The affect of those applied sciences may very well be measured within the variety of individuals affected. More than a billion individuals in China are actually being uncovered to the virus for the primary time; 335 million on Twitter are watching Musk’s antics; and fentanyl killed 70,000 within the US. In every of those messes, there are vital classes about why expertise fails. Read on.
The FTX meltdown
Night falls on made-up cash
Imagine a world during which you may make up new varieties of cash and different individuals pays you, nicely, actual cash to get some. Let’s name what they’re shopping for cryptocurrency tokens. But as a result of there are such a lot of varieties of tokens, they usually’re laborious to purchase and promote, think about that an entrepreneur creates a personal inventory market to commerce them. Let’s name {that a} “cryptocurrency exchange.” Because the tokens haven’t any intrinsic worth and different exchanges have gone belly-up, you’d make sure that yours was ultra-safe and nicely regulated.
That was the idea behind FTX Trading, a crypto change began by Sam Bankman-Fried, a twentysomething who touted subtle expertise, like a 24/7 “automated risk engine” that might verify each 30 seconds to see if depositors had sufficient actual cash to cowl their crypto gambles. Technology would guarantee “complete transparency.”
Behind the façade, although, FTX was seemingly simply old school embezzlement. According to US investigators, Bankman-Fried took prospects’ cash and used it to purchase fancy homes, make political donations, and amass large stakes in illiquid crypto tokens. It all got here crashing down in November. John Ray, appointed to supervise the bankrupt firm, mentioned that FTX’s expertise “was not sophisticated at all.” Neither was the purported fraud: “This is just taking money from customers and using it for your own purpose.”
Bankman-Fried, an MIT graduate whose mother and father are each Stanford University regulation professors, was arrested within the Bahamas in December and faces a number of counts of conspiracy, fraud, and cash laundering.
To be taught extra about cryptocurrency promoters, we suggest if Wolf of Wall Street had been about crypto, a satirical video by Joma Tech.
From drugs to homicide
How fentanyl grew to become a killer
Back in 1953, the Belgian physician and chemist Paul Janssen set about creating the strongest painkiller he may. He believed he may enhance on morphine, designing a molecule that was 100 instances stronger however with a brief period. His discovery, the artificial opioid fentanyl, would develop into the painkiller most generally used throughout surgical procedure.
Today, fentanyl is setting grim information—it’s concerned within the unintended loss of life of round 70,000 individuals a 12 months within the US, or about two-thirds of all deadly drug overdoses. It’s the main reason for loss of life in American adults below 50, killing greater than automobile accidents, weapons, and covid collectively.