Business & Money

There’s this classic idea from behavioral psychology about our ability to make predictions (popularized by Philip Tetlock and Daniel Kahneman I believe). It’s the basic idea that more information increases our confidence about a prediction, without a concomitant increase in the accuracy of those predictions.

Take an example: there’s a woman called Monica. She studied English literature at Columbia University. She also wears glasses and greatly enjoys Dickens novels.

Is Monica more likely to a nurse or a librarian?

Any reasonable person might say all the signals point to her being a librarian. However, there are about 1,000 nurses to every librarian. So it’s far more likely that she’s a nurse.

This idea seems incredibly relevant to investing. The more you learn about a given company, the more you think you know and understand it. Biotech takes this to the extreme. It’s easy to get excited about partnerships and early success with clinical trials. But I always have to remind myself, I don’t really understand anything about the underlying technology, the regulatory environment, or much else for that matter.

Buffet would remind me to stay within my circle of competence.

Human Progress

A couple weeks ago, I wrote that “free speech is merely a means to other more important ends… To protect free speech for its own sake is to not understand what is intended to bring about.”

Since I wrote that, I’ve been thinking about what else might fall victim to the same phenomena. It appears convenience might be in the crosshairs.

Convenience is often a great thing.

Airplanes are convenient. I can jump on a six-hour flight to California for a conference, and also get a lot done during the flight. That’s far more convenient and productive than driving cross-country for a week, or riding by horseback.

Washing machines are convenient. I toss a bunch of clothes into a machine with a little detergent and voila, clean clothes 45 minutes later. It’s wonderful!

Convenience even beats out free on occasion. There are ton’s of ways to pirate music for free on the internet. But I can pay $9.99 per month for unlimited streams & downloads on as many devices as I own. It’s just so easy that it’s not worth the trouble downloading pirated files from sketchy websites (not to mention the legality).

But convenience isn’t always a good thing.

The fact that you can trade stocks for free from a smartphone is not a good thing. It encourages terrible investor behavior and psychological tendencies. It’s really hard to take a long-term perspective when you get push notifications about every minor fluctuation.

Fast food sure is convenient, but it’s terrible for you. Convenience shouldn’t out way the damage people do to their bodies from all of the added sugars, salts, and other less than desirable ingredients.

Returning back to the idea of free speech for it’s own sake, convenience for it’s own sake is equally detestable. And it seems so many innovators and technologists have this strange obsession with convenience as if it, in and of itself, should be the ultimate objective in every arena of existence.

In my opinion, convenience is often too focused on outcomes and not enough on the journey. You can drive 26 miles or you can run a marathon. One is more convenient and you end up in the same place with either option, but the two methods are worlds apart.

In fact, it appears to me that those areas of life that require the most patience and concerted effort are those where we find real meaning and fulfillment.

Philosophy

On the one hand, there are billions of people on the planet that practice a religion in some form or another.

On the other hand, you have science which lies at the center of our advancement as a species.

Does not the fact that these concepts exist simultaneously and at incredible scale say something about their relationship with one another. Perhaps these two are not as diametrically opposed as some would have you believe.

But there does appear to be a fundamental conflict. That is, in science, there is this “thoroughly conscious ignorance,” a closeness with uncertainty that must be maintained in order to fuel more hypotheses and experimentation. And that seems incompatible with the unconditional faith that is required in religion.

Thoughts?

My Latest Discovery

My job requires a fair bit of travel, but I hate missing days in the gym. I also don’t like packing a bunch of extra gym clothes and shoes because checking baggage is the worst. As such, I’ve been searching for quick HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workouts I can do in my hotel room when I wake up. This one is great and is sure to give you a good burn.

I recommend clicking the link (as opposed to just glancing at the picture below) and reading through the descriptions of each exercise because there is some added complexity that makes for a tougher circuit (e.g. the decline push-up has two parts, a regular decline push up and pike push-up).