This is a weekly blog that puts forward my thoughts, and my point of view.
You may agree with some. And probably disagree with most. And we can agree to disagree. After all, wouldn't life be boring if we all thought the same way.
Tomorrow I vote in what is the world's largest democracy. Except that not everyone votes tomorrow. Mumbai where I'm from goes to the polls tomorrow. It is Phase 4 of the 7 phased elections. And the counting of all 7 phases will happen simultaneously on May 23rd.
The idea of this blog was to give an understanding of the scope and complexity of the Indian election system. And like in most things, found that others had already done much better a job than I could hope to. Here are a few that will give a very good sense of the Indian elections.
India Lok Sabha election 2019: How the world's largest democracy votes Global News
And for those of you who have Netflix, do watch Hasan Minhaj's take on the Indian election. And while I disagree with several of his points as untrue, you don't need to agree with everything to like the episode. A definite must watch. https://youtu.be/qqZ_SH9N3Xo
If you haven't heard of CRISPR, you should. It could change the human race. And that's no exaggeration, but a series of events that has already begun to take shape. And while you may be tempted to stop after a few minute, its important and I strongly recommend that at the very least you go through all of the below.
Let's start at the beginning.
CRISPR (/ˈkrɪspər/) (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found within the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments from viruses that have previously infected the prokaryote and are used to detect and destroy DNA from similar viruses during subsequent infections. Hence these sequences play a key role in the antiviral defense system of prokaryotes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR
What is CRISPR? Paul Andersen
The speaker explains how the CRISPR/Cas immune system was identified in bacteria and how the CRISPR/Cas9 system was developed to edit genomes.
CRISPR: History of Discovery SINGAPORE NIE
What is the formula to discover the next breakthrough? It all begins with observation. In 1987, when a group of Japanese scientists discovered an odd DNA sequence in a type of bacteria, the E.coli. These repeated sequences were something that had never been seen before. They are palindromic, meaning they read identically forward and backward, for about 30 bases, and are separated by spacers of roughly about 36 bases that are not palindromic in nature.
What you need to know about CRISPR Ellen Jorgensen
Should we bring back the wooly mammoth? Or edit a human embryo? Or wipe out an entire species that we consider harmful? The genome-editing technology CRISPR has made extraordinary questions like these legitimate — but how does it work? Scientist and community lab advocate Ellen Jorgensen is on a mission to explain the myths and realities of CRISPR, hype-free, to the non-scientists among us.
How CRISPR lets us edit our DNA Jennifer Doudna
Geneticist Jennifer Doudna co-invented a groundbreaking new technology for editing genes, called CRISPR-Cas9. The tool allows scientists to make precise edits to DNA strands, which could lead to treatments for genetic diseases … but could also be used to create so-called "designer babies." Doudna reviews how CRISPR-Cas9 works — and asks the scientific community to pause and discuss the ethics of this new tool.
CRISPR and the Future of Human Evolution It's Okay To Be Smart
Now that genetic engineering tools like CRISPR allow us to edit our genes, how will that impact human evolution going forward? Are designer babies or eugenics around the corner? Welcome to a world of nonrandom mutation and unnatural selection.
What's fascinated me about the Black Swan theory is how in most cases, several people had seen the signs of the "Black Swan Event", before the event and had both predicted it and monetized it. If that's true, how then is it a "Black Swan" event ?
And while you order and wait for your copy of the book, check out her TED talk.
Why we ignore obvious problems - and how to act on them Michelle Wucker
Why do we often neglect big problems, like the financial crisis and climate change, until it's too late? Policy strategist Michele Wucker urges us to replace the myth of the "black swan" -- that rare, unforeseeable, unavoidable catastrophe -- with the reality of the "gray rhino," the preventable danger that we choose to ignore. She shows why predictable crises catch us by surprise -- and lays out some signs that there may be a charging rhino in your life right now.grey
We need to be cognizant that while we can label events any which way after the fact, recognizing or even having a faint intuition that something could be happening could save us from disaster and if handled well, even result in a windfall.
My kids question several things that we have done and our parents and grandparents and wonder, "How could you'll ?"
These days and thinking about it, probably always there's a debate on Right and Wrong. And it seems frustrating to us that what's obviously wrong to us, is right to a significant and sometime even a majority of people.
This talk by Juan Enriquez is extremely thoughtful and insightful and in my opinion a must watch for all of us.
Is Right and Wrong Always Black and White? Juan Enriquez
In retrospect, it is easy to see how seriously mistaken we were
But at the time there can be extraordinary societal pressures to conform with the norms set by mom, the preacher, teacher, doctor, lawyer, police, and government. Even on a subject as horrid as slavery.
In this context let’s celebrate the heroes who stood up, not judge too harshly those who went along, and have the humility to accept that we too, may be doing things our grandkids will consider horrific...
And while we continue to strive to define what should be right, let us be a little more tolerant of those we disagree with, knowing that only time will tell which is the new Right and the new Wrong.
A thought occurred to me. The only way to prevent or at the very least reduce Regret, would e to figure out what one is likely to regret. And then do something about it. This led me down the meandering path that the Internet so beautifully provides. Here are a few of the amazing insights and advice.
"Regret doesn't remind us we did badly. It reminds us we can do better."
" Why We Have Regret BY LEO BABAUTA
We’ve all heard the phrase, “No regrets!”, usually uttered when about to do something a little unwise perhaps.
And yet, as alluring as the “Living Without Regrets” philosophy sounds, it’s not always so easy.
We regret missed opportunities.
We regret things that made us feel dumb.
We regret not telling someone we loved them more before they died.
We regret not spending our time more wisely, accomplishing more.
We regret procrastinating, not forming better habits, eating too many sweets, not writing the novel we always wanted to write, not reading all the books we planned to read, not mastering Russian or chess or the ninja arts.
We regret getting into bad relationships, or making mistakes in a past relationship.
Yes, we regret things, and sometimes it can be consuming.
Nothing to Regret - small bad habits cause lifelong regrets Iman Aghay
"9 out of 10 people regret something big in their lives. Many of these regrets are caused by seemingly insignificant bad habits. In this talk you will hear what causes bad habits and how these bad habits cause our lifelong regrets. You will also hear how to live a regret free life by identifying these bad habits and purging them one by one."
Don't regret regret Kathryn Schulz
We're taught to try to live life without regret. But why? Using her own tattoo as an example, Kathryn Schulz makes a powerful and moving case for embracing our regrets.
"Regret doesn't remind us we did badly. It reminds us we can do better."
The Antidote to Regret Kimberly Rich
Kimberly reveals that regret, while universal, is actually avoidable. In this dynamic and surprising talk, she shares 3 ways that individuals can prevent regret and lead fulfilling lives.
We've been doing a fair amount of work on developing algorithms for the equity markets and hence a subject that I happily discuss a lot. One of the things that stood out to me was that many of the people I discuss the same with, and even those in the financial fields are unable to appreciate "Risk" and its implication to the possible end results.
It has also seemed to me that many of the financial crisis were triggered by this lack of appreciation. I'm also learning Poker, one of the items on my bucket list. And I found that the understanding of Risk in a game of chance was much higher than in what's supposedly, "Investment".
Here are a few videos that not only gave me a much better insight on a new term I learnt "Risk Intelligence", but also showed why I should not have been surprised that most people don't understand Risk.
What Can We Learn From Expert Gamblers? Dylan Evans at TEDxWestlake
And this excellent article in Forbes.
How Risk-Intelligent Are You?
Try this very simple test. If I offered you the choice between the following two bets, which would you take?
Bet 1; toss a coin. Heads, you win $75. Tails, you lose $50.
Bet 2: roll a dice. A six, you win $750. A 1,2,3,4 or 5, you lose $100.
Good or bad bet? You decide.
So which would you choose? Or would you prefer not to take either?
If you chose the coin toss, or declined to play at all, then you are not risk-intelligent at all.
If you chose the dice roll with some internal conflict, or after making a calculation, you are risk-intelligent.
If you chose the dice roll instantly, intuitively with no internal conflict or conscious calculation, then you are very risk-intelligent.
Let me explain the logic. And then, I will explain what this has to do with business.
These three possibilities have been set up so that their mathematical attractiveness is inversely proportional to their psychological attractiveness. Bet 1 has an expected value of $12.50; put another way, if you played it repeatedly you would on average win $12.50. Bet 2 has an expected value of $41.67 - more than three times as attractive. Not playing, of course, has an expected value of zero.
That's the mathematics, but the psychology is quite a different matter. When making these sorts of choices, our default mode is not to calculate the gains and losses mathematically, but to weigh them psychologically. The coin toss is unappealing psychologically because the pain of losing $100 weighs more than the pleasure of winning $150 (in studies, experimenters have found they needed to offer a gain of $250 to get even a majority of people to accept the bet). The dice roll is even less attractive psychologically - the potential loss is larger, and more likely.
So, if you declined to play or chose the coin toss, you allowed your psychological bias to lead you away from the most profitable option.
If you were like most people who chose the dice roll, you had to overcome a conflict between basic psychology, which wanted you to avoid loss, and intelligent risk assessment. Choosing the mathematically superior option probably felt uncomfortable but once you had calculated the odds you overcame that discomfort. If this is you, then you are risk-intelligent.
Finally, you may be one of the small majority who chose the superior option with no psychological conflict and no need for a calculation. If this is you, then you are extremely risk-intelligent.
What does this have to do with business? Everything. Your work offers you a constant stream of bets, although they are usually called "investment opportunities." They may be big like developing a new product, or medium-sized like trying to win a significant new customer, or as small as spending a couple of hours reorganising the way you do some particular thing in order to save 10 minutes day. They all offer different levels of risk and return. The danger is that our natural loss aversion either prevents us from taking any of these opportunities because of the risk of loss, or limits our attention to those which offer reasonable chances of success, like the coin toss. The problem is that there may be better opportunities out there, but they look more like a dice roll and so we avoid them.
What would your business be if you became more risk-intelligent?
As you know by now, I'm a fan of the Crash Course. Learning or doing a lot in a short span of time. And so the I saw that I could learn "The History of Everything" in 18 minutes, I was sold.
Yes! Covering 13.8 billion years in 18 minutes. Have a look.
And after learning Big History, I was hooked. And had a look at the "Big History Project". And I was filled with regret. Regret that I had no clue that this project existed. And am hooked and will be spending a lot of time learning history. A subject that was never a favorite, but am beginning to like.
