When everyone’s settled on maximizing the diversity of their investments, I wonder if the strategy loses viability as an effective hedge.

There will never be a point of time when "everyone" will do it, viz /r/wallstreetbets.

It's been known that trying to pick individual stocks is generally a sucker's bet since (at least) 1973, but people still try to do it:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street

Same with gambling.

You will never get really rich (100M+) without stock picking but you’re going to be better off in the average case by sticking to the index.

Similar to working for a startup vs working for a large corporation - working at a startup is like stock picking:)

Do we have evidence it was carved?

It’s possible to “shrink” a stamp by pressing onto wet clay, firing, and then repeating the process multiple times (clay will reduce after firing).

I wonder if this could have been etched or pressed, potentially with a chemical process?

Agate is silica (quartz) and is harder than steel, or any common metal or alloy that pre-modern people would have had. A few common minerals are harder, such as feldspar and hornblende, and modern ceramic is (but not all fired clay). I think tools made or tipped with these must have been used, and/or perhaps finely ground minerals were used as an abrasive polish.

Apparently the stone is very hard and difficult to carve. Presumably this would mean it wasn't pressed in some manner.

Communicating technical concepts to lay audiences is difficult, and a universal problem these days.

Very rare and impossible are nearly equivalent wrt policies that broadly and significantly impact personal health and liberty.

I agree that communicating these concepts is hard, but that characterization of "very rare" and "impossible" only makes it harder.

Pandemics are very rare. Flying unicorns shooting Ebola out of their horns are impossible.

Nope. Genetic engineering and bioweapons could very make the latter a reality. And that's why you don't try to be pendantic.

I'd also like to know where I can read further on discussions on this. My understanding is that it's the same for chickenpox - that lack of frequent natural exposure now requires artificial exposure with boosters to prevent shingles. Feels like vendor lock-in to me - often valuable but with some downsides that need to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

From my layman's reading (start from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles#Epidemiology), I think the chickenpox vaccine is potentially somewhat the inverse of vendor lock-in: that giving the vaccine to children decreases the possibility of shingles complications later for them, while studies potentially show an increase in the prevalence of complications among unvaccinated older folks, thus making it relatively worse to not vaccinate for it, as you get older, and as others opt into it. Since there's also multiple shingles vaccines now, this sounds to me more like a typical network effect from vaccination?

To make up an unrelated tech example of that, my impression was this would be like picking a Blackberry phone, while all your friends have Windows phones. You weren't forced to pick a Blackberry by vendor lock-in, but you may miss out on being in some social circles. Changing that group dynamic would require everyone to switch, not just on a case-by-case basis. But in this example though, the Window's phones (aka vaccination) have strictly more features than the Blackberry (aka kills you less often), so if you can afford to (aka you have an average immune system), it would be more logical to get a new phone yourself and join the network, than to ask all of your friends to get new phones.

> Did fiscal and monetary policy help smooth things out?

We're assuming the crash in March was due to COVID - though there's no proof this was the case. This very much could have been a correction to more realistic valuation.

> So you're saying "this time is different." Let's see how that plays out.

Agree here - I think we're in for an interesting year. We may have amplified the upswing dynamics with Fed action, but I'm pretty sure we'll see amplified downswings, as a result.

I get what you are saying but cmon. We very well may have had a recession without covid but covid has certainly majorly shaped what our current economic situation looks like.

Just provide more effective tools allowing users to tune their own feeds.

With a profit or ideological motive, I can spam you, and shout over all meaningful communication much faster than you can block me.

The amount of press and public interest he’s drummed up likely encourages young folks to get into the field, raises the profile of the work, and encourages public support of more funding and exploration.

And, since he’s not wrong or right - just exploring possibilities and being imaginative, I think it’s pretty cool.

> just exploring possibilities and being imaginative, I think it’s pretty cool.

I completly agree with that, but I believe you can do that without being disingenuous, as Carl Sagan did.

> since he’s not wrong or right

This is what is written on the back of his book: "Harvard’s top astronomer, showed it was not an asteroid; it was moving too fast along a strange orbit, and left no trail of gas or debris in its wake. There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilization."

How is that not wrong? It is even worse than wrong since he is very aware of the other potential explanations, it's straigh up lying.

I don’t have a ball in this match other than the one that wants to continue to raise my daughter without civil unrest. How are you so certain of the benefit of this action?

Where did I say I was certain?

Anecdote - I find letting spiders live and using no insecticide results in fewer insects and more diverse and plentiful bird activity.

Can someone more familiar with the field post some applicable models for review?