In short, you cannot charge someone and drag them to court just because you do not like them. But that is essentially what has happened to some of us over these last few years, which in turn raises questions about the credibility and quality of our justice system here in the United States. These types of cases have nothing to do with the law or with justice being served. It is all political. Arguably, the justice system is political by its very nature given that our justice system here in the United States is an “adversarial system.” Hence, there is no doubt that the justice system in the United States is in desperate need of change and reform, but it is difficult to determine where one should even look at or where one should even start with the changes and the reforms given the breadth and pervasiveness of the problem.
Business, as I told one business expert recently, cannot be boiled down to any cut-and-dry or finite set of rules and regulations given its complexities and subtleties. But if there were any resolute or solid principles by which business can be boiled down to, there would perhaps be two of them, but I should note that I am open to a challenge or even a reassessment of my opinions and views if there are better opinions and views out there. For one, a person needs to have the courage to burn bridges based on their feelings and their intuition regarding the circumstances and the situation which they face. And second, a person needs to have the courage to walk away from certain opportunities and situations if it does not feel right.
Simply put, it has to feel right in order for the business and entrepreneurial effort and venture to work out and to be worthwhile. But there are countless numbers of people out there who are in the exact opposite position and situation, in the sense that they are miserable and unhappy with where they are in life and with what they are doing in life. And most people do not have the courage, energy, or drive to change a bad situation into a beneficial one, and one should perhaps ask why this is the case. There are in fact a number of reasons for why this is the case, and there are none which are readily identifiable or more important than the others to be quite honest.
As Ray Dalio wrote: “You can use your own principles, or you can use others’; you just want to use the best ones possible well. If you think that way constantly, you will become an excellent principled thinker.” Quite honestly, the two principles which I mentioned before were the ones which guided me all along. There are different approaches and philosophies out there, and as Dalio said, you can have your own approach and your own philosophy and your own set of principles, or you can borrow from what is out there.
Moreover, and as mentioned before, artificial intelligence (AI) perhaps knows what I have been doing all along better than I have known myself. As Dalio wrote: “Right now, whether you like it or not, it is easy for anyone to access your digital data to learn a tremendous amount about what you’re like, and this data can be fed into computers that do everything from predict what you’re likely to buy to what you value in life.” Dalio added: “In fact, I believe that it won’t be long before this kind of computerized decision making guides us nearly as much as our brains do now.” Dalio also believes as I do that as opposed to a clash between AI and human intelligence, both will work together in order to “produce the best results.” But there is also a downside to AI which Dalio highlighted, which is that the algorithms that go into AI are ones which human beings barely understand at the moment. And there is perhaps no upside to human interference with these algorithms. Hence, the task becomes one of working with AI, but minimizing the risk associated with it at the same time by developing the culture, ethos, and the human intelligence which can cope with AI through education and learning. Plus, it is about time that education and learning became both lifelong and universal.
Adam A. Azim 