Trying Too Hard
In 2013 Harold Varmus, then director of the National Cancer Institute, gave a speech describing how difficult the war on cancer had become. Eradicating cancer – the National Cancer Act’s goal when it was signed in 1971 – seemed perpetually distant.
Despite the extraordinary progress we have made in understanding the underlying defects in cancer cells, we have not succeeded in controlling cancer as a human disease to the extent that is possible.
One of the missing pieces, Harold Varmus said, is that we focus too much on cancer treatment and not enough on cancer prevention. if you wanted to get the next big leg up in the war on cancer, you had to make prevention the front line.
But prevention is boring. especially compared to the prestige of cancer treatments. Persuading somebody to quit smoking is a psychological exercise. So, people are essentially uninterested in it. It is a fact that getting people to quit smoking can make a bigger impact in the war on cancer than anything a biologist or pharmacist can do in a lifetime.
Complexity is being favored for its excitement, whereas simplicity may actually do a better job.
In finance, what is taught in college? How to price derivatives? How to calculate net present value? How to make technical graphs? That is all Complex.
Why not to start with simplicity? Discipline, Behavior control and Consistency are not taught in college.
Reasons – Complexity gives a comforting impression of control, while simplicity is hard to distinguish from cluelessness.
At Shalibhadra, our task is to keep investment simple and keep investor free from jargons of finance world.
Nishit Siddharth Shah