaos as possibility. Warren Buffett, for instance, epitomizes faith in static resources: his investments in candy bars, insurance, and railroads reflect an unwavering belief in the immutable needs of humanity, rooted in the predictability of past patterns. Yet this same faith, in its rigid adherence to consensus, often stands in stark contrast to the transformative ventures of those like Peter Thiel or Garry Kasparov.

The hidden layer of risks is where faith morphs into hope, specifically hope in the transformative. Here, risks are not merely obstacles but the sinews of progress, the dynamic equilibria where calculations meet courage. Hope in this context is not blind; it is strategic. It recognizes that transformative ventures—be they technological revolutions or audacious artistic endeavors—operate by collapsing wild odds into actionable trajectories. Peter Thiel’s venture capital ethos encapsulates this hope: his investments in companies like SpaceX or PayPal reflect a belief in reshaping systems, in moving humanity toward cooperative equilibria where once there were adversarial constraints. By contrast, Buffett’s risk aversion, grounded in insurance logic, reflects a reluctance to engage with transformative odds. Insurance, after all, is predicated on stability, on mitigating the chaos rather than embracing it. Kasparov, too, understood hope in transformation, not merely as a chess player mastering perfect information but as a thinker advocating for human ingenuity in the face of systemic inertia.

Finally, at the output layer, we arrive at love—charity, in its deepest sense. Love is the reward, the ultimate cooperative equilibrium where individual actions harmonize into community consensus. But this is no sentimental fantasy; it is hard-won and fraught with contradictions. Love, in this context, is the product of transformative ventures that succeed in aligning disparate forces into a shared vision. Dostoyevsky dreamed of such love, a universal community bound by Christian ideals where all questions dissolve into the singularity of faith. Yet his fantasy was prescriptive, demanding conformity to a collective vision. Nietzsche, by contrast, rejected such prescriptions, dismissing the herd as incapable of achieving anything beyond mediocrity. For Nietzsche, love was not for the masses but for the Übermensch, the rare individual who transcends societal constraints to create anew. This divergence—between Dostoyevsky’s communal love and Nietzsche’s individuated transcendence—marks the rift between those who seek transformation through collective alignment and those who see it only in the singular outlier.

Enter the conversation between Thiel and Kasparov, where Warren Buffett’s philosophy becomes the antithesis of transformation. Buffett’s investments in Mars Bars rather than ventures to Mars are emblematic of his alignment with the static needs of the herd. His logic, though profitable, is anti-progressive: when humanity reaches Mars, people will still crave chocolate, so why bother with the risk of the journey? Thiel and Kasparov, in their critique, embody the hope of transformative ventures, of collapsing adversarial odds into cooperative futures. For them, Buffett’s wealth is a monument to stasis, a triumph of faith in the predictable over hope in the transformative.

But here lies the paradox: Buffett’s strategy, grounded in the consensus, has served as a safety net for society’s existential angst. Insurance, after all, profits from humanity’s fear of chaos, transforming it into a stable, albeit unadventurous, system. Yet this very stability enables transformative ventures to take root. Without the predictability of Buffett’s consensus, would there be a platform for Thiel’s disruptions or Kasparov’s visionary gambits? Perhaps love—true, enduring love—is the synthesis of these tensions: the reconciliation of faith in resources, hope in transformation, and the communal reward of progress.

In this light, the R³ fantasy unfolds as more than a narrative of inputs, hidden risks, and outputs. It becomes a lens through which to view the perennial struggle between stability and transformation, between the enduring needs of the many and the audacious dreams of the few. Faith, hope, and love—each indispensable, each incomplete without the others—chart a course from resourceful beginnings through transformative risks to a love that binds the cosmos in its eternal dance. And, as Paul reminds us, the greatest of these is love, for it is only in love that faith and hope find their ultimate fulfillment.