This post is part of an ongoing series of research updates by Bambu, a financial technology company I started in 2016. The theme of these posts is predicting the future. You can find part one here, sharing the results of a survey we ran about people’s attitude towards their future.

So, you think I’m kidding about predicting the future? Just hear me out. Predicting the future is not only possible, but even simple, if you stack the probabilities on your side by making precise statements about the object and time of the prediction.

Example 1: I predict everyone alive today…

We recently ran a question poll at Bambu to understand how people think about the future. We all have our personal intuitions about the future, of course, but does everyone feel the same?

Well, we asked 138 mostly random people from around the world and found out many fascinating things that largely went against known stereotypes and our intuitions.

NOTE: This wasn’t intended as an academic study to be published, so forgive any statistical or methodological oversight on my part. This was for user research, and helpful as such. Oh, and why is Bambu interested in the future, to begin…

If you were hoping for a physics update on theories and solutions to teleportation, you can scroll down to “Teleportation methods”. But frankly, that’s of secondary concern here.

Instead, I will treat you to a dry philosophical examination of the nature of consciousness, and the problems to its continuity presented in things like sleep, death, and yes, teleportation. How fun is that?! Nothing better to get you into the holiday spirit, if you ask me.

If I still have you after this caveat, let’s proceed. Very little of what follows is my original thinking, in fact, this is mostly a…

I wanted to organize this by theme, based on the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey. Sometimes described as an emotional rollercoaster, it’s safe to say it has its ups and downs. I tried to think of how I personally use music in different ways and came up with three scenarios, which seem to be rather cyclical as the years roll by.

1. Creative moments of madness

It could be writing, it could be coding. If you’re in the mood of creating something special, these should get your juices flowing with a cocktail of raw passion mixed with visions of grandeur.

Piano Concerto №2, Sergei Rachmaninoff

For concentrated work…

Last Saturday, something unexpected… something special happened during my routine 10-minute meditation. It certainly wasn’t part of the routine!

Now, for some important context, meditation has always been more of a chore for me. While I attribute a lot of my resilience and ability to manage stress to my practice, meditation has never been never easy. During my three years of meditating 3–5 times a week, it’s been more cough syrup than sugar. I do want to do it, for the long-term benefits, but I can’t wait for it to be over.

This time was different. At the end of…

While 2020 has introduced the world to the wonders of Zoom calls and baking sourdough, a much more nefarious new national pastime has entered our shared consciousness: day trading.

Day trading is quite literally what it sounds like. Well not trading Pokemon cards, but stocks more specifically. While the world has been hurting with Coronavirus, the stock markets have embraced a massive wave of new retail investors hoping to catch a money wave with trading apps.

Why did people suddenly decide to do such a seemingly random and esoteric thing? People have looked into it, and it’s mostly a combination…

Let me start by declaring my motivation for writing about a topic I have no explicit authority on. I’ve been writing for years by now, both on topics I work on with my companies, as well as topics that simply interest me. I find, personally, that writing is a powerful form of learning through synthesis. It’s easy to say you understand something until you have to explain it to someone else. It’s relatively easy to explain something in an elevator pitch format, but a lecture or blog post requires you to really think through structure, validity, and consistency. It forces…

In Western media through the decades, Communism has been consistently been portrayed negatively. Usually, extremely negatively, as a great source of evil and suffering. Nevertheless, anyone who has read anything on the topic cannot help but come away… curious. There are so many interesting and powerful ideas in Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto alone.

“The fundamental ideas of Communism are by no means impracticable, and would, if realized, add immeasurably to the well-being of mankind.” — Conditions For The Success of Communism, Bertrand Russell

Obviously, for the most part, Communism hasn’t really worked out that well. Not for the…