Bernardo Salazar

An ordinary Venezuelan won’t skip a visit to SAIME to renew its passport just because Maduro’s state isn’t legitimate. They won’t ignore a fine or tell a police officer they have no authority because the state they serve is illegitimate. They’ll go to SAIME because only the state can issue a valid passport. They’ll obey the officer because he still... See more

In the world of trend research, we are traditionally taught to be on the lookout for ‘weak signals’ - small, low-frequency indicators that hint at a potential shift in culture. And while scanning for these weak signals is a fundamental part of the process, it’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of only noticing evidence that confirms our preconceived... See more

The argument that Venezuela would become an ungovernable, Haiti-like failed state after Maduro falls is equally lazy. Armed para-state groups do operate inside the country, but mostly in rural border regions and the south — far from cities or seats of government power. It is unlikely they could challenge a post-Maduro administration backed by... See more

Avoid algorithmic rabbit holes, because they will dull your exposure to weird signals and trap you in a bubble. To spot anomalies, you need to escape your Instagram feed and FYP page. Don’t let social media platforms shape how you see the world!

Had our ancestors been asked to predict what would happen in an age of widespread prosperity in which most religious and cultural proscriptions had lost their power, how many would have guessed that our favourite activities would not be fiery political meetings, masked orgies, philosophical debates, hunting wild boar or surfing monstrous waves, but... See more

Understandability is one of the most basic needs of readers of a piece of code. Optimizing for understandability can result in optimizing for everything else on the hierarchy depicted above. Understandable code is code that lends itself well towards being debugged . Code can often be debugged with a test case. Code that’s easy to test is, as often... See more