2022 – Best of Week 13

2 min

When the Optimists are Too Pessimistic

This is why even the optimists can be too pessimistic. Because we are using linear thinking to imagine a geometric future. It just doesn’t work.

(6min _ OfDollarsAndData)

The Worst Run For Bonds Since 1980

Yes, bonds have gotten killed in the last three months, but this really needs to be put in context. A 5% negative total return over a three-month period isn’t fun, but that’s like a bad week for a stock index and a stormy afternoon for an individual stock.

If you’ve hated bonds for the last couple of years because rates have been so low, then the recent uptick in rates should be welcomed with open arms.

(7min _ TheIrrelevantInvestor)

„Death Wish“

If you have the “will and intention” to be a Managing Director by thirty five, any superior opportunity that flows in your direction that doesn’t support that fixed goal will get disregarded.

As a result, you risk achieving your limited goal, reaching a steep fitness peak, but with no idea what to do next. Be careful what you wish for.

(5min _ TheAttentionSpan)

How People Think

But so many behaviors are universal across generations and geographies. Circumstances change, but people’s reactions don’t. Technologies evolve, but insecurities, blind spots, and gullibility rarely does.

This article describes 17 of what I think are the most common and influential aspects of how people think.

(13min _ CollaborativeFund)

Bitcoin’s Lockstep March With Stocks Raises
Thorny Questions About Its Usefulness

The cryptocurrency hasn’t worked as the “digital gold” it was touted to be. Should
institutional investors even bother with it? (Part of the crypto column series.)

(11min _ InstitutionalInvestor)

Yes. I once wrote: „The difference between being an economist and being a physicist is that most economists have never really seen a successful model.“
Kind of long winded but anyhow — https://t.co/uDHMDMJveB

— Emanuel Derman (@EmanuelDerman) March 24, 2022

Do Beautiful Birds Have an Evolutionary Advantage? – The Joy of Why

Birds are not merely descendants of dinosaurs — they are dinosaurs. For Yale evolutionary biologist and ornithologist Richard Prum, birds have been a lifelong passion and a window into some of evolution’s most intriguing mysteries. In a wide-ranging conversation with co-host Janna Levin, Prum traces the deep evolutionary origins of feathers, which he argues first emerged not for flight but for insulation, camouflage and display. Their colors — often invisible to the human eye — come into sharp focus under birds’ ultraviolet vision, suggesting a sensory world far richer than our own. Prum also explains why he champions Darwin’s once-marginalized theory of sexual selection, which proposes that traits such as the peacock’s tail evolved not for survival, but simply because they were attractive. Beauty, in other words, may shape life as powerfully as utility.

1. Do Beautiful Birds Have an Evolutionary Advantage? 46:07
2. How Can Math Protect Our Data? 39:40
3. Why Did The Universe Begin? 52:09
4. How Can Regional Models Advance Climate Science? 45:05
5. How Does Graph Theory Shape Our World? 34:14

„Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.“ _Eleanor Roosevelt