Page 15 - Forbes - Asia (July - August 2018)

ners. his is particularly absurd for
the game of baseball. Unlike foot-
ball, in which, statistically, the best
team on paper usually wins a game,
baseball is diferent: Any team, no
matter how bad, can win a single
contest.
his year we could end up with
two wild-card teams with an im-
pressive 100 wins each during the
regular season. To have their chanc-
es of making it to the World Series
rise or fall on one game is deeply
ofensive and undermines fans’ faith
in the fairness of it all. At the least,
MLB should gure out how to make
this year a best-two-out-of-three
contest. And beyond that MLB
should shorten the regular season
and add games to the playofs. he
length of the postseason period
hardly needs to be as long as those
for basketball and hockey. But the
system needs changing to remove
the current capriciousness.

Babies Are Not Born Adults

World-changing inventions rarely ar- handful—into battle. German forces improved, as did the techniques for pro-
rive full-blown, having to go through panicked, never having seen such mon- ducing them en masse. By 1918 Germa-
any number of iterations and shakeouts sters before. It’s no surprise that the ny realized it had made a catastrophic
before their full signi cance becomes German high command initially went blunder. Too late. Sadly, Germany didn’t
glaringly obvious to all. hink of the into a frenzy, ordering all-out eforts make that mistake again.
early days of autos, when 99.9% of U.S. to produce a model of their own, as he second example is what’s cur-
manufacturers failed; or the boom in well as new weapons to neutralize the rently unfolding with cryptocurren-
personal computers in the early 1980s, machines. cies. his sector smells of fraud and
which was followed by a massive wave But almost as suddenly, these eforts scams. Bitcoin itself is way down from
of failures and led some to declare were throttled. German militarists con- its highs. A massive shakeout, with lots
that PCs were no more than toys; or cluded that tanks were vastly overrated of scandals, seems imminent. Govern-
the spectacular dot-com bubble of the and not worth allocating a meaningful ments, barely concealing their glee, are
late 1990s, which led to a sensational amount of scarce resources. he British cracking down and conjuring up regula-
bust that had many supposedly smart and subsequent French tanks were all tions to “protect the consumer.”
observers concluding that information, bark and little bite, as they were prone he skeptics will have a eld day.
retail and social websites had no future. to breaking down; their speeds were But their criticism and scoing will
Two things—one historical, the snail-like, making them easy targets miss what’s happening: An entirely
other current—recently brought all this for artillery and even infantry grenade new worldwide ecosystem is emerging.
to mind. attacks; and they were cumbersome, Advances in blockchain technology will
he rst was prompted by a docu- getting stuck in trenches. In short, tanks soon do to the global nancial pay-
mentary (part of he Great War series were of little or no efective battle eld ments system what the internet did to
on YouTube) about Germany’s belated use. traditional print media. And advances
attempt to develop a battle eld tank, But the learning curve in technology will be made in creating easy-to-use
the A7V, near the end of World War I. turns what looks messy and riven with cryptocurrencies that will be genuine—
Nearly two years before, in 1916, Brit- shortcomings today into world-chang- and better—alternatives to the govern-
ain had introduced the rst tanks—a ing entities tomorrow. Allied tanks ment at currencies we have today. F
AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES

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