- ONE IN FIVE ‘HIGHLY ENGAGED’ WORKERS ARE AT RISK OF ‘BURNOUT’ and more likely to end up visiting an emergency room for physical as well as mental exhaustion. Burnout generally emerges from “trying to manage an unreasonable number of tasks or expectations” (from bosses or yourself), resulting in high stress which can lead to “increased risk of heart attack, high blood pressure, insomnia and/or chronic fatigue.” Moreover, Burnout stems from absence of reasonable & realistic work-life balance, which typically leads to “negativity and disengagement from the job, feeling demoralized and dissatisfied even after workplace successes occur.” Be aware of principal symptoms: loss of focus & motivation, irritability, pessimism & cynicism, drop in energy, change in sleep habits or getting out of bed, stomach and/or headaches. [US NEWS & WORLD REPT – 9/30/19]
- HUMAN INVESTORS WILL SOON BE OUTSMARTED BY COMPUTERS which now run portfolios of some $4.3 trillion, accounting for 35% of America’s stock market, 60% of institutional assets and 60% of trading activity. Today’s software programs “write their own investing rules, using artificial intelligence to devise strategies without needing human guidance,” so that decision-making is a far cry from days of “using a slide rule or pocket calculator to analyze company reports, morning Wall Street Journal reading, or having a TV & tickertape on the trading floor.” Seasoned investors complain validly that financial stability is threatened by computer algorithms distorting activity & prices, along with the “broad principles of market regulation: equal treatment of all customers, equal access to information, and the promotion of competition.” Instead, Las Vegas roulette. [THE ECONOMIST – 10/5/19]
- ‘LIE DETECTORS’ GENERATE A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY. “In an era of fake news & falsehoods, it can be tempting to look for certainty in science,” and reliance on machines to distinguish the Truth – especially for criminal & terrorist activity, and related to illegal migration. The newest Lie Detectors utilize brain-scan technology and artificial intelligence algorithms involving voice, eye-tracking & body movement metrics to obtain purported accuracy rates of up to 90% reliability – certainly better than humans who “on average (based on over 200 scientific studies) can separate truth from lies just 54% of the time (marginally better than tossing a coin)… But the average person hears up to 200 lies daily (the majority being inconsequential ‘white’ lies, to promote themselves and to hurt or avoid hurting others… and these practiced falsehoods form the core of human identity,” which in the real world still defeat the power of machines to detect deception. [THE WEEK – 10/11/19]
- CRAZY P.C. UPDATE: (1) It is now illegal to use the term ‘illegal alien’ in New York City workplaces or housing, since it “implies behavior which could be demeaning, intimidating or offensive.” Fines of up to $250,000 apply to ‘discriminatory’ behavior – like “forbidding staff from speaking Spanish while cleaning.” (2) A 5-year old autistic boy has been labeled a “sexual predator, after being accused of sexual harassment for hugging a classmate and kissing another on the cheek – which will go into his record as a Sex Offender for the rest of his life.” The Tennessee school was disinterested in his doctor’s explanation that autistic children have “different and difficult comprehension of simple things, such as boundaries.”
- THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Technology scams are unrelenting. Phishing is an attempt to get people to provide sensitive information via email. Now SMISHING is the latest scam which is phishing via text – where fraudsters use malware to send message with a link which activates the link when downloaded.
