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Musings Report #29 7-19-14 Evolution Is Not Directed, but Solutions Are
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Evolution Is Not Directed, but Solutions Are
Correspondent Lew G. occasionally reminds me that "evolution is not directed," meaning it is largely the interplay of random variations and the real world: variations (mutations, genetic drift and migration) that provide advantages are selected and those that are disadvantageous are weeded out of the gene pool.
Human progress has certain aspects of natural selection: nobody could predict the series of innovations and discoveries that enabled the development of spectacles/eye glasses, nor the incredibly rapid spread of this boon (eye-wear made its way to distant China not long after it became available in Europe).
From a distance, the activity of humans seeking insights, innovations and discoveries is certainly semi-random; to take but one famous example, it was only the messiness of his lab and a trip that took him out of the lab for a time that enabled Fleming to "discover" penicillin.
Solutions, on the other hand, are directed: here is the problem/obstacle, how do we solve this/get past the obstacle?
The process is challenging on a number of fronts: as I've noted before in various books, how we define the problem defines the "solution:" if we define the problem in the "right way," the "solution" falls on someone else and leaves us free to continue what we're doing without having to leave our comfort zone or give anything up.
The challenges of properly defining the problem is scale invariant, meaning it works the same for individuals, households, neighborhoods, towns, cities, organizations, enterprises, nations and empires.
For example, in a marriage, one often hears the problem defined as "he/she doesn't listen to me," rather than "we don't listen to each other in a way that fosters communication, understanding, empathy and fair negotiation as equals."
In a larger example, if we define the problem as "we need more energy," we get "solutions" that depend on harvesting more energy regardless of cost, as opposed to defining the problem as "we're wasting 50% of our energy," which would direct the search for conservation technologies and behaviors.
As I noted on the blog, real solutions have two parts: changes in values and operational changes in habits and processes. A genius insight/discovery doesn't become a solution until the values systems of the participants allow for it to become operational, and the processes that make it a reality are designed, tested, manufactured, installed and adapted to the situation at hand.
Time and again an innovation languishes in obscurity (or scarcity) until an operational genius comes along who can blend ideas, resources, technologies and organizational structures into a working model that provides overwhelming advantages in the real world.
The pathway to real solutions goes through both values and processes/habits. Many people who want to lose weight, for example, find that the solution that actually leads to results often begins with a new understanding of their relationship with their body, food and self-worth: if you value your body and yourself, you don't want to subject yourself to an American diet of processed "food" that cannot provide what our body needs to maintain and rebuild itself.
Valuing the feelings of strength, vitality and endurance that come from being fit is connected to self-worth and our conceptions of power, control, self-discipline and liberation.
If these values and conceptions change, what was functionally impossible before becomes possible, and the operational changes of eating well and becoming fit become accessible. Once these processes become habits, the desired results start coming in.
Solutions arise from insight and a complex interactive process of values and operational steps that are intrinsically risky (i.e. outside our comfort zone); there are no magic solutions that leave values and processes untouched.
Cultcha/Culture
Etta James & Chuck Berry (via Nina)
Tina Turner & Chuck Berry (via Nina)
Shamisen Vs. Tap Dancing (via Lew G.)
Bill Evans Trio - Waltz For Debby - live, March 1965
A "crazy bike guy" Moves by Bicycle (2010) (via Kevin K.)
"That crazy bike guy" is now Davis, Calif. Mayor Pro Tempore (via Kevin K.)
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Degrowth Solutions: Half-Farmer, Half-X 7/19/14
The Coming Crash Is Simply the Normalization of a Mispriced Market 7/18/14
Finding Shelter from the Storm Part 2 7/17/14
Why America's Healthcare (Sickcare) System Is Broken and Unfixable 7/16/14
Why We're Doomed: Interest and Debt 7/15/14
You Want a Solution? Try Not to Get Hurt When It Collapses, Then Start Over 7/14/14
A focus on solutions this week....
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
We made our first batch of 9 peach pies from the first harvest of our wonderful peach tree. The peaches are the biggest and sweetest we've ever harvested as a result of my obsessive (and painful) thinning of the fruit early on. This forced "un-natural selection" is painful to those who have nurtured their tree but absolutely necessary to protect the tree from being overloaded as the fruit ripen.
Market Musings: It's Difficult to Sell
I want to briefly discuss the great difficulty most of us have in selling/closing an investment position. From the outside, it looks straightforward to dump a losing position to avoid further losses or sell a winner and book a profit, but greed and magical thinking plague the potential seller every step of the way.
Those who are watching a position dip under water to a loss agonize over closing it and taking the loss because they remember other times when the stock recovered right after they sold out. Couldn't that happen again? If so, why sell for a loss, when it might pop back up in a day or two?
Those watching a position hit new highs are immersed in another type of magic: why sell now when the stock just keeps moving higher?
It's only easy to know when to sell in hindsight. And even when it's clearly the moment to sell, there are numerous emotional barriers to hitting the "sell" button.
One way around these emotional barriers is to set a good-til-cancel stop when you open a position, but market makers are masters at swooping in and clearing all visible stops. So in my view, stops should always be mental stops: when X hits Y, sell/buy. But having to hit the "sell" button even when you've planned the trade is not as easy as non-traders might imagine: we get wedded to a position and the hope that it will keep making us money or reverse from a loss to a gain.
This is where technical analysis helps, as it identifies levels of support and resistance that if broken signal a tradable trend, either continuation or reversal.
My instinct is the stock market is ripe for a decline over the next 3 weeks, and perhaps longer. Those going short (or buying puts) to profit from a decline will face two points where selling may make sense: if the market rallies rather than declines, or it plummets as expected. You might think selling for a profit would be easy, but in the moment it's difficult to tell if the market will continue down or stabilize.
The same agony awaits those with long positions as the market drops: sell now and limit the destruction of profits, or hope it's a minor dip?
Once again, we look to technical analysis to help us make good decisions: if key moving averages are broken and measures of volatility rise, the decline might have legs.
It's easier to exit a position and re-enter when clarity has been reached, rather than agonize and prevaricate while capital and/or profits are destroyed.
From Left Field
Stories You Won't Believe From Some Of The World's Dirtiest Jobs (via Michael H.)
"See if he changes your mind about what it means to be happy at work."
Mike Rowe -- Ted Talk by the "dirty jobs are good jobs" guy (via Michael H.)
World poverty, immigration & gumballs -- visualization of numbers and proportions (via Jay H.)
When You're Poor, Money Is Expensive: For tens of millions of Americans without a bank account, paying a bill isn't just an odyssey. It's a part-time job.
Happiness Revisited: Is the Magic Number a Household Income of $75,000?
Unmaking Global Capitalism - Nine things to know about organizing in the belly of the beast.
Nassim Taleb: Two Myths About Rivalry, Scarcity, Competition and Cooperation -- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, and not just because I reach much the same conclusion in my latest book....
Inequality Piketty Doesn’t Examine Is U.S. Human Capital -- excellent point, can't be repeated enough....
How Detroit went broke -- healthcare costs of public employees and generous pension payouts
How to Inspire Millions More People to Bike (via John D.) -- make it safer....
Parking: Searching for the Good Life in the City (4:38 min) (via John D.)-- questioning the need for two parking stalls per flat/person....
Mass organization in the age of the Internet (via Lew G.) DIY war....
Was Col. Strelkov’s Dispatch About a Downed “Ukrainian Plane” Authentic? -- you make the call....
Proverbs 15:16-17 (via Jeff W.)
"Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.
Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred."
Thanks for reading--
charles
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