The most significant long-term threat to the supply of critical materials isn't a lack of resources in the ground, but a lack of people. The aging workforce of geologists and mining engineers, with a shrinking pipeline of new talent, poses a greater systemic risk to the industry.

Investors fleeing to hard assets like energy for safety from AI are ignoring second-order effects. AI's problem-solving capabilities could lead to breakthroughs, such as in battery technology, which would disrupt the very "safe" assets investors are buying by making renewables more viable.

Markets, technologies, and companies change constantly. The one constant is the human operating system—our biases, emotions, and irrationality. The ability to systematically trade against predictable human behavior is an enduring source of alpha.

History shows that transformative innovations like airlines, vaccines, and PCs, while beneficial to society, often fail to create sustained, concentrated shareholder value as they become commoditized. This suggests the massive valuations in AI may be misplaced, with the technology's benefits accruing more to users than investors in the long run.

While innovations like AI are disinflationary in a vacuum, history shows this effect is consistently overwhelmed by expansionary monetary policy. For over 200 years, central banks have created 'man-made' inflation, meaning investors shouldn't count on technology alone to keep prices stable.

Instead of predicting specific companies, identify irreversible macro-trends, or "directional arrows of progress." Examples include the move towards higher energy density (carbohydrates to uranium) or more compact data storage (spinning drives to flash). Investing along these inevitable paths is a powerful strategy.

Scarcity is not a fixed limit but a market signal. As a resource becomes scarce, its price rises. This incentivizes human ingenuity to discover alternatives, improve efficiency, or find new extraction methods. Markets create a homeostatic system that prevents us from ever truly 'running out.'

Despite a compelling fundamental story for commodities, significant capital has not entered the sector. Investors, scarred by past downturns and drawn to high returns in tech, are hesitant to fund new production. This capital starvation is the core reason the supply crunch will likely worsen.

The belief that investing in commodities is 'short human ingenuity' is flawed. These companies are R&D powerhouses in materials science, geology, and chemical engineering. ExxonMobil employs more PhDs than Apple, and their foundational innovations enable the consumer tech we see today.