Week 2 • June 2025
Thought of the Week
Scarcity Captures Us
“When we experience scarcity of any kind, we become absorbed by it. The mind orients automatically, powerfully, toward unfulfilled needs. For the hungry, that need is food…. for the cash-strapped it might be this month’s rent payment; for the lonely, a lack fo companinionship. Scarcity is more than just the displeasure of having very little. It changes how e think. It imposes itself on our mind.” - Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir
This feeling has a tendency of remaining at the top of mind, it influence what we notice,focus, what we value an desire… and it ultimately how we choose to live our lives. This can be good(it can make us more attentive and more efficient) or bad thing(if intense it can overwhelm us). Hard to know when scarcity influence on what we decide because most of the time we use “system 1” (fast, instinctive and emotional) instead of “System 2” is slower, more deliberative, and more logical(this is the lenghty subject).
Articles
The Starvation of GAZA
Two million people are on the brink of starvation.
“Localhost tracking” explained. It could cost Meta 32 billion
Basically how Meta has been knowing who you actually are even if you use VPN or incognito to visit the internet. If you have one of their app(IG,FB,Thread, Whatsapp) on the background.
10 technologies that won’t exist in 5 years
Highlight of the 10 technologies that are worth working on. Technologies are are important than others and some problems are hard to solve. Fund and what people choose to work on determines which technologies are made.
Five medical breakthroughs in 2024
Five medical treatments that have shown high efficacy in (often multiple) phase three randomized controlled trials, which are large, rigorous, and receive much closer independent oversight.
Google Just Changed Research Forever
How Google AI Mode is going to transform searching as we know it.
Bankruptcy Was Good for 23andMe
Sorry about the Paywall.
Podcasts
Hard Drugs: Lenacapavir: the miracle drug that could end AIDS or Video Format
I learnt a lot about retro viruses, HIV double stranded rna(there are papers that suggest they use a form of primitive sexual reproduction),Viral capsid, HIV life cycle, History of HIV and its treatment, why it is hard to actually get a vaccine for it or actually treat it completely. 4hrs plus of great insights.
The Economics Show: The Wolf-Krugman Exchange: the crisis of trust
In part one of this six-part series of The Economics Show, Martin Wolf, the Financial Time’s chief economics commentator, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman discuss how trust in the postwar world economic system is being lost and weigh the costs and consequences of that.
Behind The Money: How Indonesia cornered the Nickel Market
On how Indonesia went to become the monopoly of Nickel market in the world, from 6% market share a decade ago. And generally how China has a big part to play in this.
Movies
Collateral
A Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx movie, And Jamie is not funny one there