Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve —

Charles T. Munger, Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

Most of us have used life hacks on one or more occasions in our lives. However, a more profound question is: why do we want to use hacks at all? Think of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the ultimate hack. We want machines to do…

We cannot choose between growth and sustainability — we must have both — Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever

I began working as an internal auditor at Unilever’s subsidiary Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) in India for over 3 years beginning in the summer of 2001 . My role took me to factories manufacturing home and personal care products ranging from soaps, detergents to shampoos all across India. I also visited a few factories manufacturing fertilizers used in agricultural lands across India. In all of my years, nothing made me prouder of Unilever than its rich heritage. A close second would be its…

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it — Albert Einstein

This essay provides a framework for my readers to conduct small thought experiments of their own to come to their own opinion on whether a world ruled by robots is a possibility. My endeavor here is to not use any charts, data or expert opinions to guide my thoughts. This simplicity is intentional — I don’t want anything except my own personal biases (which I have many) to complicate the issue.

As of today, such a radically alternate reality doesn’t appear to be…

Black holes are where God divided by zero — Albert Einstein

The great Mahatma Gandhi (father of modern India) had this to say about truth and non-violence: “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-Violence are as old as the hills”.

As long as a human being worries about when he will die, and what he has that is his, all of his works are zero.

When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead, then the work of the Teacher is over — Sant Kabir

Pandemics have no silver linings, I keep telling myself. I also remind myself that I need to do whatever I can to help people as they navigate these uncharted and dangerous waters. I keep hoping and praying for the well being of everyone on this planet. Having said that, house arrest has forced…

And, perhaps most urgently, how can society help all those people the markets have left behind?”
― Abhijit V. Banerjee, Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems

The CoVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health epidemic and an economic recession later for nothing trumps the health and well being of the global population. However, for many that are not already infected, this epidemic has manifested itself as an economic problem before being a health issue. These are employees, restaurateurs, small business owners, street merchants, vendors and entrepreneurs who have lost their ability to earn a…

Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don’t last your whole life — Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

People aren’t stupid. The problem is that our educational system has an amazing blind spot concerning risk literacy. We teach our children the mathematics of certainty — geometry and trigonometry — but not the mathematics of uncertainty, statistical thinking. And we teach our children biology but not the psychology that shapes their fears and desires. …

“If you have reasons to love someone, you don’t love them.”
― Slavoj Žižek

There are many ways to understand the world we live in. One of the most practical ways to understand it is to put elements of it into a framework. A framework is commonly understood as a basic structure underlying a system, concept, or text. Sure, frameworks are delightful — they are like learning from someone else’s experience. What if you could just put a straw into a genius brain and consume all the knowledge. Very convenient but very biased as well.

An even easier way to…