• 88% OF REMOTE WORKERS PREFER TO REMAIN REMOTE and believe their productivity has been improved, according to latest Slack survey of 4,700 people across six countries. They also scored higher on “motivation and a sense of ‘belonging’ to their organizations.” Results are unsurprising, since “few people have the ability anyway to concentrate solidly for eight hours a stretch and need moments where they’re tempted to stare out a window or take a walk to find inspiration or recharge for the next task… Flexible worktime also allows office workers to be paid for the tasks they complete rather than the time they spend (which firms would also have to monitor by spying on them at home).” In America, minority race employees were most enthusiastic about not returning to allotted office hour routine, unconcerned with risk of “losing all separation between work & home life, and/or succumbing to stress.” [ECONOMIST – 10/17/20]
  • “WITH EVERSPREADING HUMAN POPULATION living longer, inhabiting larger spaces, encroaching on and destroying the natural world, Pandemics to come will be ‘Nature’s Revenge’… The problem is long term and systemwide; to save ourselves from predictable calamities, critical focus involves issues like: (1) ‘Quality’ more the ‘quantity’ of government; (2) Reversing the complacency at CDC and other major health centers; (3) Repudiation of urban planning orthodoxy to lower population density; (4) Embracing globalization bipolarity to avoid international political conflict leading to a new Cold War; (5) Reversing internet rumor overtaking real science, which has resulted in so called ‘experts’ making cavalier choices that, in short order, devastated the middle classes of leading countries.” [FOREIGN POLICY – Fareed Zakaria – 10/10/20]
  • THE PSYCHEDELIC EFFECTS OF L.S.D. ‘MICRODOSING’ have now been tested in a placebo-controlled study and reported as positive in the European Neuropsychopharmacology Researchers found that: (1) At 5 micrograms, volunteers were able to focus, pay attention, and felt ‘friendlier, reporting only some anxiety”; (2) At 20 micrograms, a “heightened sense of consciousness happened, along with notable improvements to mood,” but along with some confusion; (3) 100 micrograms is the typical ‘trip’ dosage, where users hallucinate.  [FUTURISM/ NEOSCOPE – 10/20/20]
  • STRATEGY DEBATE OVER HOW TO BEST CONTROL THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC is precluding any level of confidence in the global population. The two strongest arguments, in absence of a preventative vaccine, are: (1) Develop Herd Immunity approach, led by Harvard/Oxford/Stanford universities health experts, that “the contagion be allowed to spread freely among younger & healthier people while measures are taken to protect the most vulnerable from infection, until a sufficient share of the population become immune as a result of infection”; (2) Continued Restrictions indefinitely, the position of other health experts who disputer ‘herd immunity’ as “unsupported by scientific research, opting “doubling down until governments fix their systems to test, trace & isolate infected people.” Either way, lots of unknowns – including potential for vaccine and/or drug treatment efficacy, severity & time length of symptoms, ‘degree’ of recovery, re-infection risk, and long-term impacts – preclude any level of confidence in the global population and have created massive confusion in pending U.S. elections. [ECONOMIST – 10/24/20]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

   Final Reminder: What next week’s election is really about: Whether the electorate – presumably authenticated eligible citizens: (1) “prefer to live in a Democratic Republic ordered toward Constitutional principles designed to protect individual liberty; or (2) prefer to politely overlook those principles in order to satisfy demands (ostensibly to remedy systemic injustices) by those indoctrinated in varying racial, gender & religious causes, in the biggest cities of the largest states.” 

    “The spike in Covid cases is mostly proportionate to the spike in testing.  If we had more I.Q. tests, there would be a spike in morons too.”

   “Freedom of Speech is not freedom of Reach… Social Media is spreading belief in absurdities that can make people commit atrocities.” A powerful presentation on discrimination from a surprising source – Sasha Baron Cohen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM&app=desktop