How Technology Advances (10/11/20)
Hey Friends,
Welcome back to Sunday School.
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You’re going to receive a heavy dose of science in this week’s issue.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I really am blown away by how many people discredit science in general. Like everything else, science has become political instead of fact-based.
The astounding part of this is how easy it is for information that is overwhelmingly supported by the scientific community to be perceived as unclear. For example, 97% of environmental scientists believe that there are major concerns in continuing to burn fossil fuels, but public perception is that there’s only about a 40% consensus among scientists on this.
THAT’S INSANE!
There are many layers to this, but this has to start with individuals taking responsibility to read. That’s it, literally just reading!
I think the number of people who form opinions based on headlines of news articles on social media is really, really high. So, here’s my rule of thumb for myself, and I think it’s a good one for the world to adopt:
If you haven’t spent AT LEAST 3 hours studying a complicated topic on your own, you should refrain from holding an opinion on that topic.
That’s it, it’s that simple! No one is going to make fun of you if you simply say you don’t know enough about something to hold an opinion.
I know, I know, there’s a larger problem that exists in that people don’t trust the information they’re reading. That’s important. We’re probably right to distrust massive media conglomerates for being politically slanted, but there are so many reputable sources of information. It takes a little bit of common sense, and a high amount of effort, but the information is there for you to find the facts and form a valid opinion of your own.
Alright, let’s move on to the lessons for this week!

Homeroom
I currently have no new personal essays to share this week. I have two in progress, but both have a steep research element so are taking a little longer than normal. A few hints, one is a remix of an essay by my favorite online writer, Morgan Housel. The other is a deep dive on Tesla. Those should be coming in the next few weeks/months.
Since I have no personal essays to update you on I did want to share that we’re launching a new website for Writer’s Bloc in the next week. More to come on this, but this new website is the first of several upcoming plans we have for the community. We’re working to roll out some new features over the rest of the calendar year in hopes that we’ll keep adding to our numbers.
Sports Business
2020 has been a tumultuous year for business, and in sports, it’s been as weird as it could ever get. Nothing feels right about the NBA, MLB, and NHL playoffs being played in empty stadiums.
In truth, sports have struggled to capture the attention of young audiences with Gen Z in the same way they have with previous generations. Competing forces from other forms of fast-paced media have won the day against the time commitment of watching a game on TV. Things are already trending down.
PwC published their annual Sports Survey this week and it’s full of interesting data. I’m particularly interested to share the results of the future-minded data identifying top opportunities and threats to revenue in the sports industry.

Adapted from PwC 2020 Sports Survey
All of the top opportunities stem from use of digital assets or digital fan experience. Leagues are being forced into adjusting in this area right now and it will be interesting to see how it keeps trending in that direction.
Top threats include the monopolizing power of tech companies as gatekeepers to content and the complexity of reaching fans. Declining interest in live sports makes the list this year as people have taken interest in other forms of entertainment to fill the sports-shaped hole in their 2020 lives.
I still care about sports, but not in the same way that I used to. Leagues have a huge task at hand to rebrand themselves as relevant for the long-term. The NBA feels like they have the most momentum, while MLB feels like they’re on the brink of becoming the NHL.
How Technology Advances
Have you ever wondered what causes advances in technology?
Sure, Apple is always innovating and creating something groundbreaking, but how do we get to the place where these breakthroughs are possible?
If advances are going to take place you MUST have an open startup environment.
In an established industry, the top players compete against each other but almost never create any huge breakthroughs on their own to advance something.
Startups spend an insane amount of time working on problems they identify in existing industries (or create a new one altogether), and when they finally catch on they leap way ahead of the existing players. This causes a huge advance in technology and causes everyone else to catch up or die.
If there are no startups it just becomes established players competing against each other making small advances over time.
The best current example is the automotive industry.
Here’s two animations to illustrate:
1815 Locomotive Engine:

2015 Car Engine:

These look way too similar to be 200 years apart in technological advances.
But now, we have Tesla, who’s come onto the scene and taken over the automotive world. Here’s a look at an electric motor in a Tesla:

That looks different!
And now that Tesla has broken through the stale automotive industry and become the darling of Wall Street, the rest of the automotive world has to adapt to keep up with them.
Or they can die. It’s up to them.
A Positive Business
Tim Urban is the most talented writer I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. In one of his longest essays ever he discusses what it takes for a business to have a positive impact on society.
Consider these words from Urban:
If I start a lemonade stand, every time I give someone a delicious cup of lemonade, they’ll be likely to recommend me to their friends and become a recurring customer. I provided positive value and my business’s success went up with it.
Success = Value Provided. Incentives are aligned.
If another customer comes to the stand and I give him a cup of lemonade with a fly in it, he won’t come back and he’ll tell his friends not to go—I caused harm and my success went down.
Success = [Value Provided] – [Harm Caused]. Incentives still aligned.
But what if I then discover a chemical I can spray on my lemonade that prevents flies from landing on it. The chemical is tasteless, but I know that drinking it regularly will cause customers immense harm a few decades down the road. Customers won’t experience the harm in the present, so it won’t affect their opinion of my lemonade or the success of my business.
Success = [Value Provided] – [Harm Caused]*
*<BUT IN THIS VERSION CROSS OFF HARM CAUSED>
The harm caused is now an unaccounted-for cost, also known as a negative externality, and my incentives are no longer aligned with the customer’s best interests. If all I care about is greed and maximizing profit, I will continue to use the chemical, because I’m economically incentivized to do so.
This last category above is where we start running into problems with companies. When there is harm caused, but not realized, companies can keep causing harm and society is not a better place in the end. This is exactly what was going on with tobacco and cigarette companies forever. They hid the harmful nature of their product even though they knew about it. The tobacco industry hired low-integrity scientists to support what they were doing when negative press started coming out about the harmful nature of cigarettes.
Today, we’re seeing this in the automotive industry. Science shows that burning fossil fuels at the rate we’re currently working at will cause harm to the environment. Automotive companies have even hired some of the exact same low-integrity scientists that tobacco companies used to contradict the overwhelming data and create doubt for as long as possible.
The important part of having a company that is good for society is that any harm caused is out in the open and transparent, and this is what we need from automotive.
Space Studies: The Paradox of Extraterrestrial Life
We’ve leaned heavily into the sciences this week. I don’t think I’ve ever been more scientific before.
To cap things off, I’m going to leave you with a parting thought about extraterrestrial life and the Fermi Paradox.
The Fermi Paradox is the lack of conclusive evidence for extraterrestrial life against the various high estimates for their probability.
Basically, with as much “stuff” that there is out in the universe it would stand to reason that there is probably other life out in the universe on a planet similar to ours. Also, with the Milky Way and Earth being billions of years old, it would stand to reason that other life forms would have developed interstellar travel and visited Earth by now.
But…from all that we’ve been able to observe as humans, there is no evidence of this.
Are we that first form of life? Are we the most advanced? Is it on us to develop interstellar travel to find the other life that exists? How much “stuff” is there really in the universe?
There are no solutions here, just endless wondering and imagining the possibility that other life exists. Good luck grappling with those thoughts this week.
Quote of the Week
"Every event has parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins – previous events that planted the seeds, passed on their DNA, and continue to influence what’s happening today." -Morgan Housel
That’s all for this week, thanks for attending!
See you next week,
-Ryan Mulholland