Weekly Edible 2.38
Weekly Edible 2.38
“People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
News and Numbers
Markets this Week:
S&P 500 is up 2.32%.
NASDAQ 100 is up 4.42%.
Bitcoin-USD is up 1.7%.
Ethereum-USD is down 2.25%
Headlines from this Week:
Microsoft is making a $10 billion investment over several years in OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT).
The Bank of Canada raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.5%. Inflation in Canada slowed to 6.3% in December.
The U.S. Department of Justice and 8 states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google seeking to breakup the company's online ad business.
Brazil and Argentina will start preparations for a common currency.
Finance
By Vlad
Time Is of the Essence
During this bear market, a lot of people learned that investing isn’t as easy as they thought.
While governments were printing tons of cash and propping up risk assets, virtually anything would give you a positive return over a 2+ year period. The FOMO truly kicked in, and many were heartbroken once their NFTs and high-risk tech stocks crumbled from all-time highs.
The average retail investors is down 50%+ over the past year, while the stock market is down about 10-15% ish at the time of writing. Just another reminder that stock picking is the sure way to end up in the poor house, while increasing your income long-term and buying the S&P every month is the road to the money mansion. But I digress.
Some folks think that (or are sold that) they can earn their lucky shot by buying the right stock, the right coin, and holding it no matter what. Some people have actually made crazy returns this way, but for the 99% majority, stock and crypto trading is only a distraction from what would actually make a difference: working smarter. It’s funny how many people are ok with losing $1,000 by “holding” a coin for a potential future pump, but when a course on coding or something that provides a high income costs $1,000 it’s “too expensive”.
I hate to categorize this new generation of traders as “losers” or “lazy”, but to be honest that’s what a lot of them sound like. In the world of crypto, amongst real coders and business people, those who only focus on “wen moon” (a term for "when will this coin go up…to the moon”) are often looked down upon, and rightfully so.
So next time you meet someone who works in the crypto industry, shift your focus to infrastructure rather than just pricing. If you find that you can’t hold a conversation in this topic, it may be because you’re just a speculator, and not a builder. Be a builder.
TLDR: Price is what the masses focus on; infrastructure is for the fortunate few.
This is not financial advice and you should always do your own research before investing in any securities or cryptocurrencies. The trading strategies mentioned above are only my opinion. I am not a public equities analyst, and you're following these tips at your own risk.
Sci-Tech
By Keyann
Lowes is using blockchain at its finest.
In recent weeks, companies like National Geographic and Porsche launched sales for NFT collections which faced significant backlash from customers.
Despite recent setbacks in the blockchain space, and how N.G. and Porsche could have executed their NFT launch better, it's important to recognize the potential of blockchain technology to address real-world issues beyond just sales of digital art and collectibles.
Why do I say this? Nassim Taleb is an economist/ author that, amongst many things, is known to hate crypto, and promote the idea of "Lindy Effect", which states that the future life expectancy of a technology or idea is proportional to its current age, so something that has been around for 50 years is likely to be around for another 50 years. Therefore, to predict future technologies, one should look at technologies that have been around for a long time, as they are likely to be more robust and enduring.
I think this can be applied to improve consumer brands blockchain strategies - so rather than trying to ‘sell NFTs’, it may make more sense to use non-fungible tokens or blockchain to improve products that have already been selling.
One example I see this in is Project Unlock, an initiative from Lowe's innovation lab that uses blockchain in an innovative way to combat power tool theft. This use case demonstrates how blockchain technology can be applied in a practical and customer-friendly way (without having to use the term crypto, NFT, or blockchain), and how it can help retailers create a better shopping experience for customers.
Project Unlock is an early-stage system developed by Lowe's to address the theft of power tools. Often thieves will try to resell stolen goods to individuals and secondary marketplaces.
At the heart of this project is the ability to activate a powered product after it has been legitimately purchased — rendering a stolen tool inoperable and virtually worthless, thereby reducing the incentive to steal.
To make this work, an RFID (Radio Frequency Identity) chip is embedded into a powered product during the manufacturing process. The tag is preloaded with that item’s unique serial number – which is also embedded in the box’s barcode – and the product is set to inoperable.
At the store, during the time of purchase, a product’s barcode gets scanned, as usual. An RFID scanner reads all tags in range, finds the tool with the correct serial number, and writes a unique secret key value that activates the tool for use.
The system incorporates blockchain to create a secure, verifiable, publicly accessible record of authentic product purchases. Once a customer buys a product, that transaction is recorded to the blockchain.
This record, which contains no personal information, can be used by retailers, manufacturers and law enforcement to validate authentic purchases — and to reduce the economic incentives to engage in retail theft at all.
Paradigm Shift
Trump Reinstated by Meta
By Roman Kuittinen-Dhaoui, BBA (Hons.), CPHR Candidate
This week, Meta reinstated Donald Trump on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. This comes after a 2-year suspension for violating the platform’s rules. Trump’s accounts will be reinstated “in the coming weeks” with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”
Background
Trump was suspended over incendiary posts about the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
Impact
The uplifting of the suspension comes as the former president gets ready to make another presidential bid.
Opinion
This situation brings about the classic debate on free speech and the role of social media platforms such as:
To what extent are companies like Twitter and Meta responsible for policing speech on their social media platforms?
To what extend do these organizations promote, via their algorithms, right-leaning or left-leaning content and rhetoric?
Conversely, to what extent do these platforms decide what is and isn’t censored (i.e., shadow banned)?
The above questions exposes the influential and polarizing nature that social media companies have on the general population. Although one may not agree with Trump’s rhetoric, the man should be able to express himself under the First Amendment (as long as he’s not breaking the law).
Sun Tzu (author of “The Art of War”) is credited with the phrase “keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.” However, cancel culture has glorified muting the voice of opposing opinions, which if you ask me is a sign of a lack of maturity and intellect. A wise person will understand that there’s a balance to everything, a ying and a yang, a hot and a cold, a right and a left, etc. Those differences stimulate innovation and make our world a beautifully diverse place. Being able to balance two opposing ideas in one’s head is a sign of higher levels of intellectual capacity (i.e., the ability to see situations from multiple perspectives). Society is losing this sense of awareness as people zoom in on people and ideas that support their beliefs, while discarding people and thoughts that go against their thinking. It’s a kind of blindness where you see the world, not for what it is, but how you are…
(Head)Space
Image Credits: Tyler Lauletta (Business Insider, 2021)
By Roman
Stars Aren’t also Role Models
Cancel culture and social justice has created illogical reactions.
Disclaimer: the objective of this piece isn't to justify bad acts but rather to point out that you can learn from the successes and failures of stars to better yourself.
Let’s take former UFC featherweight and lightweight champ champ Connor McGregor as an example.
Before a fight, McGregor said things about his opponent Khabib Nurmagomedov’s religion and family which crossed the line. Now, this is no way to behave. However, the only reason, we know about McGregor is because of what he’s accomplished in the UFC! He’s a professional fighter; that’s a crazy profession where you take blows to the head for a living. Are you surprised he has violent tendencies? What do you expect?
McGregor elevated the sport of MMA to the mainstream. He’s done a lot of good for charities. I don’t judge or cast off someone when they are at their lowest, especially if I don’t know them personally like McGregor. So rather than cancel or consider him a villain, I try to learn from the positives that McGregor brings to the table such as his work ethic, his mindset, and how he went from welfare checks to being worth over $100B.
The thing that most people in society struggle to do - especially now that social media has polarized sides and promoted cancel culture - is compartmentalize things. I can acknowledge McGregor’s faults, he’s human and makes mistakes like I do, but I can also learn from his success.
The same logic applies to rappers. Often, they come from the gangs in the hood and rap about drugs, sex, and money. So when they get in trouble with the law, it shouldn’t be surprising. These rappers have become famous because of their music, not their character. They aren’t role models; you can admire the positives.
TLDR: Rappers, athletes, etc. are not role models; compartmentalize and appreciate their good!
Company of the Week
Terramera is a private AgTech company based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. The company has received over $97.7M to date according to their Crunchbase profile.
Terramerra is a leader in plant intelligence using green chemistry, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to develop and optimize safer, more effective plant-based replacements to synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Problems like soil degradation present significant challenge for long term sustainability of agriculture, and their mission is to use technology to unlock the power in nature, so they can live healthier, make clean food affordable and feed the world. Terramera is committed to cultivating safe, healthy homes and environments, and developing highly-effective natural products for consumers and farmers.