I fucking love science. The mindset of make a guess, test it as best you can, and record everything for the next person to learn from seems like the most meaningful path we individuals can take as members of a social species. It emboldens our personal creativity and answers for our impermanence at the same time. This talk explores the ancient relay race of our knowledge in mathematics, starting at 3000 BCE. That we can […]
I’m really loving this growing discussion and hypotheses laid out by Katja Grace and her readers. The basic question is this: why did humanity take so long to advance at the start? Rope, the wheel, written word all took tens of thousands of years to develop even though we modern humans would find the lack of these things a daily headache. Go read it.
Embracing negativity may also have social benefits. Compared with cheery moods, bad moods have been linked to a more effective communication style, and sadness has been linked to less reliance on negative stereotypes. Feeling down can make us behave more fairly, too. People who saw sad video clips before playing an allocation game were more generous with their partners than those who saw happy clips. Source.
I love this series and this episode is extremely topical as everyone’s Uncle suddenly wants to get into Bitcoin. The conversation with the expert also reminded me of the Clay Shirky quote: “Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.” Maybe you can simplify it: “Tools don’t get interesting until they get boring.”
You can easily fit all the planets in the Solar System back to back into the distance from the Earth to the Moon. MIND. BLOWN.
A report by Barclays shows that in the five years to March 2011, hedge funds run by women and minorities returned 82.4 per cent, while non-diverse funds returned only 51 per cent. They did this with much less volatility, and with a far smaller drawdown during the 2008 crisis. Yet only 3.3 per cent of all hedge funds were run by women or minorities. Source.
