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

Does Nothingness Exist? – The Joy of Why

Aristotle argued almost 2,400 years ago that a perfect vacuum could never exist. Today, the concept of nothingness figures at least implicitly into almost every theory of modern physics. In this episode closing out season 2 of “The Joy of Why,” the theoretical physicist Isabel Garcia Garcia of New York University and the Institute for Advanced Study talks with host Steven Strogatz about the impact of quantum mechanics on the definition of a “true vacuum,” the possibility of false vacuums, how the concept of vacuum energy relates to the cosmological constant, and how her studies of the vacuum could help to resolve frustrating puzzles in string theory and cosmology. “The Joy of Why” will return with new episodes in early 2024.

1. Does Nothingness Exist? 44:59
2. Can Math and Physics Save an Arrhythmic Heart? 46:12
3. What Can Jellyfish Teach Us About Fluid Dynamics? 43:43
4. What Causes Giant Rogue Waves? 40:15
5. What Is the Nature of Consciousness? 52:14

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