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Reversible or Irreversible? (Voting)

At the beginning of WWI, French soldiers entered battle wearing red pants, carrying swords, and depending on rank, had plumes in their caps.

That attire suited previous wars where the technology and tactics used were more similar to the Battle of Waterloo a hundred years earlier than anything they were about to face in 1914.

A lot was to change in WWI, including the first mainstream uses of camouflage, airplanes, radio communication, long-range artillery, high-intensity shelling, submarines, tanks, poison gas, and more.

After WWI there was no return to what now seem like quaint military practices.

We make the same mistake when we look at some risks as being reversible when they are irreversible. How can we tell the difference? Continue reading “Reversible or Irreversible? (Voting)”

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That Hair Trigger

A month after the inauguration of Donald Trump I made a mistake in my classroom. I invited in someone — someone I didn’t know personally — to be a speaker.

He came recommended, we had a phone call beforehand, and the day was set. He was to speak about the topic of customer retention metrics (what I teach off of this blog is quite different than what you might expect).

Halfway through the class, at the appointed time, he arrived. He set up his laptop and started with an introduction to himself and his company. But things soon got sidetracked.

At about his third slide, a strange look came over him. He started to make references to the recent election and how upset he was about it. Then the following exchange happened, which I’m obviously repeating from memory since there was no video.

“The thing you have to remember about Trump is that he is the Antichrist,” he said.

I glanced around the room. Continue reading “That Hair Trigger”

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The Tiktok Ban (and the Openness Trap)

While I often say that I don’t respond to recent business news here, I have also recently broken that rule a few times. So I decided to look at the potential Tiktok ban in the US. To connect this potential ban to my other writing I’ll go back to Merton’s five causes of unintended consequences to point out some less discussed reasons for why the ban might be good or bad.

Related to the discussion around Tiktok, I was reminded that this week marks the 30th year since I first visited mainland China. I remember this because I was in Beijing at the same time that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait — the first week of August 1990. The hotel TV did not black out that specific part of the news.

Since that time I went to mainland China perhaps around 50 times both for work and to travel. For a large country with big regional differences, I don’t count 50 trips as a lot. But I’ve found my perspective to be different from that of others who spent more time there simply because I have seen the country over a longer time.

Continue reading “The Tiktok Ban (and the Openness Trap)”

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Changing Minds on Coronavirus

Long-time readers of this blog know that I wrote about how disease spreads several times well before the recent coronavirus news. And then I wrote three posts on that. I’m hardly alone in my interest on this topic.

But apart from what we’re going through now, infectious diseases generally don’t get as much attention as I think they deserve. In terms of unintended consequences, I’m interested in the impact of disease on human decision making and where things went wrong, or well, in the past. As for the potential impact of COVID-19 in the near-term, some minds are changing in the midst of political, business, social, and educational impact.

And then there is the look back in history. When I recently learned the story of a European plague year’s impact on Dutch “tulipmania,” the modern and historical protective images intrigued me as well.

Left: a protective white suit used when dealing with extreme infectious environments. Right: European plague doctor “Doctor Schnabel” (Dr. Beak). Doctors stuffed sweet smelling flowers and herbs into the mask’s beak to protect against noxious fumes believed to transmit disease. Also note the waxed coat, hat, and gloves.

Continue reading “Changing Minds on Coronavirus”

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The Self-Defeating Prophecy (and How it Works)


I write these posts to call attention to common phenomena that make the world work differently than we might think. One less discussed type of unintended consequence is the “self-defeating prophecy,” or “self-negating prediction,” where the existence of a prediction or belief ultimately leads to the opposite of what is expected.

Continue reading “The Self-Defeating Prophecy (and How it Works)”