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We Humans Took Nature 2.1 Billion Years to Create
By Shlomo Maital
2.1-Billion-Year-Old Fossil: Evidence of Earliest Moving Life-Form
A New York Times report, summarizing a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes a 2.1 billion year old fossil, that could be evidence of the earliest living thing that actually moved. According to this account:
About 2.1 billion years ago, a blob-like creature inched along on an early Earth. As the organism moved, it carved out tunnels, which may be the earliest evidence of a moving critter on the planet. Until this discovery, the earliest evidence of motility — that is, an organism’s ability to move independently using its own metabolic energy — dated to about 570 million years ago, according to fossils from different locations. That’s a good 1.5 billion years younger than the new finding.
Here is why I find this so amazing. We humans have been on this earth, more or less as we are now, for only about 50,000 years. But that blink of an eye was preceded by 2.1 billion years of evolution, starting with ‘blob like creatures inching along” and evolving, through natural selection, patiently, inexorably, into what we are today. From one cell, to multi-cell, to fish, to mammals, to us…. With infinite step by step patience.
Many religious people take issue with this view of Creation. I find that it strengthens belief in a Divine Creator, rather than weakens it. What an incredibly brilliant, patient, focused system, evolution, able to generate divinely-inspired human beings and patiently take its time doing so, for 2 billion years.
I wonder whether this system of evolution, constantly improving species and races, has come to an end for humans. Are we improving, evolutionarily, or are we degrading?
Global Slowdown – Beware!
By Shlomo Maital
I regularly participate in an economic survey run by a Munich-based research institute, that tracks how the world economy is doing. The latest results are not good.
The heat map shown above indicates whether economies are booming green or slowing yellow, orange, light red, dark red.
You can see at a glance looking at the ‘heat map’, that the US, Europe and emerging and developing economies in Asia are all slowing. Basically the whole world is slowing down, economically.
Why? The US is cooling, as businesses choose not to invest the tax windfall given by the Trump Administration but rather to buy back their shares. China is cooling, owing to the trade war with the US. Europe is cooling, owing to deep uncertainties about Britain, Italy, Hungary and other nations, and a growing spat between France and Italy.
In short – look for a global slowdown, that feeds on itself — US demand slows, hurts China, which hurts the Asian economic ecosystem..which in turns slows….
A good time to set aside some savings, for rainy days ahead.
Our Two Brains – The REAL Deal!
By Shlomo Maital
On the latest Hidden Brain podcast, by Shankar Vedanta, the guest is a psychiatrist and brain researcher, Iain McGilchrist. He speaks about his new book The Master and his Emissary. I plan to read it very soon.
There is enormous misleading hype about the left and right brains. Much of it is wrong. McGilchrist’s book is the real deal, and helps us understand our world. The title comes from out an old folk tale. A “master” sends out an emissary to the countryside to gather information. The emissary gathers vast information, and tries to become the master, based on the knowledge he collected. But he cannot. He fails. Because he has only facts, details (left brain/logic), and lacks big picture capability (right brain/holistic thinking).
Evolution helped humans survive. To kill and eat prey, we need right-brain big-picture thinking (the forest, trees, rocks, weather, etc.) and crucially need small-picture detailed left brain thinking (the deer is 20 yards to the left of the oak tree and is limping). Of course, most crucial of all is the connecting link between the right and left brain. Weird things happen, McGilchrist explains, when surgery has to sever the nerve path connecting the two brain hemispheres.
There is a serious message in the book, way beyond the research findings. McGilchrist argues that increasingly we live in a left-brain logic driven world, based on algorithms and small details. And on short run optimization. What’s best for now. I believe our political system is mainly driven by left brain messages. Note, especially, that the emotion ‘hatred’ and ‘anger’ are actually cross-brain, not solely right brain (where most emotions originate), Many political messages are now focused on hatred, left-brain hatred.
“Meaning comes out of having consistent pictures of the world,” McGilchrist told Vedanta, based on knowing our past, not just our own but that of the world, the past of others.” A more right-brain world will focus on the long run, on the big picture, and on our interaction with our planet and with Nature.
Now, how in the world do we achieve that? A start, at least, is being aware that there is a right/left brain problem in the world.
Generation Z – There Is Hope!
By Shlomo Maital
Generation Y is the generation of those born between 1981 and 1995. They are also known as Millenials. They have been slandered as selfish, egoistic, live-for-the-present, and worse. Today they are between 23 and 37.
Generation Z is the generation of those born 1996 and later. A New York Times column by Dan Levin, “Even young Republicans are drifting left on social issues”, Jan. 25/2019, reports on a Pew Research Center survey of American Gen Z, some 12,000 of them. Here are the main findings:
• Only 30% approved of Trump’s performance. This is well below the average (Trump is deeply underwater in his approval ratings).
• 70% said they wanted government to do more to solve the nation’s problems. [Levin says, those attitudes mirror those of Gen Y, which may mean that these two younger generations can powerfully combine to change the current bleak reality in the US].
• There are more than 68 million Americans who belong to GenZ. This is 22% of the American population. So more than one American in every five is GenZ. This makes this group politically decisive, in the long run.
• 2/3 of GenZ believe blacks are treated less fairly than whites in the US.
• GenZ believe government should play a more active role.
This is not good news for Republicans; GenZ is more progressive than older generations. But it is good news for those who seek a less conservative America.
T O O M U C H S T U F F !
By Shlomo Maital
From a recent article in The Guardian:
The average ten-year-old child has toys worth almost £7,000 but plays with just £330 worth of them, a study has shown. A typical child owns 238 toys in total but parents think they play with just 12 ‘favourites’ on a daily basis making up just five per cent of their toys. The study of 3,000 parents also revealed one in two parents admit ‘wasting hundreds of pounds’ on toys their children never play with. It also emerged more than half believe their children end up picking the same toys day in and day out because they have too many to choose from.
Do we buy too much ‘stuff’ for our kids? We do. But note – we also buy too much stuff for ourselves. How else can you explain the amazing popularity of Marie Kondo, her book, and Netflix series?
Kudos to Kondo, for helping us reduce clutter and clean up. Now, for a much tougher question — instead of buying stuff and throwing it out, how can we rewire our brains, defeat the consumer spend-and-borrow ethos and stop buying things that bring neither joy nor satisfaction?
Kondo’s principle: Does it bring joy? If not, throw it out.
Now, let’s take it one step further. BEFORE you buy it — will it REALLY make me happy, after the first 10 minutes? No? Forget it.
Is there a Marie Kondo out there, who can write the book on The Life Changing Magic of Not Consuming?
Distraction – Our Greatest Threat
By Shlomo Maital
It is easy to identify a lot of things that have gone wrong in the world. Britain is in a deadly stalemate, facing an urgent decision and with no majority for anything. Right wing governments threaten democracy in Venezuela, Poland, Hungary and even Italy. America is stuck in a stupid conflict between a stubborn President and stubborn Democrats. Israel goes to elections on April 9 that according to polls will change absolutely nothing.
But underlying all this is a little-noted problem. Distraction. Small children are easy to distract; parents do it all the time. Apparently world leaders are also easy to distract.
Trump obsesses over a wall, while America’s economy slows, and its infrastructure crumble. Israel faces threats on its borders, but its Prime Minister obsesses about his impending indictment for bribery. Europe struggles with migrants, and debt, but is totally distracted by Brexit and will be for months. China and the US grapple over Huawei and cell phone technology, while their trade war causes the entire world economy to slow.
The world has lost focus. The 30-second news cycle has led to massive myopia, neglecting longer term problems. Elections focus on personalities. Try to find a comprehensive well-designed political platform for any political party anywhere.
I think the distraction of non-news and personalities is a major threat – if it continues, we will never even begin to grapple with the real major problems the world faces.
So, let’s decide – Just because our leaders are distracted, and purposely try to distract all of us with pipsqueak inconsequential matters, we don’t have to play. Where possible, let’s find ways to refocus the political system on the things that really matter – saving, education, investment, schools, roads, corruption, equality, and overall creating a better world.
Make America Make the World Great Again.
5G: What It Means for You
By Shlomo Maital
Cell phone users are mainly uninterested in the technologies that drive their smartphones. Today’s technology is 4G (4th generation), and it began as LTE Long Term Evolution, which was the term used to describe how 3G (3rd generation technology) would evolve into 4th generation. When your cell phone shows 4G, mostly, it is not really using 4G yet. However, 5G is already on the way.
But what is 5G (5th Generation)? What will it do for us?
“We think that 5G will have an impact far beyond 3G,” said Ben Timmons, Senior Director, Business Development of Qualcomm Europe. “It’s not going to be about personal communication anymore. It’s much more of a transformational technology that will have a huge impact on an enormous range of industries.” Qualcomm of course is a major developer of 5G. But – is this all commercial hype?
Analysts at HIS Markit note, “Qualcomm is one of the main players in the development and deployment of the technology. …. the American semiconductor giant has already successfully completed pre-commercial 5G trials.” Recently US regulators turned down an attempt by Broadcom to acquire Qualcomm.
5G is really REALLY fast. How fast is 5G? “Samsung says it’s managed to achieve 7.5Gbps, while Nokia claims a more impressive 10Gbps. There’s also Huawei, which has managed 3.6Gbps.” In contrast: 4G at present runs between 5 and 12 Mbps (Megabits per second). So 5G may be up to a thousand times faster.
What will this speed mean? First – downloading / streaming will be really fast and easy, boosting this content immensely. Second, latency. Latency is the ‘lag’ between, say, requesting a search and getting the answer. It is now very short, several hundred milliseconds. But this is significant, especially when 5G is being used to transmit traffic information to self-driven vehicles. 5G will reduce latency lag to a few milliseconds. And that difference is huge!
The transition to autonomous vehicles will take years. Meanwhile, 5G can help cities significantly improve traffic management and traffic flow for self-driven vehicles. Once 5G is in place, machine learning and deep learning can use data from individual vehicles to alert drivers, first responders, redesign accident-prone road stretches, and in general make city driving safer and smoother. However, the lethal mixture of autonomous and self-driven cars during the transition to autonomy will need careful management.
You will need a new smartphone that enables you to use 5G. But don’t buy one just yet. 5G will be implemented during 2019 by AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and others. But you won’t benefit from the full lightning 5G speed until the American mobile carries upgrade all their key central switching equipment, perhaps late in 2019 or early 2020.
According to Don Clark, who writes the Personal Tech column in the New York Times,* most Americans have never heard of 5G and are unaware of what it does. This is absolutely fine. The best technology is the kind that, like sci fi writer Arthur Clark once said, seems like invisible magic.
Note that China is a major player in 5G. The Economist worries that carriers who buy 5G network technology from China’s Huawei may leave the network vulnerable to prying eyes (spying). This is just another instance of the growing technology war between the US and China.
• “What 5G will mean when it arrives this year’. NYT Wed. Jan 2, 2019.
Estonia: Government Services Online On-Demand!
By Shlomo Maital
Hey, has anybody noticed little Estonia lately? Time the world took notice.
As the whole world talks about the ‘digital revolution’ and ‘online government services’, Estonia has raced ahead and actually done it, quietly.
Now they are offering to share what they did with the world. “We have built a digital society”, Estonia says, “and so can you.”
What exactly have they done?
Well – 21 years ago, it began with e-governance; then paying taxes online in
2000; digital ID’s in 2001; voting online in 2005; public safety in 2007; blockchain in 2007; e-health in 2008; and e-Residency in 2014.
Basically – all the services you need from the Estonian government, you can get online. You can pay your annual taxes, or file your annual return, online, in 20 minutes. Now you can establish residency.
I visited Estonia some years ago, on a benchmarking trip with Israeli managers. I found the visit startling. It all began with the Soviet Union. Estonia once belonged to it. The Russians feared computer science, and so banished computer science to the fringes, to Estonia. Estonia now leverages that huge advantage. Some 15 years ago, a group of Estonians helped create Skype, along with a Swede.
Estonia offers to freely share what it knows and what it has done with the world. I wish my country Israel, called Startup Nation, would visit Estonia and learn seriously what they’ve done. Instead, my Prime Minister visits Brazil, praises the far right new President Bolsinaro, and plays soccer on the Copacabana
Beach.
Alas.
Colin O’Brady Crosses Antarctica Solo!
By Shlomo Maital
Colin O’Brady Near the Finish
33-year-old Colin O’Brady has just completed a 921-mile journey across Antarctica, solo, alone, unaided by wind, pulling a heavy sled with his tent and food. The New York Times calls it “one of the great feats in polar history”. No-one had done it before unaided.
A friend of O’Brady, Englishman Louis Rudd, 49, started out at the same time as O’Brady and is also close to the finish. In a gentlemanly act, O’Brady said he will wait for Rudd, then they will fly out together.
O’Brady survived 932 miles of bad weather, freezing temperatures, mishaps, jagged ice projections and loneliness, for 53 full days, without a day off.
In his final push, O’Brady completed the final 77.54 miles in one shot, sleepless, for 32 hours – an ultra-marathon tacked on to a regular day’s walk. O’Brady said, “I just felt locked in for the last 32 hours, like a deep flow state. I didn’t listen to any music – just locked in, like I’m going until I’m done. It was profound, it was beautiful…!”
What can we take away from this amazing feat? Rather than think about his suffering, O’Brady said “I was reviewing the entirety of the expedition in my mind, and I was aware I’m going to tell this story for the rest of my life, but I told myself, you’re living this right now – live it!”
We can learn from those two words – live it! I see so many people enjoying wonderful experiences, vistas, celebrations ..and focused on taking selfies. Surely photographing these experiences at least somewhat mars the ‘live it’ enjoy it experience. Let’s live it. Be in the moment, as the mindfulness people tell us. Never mind the selfies. Live it, so that you will be able to relive it, many many times, with sharp memories. Because, you will relive it, and if you really live it while you’re living it, those memories will serve you far better than any selfie.
Thanks, Colin! We get it.
Selective Silence: a User’s Guide
By Shlomo Maital
In the Jewish Talmud (Ethics of Our Fathers), Rabbi Shimon ben Shatach says, “I have lived all my days among the wise, and found nothing better than silence.”
Silence? Nothing better?
Rabbi ben Shatach spent his days in study with his colleagues. Talmud study involved dialogue, conversation, debate, argument.
Silence?
It has taken me many years to figure out what he meant. Here is what I think.
Selective silence. Speech, when it is warm, embracing, informative, loving, is of course vital. There is nothing better than such speech. The Talmud is built on it.
But words that are hateful, hurtful, wounding, insulting, humiliating? Such speech is better transformed into silence.
But how?
Here is my modest suggestion. I affirm that I have used this method and it works. I wish I had understood it years and years ago.
You are about to say angry hurtful words. Your brain has formulated them. They exist, those words, they live, they burn in your frontal cortex.
Stop. Listen to yourself SILENTLY say them. Then stop. Don’t say them out loud. Only to yourself.
I can think of many occasions, when, had I used selective silence, my life and those around me would have been a whole lot better.
I’ll bet you can too, dear reader.
Is this what Rabbi Shimon ben Shatach meant, when he said he found nothing better than silence? Selective silence? Silencing hurtful words?
TIMnovate 