Link and Think (Apr): on mindfulness coaching, cheap furniture for millennials, and VR as an internet of experiences
By: Impossible Labs
Tags: Panama Papers, Virtual Reality, Politics

Every month we vote and comment on top 5 links that are worth sharing with the rest of the world. In this digest:

Mindfulness sessions: how come we need coaches on what’s supposed to come to us naturally?

Why do millennials prefer cheap furniture?

How should a financial system be changed to avoid “Panama Papers” in the future?

Wired.com: The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup

Kwame Ferreira, Founder & CEO at Kwamecorp: “We, the human collective, have been working hard for millennia at creating technology to trick our minds and make us a more efficient and collaborative species. Stories by the fire brought us together, then paintings perpetuated these illusions, photography, cinema… Stories, like viruses, acquired an ever more sophisticated tech layer so as to be better delivered and absorbed by the human mind.

VR/MR is the latest mutation in this cultural virus and the efficiency of its content delivery is tied to its ability to connect emotionally with its host. In other words, as emotional beings we engage more easily with social content and the sharing of experiences. VR will reiterate this.

At the end of the day, this new layer is not only more emotionally taxing (you will only be able to interact for a short period of time) it’s also more infrastructure and data hungry. The trickery of the human mind requires a lot of energy.”

Firstround.com: The Remarkable Advantage of Abundant Thinking

Pedro Cardoso, UX/UI and Interaction Designer: “The trendiness of mindfulness and presence, and the demand for mindfulness coaches and personal trainers show how far we drifted from what intuitively feels like a natural behaviour between humans. Indeed, as I was reading through the article, I would sometimes catch myself thinking “right, what else is new”.

The reality is that for so many reasons we lost this common sense, it’s buried under countless fears and assumptions that cloud our daily judgement and the way of thinking. Common behaviours and visions in society are often modelled around the dominating religion or social order. They set the “right” values and principles accepted willingly by the majority, and gather consensus for “the best practices” allowing us to live in a “healthy society”. Opportunists and manipulators only thrive with this state of numbness.

It’s crazy to think that we need to be guided back to those basic human values. That we lost the ability to step back, zoom out and grasp the whole before diving into the detail. To be open to listen before judging. To be humble and admit that others are better or can be relevant to the discussion. To simply observe and slow down.

I totally agree with all the advice given in the article, but it just feels odd to have personal trainers to help us be better human beings.”

Dan Catalano, business developer at Kwamecorp: “The problem with abundant thinking is that you have to make decisions. Since possibilities are endless, you really have to hone your decision making abilities, and have the gut to stick with them. The article speaks from the inside out. With self-awareness and gratitude leading toward tribe building. Abundant thinking pulls in more thoughts and possibilities. An abundant LEADER is someone who communicates those shared possibilities, and can then explain why they are taking a specific direction.”

Thebillfold.com: Buy all your Furniture at Target for Tomorrow we Die

Photo credit: Mike Mozart, CC BY 2.0.

Daniela Pretorius, UX/UI designer at Kwamecorp: “Growing up during the late 90s and early 00s I saw my parents upscaling — buying a house, cars, furniture, investing in our future. Then, just as many other kids around my age, I saw them crash during the economic crisis somewhere in 2010. My parents didn’t necessarily lose anything (unlike many others) but our mindset started to change, we couldn’t take things for granted anymore.

As I started my career and became financially independent I noticed that the things my parents aspired to, the status symbols of success of their time, didn’t appeal to me at all. The material things that have value to me are mobile, everything else is disposable.

I think that this mobility and non-attachment are the distinct features of our generation. Compared to our parents we have a much bigger access to information, to goods, we can customise what we take in mentally and materially to fit our needs. This pushes most of us to explore outside our comfort zone to find something better, so we become less willing to spend all of our money on the things that would force us to stay put.

Our values are shifting from materialism to personal improvement, which makes us look for our perfect place professionally and vocationally, not restricting ourselves to our city, country or continent. When choosing between the comfort of owning an expensive car/furniture/apartment and the possibility to discover the best of ourselves, more and more of us go for the latter.

They say the grass is always greener on the other side. Why should I settle and refuse to take a peek? I’ll take my relationships and experience with me, everything else can stay behind.”

Theguardian.com: The Panama Papers: how the world’s rich and famous hide their money offshore

Mathias Grønnebæk, founder & CEO at Braveno: “The Panama Papers present a rare opportunity to look at the financial dealings of corporations, and lay bare the extent of tax evasion and money laundering in many economies around the world, including the European economy. The issues that have brought us here are fundamental and systematic, and the wish to avoid taxation or launder money is not a root cause of the problem, but merely an effect.

I believe the fundamental issue that causes both tax evasion and money laundering in the European Union is that the Union is not unified like a country, but like a loose association. The European Union cannot unilaterally enforce tax and monetary policies across the European Economic Area (EEA), so it cannot prevent tax evasion and money laundering effectively.

Let me elaborate; let’s imagine for a second that we are on the board of a corporation, we are accountable to our shareholders and are responsible for increasing company profits and/or share value. Now, our accountants present us with a plan which says we can increase our profit margin by simply creating a shell corporation in Panama and paying less taxes.

Considering the above incentive many boards would pass such a proposal, and if the country in which our corporation has its tax residence tries to block the corporation from registering the shell corporation, there is nothing stopping our corporation from moving to a more favourable jurisdiction to gain access to the EEA while retaining the tax benefits of the Panama-based shell company. All these as a consequence of EEA’s tax and monetary policies being segmented and not unilaterally enforced across the entire EEA.

Now, if tax and monetary policies were unified across the EEA, European countries and their trade partners could effectively block companies registered in Panama from participating in trade in the EEA unless they pay tax here.

In the current economy, consumers, startups and small/medium-enterprises are at a disadvantage in many aspects. Big corporations can exploit loopholes to avoid taxes, and financial institutions in particular use their economies of scale coupled with regulatory burdens to inhibit the growth of challenger startups, as it has occurred in the financial and many other industries.

At Braveno we believe in the future where everybody has the right to participate in fair capital markets, and where anybody with a computer can access the financial protocols and ledgers used to record and transfer wealth in our society. We believe this can be done without sacrificing the privacy of clients, while retaining strong enforceability from a regulatory standpoint, by building a new financial system based on public, transparent ledgers like Ethereum.”

Bloombergview.com: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

A way in from the cold. Photographer: GOTTSCHALK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Ravi Lal, business developer at Kwamecorp: “Of course its obvious that a governments’ role is to keep people from dying in the streets — and the article suggests that once it guarantees basic survival it can get out of the business of regulating labour markets and free companies to set rates and more tightly manage their business.

But would it work in practice?

For example, if a country moved to a universal income and abolished the minimum wage, what’s to say that large corporates wouldn’t immediately cut wages drastically, to whatever they want to pay. Industry leaders could move aggressively to manage labour costs and let the government “make up the difference”.

A country with a universal income guarantee, and the low wages that come about from de-regulation actually sounds like an ideal place for immigrants to come. They’ll make more than in their home country, bringing down overall labour costs and potentially undercutting the locals. Maybe we should ask Tom Joad about how things work out when large corporations have too much bargaining power.

A second variation could be to have both Universal Income and a Minimum Wage. This would mean, however, a lot of potentially overlapping regulation. Will government ministers always get it right and keep the system in tune? I’ll let you decide (over a Cuba Libre of course!).

Finally, aside from immigrants, the article doesn’t examine the (positive?) impact of minimum wages on the domestic workforce. Why not examine its effect on the vast majority of the population. When stating that “It’s not the government’s business to tell private companies how much they should pay their workers”, the author gets into very deep water and should review the history of the minimum wage. I’ll cut to the chase: it’s all about checks and balances and ensuring that government, labour, private citizens, and corporations all play fairly.

In any case, this is a great debate worth having, and some of these ideas are worth testing. Without looking at new approaches and iterating, breakthroughs won’t happen. Guaranteed universal income only impacts the very bottom end of the labour mark — while minimum wages set the tone for everyone else.”

If you enjoyed reading this, you will enjoy no less checking out “The Anti-Trends for 2016” and “Link and Think (Mar): how to fire people, curb your ego, and compete with AI for a job”.