Here is your dose of “The Weekly Picks”, a curated list of what I’m enjoying.
A 20 second summary of what you can find more about down bellow:
📈 Compounding Optimism
💣 Russia’s scorched earth policy
🕊️ Our Planet II and the ancient murrelet
🏅"The Will to Win" by Berton Braley, a poem
Compounding Optimism
A CollabFund article on why most new ideas and inventions are pretty unremarkable on their own. But when you combine several of them together, you can create magic. Plastic is versatile, electronics are fascinating, and metal is unique. But when you mix them together in the right way, you get an iPhone, which is simply magical.
I’m not interested in the debate about whether some groups have higher I.Q.s than other groups. It’s completely irrelevant. What’s relevant to a society is how well people are communicating their ideas, and how well they’re cooperating, not how clever the individuals are.
Small ideas mixing and compounding into big ones – that’s what really drives the world.
The deep historical roots of Russia’s scorched earth policy
The Russians are pursuing a scorched earth policy in Ukraine as they did in the War of 1812 and after the Nazi invasion, writes Paul Josephson.
What I'm currently watching:
Our Planet II
Our Planet II is a 4-part Netflix series narrated by Sir David Attenborough, released on June 14, 2023. The series showcases billions of animals on the move through innovative cinematography, highlighting major animal gatherings and events. Each episode represents three months of the Earth's orbit, featuring rare and astounding moments of animal behavior. It follows the success of Our Planet, which has over 100 million households tuning in since April 2019 and 570 million viewing hours to-date.
What I found interesting in one of the episodes...
The ancient murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus) is an exceptional seabird that has captivated researchers with its remarkable behaviors. One of its most impressive abilities is its long-distance migration, especially during its youth. After hatching in forested habitats, young murrelets embark on a remarkable journey, navigating their way to the open ocean to reunite with their parents. What's even more amazing is their ability to locate their parents solely by call, with the entire family responding and swimming out to sea to reunite. This synchronized reunion in the vastness of the ocean highlights their exceptional communication and navigational skills, leaving us in awe of the ancient murrelet's remarkable abilities.
"The Will to Win" by Berton Braley
If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it
If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it
If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,
If gladly you'll sweat for it,
Fret for it,
Plan for it,
Lose all your terror of God or man for it,
If you'll simply go after that thing that you want,
With all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,
If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness nor pain
Of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,
If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You'll get it!