Chicago Messes With Texas, a Startup That Kills Hurricanes and Why Scientists Named a Fly After a Drag Queen | Non-Obvious Insights #287

The most interesting and non-obvious stories of the week.

Dear Rim, What happens when two regions of a country start a war of words? Should we pit worthy causes against each other for funding? Can naming endangered species after celebrities get people to care more about them? We'll explore these questions plus take a sneak peek at ABBA's upcoming virtual reality + physical show with new music (their first after 40 years), review the four common plotlines in every bestselling book about the financial industry and learn the simple rule in Australia that helped reduce teenage driving accidents by more than half. Enjoy the stories this week! Why Australian Scientists Are Naming This Fly After A Drag Queen A newly discovered shimmering rainbow fly in Australia will now be called the opaluma rupaul. Given the fly and several other recently discovered species of beetles live in areas that have been hit by bushfires, the strategy of naming endangered species after a celebrity is one based on scientist Bryan Lessard's hope "that pop culture names will help attract attention for vulnerable species." It's not a bad idea, and one that is already undoubtedly working. I mean, this is probably the first time I've written about obscure insect species in this newsletter ... not to mention probably the first time you're reading about them. So shine on opaluma rupaul. Now we all care just a little more about your survival that we did before. And we've learned the marketing lesson once again that names really do matter.   ABBA Comes Back Live In Concert After 40 Years As "ABBA-tars" In just a few weeks, ABBA will release their first new album in 40 years and it's going to lead to one of the most ambitious live tours ever imagined. Starting in May of 2022, ABBA Voyage opens in a new custom built arena on the outskirts of London specifically designed for a show that is a digital and live spectacle years in the making. Virtually recreated "ABBA-tars" of each original member of the group will perform all the band's greatest hits in a sound and light show that looks to be something people have never seen. The rapidly selling show will blend the virtual and physical world together in a new sort of experience that could become the norm for how live concert experiences are done. Especially nostalgic ones with aging rock stars (and their fans) who want to relive those former glory days.  The Four Plotlines In Every Book About the Financial Industry I love a good piece of curation and this article from financial expert Barry Ritholtz is exactly that. In it, he suggests that nearly every book written about the financial industry employs one of only four different storylines: Greed Blinded by Arrogance, Everything You Believe Is Wrong, Green Leading to Fraud and Michael Lewis Books. Ok, the fourth category is a pretty lazy choice, but the other three are interesting themes that do indeed seem to emerge in many books about banking and finance. It's telling that two of his four categories also center on greed, which is a fundamental motivator in both the stories that are presented as successes and those that are cast as failures. That fact, in itself, deserves more attention. Greed, once clearly seen as a "vice," is too often recast today as a noble pursuit. That's where inequality starts.   Texas vs. Chicago: Is It Wrong To Play the Zero Sum Game? "Chicago is messing with Texas." This week a story broke that the city of Chicago took out an ad in a Texas newspaper to lure residents frustrated by the state's latest conservative abortion and voting legislation. It sparked outrage among some in Texas and ignited a debate that about whether one locality should look to benefit from the frustration of people living in another. A similar backlash against the idea of promoting a zero sum game has hit the CBS reality show The Activist which pits various worthy cause-driven groups against one another to get lucrative funding deals. As show host Julianne Hough notes, "trying to value one cause over another felt like the Oppression Olympics and totally missed and disrespected the many activists who have been killed, assaulted and faced various abuses fighting for their causes." So will we see more of these types of efforts to pit one cause or region against another? Or will the backlash prevail? That's a reality show worth watching.   The Simple Rule That Cut Teen Car Crashes & Deaths By More Than Half One thing I remember vividly from my time living in Australia was just how much more seriously they seemed to take car accidents than the United States where I grew up and learned to drive. In Australia, there are digital signs on highways broadcasting the number of accidents that happen every month both as a warning and a source of pride if the number remained low. Those memories came back this week as I read the story of new research from the New South Wales government that points to a simple rule that was implemented back in 2007 that seems to have helped the hospitalizations and fatalities from car accidents among teenagers plunge by 58%. What was the rule? A ban on carrying multiple passengers between 11 PM and 4:59 AM for first-year drivers under the age of 21. This is research that should be publicized to every country in the world. And if you're the parent of a teenager, enacting this same ban for your kids may be the single most powerful thing you can do to help keep your young driver (and their passengers) safe too.  The Startup That Can Kill Hurricanes, and Why It Might Be a Bad Idea Given the extreme weather events of the past few years, and how prevalent the stories have been around them recently, it's no surprise that we are also seeing a rise in stories about "weather tech" and the startups that promise new technologies to help us control the weather. From cloud seeding to hurricane dissipation, it's tempting to see technology as the saviour for all these extreme weather patterns which are getting worse every year. Unfortunately, the side effect of these technologies may be even worse when you consider the imbalances or instabilities they may create in our planet's delicate ecosystem. Clearing forests to prevent fires, for example, has been shown to make wildfires worse when they eventually do happen. It's a classic case of what seems like a solution potentially making the long term situation worse.  Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...  Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. In case you're looking for some more reading this week, here are a few other stories that captured my attention ... Are Barbershops the Cutting Edge of Healthcare Delivery? My Bosses at McKinsey Made Us Get on 2 a.m. Zoom Calls The FDA Should Regulate Instagram's Algorithm Like A Drug The World's Most Expensive Avocado Toast Can a Game Get Young Players Interested in Holocaust History? How are these stories curated? Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Want to discuss how I could bring this thinking to your next event as a virtual speaker? Visit my speaking page to watch my new 2021 sizzle reel >> Be Part Of Our Community ... 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