The Three Little Pigs: Carrying the Full Weight of Success

Like in The Three Little Pigs, societies that survive build brick houses. For a country to outrun its competitors, its people must prove themselves trustworthy by avoiding behavior that raises others’ guard.

If people sacrifice to build brick houses, trust declines when those who lack that discipline steal what others have built to remain relevant or hold on to what they have. The same applies to technology and defense companies in the United States. The consequences follow the same logic. Companies that steal technology, and government employees who enable them, ensure national decline. They are not patriots, regardless of how they see themselves.

Energy spent defending against one another reduces the throughput of information sharing. That reduction lowers innovation, which slows technological progress against competing nations over 100-year timelines. These are the time scales on which civilizations rise and fall. These are the battles that matter, not the smaller wars in between. Long-term thinking begins with you, the company you lead, and the behavior you tolerate.

Within a system of high accountability, we cannot claim to care about America if our behavior lowers trust among those around us. Patriotism is not an emotional state or a declaration. It is demonstrated through consistent self-restraint that preserves high innovation throughput by avoiding defensive or short-term behavior that erodes trust.

If our behavior makes others guarded because we prioritize our position over outcomes 100 years from now, and that slows information sharing, we are not patriots.

Those who bring battlefield tactics—Machiavellian and ruthless—into domestic interactions contribute to long-term decline. They blur the distinction between the United States and its competitors. Consistent trust-building at scale matters more than short-term, adversarial behavior that resembles animals fighting over scraps while the real competition watches.

Some will disagree. That reflects a reluctance to carry the full weight of responsibility. Physical strength has no value without the mental discipline to maintain trust through consistent actions over time.

If these words bother you, that reaction is helpful for you. It identifies the problem. That problem is you, not me. There are three versions of each person: how you see yourself, how others see you, and the truth between them. The goal is to move closer to that truth. Emotional comfort and feeling good about ourselves is not short-term important. Alignment with reality comes that leads in long-term positively seeing ourselves is important. A stable, positive and durable sense of identity follows only after that alignment. This makes for more stable people for greater trust in the ecosystem. A little pain that brings us closer to a truth never hurt anyone.