The Digital Detox Experiment

The last few weeks were an interesting experiment in digital detox. I limited my YouTube usage to audio and podcasts. I've uninstalled Facebook and Instagram since some time now already. And I switched off the TV. No Netflix, no streaming, no YouTube on TV, no shorts. But the question then was - what do I do in my free time? 

I spent more time with my wife, played cards, worked out, got in some laps in the pool, met friends . . . And most importantly, I rediscovered the joy of reading. 

When I was a kid, I used to devour a book a day. My mom would get a book from the library of the school she taught in, and I'd give it back to her the next day when she went off to work. Some days I'd accompany her to the library to sit and read while she taught her classes. 

Through the years, reading became all about work, articles, news. I had a mental block, if I wanted to read, it should be about something intellectual, something highbrow. And in that self-imposed quest, I stopped reading altogether. For the last couple of weeks, I decided to change a key mental model. I didn't want highbrow. I didn't want to improve my mind. I wanted to replace the TV. Which meant my requirements from books were totally different. I wanted page turners, entertainers. I wanted books that would keep me engaged. That's when I turned to my favorite genre - science fiction. I started off small. I selected novellas under 150 pages - T. Kingfisher, John W. Campbell Jr, Brian Evenson. Then I moved on to novels made into movies or shows - Richard Connell, Freida McFadden, Blake Crouch. Page turners, thrillers. 

Across these two weeks, I also noted down my experiences. And it's been a revelation in terms of how adaptable our brains are. At first, reading for more than 10 minutes was difficult. I kept thinking of the phone, the TV, my notifications. I stuck through this phase though. As my brain adapted, it took over the job of the idiot box. 

My ability to build an image about the words on a page (my Kindle in my case) improved. In the early stages, I had to read slowly, twice to visualize what the author was describing. As it became easier, I was able to read for an hour at a time. And then a certain tipping point came when this newly rediscovered ability replaced the television. I noticed that I was building rich images in my brain about what I was reading. The author's descriptions jumped off the pages and created strong images in my mind's eye! I was loving this. 

My ability to focus improved too. In the early phase, it was impossible to sit in front of the TV and read a book. If my wife was watching the television, I simply couldn't focus. The audio would keep impinging into my attention.  I'd keep looking up at the screen and following the story. As I progressed though, I was able to tune out background noises! The television stopped intruding into my attention-space. Now I'm able to sit in my usual spot while my better half watches television and I'm able to still fully immerse myself in whatever I'm reading. 

It took two weeks to break (or at least begin to break) a years-long digital habit, but trading the idiot box for a page-turner has been one of the best mental resets I’ve ever done. I don't think the solution is banishing screens from my life entirely, I think it's about intentionality. The TV might eventually make its way back into my free time, but it will be a choice, not a reflex. Until then, I've got a backlog of great stories and genres to catch up on before I reach for the remote!

Drills

During the Covid pandemic I lost around 25 lbs. Apparently not being allowed to go to the gym was the biggest motivator in me wanting to go to the gym. Go figure. Anyhoo, I didn't want to waste momentum once things opened up and I took to boxing. My end goal was being able to (at least) spar (which I achieved). Turns out learning boxing is all about drills. Footwork drills, agility drills, drills on the speed bag, drills to increase cardiovascular fitness and actual training drills. My coach was a man of few words. But one word that he seemed to have really taken to was "again". He'd keep shouting at me this magic word over and over and over till I'd collapse. He wasn't too pleasant about it either. I remember moments when my shoulders would be burning on the speed bag after 10 reps of shoulder raises but I'd have a Tabata drill going and after the customary 10 seconds I'd have to get into another round. "Again" . . That barked order would force me to somehow raise my shoulders one more time for a go on the speed bag. Drills and endless drills. 

I look for meaning in everything I do. And for the first 3 months I didn't really understand why I was doing what I was doing. I had learnt the speed bag which took me 3 weeks. I had learnt skipping which took me 3 to 4 weeks as well. But as time went on and I saw improvement in my reflexes, my stamina I started to understand the beauty of drills. The real mental  models underneath drills. 

To understand a drill in a physical context, one has to understand the concept of a kinetic chain. Every athletic movement has one. Consider the jab. While often viewed simply as extending the lead arm, an effective jab transfers energy from the ground up. The kinetic chain begins at the ankle of the rear foot, pushing into the canvas. That push extends the rear leg, rotates the hips, transfers momentum through the torso into the shoulder, and finally accelerates the arm through full extension. A proper jab requires every link in this chain; maximum force depends on sequencing them correctly. The same logic applies to the speed bag: the shoulder remains stable while the torso adjusts slightly in rhythm with the rotating forearm to maintain cyclic momentum. Try doing a speed bag for the first time and you will notice that the rhythm is hard to get. You can’t move your forearm fast enough to tap the speed bag at exactly the same time that it hits the top of the board and comes back down. You have to practice using small drills. Build up to the rhythm. Drills exist to isolate, repeat, and synchronize each micromovement of that chain until the full movement operates with maximum output and minimal wasted effort.

Once I got the concept of drills - rather, the mental model underlying drills - I could extrapolate it to any physical skill. Over the last 5 years, I've learnt unicycling, CrossFit, and swimming. Swimming took me the longest because apart from the drills, I also had to combat my fear of water. Be that as it may, the point here is that one can use drills to learn any physical skill. 

But what about cognitive  skills? Can drills be used here? Turns out yes! To understand how, one has to go beneath the concept of drills to a "first principle" that I find useful for learning anything - neural pathways. Drills use repetition to build a physical skill into what we call "muscle memory".  We use the term muscle memory as if muscles have some short-term memory cache like a RAM chip but that's not the case. Muscle memory is nothing but a neural pathway. What's happening is our brain associates the micromovements in a kinetic chain and builds a neural pathway to solidify it as a group of actions. There's a fundamental concept in neuroplasticity which says, "neurons that fire together, wire together". That's what is happening when we do a drill enough times. We build a neural pathway which fires together every time we activate the drill, or the set of movements. Pretty cool stuff when you think about it. 

The beauty is that our brain does this for physical as well as cognitive  skills. I tried to use drills to learn a language and the same concepts apply. The building blocks of language are rooted in drills. We first learn the alphabet by repetition, then we learn the pronunciation, basic words, conjugation - all rooted in drills. We learn to conjugate verbs by memorizing the 1st person, 2nd person and 3rd person forms of verbs in the singular and plural forms - over and over and over again till it becomes second nature. Or to put it more precisely, till we build the neural pathway and it “feels like second nature”. We immerse ourselves in the language to solidify these neural pathways through “second hand drills”. Drills to learn verbs, drills to learn forms of words, drills to learn sentence structure, drills to learn conjugation and drills to have unscripted conversations (like sparring). 

What works for languages works for all cognitive skills. Want to learn Python? Use drills. Want to learn statistics? Use drills. If you use drills effectively, you can learn any physical or cognitive skill, age no bar! Any complex cognitive skill can be broken down into more basic “fundamental” skills and then further broken down into “micro-movements” or “micro-skills”. Practice enough of these micro-skills enough times and you build the expertise in the fundamental skills. Practice enough of the fundamental skills enough times and you gain more and more expertise in the complex cognitive skill. 

Mastery is often romanticized as intuition, natural talent, or sudden inspiration. In reality, it is nothing more than accumulated, automated mechanics. The real enemy in learning anything difficult (be it a jab, a foreign language, a Python script, or a statistical model) is the sheer weight of the finished product. Look at everything you don’t know, and paralysis sets in. A drill destroys that paralysis. It contracts your entire horizon to the single rep directly in front of you. You don’t need to master the art of conversation today; you only need to conjugate this one irregular verb ten times. You don’t need to deploy a full-scale automation project right away, you just have to figure out how to automate ETL first. When your brain feels exhausted and the urge to quit surfaces, you don't need a breakthrough. You just need to hear that same voice from the gym cut through the noise:

"Again."

2026: A SpaceX Odyssey

I am going to gloss over the rather clever play on words drawing inspiration from the title of Kubrick's book/movie, mention in passing that I came up with it without the help of AI, and move straight to the gist of my tirade. When it comes to finance/investment, I have strong feelings! 

Unfortunately, what happens in the US equity and bond markets impacts everyone around the globe. I truly wish it weren't so. I truly wish Indian markets were insulated better against what happens with FIIs, bond markets and the overall US equity markets. But the ground reality is that this is not the case. The current hot news doing the rounds is the SpaceX IPO. What an event. Everyone wants in. Valuations are sky-high, profits are . . well, there aren't any. Yet. Events like these really call into question the efficient market hypothesis. As a disclaimer, I am not arguing about the future potential at all. Far from it. SpaceX might be the Star Trek of our times. They might change the world by mining asteroids and putting up data centers on the moon. All might be legit. But it certainly ain't happening overnight. To quote Roy Amara, "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." Lets sum this up for a bit. 

On May 1st of this year, NASDAQ changed a bunch of rules (reduced seasoning period before index inclusion, public float thresholds, amongst others). On Jun 11th, SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq. by July 7th, it capitalized on every single one of these structural loopholes to force its way into the Nasdaq-100. There's no doubt about this. Debating this point is moot. It's generally accepted the rule changes were for SpaceX's benefit. 

While this is happening, the research teams of the SAME investment banks that underwrote the IPO published buy ratings that defy common sense, logic and math. For example, Raymond James published a target of USD 800 for SpaceX which would take it's market cap to USD 10 trillion which is 31% of total US GDP. 

Cherry on top - SpaceX still lost 7% of its value since its inclusion in the index and 39% of its value since its post-IPO peak. Not surprising since it's not turning profits, hemorrhaging money and does not have a contract pipeline beyond its defense contracts. Rigged game if there ever was one. Nasdaq gets bullied into a mega-IPO. Passive funds get bullied into adding SpaceX in their indices. Research analysts get bullied into publishing nonsensical buy ratings. 

In Ayn Rands dystopian novel Atlas Shrugged, one of the protagonists, Francisco D'Anconia,  deliberately hypes up worthless, non-existent copper mines to drive corrupt politicians, looters, and parasitic investors into a speculative frenzy, only to watch the engineered bubble burst and bankrupt the very systems trying to leech off his productivity.

Looking at the SpaceX listing, it's hard not to see the parallel. Either Elon is the ultimate con artist, or he is playing the real-life d'Anconia. If it’s a grift, it’s a historic transfer of retail capital to the top. But if it’s a d’Anconia move, Elon is playing a spectacular joke on modern financial systems. Forcing captured regulators, passive indexing giants, and fee-chasing underwriters to choke on a capital-hemorrhaging physical utility they valued as a multi-trillion-dollar monopoly just because he slapped an "AI" label on it. Either way, Galt's Gulch has never looked this expensive.

But there's some hope. While Nasdaq and FTSE Russell practically tripped over themselves to change their listing rules, S&P Dow Jones Indices flatly refused to play ball. They stood firm on their strict requirement: a company must show consecutive GAAP profitability over four quarters.Because SpaceX posted a massive $4.28 billion USD net loss in Q1 2026, it remains strictly locked out of the S&P 500. It turns out, guardrails can exist when a registry actually respects financial math over transaction-fee dopamine. Nasdaq surrendered its integrity for a historic listing fee; S&P looked at the same spreadsheet and chose to act like the only adult left in the room.

I could go on and on about how the underwriters and corporate insiders earned a hefty profit and left the retail investor literally holding the bag. Mega funds like Blackrock, Vanguard, global sovereign wealth funds from the middle east . . all earned a profit. They bought in at USD 135 per share. The IPO commenced trading at USD 150 per share. Guaranteed profit. Most cashed out. Some waited for the frenzy to peak at around USD 225 per share. The mechanics of this wealth transfer are almost beautiful in the scale of their grift. But the real master stroke was the NASDAQ100 index inclusion. By forcing index inclusion in just 15 trading days, they unleashed a legally mandated wave in passive fund buying. This algorithmic, non-negotiable volume provided the ultimate pool of exit liquidity, letting the smart money (read corporate insiders) systematically dump shares without crashing the market. The net result - the retail investor, the common man is left holding the bag. 

On a side-note, SEBI treats merchant banking and equity research like radioactive isotopes. While SEBI swings the other way by being too interventionist, they proactively hunt down predatory "finfluencers" and try to prevent cross-selling. It's not perfect, but SEC can really learn something from SEBI. 

Ultimately though, we can't hope that financial regulators grow a spine and start looking out for the little guy. That's not going to happen. The system relies almost entirely on the financial illiteracy of the common man to swindle him'/her out of their hard earned savings. Boom-and-bust cycles will always exist because human greed is an immutable constant. But when the common man stops providing the free capital that keeps these valuation hallucinations alive, the investment banks are left choking on their own supply. The path to this financial literacy begins with mastering the basics. The very nature of money. There's a ton of good literature out there about the psychology and history of money. From Morgan Housel to Robert Kiyosaski (bit controversial). From Michael Lewis to Nassim Taleb. Point is - an informed investor can behave a bit more rationally than someone who is just "buying into the hype". It's time to understand how the plumbing works and call out the BS.  

From Combustion Chambers to Circuit Boards: What driving EVs taught me about embracing change!

Some months ago I penned down some thoughts, a vanguard defence as it were, of why I still drive manual transmission cars. Pretty heartfelt stuff. Pretty irrelevant too since most cars being sold now are automatics. Recently I've gotten my hands on a car with an electric powertrain. Which means no gears, instant torque on tap and no noise. It's been a pretty strange experience. Which meant I had to pen some thoughts on that as well. Me being me, I search for underlying mental models. Not so surprisingly, even when it comes to the prickly topic of ICE vs EV, some are evident.

I feel modern day EVs/HEVs/PHEVs differ fundamentally in their approach to driving experience than traditional ICE cars. How they look at driving itself is different. The former wants to isolate you from the road, the latter wants to connect you to the road. I'm not judging. Neither is good or bad. Just that the approach is fundamentally different. To use the “Amazonian” term, two different mental models.

This shift is perhaps most tangibly felt in the evolution of the gear shifter, which has transitioned from a mechanical instrument of engagement to a digital prompt. In a traditional manual transmission, the gear lever is an extension of the gearbox itself. The "thump" you feel when slotting into gear, the mechanical resistance, the audible click, the vibration traveling up the stick. It is a direct, physical handshake between the driver and the engine’s internals. It confirms that the gear has locked, grounding the driver in the reality of the machine's state. It's raw, it's visceral. As we moved toward the DCT (dual-clutch transmission) and it's more advanced CVT (Continuous Variable Transmission) and automatic era, that connection began to soften. The physical urgency of a hard mechanical lock was replaced by a smoother, more deliberate motion, often mediated by cables and electronics. While still mechanical in spirit, the act became less about commanding a cog to engage and more about selecting a state of operation. In fact, for a DCT, you still feel some of the connect. The sensation of the clutch engaging and gear changing is still there, it's just softened and not so visceral. In fact, the DCT developed as a need for the driver to feel some tactile feedback over the very delayed reaction of an AMT (automated manual transmission). CVT takes it further by removing the need for a clutch to be engaged at all. This is reflected in the user input. CVTs don't need a “gear shifter” so the “toggle” which still sometimes resembles a stick, doesn't feel so connected to the whole system. Today, in the EV/HEV paradigm, the "gear shifter" is frequently reduced to a rotary knob, a push-button array, or a stalk mounted on the steering column. The tactile feedback has been abstracted away; the physical sensation of "shifting" is gone, replaced by a satisfying but ultimately cosmetic click. This shift mirrors the broader transition in automotive philosophy: we have moved from manipulating a mechanical linkage to sending a digital signal. The driver is no longer commanding a physical force but rather confirming an intent to the vehicle's computer, prioritizing the clean, buttoned-up composure of the cabin over the visceral, clunky honesty of the machine. Come to the cabin experience. Even inside the cabin, this transition is evident. In cabins for cars as advanced and premium as the Corolla Cross, the ICE impact is evident. It's a mechanical device. The infotainment system is large, but the electronics are subservient to the machine. It's obvious you're sitting in a car with an advanced infotainment system. But it's still obvious it's a car. Cut to EVs/PHEVs coming out of the Chinese ecosystem. It's as if the shackles of restraint are thrown away. There's no pretense at masking the digitization. You step into a digital device not a mechanical one. The screen is front and centre. The steering wheel is smaller. The buttons are plush against the consoles or digitized altogether and blended into the infotainment system. The cabin experience in modern EVs extends this digital-first philosophy beyond just screens and controls. In many ICE vehicles, the interior architecture is defined by the central tunnel, which is a necessary housing for the transmission and exhaust components. This creates a distinct separation, a cocoon for the driver and passengers, reinforcing the idea of a machine built around the drivetrain. In contrast, the absence of these mechanical components in most dedicated EV platforms allows for a "flat floor" architecture. The transmission tunnel disappears, liberating the cabin floor space and turning the interior into an open lounge. This spatial shift from the intimate, cockpit-like feel of a performance ICE car to the expansive, airy interior of an EV is the most immediate physical manifestation of the powertrain's removal from the cabin environment. Furthermore, the sensory landscape inside is fundamentally altered. In an ICE car, the cabin is an acoustic chamber designed to manage the engine’s presence. You hear the idle, the revs, and the thrum of the motor, all of which provide constant, albeit often filtered, feedback on the engine's load. Engineers spend years tuning the sound to be pleasant, sporty, or authoritative. In an EV, that primary sensory anchor is gone. The silence forces a rethink of the entire cabin atmosphere. Without the engine as a backdrop, wind noise, tire roar, and the subtle whir of electronics become the new focus, leading to cabins that feel less like a mechanical workshop and more like a serene, hermetically sealed sanctuary designed for isolation rather than engagement.

Again, I'm not judging. I'm enjoying this new experience these days. It's different. It's not like driving a car at all. I sometimes miss that thrum, that thump, that feeling of connection. When you learn to drive, you learn to listen to the car's engine, the gears engaging, the sound, and the feel. That's what tells you whether you're in the right gear or at the right speed. Driving an EV is entirely different, and it will take time to adjust. It feels like a massive transition in the automobile industry: the old vs. the new. Rather than looking at it as a “loss of soul,” I'm looking at it as a “migration” of it. From the combustion chamber to the circuit board. Guess this automotive example is just a microcosm. We live in an era of constant change. AI, robotics, hyper-automation; they are fundamentally altering the way we live and work. Transformation is the new baseline. Why would something as personal as driving be left behind? Hell, I'm embracing the shift. Adieu to the visceral feeling of driving a car (albeit with nostalgia), hello to the high-tech isolation of a digital transportation device! All aboard, I say!

Wired for Worry

My wife and I take a walk every evening around our condominium complex. It’s a nice garden, lot of green, pretty flowers. This particular day was pleasant with a hint of rain in the air. Children gamboled about, other couples passed us on their evening stroll, a light breeze lent solace to a brisk walk. In these rambles around the complex we usually chat about things that interest us. My day, her day, our plans, interesting books, movies . . . The usual chitchat married couples engage in. My wife is a psychologist. And when discussing some interesting theories in her field, she made a very interesting statement - The brain is built for safety not for happiness. 

Prima facie, it felt very counterintuitive. I mean what price the pursuit of happiness? Isn’t it one of those inalienable rights enshrined in that Will Smith movie? Oh sorry, I meant in the declaration of independence of the only free country of this world? What are we all doing if not seeking happiness?

Turns out mainstream media might put this “pursuit of happiness” on a pedestal, but our biology most certainly does not. Turns out my wife was right. The brain has evolved to prioritize safety over happiness. From an evolutionary standpoint, nature has no interest in our long-term happiness or self-actualization or any of those lofty goals; its sole priority is survival and reproduction. Our ancestors survived by assuming every rustle in the bushes was a predator, not a harmless draft of wind. A caveperson who was constantly content and relaxed was eaten; the anxious, hyper-vigilant one survived to pass on his or her genes. This was primarily due to a  simple fact – the cost of being wrong was very low in the case of a false positive (Type I error) and very high in the case of a false negative (Type II error).

Scenario	Error	Outcome	Evolutionary Cost
Caveperson assumes a rustle in the bushes is a tiger when it’s just the wind.	Type I error (False Positive)	Alive, but slightly embarrassed.	Low
Caveperson assumes a rustle in the bushes is just the wind when its actually a hungry tiger	Type II error (False negative)	Dead	Terminally high

What’s more, not only is the brain geared towards safety and towards always thinking of the worst-case scenario, but it’s also built in such a way that happiness is fleeting and fear is much more permanent. 

• A negativity bias ensured survival. 
• Temporary nature of dopamine spikes meant we remained motivated to keep moving, hunting and surviving. If we were satisfied forever, we would be the neanderthal equivalent of couch potatoes. Cave potatoes.
• Immediate hijack of the amygdala by our threat-detection system meant we were always alert. If serotonin was long-lasting and cortisol/adrenaline could not over-ride it quickly, our reaction time would be high.

Essentially, happiness is something humans have to actively cultivate because our default biological hardware is optimized strictly for risk mitigation. In other words, maintaining mental well-being requires deliberate effort. It means actively working against millions of years of evolutionary programming. Jeez, that sounds like a lot of work just to fight off depression. That in itself; ironically, is a depressing thought.

But it doesn’t end there. Extending this logic further, it’s easier to be a cynic than an optimist. It’s easier to mistrust than trust. Here we came to the crux of our discussion. Safety is one thing, but active cynicism/pessimism being our default state? Really? Turns out, science says a resounding "yes." If you look under the hood, neuroscientists have a name for this design flaw: the Negativity Bias. Research shows that our brains react more intensely to negative stimuli than positive ones. In fact, a famous study by psychologist John Cacioppo revealed that the brain’s electrical activity spikes far more drastically when we look at a picture of a dead cat compared to a slice of pizza or a Corvette. We are literally hardwired to obsess over the threat. Even our social interactions are rigged. Take Error Management Theory, a framework popularized by evolutionary psychologists Martie Haselton and David Buss. They found that human cognition is designed to make safe, systematic errors to avoid costly catastrophes. For instance, their research into "cross-sex mind reading" revealed that women possess an evolved "commitment skepticism bias”. Which means they naturally underestimate a partner’s genuine commitment. Why? Because historically, trusting a liar was far more dangerous than doubting an honest person. Conversely, men over-estimated women’s sexual interest. At first glance this might seem counter intuitive. Women mistrust men but men are running around hoping for a best-case scenario of mating? Not exactly. When men systematically overestimate a woman's friendliness as sexual interest, they aren't practicing genuine, sunny optimism. In the brutal economy of natural selection, a blow to the ego or a moment of social awkwardness is just burnt toast. But missing a mating opportunity? That is a maximum-cost, catastrophic risk, the evolutionary equivalent of a house fire. The hyper-confident overestimation isn't hope; it's an aggressive risk-mitigation strategy designed to avoid the ultimate worst-case scenario: genetic extinction. Whether the brain is utilizing a woman’s default mistrust to protect against abandonment, or a man’s overestimation to protect against a missed opportunity, the operational logic remains completely unchanged. The human mind does not care about objective reality. It is a finely tuned paranoia machine, forever optimized to commit the cheapest possible mistake.

We no longer dodge predators on the savanna, but our brains treat modern social and professional stresses with the exact same life-or-death intensity. Take some very common modern-day scenarios.

• The performance review: You receive an annual review with nine glowing compliments and one piece of constructive criticism. Your brain will completely ignore the nine positives and obsess over the single negative for days. The amygdala flags that one critique as a threat to your status and tribal belonging (your job security).
• Emails with an ambiguous tone: When a manager sends a brief message like, "Come by my office when you have a minute," the default assumption is almost never, "They want to praise my work." The brain automatically fills the ambiguity with a worst-case scenario ("Am I getting fired?") to prepare you for a threat.

There’s a ton of research backed examples of this behavior – from loss aversion in behavioral economics to market routs in investment theory to the colloquial phrase – “takes years to build trust, a second to destroy it”.

So to sum up, our brain is wired for safety over happiness, what happiness we experience is fleeting, mistrust is our default state. Quite a gloom-and-doom scenario so far. Doesn’t end there though. Cut to the digital age. Take this scenario and amplify it a thousand-fold. That’s what happens when biology meets capitalism. Turns out media and news organizations discovered this long ago. They’ve been taking advantage of this biological hardwiring for some time now. Ever wonder why you see so much bad news on the internet or TV? Why true crime dramas have more TRPs than positive news of community spirit? Since we respond to it instinctively, news channels sell it to us even more aggressively. It’s a vicious cycle. Capitalism simply looked at our biological vulnerability and built a monetization model around it. A headline about a stable economy or a community garden is just "burnt toast" to your subconscious; it gets ignored. But a headline about an economic crash, a rising crime rate, or an impending crisis? That’s a potential "house fire." Your amygdala locks on, your thumb clicks, and the media company cashes an ad check. So let’s sum this up –

[Human Brain scans for danger]

       ↓ (Clicks on bad news)

[Media Platforms track engagement]

       ↓ (Realize fear/outrage = revenue)

[Algorithms amplify sensationalism]

       ↓ (Floods feed with more threats)

[Human Brain perceives world as more dangerous]

We started off in a garden with gamboling children and a light breeze. That escalated quickly. But we’re not done. This same doom loop plays out in social media as well as political campaigns. We click more on bad news even in our social media feeds, and we listen more to politicians prophesizing doom. 

A landmark 2017 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), led by William Brady and Jay Van Bavel at New York University (NYU) attempted to study this relationship and check whether “the people around us online affect the information flow to us and whether there’s a negativity bias to the spread of information”. This was a fascinating study. ​To test this, they analyzed a massive dataset of over 560,000 tweets covering highly polarizing social and political topics (in the US): gun control, climate change, and same-sex marriage. Using established linguistic dictionaries, they categorized the words in these tweets into three distinct buckets: Exclusively Moral - Words dealing with values or duties (e.g., duty, honor, standard),  Exclusively Emotional - Words dealing with general feelings (e.g., fear, safe, alert), and Moral-Emotional - Words where morality and intense emotion fuse together (e.g., greed, hate, shame, outrage, corrupt, sin). When they tracked how these tweets were shared, they found a striking mathematical pattern. The presence of a single moral-emotional word increased the likelihood of that tweet being retweeted by 20%. If you added two moral-emotional words, the virality compounded. Conversely, tweets that used dry, purely moral arguments or generic emotional words did not see a consistent boost in sharing.

Let’s think this through. News organizations are already sensationalizing news and churning out more negativity online. To compound that, politicians are dialing up rhetoric by triggering our threat response. But to make matters worse, we do this as well! We’re churning out negative content online too! And we’re subconsciously geared to sharing it more as well! Basically, social media platforms took the media's business model and put it on steroids. This reminds me of a scene from the movie Nightcrawler starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo. Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is trying to sell a bit of news to the late night segment of a local news channel where Nina (Rene Russo) is a manager. She is trying to explain what the news channel represents and what type of news bytes/videos they want to purchase. She sums it up by saying, “Think of our news cast as a screaming woman, running down the street with her throat cut”. That basically captures the essence of not just local news but news/media organizations worldwide. The movie itself is a brutal, severe indictment of the modern media landscape, but it captures an ugly, immutable truth: news and media organizations worldwide are not in the business of objective journalism. They are running a commercial enterprise optimized for a consumer base that is biologically trapped by its own survival instincts.

Like I said, doom and gloom. Is there any hope? Are we doomed to this vicious cycle? Is there nothing we can do? Again, we turn to evolutionary science. On one end of the spectrum we have our amygdala which triggers our threat response and forces our adrenal glands to churn out adrenaline/cortisol. It hijacks our brain at a moment’s notice and turns us into paranoid fearmongers; The George Costanza of our brain. On the other end of our spectrum is blind sunny optimism, the evolutionary cost of whose mistakes is fatal. The Sue Heck of our brain. The bridge between both is our neocortex. The latest development in our evolution as humans. The most advanced arsenal in our toolkit of reason. The ambulance waiting for that woman running down the street with her throat cut.

We can dive deeper into brain biology and study what the neocortex made of, its six different layers, inhibitory and excitatory neurons, the nuts and bolts. Or we can understand its history and function which is more relevant for us. The neocortex is the most recent addition to our brain structure. It is what makes us uniquely human. The neocortex increased in size in response to pressures for greater cooperation and competition in our early ancestors. The neocortex accounts for almost 80% of our total brain mass. Amongst mammals that is the highest. Chimpanzees come close with around 73%. For the vast majority of mammals, ranging from rodents to small carnivores, the neocortex averages roughly 30% to 40% of total brain volume. With this increase in size, there was greater voluntary inhibitory control of social behaviors resulting in increased social harmony. Sounds like just what we need!

Well hold on, not so fast though! Using our neocortex is a slow process. There’s a reason that the amygdala “hijacks” our brain. It wants to secure our safety first. The neocortex steps in later to analyze data, dissect facts, determine the truth and take a more nuanced, balanced approach. Think of our neocortex as our fact checker. But a fact checker is a dry, dispassionate job; and more importantly, a boring one. It really takes effort to bring in a fact checker when your amygdala is crying fire!

This brings us to the nub of my whole tirade. Is there anything we can do? Or are we stuck in this biologically imposed but capitalistically monetized doom loop of negativity and paranoia? If bad news gets created more and shared more, isn’t the answer as simple as shouting the good news even more? Amplify the positive 10x times to counter the effect of the negative already being shared? Perhaps not. I think it’ll be a losing battle. If we’re wired for worry, just blasting good news will always be an uphill battle. We’ll be battling biology with noise. What if the answer is to battle our animal instincts with our human ones? If our animal “hindbrains” are switching on our flight/fight modes too often, maybe we need to train our neocortex to ease in and switch on our rational thought processes and critical thinking skills? It’s not that easy to be honest. The problem we face today is unique. Not only are media and news organizations selling us bad news but social media is reducing our attention spans. Think back a bit and you’ll see this playing out across the last decade or so. We had movies, which turned into episodes, which turned into YouTube videos which became reels and YouTube shorts. In 2014, the average length of a music video was 3 minutes 50 seconds. Today, while the average (mathematical mean) is just over 3 minutes; the new norm for hit singles is 2 minutes 30 seconds. This is going down YoY. Streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music count a "play" and trigger a royalty payout once a listener hits the 30-second mark, regardless of whether the song is two minutes or five minutes long. Mathematically, if an album features twelve 2-minute tracks instead of six 4-minute tracks, it generates twice the potential revenue in the exact same amount of listening time. It’s all about the money honey! I can do a whole other piece on dopamine hits, addiction science, how social media apps are like slot machines in a casino, and reduced attention spans; but suffice it to say that our attention spans are going down. The math is clear. Why am I bringing up attention spans here? If you’re still reading this, I obviously still have your attention. I bring this up to highlight the fact that if our neocortex has to step in and fact check our animal hindbrains, if our uniquely human traits are to kick in and calm down our paranoid amygdala, our attention spans have to go up. We need the ability for focused, deep thought. We need the ability to parse information, use our critical thinking and analyze nuanced scenarios rather than classify everything as just good or bad. After all, that’s exactly what makes us human! If news and social media organizations are using monetization algorithms, we must break that cycle of addiction to reclaim our humanity.

Across the world, governments are realizing the harm that social media organizations are doing and acting on it. Australia (who pioneered this) has enacted a law to ban social media for kids under 16. The UK has recently announced a similar set of legislation which will come into effect by 2027. Ditto Indonesia and Malaysia. These are the first steps to reverse the devastating effect social media has on children’s attention spans. But we can do our bit today as well. It’s not just about social media remember? We began our dive into this rabbit hole with our tendency to be attracted to bad news. To increase our attention spans and ability for critical thinking, we need to step away from short-form content. Read books. Switch off the reels. Cease the infinite scrolls. Read articles instead of tweets. The process is going to be slow. The results are not going to be immediate. Maybe the benefits will be observed not by us but by the generations that come after us. De-addiction has a playbook. First step is to create friction; which means making it tough to access the substance you are addicted to. In this case, it’s that spike of dopamine or that morbid curiosity about bad news. Maybe the starting point is as simple as charging our phones in a room that’s different from where we sleep. Next step in the playbook is envisioning a life without addiction. If it’s smoking, think of a break without a cigarette. A party without alcohol. Prepare the mind for the options. In this case, maybe the starting point is embracing the boredom. Sit without a screen or notification. The de-addiction playbook goes on to environmental redesign. In our case it might be inhibit access to news, social media. In the latter phases, Maybe we need to create content ourselves that’s long-form. Spread the habit. Over time, I think our attention spans will go up, our ability to parse information will increase, our capacity for accepting the inherent duality of a situation will be enhanced and our polarized opinions will be more nuanced. Over time, our reactions to sensationalized news will be distaste instead of morbid curiosity.

A long road ahead of us. But I think it’s worth it. The risk is lesser revenue for social media organizations, the ecosystem of content creators who churn out short-form content, and over time news organizations who sensationalize news and media. The advantage is that we might reclaim our attention and give it back to the things that are important - actual social connections, healthy debate, nuanced perspectives, diverse opinions, and real progress.

The Stick Shift

In 2020, on average, between 30% - 40% of all cars sold were automatic transmissions. In 2025, that figure has jumped up to somewhere between 60% - 70%. In western countries like the US, automatic transmission rules the roost. Over 90% of all new cars sold are automatic transmissions. In the US, cars with manual transmissions are for racers, off-roaders and some hardcore enthusiasts only. In fact, with the advent of EVs, manual transmissions are increasingly becoming obsolete. Even in India, which has been a market where manual transmissions dominated, automatics have grown exponentially (from 20% in 2020 to almost 40% in urban markets in 2025). It's easier, more convenient and with the advent of CVTs (continuous variable transmission), doesn't really impact your mileage. A no brainer right?

I learnt driving/riding when I was 18. That's a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Since then, I've always used a stick shift for cars and the good ol' five speed or six speed gearbox for my motorcycles. Occasionally, I have driven the automatic transmission. Occasionally . . when I've rented a car or a moped on vacations. But by and large, I've stuck to my guns. Given that I am an early adopter of new technologies in almost everything, I am puzzled by my own reluctance to move to auto-mode! I was using a computer before they became ubiquitous in computer labs in school. I was using Linux before it became cool with Android. I had switched from watches to fitness trackers long before their readings became reasonably accurate. For a long time, this one remaining bastion of low-tech usage puzzled me. 

Recently, I've started to realize why though. It's not about tech at all. it's about sanity in an ever changing world. It's about a level of control that you might be missing everywhere else in life. I discovered this coincidentally, on one of my rides. To explain that, I will have to take a step back and also explain a bit about the experience of using manual transmission. Surprisingly, this is necessary as more and more people (especially young adults) have simply never used a stick shift or ridden a motorcycle with gears. The transmission (also called a gearbox) is basically a set of gears of different sizes connected together. The transmission's purpose is to transfer power from the engine to the wheels through the gears (simplistically speaking). The low gears (1st and 2nd) use a small input gear from the engine, connected to a large output gear to the wheels. This combination delivers high torque and low speed. Greater pulling force to get the vehicle moving. The high gears (5th and 6th) use a large input gear from the engine, connected to a small output gear to the wheels. This delivers low torque but high speed since the input gear has to move fewer times to turn the wheels. 

Keeping the technicals aside, as a driver/rider, two things are very important for shifting up or down successfully - the rpm and the speed. If you shift too fast at low speeds, you'll stall. If you shift too slow at high speeds, you'll redline. Both bad. And how does one know what's the optimal time to shift gears? The newbie rider is taught that certain gears have certain speeds that you must shift at. You put in 2nd gear around 10 kmph, 3rd gear around 20 kmph, 4th gear at around 40 kmph, 5th at 50 kmph and 6th beyond 60 kmph. For the most part, that holds true. That's good enough on flat roads, for average engines. But the higher you go up the displacement ladder; that doesn't really hold true. On slopes, the numbers change. And the better you get at riding, you know when to shift by the sound of the engine and the rev range. Every engine has an optimal power band; an rpm range when it delivers power and torque most efficiently. And the engine makes a different sound in this optimal rev range. It's a throaty purr. It's a satisfying fullness. For want of a better term, you can feel the engine is happy! At this rev range, the engine delivers the best mileage and yet gives optimal output. You know you've slid out of that "optimal zone" by the sound. You know you're back in the sweet spot by the sound. 

Why am I rambling on about the sound? Because that level of control takes time. It takes skill. They say you should never learn on a new machine. You are going to destroy a new machine learning it. So true. It takes time to get accustomed to each vehicle's rev range and the sweet spot for each gear. The more vehicles you ride/drive, the easier you find it. But till you get there, it's a lot of stalls and redlines and failed clutches, for which the engine is paying the price. 

For me, gears are control. They signify skill. Skill that I have acquired over two and a half decades of driving and riding. Today cars have CVTs, they have hill assist; motorcycles have quick shifters, they have ride-by-wire technology. But with each of these advancements you give over control to the vehicle. When I straddle my motorcycle or get behind the wheel, I do it to ease my stress. I do it as a form of therapy. If I am not in control atleast behind the wheel or on the handlebars, it's not therapy. In an increasingly volatile and constantly changing world, It feels safe knowing that I decide the pace atleast when I am driving. I decide when to shift up, I decide when to shift down. In the saddle, I know I am an expert. I am humble enough to respect the power, but skilled enough to control it. Humble enough to know it's dangerous out there on the road, and skilled enough to still ride out for hundreds of kilometers. 

I realized all this on a ride. When I was shifting up the twisties. That sweet sound got me thinking. This is not about the tech at all. It's about the last remaining bastion where I still have the feeling of control in a chaotic world. I know that given the convenience, an "upgrade" to the automatic transmission is inevitable. But I also know that if I want therapy, it's going to be manual mode that'll give it. Some things just never change. 

Stranger Things

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. 

- George Santayana 

Many economists, investors and market experts have studied, spoken, and written about economic cycles. From boom to bust and back. I'm hardly any of them. I've not studied economics, am not a bigshot UHNI investor, nor can I call myself a market expert since my journey with value investing began in 2017 which is less than a decade ago. Though I boast a decent alpha, good CAGR and a healthy passive income due to the quantum of my investment; I am no expert. So this article is more a sharing of thoughts and experiences than any prophetic call to arms. 

So . . . Indian equities have seen a roller coaster year so far. As of Oct'25, markets are up 7% YTD. However, gains for the past year (since Oct 24) have also been muted (around 6%). That's not great by any stretch of the imagination. My own investments have plateaued as well. Macroeconomic indicators remain strong though and I wouldn't have been worried too much IF it were left to Indian markets alone. Unfortunately we live in a very interconnected world and what happens in the global marketplace affects us. Which brings me to this rant. Given all else were equal, I wouldn't consider changing course - continue looking for value where one finds it, continue with the same old boring SIPs, continue with the same old index linked equities, let my PMS's do their thing and stay the course. All things not being equal of course, me (and so many investors like me) are in a bit of a quandary. 

Why? Some very strange things are happening in the global economy in general and the US in particular. As a bystander, it's very entertaining. If my money wasn't at stake, I'd grab a bucket of popcorn and enjoy the show. As it happens, for better or for worse, I can't be just a detached spectator; I'm an interested party. 

• Strange thing 1 - Booming US equities. You'd say, "Hey, why is that a strange thing?" . . And you'd have a very valid question. But look deeper and there's something afoot. First off, whats strange is that most of this growth is driven by the Mag 7 (AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, META, NVDA and TSLA). To test this hypothesis, I charted out the YTD (annualized) and 1yr growth rates for Mag 7, XMAG (S&P500 index linked ETF less Mag 7) and overall S&P500. The numbers are quite striking. To sum up, Mag 7 accounts for 37% of the overall market capitalization for the S&P500. That's big. Even at the height of the dotcom bubble, the top 10 companies represented 26% of the overall market cap. Traditionally, the top 10 companies have a weightage of between 20% to 25% of the overall market cap. The fantastic results that US equities have shown is a direct result of the Mag 7. Keeping the Mag 7 aside (which is at an overall return of 24.66%), YTD annualized returns for XMAG is 18%, which is 666 bps lesser (not my fault that's such an ominous number). 
  
  
  
• Strange Thing 2 - Malaise in the macros. So, we've identified that most of the growth in US equities is because of the Mag 7 AND that they contribute to an unnaturally large % of overall market cap. That in itself would be strange enough, but we all know that's driven by AI growth and the heavy capex flowing into data centers and investments around AI tech. So far so good. But can we really explain what's driving the "still-great" returns for XMAG (S&P500 less Mag 7)? 18% returns are still fantastic. What's stranger is that these returns are despite some very contradictory macroeconomic indicators - Political affiliations aside, these are numbers released by the govt so we can take them "as is" - First off, US Job growth has really tanked this year. From an average of 122k jobs per month for the period ending Apr'25 (JFMA-25) to an average of 26k jobs per month for the next four months (MJJA-25) to no data at all for Sep'25. Secondly, Unemployment numbers reflect a similar story. That's increased by 30 basis points this year (from 4% to 4.3%). Additionally, Inflation is trending higher as well since Apr'25 (increased by 70 bps from 2.3% as of Apr'25 to 3% as of Sep'25). To sum up, inflation creeping up, unemployment creeping up, job growth tanking. But what does the market do? Keeps going up! Not just the Mag 7, but across the board - 18% growth is AMAZING. Remember, with far healthier macroeconomic indicators, Indian equities have barely returned 9% (annualized) this year. 
  
  
  
• Strange Thing 3 - All that glitters is gold? - So what have we got so far . . It's strange that equities are heavily concentrated. It's stranger that growth is so good despite slowing macro-economic indicators. What's even stranger is the flight to gold. Traditionally, equities and gold are inversely correlated. What's so strange is that in 2025; both have witnessed parallel and remarkable growth. Confidence in US equities is at an all-time high and still people (read central banks) are buying gold like nobody's business. You might say that fair enough, gold is going up because people have lost faith in the dollar not the stock market. But take a look at YTD US 10yr treasury yield and that's gone down as well (low yield means high bond prices)! As of Oct'25, the US10Y yield is at 4.003%, down 57 bps from 4.573% in Jan'25. Which means that people are still buying US treasuries (still going long on the dollar) but also buying gold AND also buying stocks! Weirder and weirder!
  
  
  
• Strange Thing 4 - Private Credit! Now this one's a bit scary! What's more, it could explain the inexplicable growth. After 2008, central banks came together to form the Basel III accords. Legislaters in the US pushed through the Dodd-Frank Act. These regulations forced traditional banks to hold more capital against riskier loans, making middle-market lending slower, more expensive, and less profitable. The Basel II accords were intended to prevent the stupidity and mania that led to the subprime crisis. However, humans being humans and greed being the norm; the market circumvented these rules through something called private credit. Not private equity with which it is often confused. Private credit is direct, one-on-one corporate lending (often to middle-market companies) that is funded by institutional capital managed by specialized non-bank financial firms . And that's even scarier. Atleast banks and financial institutions had to report their NPAs, their balance sheets and their cash holdings. Private credit funds (NBFIs) don't even have to do that. Their relationship with their clients is 1x1 AND is not disclosed at all to investors. Which means that we have no idea how much loans private credit funds have given out, how many of these are still good, and how much cash they hold against these loans. What's even scarier is that they don't use traditional deposits for their lending activities. They use investments. So they take money from pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, AND select private individuals (usually UHNIs) to give credit to venture capitals and middle-market businesses who are too risky to get credit from banks. To give some perspective, in 2000, private credit AUM was at USD 40 billion. As of Oct'25, AUM is at USD 3 trillion. Since 2008, the private credit industry has grown tenfold! Surge in credit activity, no reporting, no governance, no oversight! In Sep'25 Tricolor holdings and First Brands Group declared bankruptcy. Tricolor was a subprime auto lender and First Brands was a manufacturer of auto parts. Tricolor was heavily involved in a segment of finance closely associated with private credit, often called Asset-Based Lending (ABL) or Specialty Finance. The company primarily funded its loans (subprime auto loans to customers) through large "warehouse lines" from major banks like JPMorgan Chase and Fifth Third Bank. These loans were then packaged into Asset-Backed Securities (bonds) and sold to investors. These non-bank financial methods are a key part of the broader private credit ecosystem. Jamie Dimon (CEO, JP Morgan Chase) ominously said there's more cockroaches in the woodwork. Coming from a survivor of the 2008 crisis, and nobody can deny he was in the thick of things with his takeover of Bear Stearns, those are scary words indeed. 
• Strange Thing 5 - Lack of data - In this crucial phase, when it's super critical for policy makers to keep a hawk's eye on macroeconomic trends, the data pipeline is shut off! With the US government in the midst of a shutdown, we don't know if the next month's numbers will be released and if they will be accurate. That's a big problem for the Fed and policy makers across the globe who are looking at these numbers to formulate their own policies. It's akin to driving a large trailer with a blindfold on. Not just government data, some sources are also saying that the practice of publishing quarterly results for listed companies will be moved to half-yearly. Which means investors might be using 6 month old data to make decisions. 

Any one thing in itself is strange indeed. All of the above coming together is not just "stranger", its downright bizarre! One thing is certain, the global economy is undergoing a reset. Global supply lines are moving (probably decoupling from the US), settlement in USD is going down and more importantly, economies are clearly marking themselves into groups and alliances. Nowhere is this clearer than data on holdings in 10yr US treasury bonds. Since Jul'24, traditional allies (Canada, Europe, Japan) of the US have increased their holdings of treasury bonds (US10Y) by 12.35%, adversaries and neutral parties (China, Hong Kong economic zone, India and others) have decreased their holdings by almost 4%. Which means the strong demand for the US dollar is from allies. The rest are selling the dollar. The trend is clear. The numbers are published by the US govt. A decoupling is underway. How this plays out is anybody's guess. 

What's my takeaway as an investor? Sit tight. Something's afoot. I am building cash reserves so that when the next correction comes along, I can jump in and buy. This served me in good stead during the pandemic when I made the first big jump into equities. It gave me rich dividends. I think another big opportunity is coming along. I keep remembering the golden credo of value investing - Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Right now, everyone's greedy. Call me a vulture, circling the bloodsport happening on the ground. Waiting for the pickings. For what it's worth; at the very least - the heady world of high finance is giving me a great ringside view of some once-in-a-lifetime series of events.