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Thoughts on advertising

Getting a deep level of empathy from another fellow human being is one of the most yearned desires of every person.

A message in recognition of a person’s  actualized self is more powerful than one centered around what you are trying to sell.

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Key takeaways from the meaning of vanlife

The Van Life idea seems like an ember that will eventually grow to become like what manifested as the Hippies movement of the 60s, the Burning Man festival and before that the Scouts movement.
One recurring theme observed between Van Life and Burning Man is the notion of “Coming Home”, where man steps away from the artificial construct he spent generations building up to finally return to nature.
Humans in the aggregate do behave somewhat like a self adjusting thermostat forever oscillating between extremes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8dN4jP3OZQ

Related readings:

  • Future Shock, Alvin Toffler
  • Different, Youngme Moon
  • I Ching, the book of changes
  • Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari
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Future concerns

One of the primary fear of the future an average man has stems from the “abstract idea” of how physical discomfort would feel like during old age just prior to the point of death and how terrible it might be.
 
This primary fear is the main driver behind the average man’s continued effort to accumulate resources of various forms. It is done with hopes to alleviate that “discomfort” when it does eventually come.
 
The problem with that mode of thinking is the future is unknowable and man ends up wasting his precious limited life span over provisioning, not to mention it’s overall negative impact on the environment.
 
An alternate approach as practiced in various ascetic traditions is to steadily build the ability to keep equanimity at various thresholds of discomfort through daily practice. This curtails over-provisioning , frees up precious time to do more meaningful stuff and is generally good for the environment.
 
Related references:
– Diogenes
– Seneca
– Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
– Vipassana mediation
– TaoDeChing, Lao Tze
– The Tiger’s Cave, Trevor Leggett
– Zen mind, Beginner’s mind, Shinryu Suzuki
– The book of five rings, Musashi
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Different by Youngme Moon

Key takeaways

  • Removing an authoritative metric to measure performance invites fresh reinterpretation and creative differentiation
  • Having an authoritative metric in place is the surest way to invite competition and conformity
  • “For the most part, we do not see before we define, we define before we see”  Public Opinion, Walter Lippman
  • In business product categories are very flexible. All it takes is a perceptual shift to transform the consumption behavior of the masses
  • “Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in new information society precisely because there is so much data”, John Naisbitt
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Key lessons learned from 2020 coronavirus sell offs – DONT TALK ABOUT TRADING

  • Key weakness of my profile Yang Wood Day Master profile
    • easily confused when provided with too much conflicting social signals
    • slow in decision making process
    • recommendations: avoid unnecessary conversations and stick to simple system that works
  • Do not enter into positions until SPY MACD bullish crossover occurs.
  • Practice “Let’s not talk about trading”
    • When people ask how you pay for your expenses, just reply money from parents.
    • When people send messages about trading related stuff just don’t reply
    • Too many inputs from unqualified personnels creates confusion in the mind leads to bad decision
    • Arguments is a time sink, creates a lot of unnecessary stress, drains will power, emotional and mental strengths. This leads to poor decision making when it matters
    • Wasting time explaining the obvious to people does not lead to me having more money in my pocket whereas giving people wrong info leads to bad relationships later on.
    • Set positions and forget
    • Do not waste time debating about news on social networks. It leads to hurt feels amongst friends and relatives.
    • No point reading news as bulk of the macro signals are already reflected in the prices of index by SPY. It does not generate profit.
    • Don’t attempt to derive satisfaction and self-worth from trading profits. If you feel good now you will probably feel like shit later when profits start diving
    • Do not talk about profits made during trades, makes others who did not make that money feel bad about themselves.
    • Do not talk about losses made during trades, provides others the opportunity to make you feel even worse with their useless feedbacks.

Related references

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Thoughts on intuition and logic

The limbic and reptilian parts of the human brain have had more time to evolve. Compared to these two parts, the frontal lobe of the human brain where logic resides is a more recent phenomena. Ironically, the logical functions carried out by this part of the brain, which makes man distinct from other animals, are the ones most easily replicated by machines.

The entire human body, not just the deliberate thinking portion of it, should be considered to be a neural network. Using only the thinking portion of the human body for decision making purposes is sub-optimal. This is especially true for a human that has actively engaged in calibrating his body for a specific purpose. Prime examples are deliberate cultivation and heavy reliance on muscle memory by professional athletics, chefs, actors, music composers and detectives.

Intuitive gut feel can be considered muscle memory cultivated over time for specific functions yet expressed as formalized equations. To free up time, individuals can actively convert what they “intuitively know” into formalized equations and have the corresponding functions delegated to machines. Thereafter they could either further compound the effects of this process by building up muscle memories in other domains or sit by the beach and do nothing.

Humans will always have a role available to play in the future regardless of society’s degree of automation.

Related readings

 

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Chat with Quynh on trading

News sources utilized

  • Zacks
  • Motley Fools

Buy rumors and sell on news

  • rumors are not official news but signals that a news might be coming soon
  • continuous upwards movement of share price for few days means news might be announced soon
  • once news is out share price will adjust based on actual numbers

Buy on over reaction to bad news and sell on recovery

  • There is usually overreaction
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The dichotomy between privacy and health

1984: Big Brother is Watching
Across multiple literature, its been stated privacy versus health will be one of the primary dichotomy societies around the world will need to juggle with as technological advances are made in the fields of artificial intelligence, communications (surveillance) and medical science (genetic research).
 
What is surprising was the rate at which the Corona pandemic catalyzed this change. In light of this, it is fascinating to observe how different societies position along the spectrum. Some societies has opted for surveillance to the maximum extend possible with current technology while others opted for its polar opposite going to the extend of staging mass protests against it use. 
 

Related readings:

  • The AI Economy, Roger Bootler
  • To Be a Machine, Mark O’Connell
  • Irrational Exuberance, Shiller, Robert J.
  • Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Max Tegmark
  • Mind Children The Future of Robot, Hans Moravec
  • The Singularity Is Near, Ray Kurzweil
  • 1984, George Orwell