Here is a digest of the best links each week for anyone who might be interested.
The Pandemic: the reality we live in
Buddy, first dog to test positive for COVID-19 in the U.S., has died. The German shepherd likely had lymphoma, a type of cancer. We don’t know if the cancer made him more vulnerable to the virus, or if the coronavirus caused his symptoms, or if the death was just coincidence.
The primary message from the CDC and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is similar: There is no evidence that animals play a significant role in the spread of the virus. Because of that, they do not recommend widespread testing of pets.
As everyone is grappling with the challenges and unknowns posed by this horrific and widespread virus, we should avoid to make any assumption too quickly. Without enough testing and thorough study of positive cases, it’s worth to acknowledge that little is known about the impact of coronavirus on pets, and their role in the further spread of virus.
Disruptions: how it might be different
The arguments for colonize sun first:
- assuming the economics will still gain from clumping;
- human level robots will appear before earth runs out of stuff (mainly energy and raw materials);
- given the benefit of clumping, the first off-earth economy will be built near to earth;
- the earth may run out of energy more likely than raw materials;
- it’s much easier to transport mass to the Sun than away from it;
- it’s easier to get energy near sun, and robot can live near, in or on the sun.
Hence, we will colonize the sun first. Btw, 2312 is one of my favorite science fictions about Mercury.
Insights: raise the bar for ourselves
Do you buy books and pile them up? I do.
Here are a few suggestions on how to read more books:
- make it a higher priority in the life routines;
- reflect on why you wanna read more books;
- start more books, quit most of them, read the great ones twice;
- making changes to your digital and physical environments so that reading is easy and effortless – including making reading apps especially prominent on your phone, and placing books in the physical places that you most often frequent;
- begin a book reading habit;
- cultivate your identity as an avid reader of books, and connect with other book readers.
People who read literary fiction in particular tend to be better at reading others’ emotions and have greater moral sensitivity, possibly due to their simulation of the lives of complex characters; and reading nonfiction will increase your knowledge and broaden your mind.
Leadership: the ideas for better collaboration
“Culture is a free form of leverage”. I like to read Auren Hoffman‘s essays on management. One view I shared strongly with this article is that companies can leverage culture to attract the right people at the right time. Culture is what unique to you, what makes you look strange, and how you are different. Transparent as a goal is not a culture, but transparent as a requirement for all decisions is a culture. Frugal as a value is not a culture, but frugality as a principle for all practices is a culture. Sometimes, it doesn’t need to take each value of a culture to the extreme, but the combination of them can differentiate you from others. For example, most companies either lean on being fast and taking risks or moving steadily by making data driven decisions along the way. If your company can move really fast while still being data-driven, that is a unique culture and strength.
One culture that every company needs to figure out how to do it right is feedback. How to encourage everyone to be radical candor to each other? You need to have well understood ways for resolving conflict, clean escalation, peer recognition, criticisms and free information flow (e.g. skip-level meetings, etc.). Achieving this is hard, because work is personal. Culture is a leverage.
Economy: the science hidden among fallacies
“There’s the fear of further government-ordered lockdowns; and politicians’ decision to push through unprecedented stimulus packages; and central bankers’ decision to print money faster than they ever have before to finance that spending; and the plunge in inflation-adjusted bond yields into negative territory in the U.S.; and the dollar’s sudden decline against the euro and yen; and rising U.S.-China tensions.” All these concerns, when taken together, are driving the stock markets in all unpredictable ways, including an higher than ever gold price.