Cambrian Explosion

We discuss this new term "dedollarization" that had been popping up in media. How does money drive global politics and vice versa and how global force are now challenging the status quo of since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Cover image: stablediffusion

Show Notes:

How many countries are talking about dedollarization?

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/24/brics-currency-end-dollar-dominance-united-states-russia-china/

What is dedollarization?

Who is talking about it and what are they saying?

Why are some countries excited about it? Punitive US sanctions programs.

How is this related to crypto and bitcoin?

How is this related to access to finance?

Is it likely to succeed?

What are going to be the impact?

Situation Jan 2023 - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-01-26/the-dollar-will-vanquish-pretenders-to-its-throne#xj4y7vzkg?leadSource=uverify wall

https://www.omfif.org/2023/01/central-banks-are-reassessing-foreign-exchange-reserves/

Brazil and China agree to settle in yuan https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3215857/chinas-yuan-makes-brazilian-inroads-de-dollarisation-reflects-cracks-us-currency-settlements

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/24/us-dollar-strength-russia-china/

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dollar-dominance-dedollarization-china-yuan-trade-russia-sanctions-ray-dalio-2023-4

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/04/27/the-power-and-the-limits-of-the-american-dollar

How USD became global reserve currency - Bretton Woods Agreement - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex-currencies/092316/how-us-dollar-became-worlds-reserve-currency.asp

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-18/de-dollarization-is-happening-at-a-stunning-pace-jen-says?leadSource=uverify wall

Google Trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=dedollarization,petro-yuan,petrodollar&hl=en

Russia selects list of countries to trade in rouble: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/foreign-affairs/326130/bangladesh-among-30-countries-approved-to-trade-in

We discuss the latest developments in the search for life outside - developments from Mexico as well as new discoveries by the JWST Telescope.

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Show Notes:

Alien life signs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC95VzD7ALs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OGUU-yVryk

Mexico Congress

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexican-congress-holds-hearing-ufos-featuring-purported-alien-bodies-2023-09-13/

We dive deeper into the content Jimmy Dore discusses including differing points of view on Vax, War and Politics? Is this comedy, is this funny? Is this more harmful than good, or is it good?

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Show Notes - Here is Jimmy Dore's positioning:

"Jimmy Dore is outrageous and outraged, bothersome and bothered, a crucial, profane, passionate voice for progressives and freethinkers in 21st century America.” - Patton Oswalt Jimmy Dore is a certified Youtube sensation with over ONE MILLION subscribers and over 600 million views. Jimmy is also an award winning comedian with several Comedy Central Specials including “Citizen Jimmy” which was chosen “Best Of The Year” by iTunes & Punchline magazine. Jimmy’s newest role is that of a political commentator and activist who isn’t afraid to challenge establishment narratives and speak truth to power. His authenticity and commitment to truth has earned him an incredibly diverse fan base of loyal viewers who are drawn to his quick wit and finely tuned BS detector. He uses his platform to bridge political divides in an attempt to bring Americans of different political persuasions together against empire. In addition to covering some of the most important topics of our day, he also uses his influence to advocate for issues that matter to him including free speech, press freedom, and Julian Assange."

We went to a Jimmy Dore comedy show, and we discuss the political divide and the role of media - both new and old. We discuss the different bubbles that exist because of difference in sources of information and the erosion in trust of mainstream media.

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Show Notes - Here is Jimmy Dore's positioning:

"Jimmy Dore is outrageous and outraged, bothersome and bothered, a crucial, profane, passionate voice for progressives and freethinkers in 21st century America.” - Patton Oswalt Jimmy Dore is a certified Youtube sensation with over ONE MILLION subscribers and over 600 million views. Jimmy is also an award winning comedian with several Comedy Central Specials including “Citizen Jimmy” which was chosen “Best Of The Year” by iTunes & Punchline magazine. Jimmy’s newest role is that of a political commentator and activist who isn’t afraid to challenge establishment narratives and speak truth to power. His authenticity and commitment to truth has earned him an incredibly diverse fan base of loyal viewers who are drawn to his quick wit and finely tuned BS detector. He uses his platform to bridge political divides in an attempt to bring Americans of different political persuasions together against empire. In addition to covering some of the most important topics of our day, he also uses his influence to advocate for issues that matter to him including free speech, press freedom, and Julian Assange."

Are they amongst us?

Do you believe in aliens?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12175195/Crashed-UFO-recovered-military-distorted-space-time.html

Whistleblowers starting to accuse US Government of covering up alien craft

Historical whistleblowers: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/09/24/bob-lazar-and-ufos-a-reading-and-watching-list.html

What about other countries? https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3136078/china-military-uses-ai-track-rapidly-increasing-ufos

The Drake Equation is a mathematical formula that attempts to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations that exist in our galaxy capable of communicating with us. The equation was developed by astronomer Frank Drake in 1961, during a scientific meeting at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.

The equation is written as follows:

N = R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

where:

N = the number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy

R* = the rate of star formation in our galaxy

fp = the fraction of stars that have planets

ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star with planets

fl = the fraction of potentially habitable planets that actually develop life

fi = the fraction of planets with life that develop intelligent civilizations

fc = the fraction of intelligent civilizations that develop technology capable of communicating across interstellar distances

L = the length of time for which communicative civilizations release detectable signals into space.

While the Drake Equation is highly speculative, it has been influential in the field of astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It is often used as a framework for thinking about the factors that influence the evolution of life and intelligence on other worlds, and the likelihood of detecting extraterrestrial signals.

Major developments in the following points
fp = the fraction of stars that have planets

Discovery of planets
Methods used
New tools

ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star with planets

Planets in habitable zone
Planets with water
Presence of water in solar system
The extremes in which life can survive

fl = the fraction of potentially habitable planets that actually develop life

What is biologically life? https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-life-its-vast-diversity-defies-easy-definition-20210309/

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-an-individual-biology-seeks-clues-in-information-theory-20200716/
Amino acid and rna discoveries in space
How binary systems behave and interact due to physics

Science behind alien presence?

On the surface, appears to be a simple passing of torch in a superhero family. But on closer look, multiple overlapping heroes' journeys emerge.

In continuation from our last topic we explore storytelling structures and formats through the lens film making and share our experiences about the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as well as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).

Heroes journey - https://www.masterclass.com/articles/writing-101-what-is-the-heros-journey

Save the cat - https://savethecat.com/

Challenge of consistently producing quality content.

Have you heard of systematically approaching thinking -

While intuition can provide a hunch or spark that starts you down a particular path, it's through data that you verify, understand, and quantify. - https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/data-driven-decision-making

It is by sorting through data and framing it within the context of our goals, expected outcomes, the internal materials and essence and the environment and it’s factors that we get insights.

https://www.knapsack.cloud/blog/pattern-based-thinking

How it can help us: (2 -3 min)

Experience visiting Finland and coming in contact with “Systematic Approach to Innovative Thinking”. TRIZ, which stands for "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving" in Russian (Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadach), is a problem-solving methodology and toolkit developed by Genrich Altshuller.
Story of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Altshuller-

Luhmann’s Zettelkasten method

Domain Driven Design

https://miro.com/templates/lean-canvas/

https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-value-chain-analysis#:~:text=What%20Is%20Value%20Chain%20Analysis,your%20final%20product%20or%20service.

https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/customer-segmentation-targeting/segmentation-targeting-and-positioning/

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/08/a-closer-look-at-personas-part-1/#:~:text=A%20persona%20is%20a%20way,from%20observations%20of%20many%20people.

What are important parameters or lens’s we want to understand the world from?

Principles of Triz:

Other important systemetic approaches in technology

Product - lean canvas

Marketing - Segmentation Targeting Position

Society and Brand - AIDA, Archtypes

We talk about strategic voting and participation in Ontario and Canada.

We talk about the pitfalls of the current voting system.

We talk about what has been explored as alternatives.

We talk about what we want from a good election system.

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Show Notes:

Strategic voting

Toronto Star[143] endorsed the NDP, Liberals, and Greens, and encouraged Ontarians to vote strategically to prevent a PC majority

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2022/05/27/ontario-voters-should-back-progressive-parties-to-avoid-a-second-ford-majority.html (op-ed)

None of the choices are perfect, but for us the best option is to get behind the Liberal party in ridings where they are the main alternative to the PCs (including most of those in and around Toronto and in Ottawa). In ridings where the election is a two-way contest between the PCs and New Democrats, we recommend supporting the NDP.

https://the-peak.ca/2021/09/strategic-voting-is-an-outdated-way-to-use-your-vote/

Strategic voting is harmful because parties like the Green Party or the New Democratic Party (NDP) often lose support as people fear they’re wasting their vote by choosing them. This may resonate with young voters who have viewpoints which align more with these parties, but feel as though they shouldn’t vote for them as they won’t get elected anyway.

There are only two major parties and voting for others is almost always a waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Duverger's law holds that single-ballot majoritarian elections with single-member districts (such as first past the post) tend to favor a two-party system.

Voters are disconnected from issues and feel like they are wasting their vote.

Leads to lower turnout:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ontario_general_election

The election set a record for the lowest voter turnout in an Ontario provincial election, as only 43.53% of the people who were eligible voted. This broke the previous record for low turnout of 48.2% in the 2011 election.

Forces parties to become more centrist and compromise on core issues to appeal to the ‘broad centre’ voters.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ask-electoral-reform-2021-federal-election-1.6163972

Major parties generally not very committed to electoral reform but there is still great interest among citizens:

…Canadians from across the country have emailed CBC News to express their frustration with an elections system they say still doesn't properly reflect how people vote.

Conservatives likely to oppose.

But by all accounts, London pulled it off well enough to inspire voters in other municipalities — including Kingston  and Cambridge — to follow its lead and give ranked ballots a try in the next municipal election. …"The election went well," said Graham about London's 2018 vote. "We heard lots of positive comments during the election about people wanting to have more choice and more say."…When the Ford government moved to nix ranked ballots, officials said it was to save municipalities money and ensure voting systems were consistent across the province.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/09/18/analysis/what-happened-when-ontarios-london-voted-using-ranked-ballots

Encouraged diverse candidates to run, other municipalities to hold referendums but was more complex and expensive, and ultimately scrapped.

Citizens' Assembly: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/110476/motions/12180488

We don’t want to end up with American style two major party system and no real choice.

What is a good outcome of an electoral system?What can be done?

We discuss the UBI.

We compare it to other solutions developed for banking the unbanked in south asia.

We talk about what we can learn and apply for the western banking system.

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Show Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/business/india-digital-payments-upi.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

You can instantly pay a roadside vendor for a Rs. 10 cup of tea using a free government-provided phone app just by scanning a QR code. This is revolutionizing commerce in India–both online and offline.

Pakistan easypaisa: https://easypaisa.com.pk/

Bangladesh: mobile banking, microfinance

Canada: Interac

US: Venmo, Cashapp

We put Yawar on the spot.

We talk about the programming landscape - where and why we coding is needed.

We look discuss top languages to learn on your tech journey.

We discuss the impact of AI on coding.

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Show notes:

What are the most famous/popular programming languages (top 5).

https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2022/10/20/language-rankings-6-22/

What makes different programming languages successful and what do they accomplish. What industries and typical use cases.

Listener should walk away with understanding of what languages to learn for their goals (e.g. data science).