The Musical Chairs Of Chance
Uncertainty is the empty landscape
that waits for you in the next minute.
Many people dread the feeling of uncertainty.
The financial markets rattle when uncertainty shows up.
Addictions are born daily to cope with the pain of not knowing.
Everyone loves a formula that promises order in chaos.
The more acronyms the formula has, the stronger it looks.
But sometimes your biggest bets can be undone
Any Amazon stock experts predict that?
People turn to Facebook experts with formulas
who are trying to keep up
with Facebook developers who are trying to keep up
with the Facebook execs who are trying to keep up
with the Facebook regulators who are trying to keep up
with the Facebook users
and the Facebook advertisers
and the Facebook competition.
The invincible Apple hurts when Steve Jobs is gone.
In medicine, a big innovation has been robotic surgery.
Surgeons can now operate robots from far away.
But the skills required to operate a robot are not the same
as those of a surgeon.
The numbers don't look good for all procedures:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/health/robotic-surgery-cancer.html
Some self driving cars are still having problems.
https://futurism.com/tesla-autopilot-shown-steering-towards-highway-barriers
These problems will hopefully all be worked out at some point.
Just not today.
The need for certainty creates blind spots.
If you feel certain about how something will proceed, you're less likely to question it.
I don't check every app on my phone in the morning to make sure they're all working.
That doesn't mean every app is fine.
Uncertainty is the palette of artists, writers and musicians.
Pieces don't reveal the whole.
The reveal doesn't predict the reception.
That's the magic and the pain.
Marketing chases the moving target of certainty forever.
The certain list of people changes value to different markets and formats.
What was the magic button that closed the sale?
The casinos don't like card counters.
Neither do most marketing platforms.
Attribution can give away too much.
This is not to be confused with the dystopian futures that help make sales.
If you go back 10 years and look at the terrible predictions that started with
“The End Of…”
It would be fun to keep score of what’s actually ended and gone.
As uncertain as some things are,
you’re left with a lot to work with
if you look closely.
Platforms preserve their leverage
as long as you play exclusively on their field.
The real uncertainty is not in the abstract markets.
It's the wild and unpredictable you.
You're the wild card and you always will be.
A simple life event - a change in health, loss of a loved one,
falling in love among thousands to choose from...
and your entire world view can change forever.
The event is common - how you react is not.
6 billion people = 6 billion wild cards.
You now have unreadable complexities
bubbling beneath the surface.
And the musical chairs begins again.
Facebook formula 2.0!.... 3.0!...4.0.!
People say humans are predictable - until they try to change something.
Having a healthy reverence for the unpredictable
can keep your eyes scanning the landscape more.
Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google are completely tied into people's lives.
Imagine how much they know. How many trillions of data points they collectively have.
Like a psychic best friend, they literally try to finish your sentences for you.
Your iPhone has the next word ready for you in your text box.
Gmail has replies for you to enter and likes to guess what you're searching for.
Now factor in that even they get caught off guard and they get surprised.
They don't have winners all the time. Their stocks do fall.
If none of them can predict what's happening next,
I'm not relaxing any time soon.
That's what coffee is for.
Don't get too comfy,
my expert friends :)