The tissue of social relations in Brazil and economic complexity

 I often miss meeting people with an inner world. They are out there, but even as you get through them it’s usually hard to dive into their inner world.  There’s some magic to happen when this kind of people can put the whole world into their inner world, artists are great at doing that. But most of the time people like that just end up trying to fit in some fucked up reality. Brazil itself has a structure where peoples personality is usually built through other eyes, money is made through social relations, and there’s a lack of thinking in Brazilian economic structure. If someone gets rich, it probably was through some kind of “buy and sell” stuff. So social relations usually don’t tend to move towards economic complexity, with the building of ideas and thinking as a product.

Kind of interesting, how I get the feeling that the main problem in Brazil is in the tissue of social relations, where most of the human relations are meaningless, guided only by social animal instincts. If there ain’t complexity, thought building on the human relations itself, it seems out of touch with reality to expect that some economic complexity will grow out of nowhere.

I’m far from being a eugenics guy, but the reality is that there’s not much, so if people don’t create anything, there will never be anything. Not saying that we will end up going back into the caves, but if human relations are not guided towards the building of collective thinking things won’t go anywhere.

And lately, I get to be fascinated, but how the main difficulty on organizations is precisely on the matter of doing things in a group. Someone can always do the whole planning alone, and on simple commercial activities that is usually the case, but the building of complex thought in-group/companies that would be the base for economic complexity seems somewhat harder.

Those are just some initial thoughts, but maybe there are some insights from Yuval Noah Harari that could be applied to the building of economic complexity. The whole Peugeot thing being one of the most interesting ones.

A DARPA-like state

 

What is that make science actually means? As now I’m going through Ibn Khaldun, I get back on to some really basic questions. Should it actually have some objective, other than some natural human curiosity from the researcher? Don’t think the actual answer matches what people usually tell. On our utilitarian times someone has to justify everything, wherever if it to get funds, or just to allocate time to its research. Those fund schemes on themselves, end up imposing a bias on our collective knowledge.

Recently, I put aside the economics literature, and started reading the history that it is trying to tell in some apolitical shape.

I can say that US has become a science-driven society as through the DoD, you could find a path to justify almost any research, or someone could put this same statement under some scientific sector bullshit from Economic Development Theory.

It works for the US, however, that isn’t some stuff that can be exported without the Scientific-Technocratic DoD apparatus.  

Most of what I see, for the future of a successful China, come from  a perspective that the CCP is trying to create this kind of Scientific-Technocratic apparatus to be the central state. It’s like if the DoD wouldn’t need to go in the congress sell some far away war for budget.

I’m yet not sure if this kind of Scientific-Technocratic structure would be efficient on its base. The level of oversight in central projects usually isn’t the same in secondary projects. On the DoD framework it's like if all projects are somewhat “central”.  Even if I couldn’t make myself fully clear until now: It’s a management problem.

How to create management structures that are able to take small/local questions seriousness, as much as they take big/national questions? On the military/national/big questions, the Sovietic Union was very successful, the problem was the other questions, as the for the US there was DoD money flowing in the lower levels of society, to allow “market” solutions, Besides that, military institutions tend to be very efficient in the offer of some hands-on knowledge that is usually called technical schools (at least in Brazil).

As for sciences, if you have specific questions, you get specific answers. If those questions already come from some field issues, and there is already a filter in the funding allocation process…well you end up with a successful product.

When countries around the world, and the US itself, tries to copy the DARPA research model, that’s what they are trying to recreate. China seems to be a step ahead trying to create some kind of DARPA-like state infrastructure.

Don’t think China is following some traditional econ manual, most likely they are rebuilding themselves as a civilization, economic success ends up being just one of the outcomes. By now, there’s already an entire DoD (thinking on PPP terms) for the Silicon race. Most of the scientific progress comes from the 0-1 (first stages) in research, that’s what China is doing by now, after the 0-1 there are usually only incremental advancements (thinking on the Bell Labs experience).

For the science, I’m yet not sure if the utilitarian approach is the best, its efficient, that’s for sure.

A growing number of governments hope to clone America’s DARPA | The Economist

The End of AT&T's Bell Labs and Why Big Companies Can't Birth Big Innovations | TIME.com

What’s the real challenge in economics?

What’s the real challenge in economics? If you got through a few couple initial chapters of Marx in Das Kapital, you are already well equipped to acknowledge that money is meaningless. And The reality of economics as a science is to build up some good lie that people can live within. As of capitalism, in the way we see it today…just some bullshit propaganda from the 50-60s.

How to move to move people towards value creation is the real question in economics? To this day, nothing has proven to be so effective on value creation as of scientific progress…however capitalism in its current status has guided our societies to  a scenario where you can only fund basic research through governmental channels…on the perspective of a company that has to conciliate spreadsheet shareholders and basic research with uncertain results… well if your country ain’t the place to where foreign value goes to grow on some speculative silicon valley bubble…. You are screwd.

Governments should identify problems and guide money towards the solution of those problems. If you are a government that is facing some foreign capital influx, well there is your basic research fund. But if you as a government aren’t having any foreign capital influx, how would you guide society towards value creation? Print some currency that nobody wants, ain’t a good answer. Debt? Well…if there isn’t value creation there’s not much of a reason for someone to lend you money.

Not saying, I’m against capitalism, just saying governments should take a bigger role, on the matter of guide society toward value creation.  

If we look to the capitalism we have today, it has achieved the target (thinking on the terms of Bretton Woods) …we are already on the edge of something like a global society…we are starting to see private money taking its form as a global integrator. However, value creation is so unevenly distributed throughout the world that it seems like a time bomb that could lead to some rethinking of the system.

I can just expect we won’t fall for some government vs private bullshit again.

Value creation can be achieved under both, however, irrational nationalism can lead to some dangerous outcomes.

How to decentralize value creation? How to create space for arbitrage beyond cultural and linguistic borders?

We got some good results on the whole covid thing…what can we learn from that?

Following some arduino guides

Following some arduino guides

I ended up changing the resistors, using 1x 560-ohm and 3x 150-ohm since i already had those.

Posted by Daniel Rodrigues Parente on Saturday, August 22, 2020

Original project 

I ended up changing the resistors, using 1x 560-ohm and 3x 150-ohm since i already had those.

Brazil & World some considerations

Brazil

• Looking back in history, crisis
  in Brazil are always something with a messy timeline. You don’t exactly know
  where or why it has started until you have realized you are living under a
  crisis, so you can finally start to develop a bunch of meaningless explanations,
  some ex-post bullshit.

• Brazil has
  such a dysfunctional society, that entire neighborhoods could work as social bubbles.
  Maybe every country has their own bubbles, for an economical reading it’s somewhat
  importantly try to understand how people ascended to their positions, how they
  got their places in this stable and overprotected bubbles.

• Living in
  Brazil you can see how our social structures are overly stable, probably the best
  way to make an image to that affirmation is to remember of public employees. On
  the other side of that same picture, we also have the fact that the admission system
  behind the government, jobs are the most efficient social transition channel as it
  doesn’t require any previous network.

• On the
  network matter, besides the whole “Latino” thing we are far from being a society, were peoples actually enjoy being together. I would say that this is more of a social convention
  than a thing that people want to do. It becomes obvious as we look at
  how meaningless are our social interactions. Most of the time people don’t
  wanna hear what others have to say, they may be physically together but those
  are empty social interactions without meaningful results. There’s a traditional Brazilian
  expression that summarizes what I’m saying: “amigos, amigos negócios a parte”.

• We are not
  a business-driven society, we are not even guided by our own ideas. Being a Family
  driven society we take as true most of the ideas from previous generations, we
  never get too far from family, one of those ideas say that those people are the
  only one that you can always count. Being poor also doesn’t make any good on
  the matter of individual development.

• We have some unbelievable difficulty at looking at our own social problems and try to understand them in simple terms and develop some solution. We will import some solutions for problems that we don't even have. After all, our academy doesn't develop any theory.

• (june-20)The main reason for the whole nationalistic ideology in Brazil comes from the fact that this country doesn't exist as a system where all the gears together can generate some meaningful results. This political (take the word by the geographical meaning) structure has only survived for so long as a result of efforts made in the '60s by the Globo Group and the Military. One acting to standardize and spread a form of culture throughout the country, and the other handling with the operational/hands-on side in the integration of such diverse local realities. Today it's becoming obvious again that throughout the country we have economical-cultural-political clusters that could be way more efficient countries if think we on the matter of conciliating local interests.

World

• 2015-2020 Democracy finds out the power of propaganda, in the form of social media,  like many dictators had already known for a long time, in previous formats.

• We are currently living in an age where we see too much of people. From politicians to celebrities, people are too real, too much of themselves. The results on that matter, are yet unpredictable, We may end Up having a society where people actually understand the good and the bad aspects of each other, or most likely they will forget what's good, and what isn't. Right and wrong will fall in a gray area way more frequently. Even though this gray area, has always been there, we only came to this point of global integration under a single culture, because those lines were there and have worked as a guide, This may result in the fragmentation of the society, not in the form of nations, as this format may be outdated, it will be something different this (or something so old and forgotten, that will sound like new).

• (june-20) When seeing great results, sometimes really unbelievable, and mainly in the hedge fund industry,  I always ask myself is this guy a genius, or is he laundering money for someone. 

I may in the future, as things happen,  add some views in this post.



-First update on June-20

A look at the entertainmet sector and it's future

It’s
vacation time and to what kind of entertainment are you going for? I keep looking
at this whole Netflix price/earnings craziness and get to remember the context
from where Netflix emerged as a major player. It wasn’t for turn itself into a
major content producer, and yet in those days, the whole Netflix analysis gets
somewhat lost when deciding if it is a technology or an entertainment company.
As you can get better multiples being the first one, that ends up being the
choice.

But the fact that is that Netflix has grown being a better technological option to
torrent, most of its competitors besides the content offer, will struggle trying
to get at the same level as Netflix when we talk about servers. So NFLX, maybe
would have been in a way better position, if it had focused on supply it’s technology
and relation with small ISP around the world to the newcomers into the streaming
battle. If we think how NFLX can offer huge data package deliveries with low
cost and low latency, thanks to its relation with small ISP’s on a global scale
that could even be the solution to new services like Google Stadia, even though I’m
not sure if the real difficulty in this segment is exactly about having a bunch
serves, maybe here the right type of servers is the real problem.

So as I’ve made
clear, that I would prefer to buy NFLX more as a tech company, than as a content producer
(which apparently has been their focus), guess we can proceed to Disney, and besides
DIS being already a consolidated giant, I kinda think in the long run Sony could
be a way better option. Disney is too much of an old-style company, with too
much tradition to hold. Sony, on the other hand, has tradition (with the whole Japanese
thing) and is slowing turning itself into an entertainment company.

Source at page 15 here 

The company
is yet carrying some legacy sectors as a hardware maker, but even though this part
of the business is not that sexy, the company has been making some money in the
semiconductor segment.

But the
main point on Sony is that they have been strongly growing in a sector that giants
like Disney are stupidly ignoring (even though Warner [under ATT] has been able
to produce some hits).

When we
talk about the videogame industry, we are usually talking about companies with
strong communities around themselves, and some lack of good management. And as
one good product, with good sales, can hide all the troubles a company may have, it’s
hard to do the usual stock picking at this segment. If we go around, we can
find companies with good Intellectual Properties, such as Rockstar, but as it
comes with the whole TTWO package It becomes way less interesting. EA has a
good management, but lacks on the creation of new IP’s, and even though the old
ones are strong enough to support the company, I yet do feel EA somewhat disconnected
from it’s community which may justify the low P/E the stock has been trading
lately.

Besides, that
I haven’t offered much of conclusion until now, my point is that amazing IPs are
emerging in the videogame industry, so it’s not out of reality to think on a a theme park based on Uncharted, and under that scenario Sony could be a good bet.
I don’t think that the future of the industry is on expensive consoles, but the
Playstation brand and it’s IP’s could easily go far Beyond that.

Don't worry dear Greta

The highest
moment in 2019, was Greta Thunberg, and I’m not the kind of person that goes
around hugging trees, but you have to admit that she was fully passionate on
his believes. Probably had read, talked... basically studied a lot about that theme
before that specific moment and then she gets there, in front of the most
important persons of the world, and notices that nobody really cares about what
she has to say. She is there just to fill some kind of quota, something like “make
the world a better place for future generations”, not only for the next generations
of a specific region but for the whole, of people that are yet to be born.

Most of
world leaders probably don’t spend not even twenty percent of their time
thinking in the world as a whole. Most of those people’s thoughts are dedicated to
their inner circles, some time is spent pretending to care with their
populations. Even when they think about international topics, those are mainly
local questions. Can you imagine someone in Pakistan giving the same level of attention
to Thailand as they do India? This does not even make sense.

Global matters,
and mainly those that are far away don’t have any weight. When Greta brings to the
table a point that is seen as being far away both in time and space, is expected
that nobody will care. But she has put it in a way that was at once far from reasonable,
messed up and perfect for the moment. She brings that theme and gets some
global attention. Don’t think she was ready for what she achieved, but the
world needs more people like her.

It's reasonable
to say she’s is as bit of a time agent, as twitter has proven, at least for me
I guess that she will be in my mind when in the future I get back to think about
this decade, in the same way, I remember Zidane but don’t remember who won that
world cup.

Having
lived some time in Mato Grosso, I can’t say that I think we should save the
world. From what I have seen there, humanity as a whole is just following its
path. Being there, and traveling through the region on buses or airplanes, I don’t
remember much of the local native forest, and there are yet some nice things there
like Pantanal. But I do remember huge soybean fields.  An amazing way to summarize the matter is by
saying that the Rondonopolis airfield was surrounded by some plantations, not sure
if it was soybean or Cotton. And when landing in Cuiabá in the airport hall you
would find some pictures of soybean fields.

For us humans,
it’s too pretentious to think about ourselves as world saviors, nature will take care
of us no matter what we do. In our short modern history, it’s not that hard to
find numerous moments where we had been close of extinction… sometimes it was
through wars, on other times it was because of diseases spreading too fast, and
it was way before we had such a global society.

At the same
time, I remember a discussion between Jack Ma and Elon Musk. While the Tesla
guy seems to be worried about the machines revolution, I keep thinking on the Tacoma
plot, an amazing French game (such an underrated industry) where a crew of a
mining spaceship is waiting to be rescued, but under the guidance of the spaceship AI, which
according to its programming weren’t supposed to do that,  find out that they have fallen between a fight
were the mining company and the government are the contests.  Basically, the company wants to stop using
human crews, but the government won’t allow, so under a marketing strategy the company
is going to let the spaceship crew die, as they hope that under this context government
must allow no human crews.

An amazing
simple game, but the main point is that we do indeed have more things to solve
before we can start worrying about AI’s taking control of the world.

Today the
main mess is the whole Iran thing. As a GE holder, I can’t really say that I’m
not waiting for a war but besides a proxy war, I don’t see Iran as a real threat
to Trump. The main point is that Iran is an isolated nation, even in the muslin
world, with very few resources to support a war, even if we consider the oil
laundry scheme that Russia runs today. Maybe China could indirectly finance
this to develop and put under stress test it’s military-industrial complex, but
it’s hard to know what’s inside Beijing leaders’ minds. Even though sooner or
later the heat will get there, but China has been betting on some financial
soft power.

So don’t worry
Greta, we will probably destroy ourselves before nature have a chance to do that,
either way, we are following the extinction path.