Tag Archives: Science

General Science

Science as Diplomacy, nothing new

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Healthcare is a big deal these days. In the US costs are soaring, arguably Obama’s legacy rests on his controversial law the Affordable Care Act, and Republicans have risked shutting down the government over the law. So, it’s no surprise when it’s in the news for other reasons. According to The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the group that publishes the prestigious journal Science, healthcare is now starting to impact diplomacy. Researchers from several different countries are creating novel ways to introduce addicts in both China and the US to the other’s style of medicine. In the US traditional Chinese methods are being experimented within clinics. While in China “western” medicine is being introduced in a very specific manner to address the same issues.

There are several organizations beyond the one I linked to above that deal with cross-cultural issues using either science, engineering, or healthcare. Organizations like Doctor’s Without Boarders work in many different parts of the world to bring care to those in need. These are volunteers that are doing good deeds to bring care to those that otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it.

A similar organization is Engineer’s Without Boarders, which improves local conditions of a village or community through technology. For example, one of my friends I met Austin (now teaching at Harvard) would regularly visit a community in Mexico to install different solar panel arrays. This allowed them to have clean drinking water, power for mobile devices, cooking, and heating.

All of these activities help develop good will from one country to another. In fact, foreign exchange students that fully engage with their classmates are also great diplomats. I know that while I was abroad in Europe my friends decided that they would want to visit the US because I introduced them to what people in the US could be like rather than what they’d heard on the TV.

Interestingly, science and engineering have been used for diplomatic reasons for a very long time. I find the most interesting to be the period after World War II. Science played a huge part in rebuilding nearly all of western Europe as well as Japan. Why did we do that? Because we felt having Germany and Japan as allies against the Soviet Union was more important than kicking an enemy while they were down.

The German’s had invented the V2 rocket, which the US wanted to use for our own rockets as well as for nobler purposes. To gain the technical competence to build the rockets we decided to recruit as many Germans scientists as possible and bring them to the US. These were Nazi’s and some of them were likely war criminals, however because we needed them for the Cold War we decided to take advantage of them.

The trade wasn’t simply one way though. The US government encouraged companies to open their doors to European companies. This allowed our allies to rebuild their economy. In fact, the US business leaders like Deming to Japan, which eventually enabled Toyota to best the US automakers with techniques they turned down. These interactions dramatically changed how Europe and Japan evolved over the next few decades.

Diplomacy using science isn’t anything new. It was influential through the Marshall Plan after WWII and will continue to influence the rest of the world. It could be argued that our patent system enables the US prescription drug consumer to subsidize all other economies for their prescription drug use. This is an accidental type of diplomacy that is make the lives better for billions around the world.

I hope that in the future we will continue to influence the world through science and technology support. However, it is best if we help develop the technologies with locals rather than handing them a finished product. As the book Shock of the Old argues in many contexts the newest technology isn’t the best, the best technology is what does the job well enough that the people using the technology can understand and keep running.

Bitcoin, what’s the point?

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Digital currency is the biggest new thing on the market. It’s not a new idea at all, however the fact that someone was able to get it up and going is something new. The first time I’d heard of a cyrptocurrency and the potential impact it could have on the economy was in the Cyrptonomicon a 1999 book written by Neal Stephenson, but the idea is clearly much older than that. In fact, Paypal likely was something of a precursor itself to cryptocurrency. It filled a whole for money transferring on the internet, which was difficult in many cases. Paypal and eBay co-evolved as Paypal became the default transaction tool on the site – otherwise every seller would have needed to be able to accept credit cards. Paypal offered a safe way to transfer money directly from one account to another without messing with banks or credit card companies.

After the crash in 2007 and Paypal and other services refusing to transfer funds to Wikileaks people felt it was important to have another option. Fortunately, for those folks Bitcoin was already on the market, having been created in 2009. Bitcoin is essentially a digital version of gold in that users of the currency mine the coins and there is a set limit of 21 million Bitcoins. This has lead to a massive explosion in both awareness and usage of the currency. Currently, many locations accept Bitcoin as a currency so you can buy stuff with it.

Yesterday, Paul Krugman, wrote an op-ed arguing that Bitcoin, like gold, is a foolish standard to adhere too. Essentially, we mine gold and then bury it in a safe and never use it. According to Krugman, Keynes argued that the government should bury printed money and then let private enterprise mine the money – as it’s more desirable to allow private enterprise to spend money rather than government. However, in times where demand is low there’s no incentive for private enterprise to spend that money, unless they can spend it to pull it out of the ground. He then goes to argue that we’re essentially doing the same thing with a Bitcoin mine in Iceland.

This got me thinking a little bit last night. I’m not really sold on Bitcoin, I think that if anything it really points out that the only value in any thing is what people assign to it. Either paper currency, digital, or “precious” metals. Diamonds are artificially high in price because of a cartel. For instance, you can buy a set of lab created diamond earrings weighing in total 2.5 carats for $482 (12/24/2013) but if you were to buy two 1.25 carat diamonds to make those earrings it would put you back over $30,000. There’s a lot of diamonds out there and it’s impossible to tell the difference between lab created and those pulled out of the ground. Yet we put more “value” on the “real” diamonds from the ground. There is nothing intrinsically valuable about diamonds or gold. What both of them are though, are standards for trade, similar to the dollar and Bitcoin.

There is one cyrptocurrency that does have a more altruistic motive though. That one is called Primecoin and it’s encryption algorithm is based upon prime numbers. As the number of Primecoins increase in the market the number of prime numbers eventually discovered will increase. However, this was is mined differently from the other cryptocurrencies so it’s not as easy to switch to this cyrptocurrency. This coin does have an underlying value as every new prime number discovered typically has some sort of prize associated with it as it provides value to the mathematical and scientific communities. What they do with it from there is anyone’s guess. However, it provides value completely disconnected to it’s “value” in the market place.

Could we develop a cryptocurrency that instead of requiring increasingly complex solutions to an encryption key, but one that solves difficult problems at the same time? There are a large number of places where this would be useful such as SETI, Fold.it (folding proteins for science), and researching molecules for big Pharma. I’m sure there are many more options. However, then we take Bitcoin a digital gold and convert it into something more useful to everyone than Primecoin and potentially solve problems as well as mine usable moneys.

Edit: Originally said 40 Million Bitcoins, actually 21 Million

How you feel at work

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We know that work sucks most of the time. The question is why? My wife and I have been pondering this question quite a bit lately because of her high levels of stress. She’s basically working all the time and has little expectation of being rewarded beyond a raise and the yearly bonus everyone gets based on the performance of her company. Being on call 24/7 with tools that consistently go down as a new employee immediately creates problems. No matter what you do you feel like you’re a failure. This is where the quality of your manager can really step in to make you feel better about the job you’ve been doing. According to a Danish study this is what causes work driven depression, not the amount of work you’ve left to do. I completely agree with this. I know that I’ve gotten depressed when I’ve had minimal work to do and had been successful with my work because I had a bad manager (he was giving raises to the women in the group he obviously had a crush on). When your managers have poker faces and basically treat you the way they expect to be treated, no awards, recognition, and more work with less time for a job well done are causes of serious workplace depression.

The article doesn’t really provide many ways to address these problems. However, from my experience I know that there are some definite ways to address this type of depression. First, look for co-workers that inspire you and can motivate you. Get peer recognition and make sure you recognize your peers that you feel are doing exemplary work. In many cases companies have spot awards – use them regardless if there’s money associated or not. The recognition really makes people feel good. Furthermore, as more of your peers begin to show recognition it will actually put pressure UP to your manager to do the same. The manager will be the aberration of the group and will likely want to conform, especially if manager sees improvement in the organization.

Work with cross-functional teams. You are more likely to get rewarded when you work on projects with larger scopes. This provides several benefits for you, first you learn more about the organization than just your silo. Second, you are able to see how other leaders treat their people and if you like how a leader in a different group treats their people, you should consider moving in that direction. This will enable you to develop new skills and potentially learn the skills you need to get into a job you find more interesting and full filling.

Finally, if you don’t find something that makes you happy at the company you’re with leave. Not without another job lined up, but start looking for the types of jobs that you want and try to find out what type of manager you’d rather work for. In many jobs you can move around enough to learn what you like and what you don’t like. I suggest moving around within a company, then looking elsewhere. Develop the skills you can while you’re at your current job and try to find something you’re excited about.

Many of the people I’m connected with on social media, such as the KBMOD crew have been able to do this, but not all of them have been able to. I hope they’re able to do this soon, I know that my wife will be doing the same over the next few months. Work takes up too much of your life for it to suck that badly. Move on, if you had a failing review a company would do the same with you, why shouldn’t you do the same if you’re company’s failing you?

Government Shut Down

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The government shut down is bad mmmkay? This is one of the examples as to why I’m glad my wife didn’t end up with a job at either a government research lab, government agency, university or any other place that relies on public funds to keep it’s doors open. That’s a lot of places. Between the sequestration and this shutdown, the US has turned into a horrible place for the sciences. However, it’s alright for us to keep the NSA up and running, but not the people that watch the watchmen. Basically, our government has different priories than most Americans, which of course is no surprise – well at least different from myself. Losing funding for science is a huge blow, especially the fact that they couldn’t continue to speak or publish any papers. It’s disconcerting because our scientific research is what allows the US to stay ahead of the rest of the world in our economic output. The results of scientific funding from the ’60s essentially gave rise to everything we’re doing on the internet. The funding from ARPA that lead to ARPAnet and then the internet, inadvertently lead to the great work I mentioned in my review of Dealers of Lightning. Many of the members of the team at Xerox were funded by ARPA during their PhD’s, their research at various universities, and in some cases even startups. This one government expenditure had massive positive impact in the one area of our economy that’s going gang busters.

So what’s going on with this shutdown? As this article points out the House did pass a budget, which is where all budget must start, however, the Senate didn’t pass it and countered with their own budget, which happens fairly often. This leads to negotiation between the two chambers in Congress. The problem that we’re experiencing in this case is that the “don’t match” portion happens to be Obamacare. The House did not fund Obamacare at all, while the Senate naturally did (being held by the Democrats). This required that the House and Senate come together to reconcile their differences, which aren’t possible to reconcile with everyone. Which is the Speaker’s problem right now. Almost a week ago, there were rumored to be enough votes in the House to pass the Senate version of the budget – as Republicans were defecting to support the Democrats. The House refused to allow a vote to be called. Bills that don’t have a chance to pass get votes all the time (many people have pointed out Obamacare repeal is a key example of that). So, I think that the article I linked above is a bit disingenuous either intentionally or is just intellectually dishonest. The author clearly knows what people mean by saying “law of the land.” It means that as we have obligation within the law we need to pay them. The House, Senate, President, and Supreme Court weighed in and it’s a legal bill. The House is unable to repeal it through legislative methods so created a plan to shutdown the government to stop the bill from taking effect – to defund the bill and “repeal” it that way. That’s what they are doing and why.

The reasons for why the Republicans believe this would work is beautifully laid out in an argument using Game Theory on the Harvard Business Review: every other time brinkmanship was used, it worked. Go with the strategy until it doesn’t work any more. The White House figured this out too and now cannot allow it to continue. Otherwise, the above author would be correct, the best way to kill a bill you don’t like that passed through everything is to simply defund it later or shutdown the government until the other people meet your demands. Toss some spin on their to make it seem like the other side is unreasonable and boom, you’ve gotten your way again.

The problem with brinkmanship is that it’s a zero sum game and if the government defaults, it’s going to be terrible for everyone. The bulk of US voters blame the republicans, this could cause massive damage to even safe areas for the republicans. Are there better ways to deal with Obamacare? Yes, if it’s as awful as the Republicans think it is, use that to get everyone out of office that voted for it. Run on that plank and push it to the hilt. If it kills jobs, causes people to go bankrupt use all that to get the Democrats out of office. Then once a majority is secured repeal the law. That’s how government should work. Sure you can work to undermine the law while you’re at it, but if you want to get rid of it, do it with votes so it’s clear the people have spoken. This shut down is bad for everyone. Let’s end it, figure out how to address long term debt, improve the job market, pay for more science, and address the structural problems we have as a nation. If Obamacare is a bad thing, we’ll figure it out really quick and then deal with that fall out. We need leaders now, not children.

Business Cash Reserves and Innovation

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I found an article on MarketWatch that discussed the fact that the private sector is, in fact, doing just fine. As the author mentioned, this didn’t go over very well whenever Obama mentioned it a few weeks ago. However, he’s right. Companies as a whole are doing extraordinarily well (see graph below), but normal people aren’t seeing it. I’ve discussed this before in a Future of Employment post.

As you can see from the graph Corporate profits are at an all time high. We also know that investments are still occurring in new equipment. We know from the numbers that companies aren’t hiring. I think that the GOP would argue that this is because of regulation uncertainty, which they are contributing to. From what I’ve seen the Democrats don’t really have any sort of good explanation for the lack of hiring. The author of the MarketWatch article claims that companies aren’t spending money on new employees because they are returning most of it to stock holders through dividends or stock buybacks. The data supports this perspective to some extent. Part of it could be the fact that many companies are automating, outsourcing and offshoring all contribute to some level or another.

I think that it’s a combination of these factors plus one other factor. This was added as something as a throw away at the end of the article, but it really stuck with me. “Corporations may be intensely profitable, but they have no profitable ideas about what to do with the vast sums they earn.” This comment is extremely important, especially when you couple that with the article that the Washington Post just published about the difficulty of PhDs finding jobs. 


These researchers are the core of the future for innovation at companies. If companies aren’t hiring these scientists, despite the fact that many claim there are skill gaps, then they are unlikely to innovate moving forward. My old roommate in the Netherlands, Brian, told me that the Holst Centre where he worked created 3 jobs for every employee at their research center. I’ve seen similar numbers in one of my courses as well. 


In this case the trickle down effect actually works. You hire researchers and they need to have technicians building equipment, which needs to order parts and raw materials to build those components. Which requires additional labor elsewhere. While 3 for 1 may not seem like the greatest ratio, those other workers typically make good money and will end up spending money elsewhere.

Innovation drives the economy. Companies need to look at how they manage risk, especially if they are sitting on huge reserves of cash. Putting more money into research for their field can lead to huge disruptions in technology and could lead to an increase in market share.

I will talk more about these risks in my next blog.