Random Thoughts: Emotions

Hard to get back to “normal” blogging after seeing the news from Paris over the weekend, so just short today. Thanks to Jean Jullien (@jean_jullien on Twitter) for putting out the image on the left to the public domain.

• My thoughts go out to the victims of the Paris. I just hope that the (predictable) knee-jerk responses of some politician will stay just that. (One commentator called it the “fear bite reflex”.) Giving in to fear means the terrorists get what they wanted. Anger is ok, as long as the response is rational.
• Speaking of anger: it can and often will affect your driving quality. This can be measured, biometrically, and used to asses risk and so insurance pricing. Seems to be still in the patent application stage – interesting to see how this develops. Another reason to work on mindfulness and other de-stressor technique, beyond the usual health benefits…
• Back to fear, albeit on a much smaller level that above: I recently ran across an (older) study on why underwriters don’t like predictive analytics. Why? Fear of disintermediation (predictably). I personally think predictive analytics (and cognitive computing) complements human judgment instead of replacing it, except in very standard cases. But in those cases regular analytics probably automated the process already.