The Awesome Science of Chinonomics

We can't predict the future. Chaos always reigns. The unpredictable compounding of events is inevitable, and we can always count on surprises occurring , which is why it pays to build our lives (and invest) with the certainty that something will inevitably go wrong. Accounting for the certitude that something you planned for will not go as planned should prod you to hedge yourself via diversification --or even better, redundancies. Of course, building redundancies takes resources. That insurance policy doesn't pay for itself. You sacrifice current income (and/or effort) to build that safety net in case SHTF.  And although it could very well be that you'll never use it, it's not stupid to build it. An example: Nature, in its infinite iteration game called evolution, gave us two kidneys. I am pretty sure it's not free (evolutionarily speaking) to carry an extra filter behind your belly just in case one clogs with crap you throw at your body. If evolution settles on an...

Tú y yo no somos mas que diminutas hormigas, peleando contra el desorden de nuestro alrededor, en medio de un universo que tiende al caos. Desde nuestro insignificante y unilateral punto de vista (el humano), siempre estamos tratando de minimizar sorpresas. Ese fue el cerebro que la evolución nos regaló.    Y cuando las sorpresas aparecen,   aprendemos , esperando aplicar lo aprendido en nuestra próxima interacción con nuestro entorno, con la esperanza de sobrevivir. Bueno, tal vez no seamos "nosotros" como tal, sino nuestros genes, porque nosotros en realidad solo somos el vehículo que nuestros genes usan para perpetuarse a la posteridad.  Si tan solo nuestra lucha contra el desorden fuera exenta de consecuencias. Cada vez que tratamos de reducir el desorden a nuestro alrededor (de reducir entropía), para reacomodar nuestro ambiente de tal manera que sea menos hostil para nosotros, en realidad estamos incrementando el desorden (la entropía) en el universo en general...

You and I, inhabitants of the Americas, should all speak Chinese (or a derivative of it) instead of a European language. We don't, of course, because it was the Europeans who "discovered" ( for the second time ) this continent in 1492 and sparked a rat race among European States to stake a territory in the "virgin" lands of the "New World". China had all in its favor to beat the Europeans in the early 15th century. They led the world then in technological innovation: cast iron was  first invented  in China; the compass  was invented there ; gun powder was  first concocted there . Not to mention printing; the umbrella, porcelain, the wheelbarrow, hot air balloons, and even seismographs to measure earthquakes. How can you be that advanced and not attempt to conquer other lands to extract their resources? Well, they did. And succeeded.  Decades before  Columbus "discovered" La Hispaniola, the Chinese had reached as far as East Africa. Befo...

There seems to be hysteria these days around AI and algorithm-based consumption. The algorithmic economy  threatens to bring to the realm of the tangible that totem of economic dogma called the "invisible hand." Computers are finally linking --through big data-- individuals' behavior with algorithms that sort them, allowing machines to predict reactions: the "invisible hand" materializes(!). Nothing like predicting human conduct to be able to make money. That damned watch I dared to search for 3 weeks ago in a moment of stupid leisure has haunted me everywhere I go on the internet. Please, stop it Google. I'm not buying it. The idea that we are just soft machines  is a fascinating one. It feeds the collective dread of an algorithmically-dominated Armageddon, making people fret about a time in the not-so-distant future when we will decide nothing for ourselves, and when everything will be dictated by an algorithm --surreptitiously creating the illusion of  ...