Complexity is something with which we have a love-hate relationship. We love the challenges complex problems bring. And equally, due to their inherit ambiguity, we hate them. Complex problems, unlike those which are complicated, must be managed and mitigated rather than fully resolved. The real world is complex. It is full of inputs and outputs which we don't fully understand. Take the story of a farmer that wanted to get in better sync with our environment. By its very definition, farming was one of our first and most...

#iran #trump #2020election The chaos that often surrounds our current American administration has made itself evident several times, but none more so than the current diplomatic booby trap the Iranians have laid before the US and Europe. After the UK government, under direction of the US government, stopped and seized the Grace 1 cargo ship off the coast of Gibraltar in early July, tensions between Iran and the UK have raised to a boil after Iran returned the favor by seizing 2 of its oil tankers on Friday....

#subconsciousmind #biasindata #studies #baitingheadlines And so are people with a Mercedes Benz... It's true, recently I was learning about how easy it is for us to fall prey to catchy headlines. Headlines that tell us what we want to hear, or that strengthen our points of view... hence the cheeky post if you are a dog-owner 🙂 You have all read the headlines to which I'm referring. "Drinking xyz is good for your heart", "Chocolate helps you lose abc", "People with 123 are happier", etc, etc. At a...

Recently I have been listening to the latest season of Embedded. Embedded is a podcast series that initially began by digging deep on a single news story. It has since evolved into following a subject closely and doing an entire season based on that. For example, prior to this season, they did an entire season on Trump Stories. Most recently, the season was based on Mitch McConnell. There were five episodes and in each one they told one aspect of McConnell that when done left me angered. For...

#era #politics #wartactics The Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA, was first introduced close to 100 years ago, in 1923. As the name states, its goal is to provide equal rights for everyone and therefore eliminate any "legal" distinction between a man and a woman. At present, there are such legal distinctions in issues such as divorce, property and marriage. In a recent episode of This Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed the Amendment and the struggle it has been to ratify it. I am all for equal rights, the...

#fda #drugs #elderly One of the most important jobs our various Federal agencies provide is public safety. For example, the EPA is charged with making sure we have clean air and drinking water. The FAA with providing safe air travel. And the FDA is charged with providing Americans with safe food and drugs. When a new drug is created (not a generic), it goes through a lengthy approval process at the FDA. There are many phases to bring a new drug to market, from the initial viability of...

#vaccines #malaria For most folks in the US, Malaria is something they hear about in the news, the global news segment. In a country of over 300 million people, Americans are seldom affected by the parasite (1700 cases annually). Unlike other illnesses we've become accustomed to hearing about, malaria is a parasite that, after transmission, matures and reproduces in the liver. Once matured, the parasite moves into the blood stream, where it finds a home in our red blood cells. So far, the only way to deal with...

#npd #trump #2020Election In our series of NPD symptoms expressed by Trump, we've reached one that I had not seen to this extent yet. In the past, at rallies, interviews, or speeches, he'd shown it with "little" nicknames he uses for people. Remember sleepy..., low-energy..., crooked..., shady..., and on and on. They are actually funny, even if he uses them to belittle people. Only, these attacks are Trump while in public, and he knows it. He knows he has to be likeable, even funny. What we end up...

#libra #stablecoin #potentialforcatastrophe #potentialforgood Yesterday, an association of 28 companies, most notably Facebook, Mastercard, Visa, Uber, Lyft, eBay, Vodafone, Coinbase, and Kiva, released a whitepaper for a new cryptocurrency called Libra (oddly enough, that translates to pound in Spanish). The goal of this cryptocurrency, according to the whitepaper, is to facilitate payments between the billions of people that are unbanked in the world. While banking is not a new concept for most people in developed countries, in the rest of the world, it can be either too expensive...

#evangelicals #trump #2020Election I've written a few articles here on religion, one about its possible genesis and another on the power it has over our decisions and choices. Today I was listening to a new episode from Throughline (below) where their focus was on the birth of what we have come to know as religious evangelicals in the US. To be fair, the word refers to anyone that preaches and follows a Christian faith (there are various denominations), and seeks to convert others in the process. Which means...