BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK STRATEGY Humility Is The Secret To Leadership? Key Takeaway: A study has found that humble leaders can become more promotable by growing others through a “humility route”. Human capital theory suggests that employees’ value can be enhanced by investing in their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Humble leaders focus on the learning and growth of their followers, creating human capital value for themselves. […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Inherent Risks Of A.I. Key Takeaway: Leading scientists and technologists often make terrible predictions about the direction of innovation, leading to misalignments between a company’s economic incentives to profit from its proprietary AI model and society’s interests in how the AI model should be monetised and deployed. Focusing on the economic risks from AI is not just about preventing […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY The Maths Of Societal Collapse Key Takeaway: The author, a historian and complexity scientist, has been studying history for over a decade, noticing patterns in the past. They have been working on cliodynamics, a new field that uses statistical methods and computational simulations to understand how complex systems change over time. The Seshat: Global History Databank, a collection of over […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY PSYCHOLOGY The Philosophy Of Humour Key Takeaway: Humour is a human phenomenon that has been observed in every known human culture, with the average person laughing around 17 times a day. Humour is fundamentally social and is more likely to be laughed when in a group. To be more humorous, four rules of thumb should be followed: be playful, contradict […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE What Animals Can Teach Us About Attraction Key Takeaway: A new study from Florida State University suggests that female animals learn from other females to prefer distinctive males as mates. Sexual selection involves the evolution of traits such as the long, elaborate tail of the peacock, which have evolved to enhance an animal’s chance of attracting a mate, rather than to enhance […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY The Psychology Of Fyre Festival II Key Takeaway: The founder of the 2017 Fyre Festival, William “Billy” McFarland, has announced plans for a second attempt at the festival, with a target date of the end of 2024. McFarland, who was charged with several fraud offences and sentenced to six years in prison, has been promoting the event on Instagram. The promotion […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK POLITICS Wise Politic Lessons From The Ancient Greeks Key Takeaway Ancient Greeks developed a more sophisticated political system than modern European societies, known as direct democracy. They practiced “people power” and took measures to prevent ruthless, narcissistic individuals from dominating politics. Modern democracy is merely representative, with representatives elected by the public. However, recent political events show that modern societies are not stringent […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE Unlocking The Secret Language Of Honeybees Key Takeaway: Honeybees use a physical “waggle dance” to communicate the direction, distance and quality of resources to their nestmates. Bees are born with some knowledge of how to dance, but can learn how to dance even better by following experienced bees. This is the first known example of such complex social learning of communication […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY Understanding The Apples And Oranges Concept Key Takeaway: The Apples & Oranges concept is an English idiom that refers to the apparent differences between items that are popularly thought to be incomparable, and can be used as a thought-provoking tool for creative thinking. The connections we make are molded by our experience and level of understanding and are not rigid in […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK A Look At The Global Economy In 2023 Key Takeaways: EU energy ministers have capped gas prices at €180 (£159) per megawatt hour (MWh) for this winter. The cap is an attempt to control the unruly market forces that saw gas prices spike to nearly €340/MWh last summer. Political intervention risks repeating mistakes made by the US during the 1970s oil price shocks. […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Is Cosmology About to Rewrite Everything We Know? Key Takeaway: Cosmology is facing a series of uncertainties due to inconsistent predictions of the standard model, which posits the universe is composed of 68.3% dark energy, 26.8% dark matter, and 4.9% ordinary matter. The Hubble constant, which describes the rate of the universe’s expansion, has been a significant issue, with some scientists using different […] Written by Empirics Asia September 23, 2024September 23, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Comeback Of China’s Tech Billionaires: A New Dawn Or Controlled Market? Key Takeaway: Pony Ma, co-founder of Tencent Holdings, has regained the title of China’s richest individual with a net worth of over A$65 billion. His rise reflects Beijing’s control over its private sector, which aligns with the state’s goals in China’s unique “socialist market economy.” Tencent’s success, including the AAA video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” […] Written by Empirics Asia September 20, 2024September 20, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Wealth: Why GDP Isn’t Enough Key Takeaway: Inclusive wealth, a concept that includes not just economic output but also natural resources, human skills, and social networks, is gaining traction among international institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This broader measure of a nation’s well-being aims to address the limitations of GDP, which focuses only […] Written by Empirics Asia September 12, 2024September 12, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Dark Side Of No Sleep Key Takeaway: The “no-sleep challenge” has become a dangerous trend on social media, with some individuals trying to break world records for consecutive days without sleep. Sleep is essential for survival, as it helps the body repair itself and prevents health problems like depression, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and a shortened lifespan. Chronic sleep deprivation […] Written by Empirics Asia September 11, 2024September 11, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Volcanoes On The Moon? Key Takeaway: China’s Chang’e 5 mission has challenged long-held assumptions about the Moon’s volcanic past, suggesting eruptions occurred far more recently than expected. The lunar landscape might not have been as dormant as once believed, with volcanic activity on the Moon potentially being active as recently as 120 million years ago. The findings suggest that […] Written by Empirics Asia September 10, 2024September 10, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Freud’s Forgotten Theory: The Hidden Desires Behind Creativity and Genius Key Takeaway: Sigmund Freud’s theory of sublimation aimed to explain why some people display extraordinary talent by transforming repressed sexual desires into creative or intellectual prowess. He believed that Leonardo da Vinci’s life and work exemplified this process, as he left many of his paintings unfinished and engaged in scientific experiments that derailed his artistic […] Written by Empirics Asia September 9, 2024September 9, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Upcoming Revolution For Global Internet Access Key Takeaway: High-altitude platform stations (HAPS) are emerging as a new frontier in communications technology, offering a unique blend of accessibility and affordability. Positioned between 4 and 30 miles above Earth, these stations bring telecommunications equipment closer to the surface than satellites, resulting in stronger, higher-capacity signals. Researchers have demonstrated that HAPS could provide high-speed […] Written by Empirics Asia September 6, 2024September 6, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked