Friday, December 10, 2021

December 10: Elon Musk, 2022



29 Big Ideas that will change our world in 2022 as of 2020, employees stayed with their employers for an average of 4.1 years. Look for that number to drop below 4.0 in the future. ........ career counseling as a profession that’s ready to boom ....... even faster vaccine development ....... Scientists and politicians are already targeting a 100-day timeline from “lab to jab” ....... But Farrar thinks even that is too long. He foresees cutting the timeline from genome to vaccine to just seven days, with a global rollout within 30 days. How? By identifying the 20 to 50 virus families in the animal kingdom with the greatest pandemic potential and building “a library of advanced vaccines” that can be ready with only minor alterations. .......... Tech giants like Meta (Facebook), Google, Amazon and Alibaba are increasingly acting as sovereigns, rivaling states for influence over our lives. ........ Think about what happened on January 6. After rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, it was social media companies — not law enforcement, Congress or the judiciary — that sprang into action to punish those responsible. ........... There’s a metaverse land grab afoot ....... The next iteration of the web is arriving, and it’s leaping off of our screens. It’s the metaverse, a term that describes the 3D immersive and collaborative experiences that are already making their way into our lives. ........ blockchain, which will allow metaverse participants to build and use decentralized technology, rather than rely on Big Tech players alone. The second is the artists and technologists who are laying the initial groundwork for the metaverse aren’t beholden to Big Tech in the ways they once were. Thanks to blockchain, they have a decentralized means to make money. This version of the web holds the potential to be open; one that rewards individual creators for their contributions. ............. Life may be normalizing, but many people are still grappling with grief, depression and anxiety. .......... After years of enduring stagnant pay and dreary working conditions, the world’s front-line workers in fields such as retail, hospitality and customer service could be heading into better times. ......... a strong 2022 economy in which the U.S. unemployment rate could shrink to 3.5%, from the current 4.8%. ......... “The power dynamic will shift from employers and leave them pining for talent like never before” ......... Mayor Hillary Schieve of Reno, Nevada has proposed a plan that includes selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to support public art and using decentralized autonomous organizations to sell crypto-based stakes of city-owned properties to investors. .......... What’s the benefit of adopting a blockchain approach to government? It puts transactions into public view, boosting transparency. And its automation of most processes can reduce red tape and the likelihood of errors. ............ “Integrating blockchain-based organization formats ... will allow institutions to manage public goods in a much more efficient and transparent way, reduce coordination costs and can drastically speed up the decision making process” .......... “The number of organizations that will adopt crypto to address public challenges will grow exponentially.” ......... From Microsoft Japan to Semco in Brazil and the government of Iceland to Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, organizations are figuring out how to make the 4-day work week work. ........ Every workplace has a gravitational field. Leaders who take the 4-day work week seriously will draw stars into their orbit. ......... “Blue foods” — fish, aquatic plants, mussels and algae — may offer a key solution. ...........

Algae’s protein content, for example, is higher than conventional sources such as meat, poultry and dairy products; and it can be cultivated without freshwater or arable land.

........... Pay rates were once an opaque internal mystery at offices and the subject of much speculation, gossip and resentment. But as the push for equity at work gains momentum, pay transparency will begin to go mainstream ...........

the current impetus for pay transparency stems from growing momentum around addressing gender and racial pay inequities

........... “Organizations have an advantage in being ahead of legislation and demonstrating to employees they're about equity and inclusion.” ........... More retailers will embrace virtual and augmented reality in 2022, allowing customers to interact with products in environments that go far beyond digital replications of a store. ......... “The metaverse may do more to change retail than anything since the physical store” ........... “It's not about creating virtual interpretations of the store. It's about uncoupling retail from the store and reimagining it entirely.” .......... Last year, some 75% of companies said that they were reshoring operations to their home bases or to neighboring countries .......... more companies will start building “smart factories,” with an emphasis on automation, cloud platforms and other technologies .......... In 2021 — in the wake of the 2020 murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — companies promised to take diverse hiring seriously. .......... Some 96% of U.S. companies report the gender representation of their employees at all levels, and 90% report representation at senior levels, according to LeanIn and McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace report. But only 54% of companies track gender and race/ethnicity — i.e. Black or Latina women in senior leadership. This renders women of color “invisible” ............ The rise of the “hybrid workday” — in which we work from home and the office — means we’re not all commuting at the same time anymore. ............. Flexible work is now a fact of life: 93% of knowledge workers globally want the freedom to decide where and when they do their job. ......... Perhaps we should discard the commute as we know it altogether? "To improve quality of life, we need to become less dependent on mobility and more committed to local proximity." Making work — even in an office — just a walk or short bike ride away may be in store for more of us. .......... Just 2.2% of venture capital funding went to female-founded companies in the first eight months of 2021 ......... Black entrepreneurs only received a small fraction — just over 1% — of U.S. venture capital funding. .......... a paradigm shift in funding, as “technologies that democratize wealth-building opportunities and fix our broken distribution system of capital become the default option.” .......... More VCs may turn to AI to identify promising startups, placing an emphasis on business fundamentals over founder demographics .........
29 Big Ideas that will change our world in 2022 as of 2020, employees stayed with their employers for an average of 4.1 years. Look for that number to drop below 4.0 in the future. ........ career counseling as a profession that’s ready to boom ....... even faster vaccine development ....... Scientists and politicians are already targeting a 100-day timeline from “lab to jab” ....... But Farrar thinks even that is too long. He foresees cutting the timeline from genome to vaccine to just seven days, with a global rollout within 30 days. How? By identifying the 20 to 50 virus families in the animal kingdom with the greatest pandemic potential and building “a library of advanced vaccines” that can be ready with only minor alterations. .......... Tech giants like Meta (Facebook), Google, Amazon and Alibaba are increasingly acting as sovereigns, rivaling states for influence over our lives. ........ Think about what happened on January 6. After rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, it was social media companies — not law enforcement, Congress or the judiciary — that sprang into action to punish those responsible. ........... There’s a metaverse land grab afoot ....... The next iteration of the web is arriving, and it’s leaping off of our screens. It’s the metaverse, a term that describes the 3D immersive and collaborative experiences that are already making their way into our lives. ........ blockchain, which will allow metaverse participants to build and use decentralized technology, rather than rely on Big Tech players alone. The second is the artists and technologists who are laying the initial groundwork for the metaverse aren’t beholden to Big Tech in the ways they once were. Thanks to blockchain, they have a decentralized means to make money. This version of the web holds the potential to be open; one that rewards individual creators for their contributions. ............. Life may be normalizing, but many people are still grappling with grief, depression and anxiety. .......... After years of enduring stagnant pay and dreary working conditions, the world’s front-line workers in fields such as retail, hospitality and customer service could be heading into better times. ......... a strong 2022 economy in which the U.S. unemployment rate could shrink to 3.5%, from the current 4.8%. ......... “The power dynamic will shift from employers and leave them pining for talent like never before” ......... Mayor Hillary Schieve of Reno, Nevada has proposed a plan that includes selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to support public art and using decentralized autonomous organizations to sell crypto-based stakes of city-owned properties to investors. .......... What’s the benefit of adopting a blockchain approach to government? It puts transactions into public view, boosting transparency. And its automation of most processes can reduce red tape and the likelihood of errors. ............ “Integrating blockchain-based organization formats ... will allow institutions to manage public goods in a much more efficient and transparent way, reduce coordination costs and can drastically speed up the decision making process” .......... “The number of organizations that will adopt crypto to address public challenges will grow exponentially.” ......... From Microsoft Japan to Semco in Brazil and the government of Iceland to Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, organizations are figuring out how to make the 4-day work week work. ........ Every workplace has a gravitational field. Leaders who take the 4-day work week seriously will draw stars into their orbit. ......... “Blue foods” — fish, aquatic plants, mussels and algae — may offer a key solution. ...........

Algae’s protein content, for example, is higher than conventional sources such as meat, poultry and dairy products; and it can be cultivated without freshwater or arable land.

........... Pay rates were once an opaque internal mystery at offices and the subject of much speculation, gossip and resentment. But as the push for equity at work gains momentum, pay transparency will begin to go mainstream ...........

the current impetus for pay transparency stems from growing momentum around addressing gender and racial pay inequities

........... “Organizations have an advantage in being ahead of legislation and demonstrating to employees they're about equity and inclusion.” ........... More retailers will embrace virtual and augmented reality in 2022, allowing customers to interact with products in environments that go far beyond digital replications of a store. ......... “The metaverse may do more to change retail than anything since the physical store” ........... “It's not about creating virtual interpretations of the store. It's about uncoupling retail from the store and reimagining it entirely.” .......... Last year, some 75% of companies said that they were reshoring operations to their home bases or to neighboring countries .......... more companies will start building “smart factories,” with an emphasis on automation, cloud platforms and other technologies .......... In 2021 — in the wake of the 2020 murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — companies promised to take diverse hiring seriously. .......... Some 96% of U.S. companies report the gender representation of their employees at all levels, and 90% report representation at senior levels, according to LeanIn and McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace report. But only 54% of companies track gender and race/ethnicity — i.e. Black or Latina women in senior leadership. This renders women of color “invisible” ............ The rise of the “hybrid workday” — in which we work from home and the office — means we’re not all commuting at the same time anymore. ............. Flexible work is now a fact of life: 93% of knowledge workers globally want the freedom to decide where and when they do their job. ......... Perhaps we should discard the commute as we know it altogether? "To improve quality of life, we need to become less dependent on mobility and more committed to local proximity." Making work — even in an office — just a walk or short bike ride away may be in store for more of us. .......... Just 2.2% of venture capital funding went to female-founded companies in the first eight months of 2021 ......... Black entrepreneurs only received a small fraction — just over 1% — of U.S. venture capital funding. .......... a paradigm shift in funding, as “technologies that democratize wealth-building opportunities and fix our broken distribution system of capital become the default option.” .......... More VCs may turn to AI to identify promising startups, placing an emphasis on business fundamentals over founder demographics ......... We may soon see the rise of “self-sufficient hotel guests” ........ where guests are in charge of making their beds, washing their cutlery and more — perhaps in exchange for hotel vouchers or discounts. ........... “America’s teacher shortage will outlast the pandemic” ............ Black families in particular are showing the greatest interest in homeschooling ......... when students were driven into various forms of homeschooling during pandemic lockdowns, learning rates actually increased. ......... Lucrative television deals have translated into seismic pay increases for top athletes. And social media has offered athletes a direct line to fans. ............. NBA players put the Black Lives Matter movement in the spotlight in 2020 at the Orlando basketball bubble. Euro 2020 soccer players effectively banished soft drinks from news conferences at the championship. .......... The electric car has become a green badge of honor, driving Tesla’s market value above a trillion dollars. But for some of us, electrifying our home would reduce our greenhouse gases even more than electrifying our cars .......... Electrifying a home would immediately reduce its emissions by 45% and by 82% over time, as electricity grids get cleaner. .......... In the 1950s, U.S. homes switched en masse from being powered by coal and wood to natural gas. .......... Many of the world’s billionaires — who saw a $5 trillion dollar increase in wealth this year — are shielding their wealth from taxes by establishing residency abroad. ..........

You may like it, you may hate it, but our work culture still places high value on those who want to #CrushIt.

.......... We’ll drive on plastic roads ............. One of the world’s biggest environmental thorns — plastic — may help roads weather the coming storms. ........ “Plastic roads can store around 300 liters of water per square meter, a multiple of most asphalt roads.” ......... Plastic roads last longer, are easier to repair and are, unlike asphalt, easy to recycle. It would also put the world’s surplus of plastics to good use ........... “I believe plastic roads, if created at scale, will offer an opportunity to absorb hundreds of thousands of tons [of plastic], almost overnight.” ........... Hong Kong has long been the crown jewel of finance and technology in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly for international companies looking to expand into high-growth markets like China and India. Singapore held a similar role for firms with an interest in southeast Asia. ............ In 2010, there were 6.1 multinational firms for every Chinese company in Hong Kong. That ratio narrowed to 3.1 in 2020 ............ don’t expect a major drop in home values. Long after the price of most other assets comes back down to earth, home prices will be way above pre-pandemic levels. The world just doesn't have enough houses, or enough home-building capacity. .............. In 2021, home prices rose by more than 40% year-over-year in cities like Austin, Texas and Boise, Idaho .......... A family moving from California to Idaho suddenly feels richer, regardless of whether their new home costs $550,000 or $400,000. But that price jump makes the rest of Idaho feel poorer. And not everyone buying one home is putting another up for sale. The trend that initially set off the pandemic housing boom, relocation, is being overtaken by an increase in second-home demand, now 50% to 100% above pre-pandemic levels. .......... NFTs — digital tokens that represent ownership of assets and can be traded on blockchain exchanges — are set to infiltrate many more areas of our lives and shake up our understanding of ownership. .......... Decentralized mortgage lender Bacon Protocol recently issued its first seven mortgages as NFTs, collectively worth $1.5 million, offering investors and borrowers a new entry into the housing market. ......... In 2022, Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) will become a formidable challenger — even a replacement — to credit cards among consumers. ........ “Investors will increasingly be able to construct comparable metrics on carbon footprints, throughout the entire value chain and across a whole portfolio.” ............. In a post-pandemic world, employees will be moved more by meaning. Right now, many organizations aren’t keeping up, as they continue to focus on short-sighted, bottom-line outcomes at the expense of human connection. This has led to a rising tide of “organizational cynicism” — employees’ sense that their workplace is competitive, individualistic and greedy. Cynicism does pervasive damage to the workplace, stifling collaboration, dissolving cohesive cultures and killing creativity and drive.




Google’s top 2021 searches revealed 1. Australia vs. India 2. India vs. England 3. IPL 4. NBA 5. Euro 2021 6. Copa América 7. India vs New Zealand 8. T20 World Cup 9. Squid Game 10. DMX

Wednesday, December 08, 2021

The US Is Making A Major Mistake In Afghanistan

The US going in as a response to the 9/11 attacks that were orchestrated by the Al Qaeda who were hosted by the Taliban who ruled Afghanistan can make some sense, although it must be noted the Taliban kept asking for "proof." The US did have proof. The Al Qaeda did not keep the Taliban in confidence before the 9/11 attacks. They maintained utmost secrecy for understandable logistical reasons. The word might have leaked out. The operation might have failed.

The Taliban said, give us proof Bin Laden did it, and we will hand him over to you. The US refused. That was hubris. That was arrogance. That was not the democratic spirit. That was the attitude of an empire. The US could have privately provided proof while keeping the military option open all along.

At one point Condi Rice said, "Iraq is not Iran." The Taliban and the Al Qaeda are two separate organizations.

Afghanistan was a country like Nepal before the two superpowers took turns going in. Expats (the term for white immigrants) would write glowingly about the wonderful hospitality of the Afghan people, like they still say about the people in Nepal.

The right response would have been for the US to give the proof it had, privately, and then ask the Taliban to deliver. The Taliban did have the option to deliver Bin Laden at that point. They knew exactly where he was. They controlled the territory all around Bin Laden. They controlled the ground on which Bin Laden stood.

But the US figured, why waste a chance to make a movie out of the situation? Zero Dark Thirty.



After the US did go in, not long after the Taliban offered to surrender. The US refused the offer. That is mystifying to me. A puny military power under massive attack by an uncomparably larger military power offered to surrender. Why not take that surrender?

The corruption money from the military misadventure in Afghanistan is buying houses all across the US right now to park the money. That is why. The trillions wasted in Afghanistan could have paid to solve every "intractable" social problem America has. It could have ended homelessness. It could have rebuilt every public school. It could have rebuilt the country's infrastructure. But instead an average person can't even buy a house in America today.

And the corrupt Afghans who ran the puppet regime for the US took their money to Dubai. Cashloads of helicopters would land in Kabul and then, an hour later, fly off to Dubai.

The US did not stay a long time to win the war in Afghanistan. It won the war within weeks of going in.

I see no serious efforts of democracy building in Afghanistan. Plenty of outrageously expensive efforts yes, but no serious efforts. You can not build democracy in a country where you will not listen to the local population.

Finally the US gave up. It threw its hands in the air and walked out. Fine. Sometimes you cut your losses and move.

Except now the strategy seems to be to starve the population into revolting against the Taliban. Give me a break. You want starving Afghans to do what well-fed, well-trained, well-armed, well-financed Americans were not able to do?

The US needs to release Afghan funds that can feed the hungry Afghans. Maybe some sort of a deal can be cut that will allow for funds to be released for specified humanitarian purposes.

America did not go into Afghanistan to build democracy. It went in to get Bin Laden who it could have had by engaging the Taliban in dialogue. And offering the proof that it had that the Taliban asked for.

And it stayed long after Bin Laden was killed.

Several trillion dollars later, hundreds of thousands of lives later, when you have nothing to show for it, it is a shame.

It would have been better for the US to stay one more year, or two more years than to do what it is doing now. This economic strangulation is punishing a people who did not put the Taliban into power. The US did. This is wrong.



Facing Economic Collapse, Afghanistan Is Gripped by Starvation An estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the country’s population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening food insecurity this winter. Many are already on the brink of catastrophe. ....... Nearly four months since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan is on the brink of a mass starvation that aid groups say threatens to kill a million children this winter — a toll that would dwarf the total number of Afghan civilians estimated to have been killed as a direct result of the war over the past 20 years. .......... While Afghanistan has suffered from malnutrition for decades, the country’s hunger crisis has drastically worsened in recent months. This winter, an estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to an analysis by the United Nations World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. Of those, 8.7 million people are nearing famine — the worst stage of a food crisis. ......... Such widespread hunger is the most devastating sign of the economic crash that has crippled Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power.

Practically overnight, billions of dollars in foreign aid that propped up the previous Western-backed government vanished and U.S. sanctions on the Taliban isolated the country from the global financial system, paralyzing Afghan banks and impeding relief work by humanitarian organizations.

....... Across the country, millions of Afghans — from day laborers to doctors and teachers — have gone months without steady or any incomes. The prices of food and other basic goods have soared beyond the reach of many families. Emaciated children and anemic mothers have flooded into the malnutrition wards of hospitals, many of those facilities bereft of medical supplies that donor aid once provided. ...... Now, as freezing winter weather sets in, with humanitarian organizations warning that

a million children could die, the crisis is potentially damning to both the new Taliban government and to the United States, which is facing mounting pressure to ease the economic restrictions that are worsening the crisis.