Migo Aguado

Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal

Mark Bittman traces the history of food from early human societies to modern industrial agriculture, showing how the shift from diverse hunter-gatherer diets to grain-based farming fundamentally reshaped societies. Agriculture enabled surpluses and population growth but also produced inequality, elites, and systems of labor exploitation, while monotonous diets, disease, and environmental degradation became widespread consequences. Early societies were often cooperative and relatively egalitarian, but the accumulation of surplus created hierarchies and ruling classes, tying control of land and food directly to political power and social stratification.

Man vs Markets

In Man vs Markets, Paddy Hirsch explains financial markets by breaking down the mechanics of debt, derivatives, swaps, securitization, and capital structure, showing how these instruments allow risk to be shifted, priced, and traded. His highlights emphasize that borrowing is not inherently harmful; leverage, private equity buyouts, and derivatives all serve practical economic purposes when used responsibly. Markets, in this view, are systems built from institutions, contracts, and policies that structure how money flows between banks, corporations, governments, and consumers.

Bullets, Basketballs, and Boardrooms

Three different authors from different domains present leadership lessons drawn from three disciplines—military, business, and sports—showing how principles from each domain reinforce one another. From the military perspective, the book emphasizes discipline, prioritization, contingency planning, and preparation before crises occur. Leaders are encouraged to train rigorously, anticipate scenarios through tools like wargaming, and understand that in high-pressure situations people fall back on their level of preparation rather than improvising new skills. These lessons highlight the importance of structure, foresight, and consistent training as foundations for effective leadership.

Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus is an examination of history and the forces that have steered humanity along particular paths at critical junctures. The book draws attention to the recurring tension between conflict and cooperation. Harari’s central thesis is that, despite the violence and division that have marked much of human history, the arc of history bends toward ever-increasing collaboration and interdependence—provided this trajectory is pursued intentionally. He offers a cautious optimism about what lies ahead, particularly in the age of artificial intelligence.

CliftonStrengths® Top 5 for Migo Aguado

Test taken last 09 September 2024

Learner®

You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered—this is the process that entices you. Your excitement leads you to engage in adult learning experiences—yoga or piano lessons or graduate classes. It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one. This Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there.”

The Hour Between Dog & Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings, And The Biology of Boom & Bust

Capital markets post-industrial revolution demand intense biological processes that can surpass natural limits. John Coates, a neuroscientist trader and author of The Hour Between Dog & Wolf (2012), argues that the biological storm associated with our work and lifestyle is too much for a human’s biochemical makeup. This is especially true with traders in financial markets who experience winning and losing streaks. Financial risk-taking, he argues, is a biological activity with corresponding medical consequences.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Growing up, I was exposed to Wyeth’s successful marketing campaign for their formula milk, Promil. The Promil kids seemed to have become a benchmark of an entire generation in having a head start and are expected to be successful in their respective fields. Some kids, now all grown-up, have chosen a path different from how they were depicted in the television commercials, albeit still thriving in their own right. While I don’t know what transpired during their teenage years, the Promil kids might have the chance to do other endeavors, termed the “sampling period” by American Journalist David Epstein in his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (2019).

Wilful Blindness

When I knew that a colleague shared the same birthday as mine, I suddenly felt an urge to befriend him even though I had virtually zero knowledge of who he was and what he was like. Familiarity, after all, doesn’t breed contempt–it breeds comfort. The book Willful Blindness (2011) by University professor Margaret Heffernan described more “comforting shortcuts” our brains make: we tend to donate more to victims of typhoons where the typhoon names are similar to ours or choose a profession with starting letters that are the same with ours. Although these phenomena feel like novelty and harmless, Heffernan described serious, deadly, and long-lasting repercussions of our shortcuts and comfort in family, business, and politics.

Be Good: How to Navigate the Ethics of Everything

In the Filipino culture, we tend to rationalize an individual’s behavior by saying, “mabait naman siya (s/he’s actually kind).” We start or end with such a statement before or after criticizing someone’s character. This phenomenon could be primarily cultural, as Filipinos are non-confrontational and relationship-based in the culture map. Cognitive dissonance drives this culture to water down criticisms to feel better about oneself or invite mutual understanding. The idea of “good” or “kind” varies in different cultures and schools of thought. We have utilitarianism and hedonism, to name a few. While universal ethics are absent despite significant conformity to a global standard like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “what is ethical” is a discourse and not definite.

The Class of ’77: China and Critical Junctures

I first encountered the term “critical juncture” in the book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012) by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Critical Junctures are significant, rapid, discontinuous changes (Collier & Collier, 1991) and the long-term causal effect or historical legacy of these changes (Flora, 1992). They can be defined as “major events or confluence of factors disrupting the existing economic or political balance in society” (Acemoglu and Robinson (2012); see also Capoccia and Kelemen (2007)). Critical junctures include events such as the discovery of the Americas, the Black Death, and the Arab Spring (Rivas, 2023)[1]. James Mahoney suggests another definition in his book, The Legacies of Liberalism: Critical Junctures, which is a choice point when a particular option is adopted from two or more alternatives. These junctures are ‘critical’ because returning to the initial point becomes progressively more challenging once an option is selected when multiple alternatives are still available.[2] The COVID-19 pandemic can also be considered as one. The book The Class of ’77: How My Classmates Changed China (2022) by one of the top Filipino foreign news correspondents in China, Jaime FlorCruz, describes how China’s cultural revolution during the 1970s became a critical juncture towards the transformation of the Middle Kingdom (中国) to a nation powerhouse it is today.