Weekend Reading

Reading across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen. Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week. If you like this collection, consider forwarding it to someone who you think will appreciate it.

1. Antiscience is rising and needs to be curbed
Antiscience has emerged as a dominant and highly lethal force, and one that threatens global security, as much as do terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Antiscience is the rejection of mainstream scientific views and methods or their replacement with unproven or deliberately misleading theories, often for nefarious and political gains. It targets prominent scientists and attempts to discredit them.

Public refusal of COVID-19 vaccines now extends to India, Brazil, South Africa and many low- and middle-income countries. Thousands of deaths have so far resulted from antiscience, and this may only be the beginning as we are now seeing the impact on vaccine refusal across the U.S., Europe and the low- and middle-income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Containing antiscience will require work and an interdisciplinary approach. The stakes are high given the high death toll that is already accelerating from the one-two punch of SARS CoV2 and antiscience. Antiscience is now a large and formidable security issue.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-antiscience-movement-is-escalating-going-global-and-killing-thousands/


2. The Rise and Fall of the Missed Call
The missed call emerged in India as a critical means of communication for those who counted every rupee spent on recharge credit. But the practice soon spread, became trendy, and, even as call rates plunged in the 2000s to among the lowest in the world, evolved into a general tool of convenience: a missed call could mean “I miss you,” “Call me back,” or “I’m here.” The fact that the missed call demanded only basic numeric literacy made them accessible to the third of India’s population that was illiterate. In 2008, one study estimated that more than half of Indian phone users were in the habit of calling people with the expectation that they wouldn’t pick up.

The internet revolution has brought about vast benefits for India: digital connectivity defines nearly every aspect of Indian life, a trend that has only accelerated during the pandemic.
https://restofworld.org/2021/the-rise-and-fall-of-missed-calls-in-india/


3. Irrigation has been stopped in Taiwan to make semiconductors (apparently mankind can live without food but not without their cell phones!!)
Chip makers use lots of water to clean their factories and wafers, the thin slices of silicon that form the basis of the chips. And with worldwide semiconductor supplies already strained by surging demand for electronics, the added uncertainty about Taiwan’s water supply is not likely to ease concerns about the tech world’s reliance on the island and on one chip maker in particular: TSMC.

More than 90% of the world’s manufacturing capacity for the most advanced chips is in Taiwan and run by TSMC, which makes chips for Apple, Intel and other big names.

In recent months, the government has flown planes and burned chemicals to seed the clouds above reservoirs. It has built a seawater desalination plant in Hsinchu, home to TSMC’s headquarters, and a pipeline connecting the city with the rainier north. It has ordered industries to cut use. In some places it has reduced water pressure and begun shutting off supplies for two days each week. Some companies, including TSMC, have hauled in truckloads of water from other areas.

But the most sweeping measure has been the halt on irrigation, which affects 183,000 acres of farmland, around a fifth of Taiwan’s irrigated land.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/technology/taiwan-drought-tsmc-semiconductors.html


4. We are breathing in microplastics
Take a deep breath. While you might feel clean air passing through your nose, tiny bits of plastic from packaging and soda bottles that we throw away all too often might be hitchhiking to the depth of our own lungs.

A recent study examined the sources of atmospheric microplastics that are increasing at an alarming rate of around 4% per year. The study discovered that India, Europe, Eastern Asia, the Middle East, and the United States are among the hotspots for terrestrial microplastic sources and accumulation.

Moreover, closer to home, these plastic fragments have become so pervasive that they are embedded in our fields, water supply, and even in the air that we breathe. From the human bloodstream to the guts of small insects in Antarctica, they are leaving a trail in every corner available.

While there is a consensus that inhalation of plastic particles can be irritating for internal tissues of organisms, further research needs to be conducted in order to understand whether plastic is more toxic in comparison to other aerosols.
https://weather.com/en-IN/india/environment/news/2021-04-14-india-becomes-hotspot-for-microplastic-pollution-spiralling

5. Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy - one of India's first crorepatis (in the 1820s!)
Opium wasn’t just another trade good for the British Empire. It was the necessary corollary to another commodity: tea. The British were importing tens of millions of pounds of tea from China every year. There seemed to be no end to the demand and everyone involved was making huge profits. There was just one problem. They didn’t have the cold hard cash or rather, cold hard silver to pay for it.

With all of the Empire’s physical currency disappearing into China, the British were running a huge trade deficit. They needed something that the Chinese wanted as much as they wanted tea. Opium was the answer. And it was essential to keeping the Empire’s entire economy afloat.

By the time he was 40, Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy had allegedly made more than ₹2 crore — in the 1820s. He was already one of the richest men in the entire country, but he had his eye on even greater prizes.
https://www.thehindu.com/society/history-and-culture/jamsetjee-jejeebhoy-the-opium-trader-who-became-baronet-of-bombay/article27033135.ece

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