The holy grail myth

The true value of a scientific quest comes from the journey, not the goal writes Philip Ball

BY PHILIP BALL 28 SEPTEMBER 2020 CHEMISTRY WORLD

Source: © Getty Images

Golden opportunities lie on the route to holy grails

The holy grail was originally neither holy nor a grail (a chalice-like cup). It first featured in a romance, Perceval ou le Conte du Graal written by the Frenchman Chrétien of Troyes around 1190. This poem tells the tale of the Arthurian knight Percival, who encounters the ‘grail’ – more like a shallow dish with miraculous powers – while dining with the magical Fisher King. The image perhaps derived from old Celtic myths, but later translators of Chrétien’s popular tale turned it into a holy relic: Christ’s chalice from the last supper, used to collect his blood at the crucifixion.

All this seems a peculiar metaphor for setting scientific grand challenges. But it might be more apt than you’d think, especially for chemistry. One of the translators of Chrétien’s romance was Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German knight and poet who allegedly could neither read nor write but worked by dictation. In his Parzival, composed in the early 13th century, Wolfram interprets the grail as a stone, also called the lapis exilis, which could confer eternal youth like the elixirs of the alchemists. The philosopher’s stone that could transform base metals to gold was sometimes identified with this wondrous lapis.

Is this just fantasy?

Like the grail, the philosopher’s stone was a figment of the imagination that you could waste a lifetime seeking – hardly a good model for a target of scientific research. Except … you could discover other useful things on the way. In the nineteenth century, when alchemy was frequently mocked as deluded fantasy, Justus von Liebig had the perception to note its value. Without the philosopher’s stone to act ‘powerfully and constantly on the minds and faculties of men [sic]’, he wrote, ‘chemistry would not now stand in its present perfection’. For in order to know that the stone did not exist, ‘it was indispensable that every substance accessible … should be observed and examined’. This is not an entirely fair picture of alchemy – practitioners were doing much else besides seeking the marvellous stone, not least making dyes, medicines and soaps – but it does express the value of a motivational goal for research as a generator of useful spin-offs. As Professor Waldman tells Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, when the naïve young medical student confesses his admiration of alchemists, ‘The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.’


The art of successful science often lies in being prepared to reorient your research goals

It’s with this sentiment in mind that we might consider the value of setting ‘holy grails’ for chemistry. All of those considered in this issue are more achievable than the philosopher’s stone, and indeed in many of the cases (artificial enzymes, unnatural selection, C–H bond activation) the goal is to improve on what we already have. But the art of successful science often lies in being prepared to reorient your research goals when something unexpected but interesting turns up. Whether it is William Perkin trying to make quinine in the 1850s and ending up launching the synthetic dye industry, or Hideki Shirakawa contemplating a visiting scientist’s error in a synthesis of polyacetylene in the 1960s and realising he had a conducting polymer on his hands, it can pay to switch your quest when a lucky accident occurs.
Grail rules, OK?

This might be considered the first rule of a scientific holy grail: the value may lie in the journey, not the destination. (Percival never reaches the grail in Chrétien’s unfinished poem.) The second rule is not to succumb to obsessive pride and lust for your goal, as Parzival does in von Eschenbach’s version: he ends up doing some dumb and reprehensible things on his quest, and suffers as a result.


There’s a danger that scientific holy grails become sticking plaster technofixes

The third rule is to remember that panaceas – whether grails, philosopher’s stones or elixirs – don’t really exist. Yes, grand scientific challenges have the potential not only to stimulate new ideas and discoveries but also to alleviate urgent problems: artificial photosynthesis, for example, could offer abundant clean energy, while room-temperature superconductors could help to make more efficient use of it. But there’s a danger that scientific holy grails become sticking plaster technofixes. Some would consider a colony on Mars to be a desirable holy grail, but if that is portrayed as a way of saving humanity from the harm we are wreaking on our own planet, we should be as wary of it as of the evil magician Klingsor in Richard Wagner’s operatic version of Parzival.

Such technofixes have, in other words, a tendency to perpetuate rather than address underlying problems. Right now there are few more tempting holy grails than vaccines and better tests for Covid-19, but professor of public policy Shobita Parthasarathy has warned that ‘We can’t just ‘tech’ our way out of the pandemic.’1 For everyone to benefit, the disadvantaged communities that have been hardest hit must be included in the way such innovations are developed and applied – and ultimately we need to tackle the socioeconomic inequalities that the crisis has highlighted. Often, our real problem is not that we have failed to find the grail, but that we have created the need to look for it.

References

1 S Parthasarathy, Nature, 2020, 585, 8 (DOI: 10.1038/d41586-020-02495-y)

 Alchemy in the time of coronavirus

Has the coronavirus given a literal shot in the arm to the ancient proto-science cum transformational philosophy called alchemy?

 

September 22, 2020, 4 Jug Suraiya in Juggle-Bandhi | Science, World | TOI

In medieval Europe, alchemy was an occult science whose practitioners sought to transmute base metals, such as lead, into ‘noble’ metals like gold, through a process called chrysopoeia. While this was deemed to be the ‘esoteric’, or practical, goal of alchemy, its ‘estonic’, or secret, aspect was an inner transformation of the human spirit by which ignorance was transmuted into gnosis or transcendental knowledge.

The word alchemy is said to be derived from the Arabic al-Kimiya, but the roots of this ancient crypts-science have been traced back to the China of the 7th century BC, from where it went to Europe, via Greece, and to what later was to become the Islamic world.

As it spread like a great banyan tree, alchemy sprouted numerous offshoots, including the so-called ‘philosopher’s stone’ and the ‘elixir of life’ which gave immortality to its recipient.

In Christendom, alchemy was deemed to be a form of witchcraft, a heresy which could invoke the penalty of the ‘auto defe’, the inquisitional execution of being burned alive at the stake.

Alchemists formed an underground cult, cloaking their rites and rituals in symbols and arcane signs, some which are extant today in societies such as that of the Free Masons.

As a beacon of humankind’s never-ending quest for knowledge, alchemy found an eloquent platform in literature, as exemplified by Christopher Marlowe’s Faustus who traded his soul to the Devil for the power of boundless knowledge. In Rabindra Sangeet, we have mention of the ‘poroshmoni’, or philosopher’s stone which the poet’s soul yearns for.

Its philosophical subtext apart, alchemy is seen by several science historians as being the precursor of modern chemistry, the alchemist’s crucible morphing into the test-tube and petri dish of the laboratory.

Never has this connect between alchemy and contemporary science been more evident than it is today when the world is in the grip of a pandemic which might more aptly be called a panic-demic.

A vaccine that can prevent or cure Covid-19 has become the new ‘philosopher’s stone’, the latter-day ‘elixir of life’. There are reportedly over 140 formulations currently undergoing trials at various levels.

Governments and charitable foundations such as that of Bill and Melinda Gates have ploughed in billions to fund the search for a surefire ‘silver bullet’ which will put paid once and for all to the dread virus which has overturned the world’s economic, social and political applecart causing wreckage from which it will take countries years, if not decades, to recover.

But even as an overload of information – and an equal, perhaps greater, amount of misinformation – about the virus and its possible antidotes spreads even faster than the pathogen itself, many of the protocols regarding the development of the various vaccines and the progress of the human trials involving them are shrouded in secrecy as nations, and the pharmaceutical companies tasked with making and testing potential cures, vie with each other to try and take the lead in this race for redemption from the menacing spectre of the virus.

In recent times many skeletons have tumbled out of the clandestine cupboards of ‘Big Pharma’, such as the thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s. Reports that the Phase 3 trials of a frontrunner vaccine were temporarily suspended after a volunteer developed severe side effects, and the subsequent taciturnity regarding the issue by the company concerned, has raised widespread doubts about the safety of these medicinal miracles in the making.

With the Devil waiting in the wings to claim him, Faustus enjoined a resurrected Princess of Troy, “Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.” Today’s white-jacketed Faustus clone, hypodermic syringe in hand, might well say “Sweet vaccine, make us immune with a jab.” Is that a Satanic chuckle we hear in the background?

Thai People Do Not Have ‘Magic Blood’ To Ward Off COVID-19–WTF, America

Indi Samarajiva
September 22, 2020

Thailand worked hard and fought back COVID-19 with public health. Instead of seeing that, however, The New York Times asked if it was something in their blood. We’re talking about magic oriental blood, in 2020. I’m serious

Is there a genetic component in which the immune systems of Thais and others in the Mekong River region are more resistant to the coronavirus? Or is it some alchemy of all these factors that has insulated this country of 70 million people? (NYT) 

This is literal racism. Instead of looking at what Thai people did, they’re asking if it’s something in their veins. Because Thai people couldn’t possibly just be competent, it must be alchemy. This sort of coverage is awful, and it’s endemic. 

 

Recently the NY Post (dumpster fire) said: Scientists can’t explain the puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa.  Well no, they can, it’s bog standard public health. They have excellent scientists in Africa, you know.

This is just racism, and western coverage is almost all like this. They attribute agency to rich/white nations like Germany or New Zealand but luck to anyone poorer or dark. And it’s just not true. Poorer nations have done better than the rich because they had robust public health responses. Because they worked together. Because they reacted early. These are all lessons worth learning, but the west is unable to learn them because they’re simply too racist to see.

For once, this racism isn’t killing us in the Dirty South. We’re living. This time it’s killing you.
The Real World

When The New York Times or western media talks about the world, they’re not talking about the world. They’re talking about white people or, at a stretch, the rich.

For example, David Leonhardt imagines the world in 2022… and only talks about America. Some more generous writers include Europe in the world, and thus dub Europe’s COVID response excellent. But it’s not. It’s a burning trash can next to a dumpster fire, good only in comparison. The rest of the world is actually eliminating or suppressing this thing, but you can’t see that if you only see white.

The white world, of course, stretches to New Zealand, and there they have found their great white hope. But that’s where the world ends. Europe, here be dragons, then New Zealand.

At a stretch, white people can also see money, so they might extend the world to South Korea, Japan, UAE. But that’s it. That’s the end of the world. People are either white, rich, or they don’t exist.

This, however, is not the world. Just open a map. The world is full of people and the humans you ignore are actually a majority. We are human, we exist, and, stubbornly, competently, brilliantly; we persist. Western media is literally missing most of the world because they’re so structurally racist and that means they’re missing most information as well. They’re missing the real story of COVID-19.
The Real Story

The real story is that “developing” nations have done remarkably better at fighting COVID-19 than the rich and white. The real story starts precisely where the western map ends. Here be dragons. We be dragons.

The real story is that places like Vietnam and Mongolia have completely kicked COVID-19’s ass. The real story is that places like Rwanda and Ghana have innovated and survived. There are countless stories like this — from Sri Lanka to Trinidad & Tobago, but you wouldn’t know because we’re not rich or white. But you should know. Because we’re right. This information could save your life.

Instead, however, the western media anoints white Germany a COVID leader, despite having an outbreak the size of Iraq’s. They should be looking at Vietnam. Vietnam has the same population, much less wealth and has had a dramatically better response. Nearly 10,000 people have died in Germany, compared to 35 in Vietnam. Every two days, Germany has as many cases as Vietnam did total. What are you learning here? To feel good about your race while dying? Why not learn from the best?

The other great white darling is New Zealand, which has had an excellent response, but is also the most remote place on earth. Meanwhile, there are places which shared a land border with China — like Mongolia — that nonetheless survived, and densely populated nations in Africa, like Ghana, or Senegal, or Rwanda that all did well. How? You don’t know, you’re like, “wait, what if we try a white woman.“ You’re missing the point.

Worst, countless column pixels have been devoted to abject failures like Sweden, as if they’re somehow a model. A model of what? Killing your people, economy and reputation at the same time? Real models in the Caribbean or Africa are ignored while people debate whether everyone should just get the disease. Honestly, WTF is wrong with you people? Just get the disease? When poor nations like mine have just eliminated it and moved on? There is a real story happening across the world which you can’t see, because you define the world so narrowly.
The World Is The World

In the Dirty South, we are constantly excluded from the world via euphemism. You talk about the “developed” world or the “industrialized” world or “advanced” nations. But what does that mean? How developed are you if you don’t have public health? How industrialized are you if you cannot distribute tests and PPE? How advanced are you if your people won’t even wear a mask?

These words are now just naked euphemisms for rich and white. They’re codewords for racism and classism. “Advanced” and “developed” have been obliterated by COVID-19 and if you don’t see that, COVID will happily obliterate you.

We are advanced. We are developed. We are the world.

For your own health, see us. Learn about how early, aggressive action in Mongolia prevented them from having any local transmission at all. Learn about how Ghana used pooled testing to make the most of scarce resources. Learn how Sri Lanka shut down completely for two months with just 100 cases, and is now completely normal.

I understand you’re used to seeing us as disaster areas, but this has made us disaster masters. Poor nations have almost uniformly reacted quickly, decisively and survived. We have a lot to show you, if you could take the racist scales from your eyes.

The racism of COVID coverage is overwhelming, and for once it’s not overwhelming us. We’re fine. My kids are in school. We’re having birthday parties. We’re living. This time, your racism is overwhelming you.

See the original article on ScaryMommy.com

The Historical Lessons Embedded In Alchemical Recipes
10th Century Lab Report From Historian Pamela Smith

An original page from a manuscript in the "Secrets of Craft and Nature" project, which offers English and French translations of alchemical recipes and texts. Bibliothèque nationale de France (CC0)

The Historical Lessons Embedded In Alchemical Recipes
10th Century Lab Report From Historian Pamela Smith
By Mark Riechers
Published:
Saturday, September 26, 2020

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Science history students at Columbia University don’t have to imagine what it was like to be an alchemist. If they take one of historian Pamela Smith’s courses, they can spend a semester reading medieval alchemical manuscripts describing recipes for making emeralds or turning silkworms into gold. Then they re-create the experiments in a lab.

Smith said recreating ancient experiments is less about transmutation for credit and more about exploring the headspace of people living in a very different time and in a very different world.

"I think that realizing those different understandings and not putting them on a hierarchy from primitive to modern is very important," Smith told Anne Strainchamps of "To the Best of Our Knowledge."

She argues that because of their different relationship to the world — as we understand it through some of these recipes — we can infer that they might handle the issues of our time, like catastrophic climate change, very differently.

"The worldview that saw humans as a part of nature might have led to a different kind of attitude toward nature that would not have landed us in this crisis," she said. "To be aware that different ways of understanding the universe might have value, I think, is important."

Among the translated alchemical recipes, some true panacea do exist. Smith cited a literature professor at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom who, in re-creating a cure-all potion for eye infections, discovered a solution that could fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But for the most part, she and her students are attempting to create riches mainly to understand the scientific minds of another era.

Here are two recipes Smith and her students tried to replicate, along with their findings.

The transcript highlights below have been edited for clarity and length.
Emeralds

Take ground rock crystal (mainly silica and red lead, which is powdered bright orange). Then take a little copper to add the green. Then add some salts, and heat it all together.

Results: "The grad students and the post-doc who was working with them tried it about 10 times and just got ash," Smith said. "Then they got black glass. Finally, on about the eighth try, they got green. Beautiful green emeralds."

Conclusion: "The interesting thing about these very ancient recipes for imitation gemstones is that they don't refer to them as imitation. The value is in the actual skill that goes into the imitation. (And) it really does take skill."
Gold

Acquire silkworm eggs. You can grow silkworms in a vessel of horse dung, Smith said.

"(It) sounds very exotic, but that's a very, very common thing that you see in recipes at this time, because horse dung and cow dung actually are host to thermophilic bacteria," Smith said. "It stays a constant temperature as long as the bacteria stays alive. So actually, it's a very good way to keep something warm at a constant low temperature."

One you have silkworms, feed them mulberry leaves until they are big enough to fight each other to the death. Then feed the victor gold leaf, and heat the vessel, killing the victor. Finally, use the resulting powder to make gold.

Results: "We found a supplier in Long Island or somewhere who could get us silkworm eggs," Smith said. "The student grew the silkworms — he had to keep the silkworms at a constant temperature of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. We even called up the stables in New York City, but there was no way that we could actually have a pile of manure or composting anywhere on campus. And besides, it was winter and it wouldn't have worked. So what the student did was (find a nice warm spot) at the top of the boiler in his apartment building.

"He was finally able to buy mulberry chow, silkworm chow, on the internet, and they grow bigger," she said. "You continue to feed them egg yolks, and they grow bigger. And then you feed them gold leaf. And eventually the recipe says they will kill each other off and there will be one kind of 'super' silkworm left."

"The whole vessel is sealed, then you're supposed to put a ring of coals around that vessel, You're supposed to heat it to kill the silkworm and turn it into powder (that is) supposed to be able to make things gold."

Conclusion: "I don't think it could ever actually work... the importance of this recipe is in its symbolism and in its antiquity," Smith said. "These people have the focus on the same kinds of questions we have, like what generates life, what can regenerate growth, like growth of a limb or growth of an organ. So the focus is the same. But the way they're answering them is often different within a different cosmic understanding."

"People understood nature through religious texts and practices," she continued. "So it's not surprising that something that gave rise to new life or gave rise to the ability to a noble a metal or some other material would be compared to Jesus's resurrection."

Wisconsin Public Radio WPR.org

MONOPOLY FINANCE CAPITALI$M
Goldman Sachs reportedly just landed GM's $2.5 billion credit card business, its second co-branded deal after the Apple Card
Tyler Sonnemaker

Goldman Sachs trading booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Ramin Talaie/Corbis/Getty Images


Goldman Sachs won the bid for General Motors' credit-card business for roughly $2.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The Wall Street giant beat out Barclays, acquiring more than one million GM cardholders and the $8.5 billion they spend annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.

This is Goldman Sachs' second co-branded card, following the Apple Card, as it looks to expand its consumer-lending business.

The bank recently shuffled its organizational structure to create a new standalone consumer division that includes its Marcus lending unit.

Goldman Sachs is picking up General Motors' credit-card business for a price tag of roughly $2.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, as it doubles down on its push into consumer lending.

Goldman beat out UK-based Barclays for the deal, which gives it more than one million GM cardholders and the approximately $8.5 billion they spend annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Goldman and GM did not respond to requests for comment.

The paper initially reported in August that Goldman was looking to acquire GM's card business away from Capital One, which currently issues GM's three cards — the BuyPower Card, a business card, and a card for GM employees and suppliers — and has a year left on its contract.

According to Thursday's report, Goldman and Capital One have reached an agreement on the general terms of the deal, such as top-line price, and plan to finalize the details in the next few weeks.

Landing GM's card business would be Goldman's second co-branded consumer credit card and another significant step into the consumer-lending business, following its underwriting of the Apple Card, which launched in 2019.

On Wednesday, Business Insider's Dakin Campbell reported that Goldman has shuffled its divisions to create a new standalone consumer division that includes its Marcus lending unit. Strategy chief Stephanie Cohen and Tucker York, the head of its private-wealth business, will co-lead the new unit, which will be named the Consumer and Wealth Management Division. The changes will go into effect on January 1.


Get the latest Goldman Sachs stock price here.

https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/bukharin/works/1917/imperial/08.htm

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Co-founders of major cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX are charged with violating the US Bank Secrecy Act

Shalini Nagarajan Oct. 2, 2020

OZAN KOSE/Getty

Four top executives of major crypto trading platform BitMEX have been charged with violating US anti-money laundering regulations, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Thursday.

The co-founders and head of business development have each been charged with one count of violating the US Bank Secrecy Act and one count of conspiracy to violate the act.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, the Justice Department said.
A lawsuit alleged that BitMEX "failed to implement the most basic compliance procedures."

One of the four defendants was arrested in Massachusetts on Thursday morning.


Top executives of major cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX have been charged with violating US anti-money laundering rules, a statement issued by the federal regulatory agency showed on Thursday.

Co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed and head of business development Gregory Dwyer were each charged with one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act and one count of conspiracy to violate the act.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, the US Department of Justice said.

The act requires financial institutions in the US to maintain reports on currency transactions and customer relationships in order to prevent money laundering.

BitMEX "failed to implement the most basic compliance procedures" such as not having regulatory approval to run its trading facility, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in its own lawsuit.

Read More: BlackRock's investment chief breaks down why Congress passing a second round of fiscal stimulus is 'quite serious' for markets and the economy - and pinpoints which sectors will benefit in either scenario

William Sweeney, FBI assistant director, said the four defendants "willfully violated" the act by evading its requirements. "One defendant went as far as to brag the company incorporated in a jurisdiction outside the U.S. because bribing regulators in that jurisdiction cost just 'a coconut.'"

BitMEX's platform received over $11 billion in Bitcoin deposits and earned over $1 billion in fees while accepting orders and funds from customers in the US, the CFTC said.

While Reed was arrested in Massachusetts on Thursday morning, the other three defendants remain at large, according to the Justice Department.

BitMEX is the second-largest cryptocurrency derivates exchange based on trading volumes, according to CoinMarketCap, after Binance. It holds around 193,000 BTC, worth about $2 billion at current prices.

The total crypto-market capitalization lost around $13 billion in the hours following news that BitMEX was charged with US regulation violations. Bitcoin fell by more than 4% to $10,455, while Ethereum fell more than 8% and Ripple fell 5.7% on Friday.

Risk of COVID-19 was highest in window seats in economy class on one Qantas flight, study reveals
Kate Duffy

christopheronglv / Shutterstock.com

A study of the spread of coronavirus on a Qantas flight in March revealed that travelers sitting in window seats half way down the economy cabin were at the highest risk of contracting the virus.

As many as 11 passengers caught COVID-19 onboard the five-hour domestic flight from Sydney to Perth

11 people were infectious during the flight - nine of them had recently disembarked the cruise ship Ruby Princess in Sydney which announced a coronavirus outbreak.

This contradicts previous data suggesting that the window seat presents a lower chance of infection.

Passengers sat in window seats in the middle of an economy class cabin on a Qantas Airways flight in March were most at risk from contracting coronavirus, according to research by Australian scientists into that particular trip.

As many as 11 travelers caught COVID-19 onboard the five-hour flight from Sydney to Perth on March 19, the survey said. They were all sat in economy class in the middle of the aircraft, with seven of them sat in the window seat. This contradicts the belief supported by data from American scientists in March that window seats offer a lower chance of infection on account of having less contact with other people.

Most of those who contracted the deadly virus on the flight were also sat two rows away from infected passengers, although one was as many as six rows away, the study showed.

Scientists from Western Australia, who recorded their results in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, reported that 11 passengers had symptoms of the virus during the flight - nine of whom had recently disembarked the cruise ship Ruby Princess in Sydney which identified a coronavirus outbreak.

There were 243 passengers on board flight QF577, an Airbus A330, headed for Perth.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed over a million people worldwide this year, with one in five deaths occuring in the United States. After the easing of weeks-long lockdowns that confined billions to their homes in the early part of the year, cases of Covid 19 have jumped in the past few weeks, triggering new restrictions on movement.

Airline companies across the world are trying to encourage people to start travelling again, despite a resurgence in cases of Covid 19. The industry has struggled to keep itself financially stable during the pandemic which has triggered low demand for flights and quarantine restrictions.

In September, British Airways announced it is burning through $25.9 million per day, whilst German airline Lufthansa has been losing around $1.1 million every hour, per Deutsche Welle.

The study had little impact on the stock market. Shares in Qantas finished 0.5% lower on Friday at A$4.11 (US$2.95), outperforming Sydney's broader S&P/ASX 300 Transportation index, which fell by 2.8%.

Qantas didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

GREEN CAPITALI$M
Sustainable-stock funds are snapping up shares of these 20 companies — and most of them beat the market during September's turmoil, RBC says
Marley Jay

Traders work during the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on March 13, 2020 at Wall Street in New York City. Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

ESG: Environmental, Social, and Governance-focused hedge Funds

RBC's analysis of ESG hedge funds found that in the second quarter, they bought stocks that had been winners during the March sell-off — and turned out to be winners in the subsequent rally.

The stocks that were added by the largest number of socially conscious funds also outperformed during the market's September slump. 

Since they beat the market during its three most notable and recent phases, those 20 stocks have delivered outstanding relative returns, according to strategist Sara Mahaffy.


Going green is helping hedge funds make green right now.

That's the conclusion of a team lead by RBC Strategist Sara Mahaffy. After poring over the holdings of both traditional and environmental, social, and governance-focused hedge funds, she writes that the stocks ESG funds liked the best in the second quarter are pulling off a difficult trifecta in 2020.

They fared very well during the two major sell-offs of the year — they outperformed during the coronavirus crash in February and March, beat the market dramatically during the March-through-September rally, and stayed above water during the slump that overtook the market after its record high on September 2.

Since then the S&P 500 has dropped 6.1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq endured a 10% correction. The bulk of ESG hedge funds' new picks fared better. Overall, their 2020 relative return compared to the S&P 500 stood at 11.7% on September 25.

It's been part of a good run of stock-picking for ESG funds, as Mahaffy also notes that stocks popular with those funds but less-liked by traditional hedge funds are also significant winners.

"Names that are only popular in sustainable funds outperformed," Mahaffy wrote, adding that the stocks aren't especially expensive based on longer-term price metrics. "Names that are only popular in sustainable funds are still trading below their early 2020 highs, though they have been inching up slowly in recent months."

The following stocks were bought by the largest number of actively managed fundamental hedge funds during the second quarter, when the market was on the comeback trail following the February-March drop.

They're ranked from lowest to highest based on their relative return during September's slump — the period stretching from its latest record close on September 2 through the end of trading on September 25

https://www.businessinsider.com/top-20-stock-picks-esg-hedge-funds-in-2020-rbc-2020-9#7-fidelity-national-information-services-14

Google workers say their contracts prevent them from reporting illegal activity, discrimination, unsafe working conditions, and wage theft
Tyler Sonnemaker

TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images

Google contractors alleged in a lawsuit that they were required to sign illegal nondisclosure agreements that prevented them from whistleblowing and violated their free speech rights.

According to a California court's discussion of the legal proceedings, the workers claimed Google's rules barred them from reporting "violations of state and federal law," "unsafe or discriminatory working conditions," and "wage and hour violations."

The workers, some of whom were employed via the staffing agency Adecco, claimed they couldn't even write "novels" or "reassure their parents they are making enough money to pay their bills."

Google's contract workers have increasingly raised issues over how they're treated compared to full-time employees.

Google contractors have alleged in a lawsuit that they're required to sign illegal nondisclosure agreements that violate their rights of "competition, whistleblowing, and freedom of speech" under California law.

In the lawsuit, which a California appellate court discussed in a ruling last week, the workers accused Google and Adecco, the staffing agency through which some of them were employed, of violating their legal rights to discuss a range of workplace issues.

Google and Adecco did not respond to requests for comment.

"Google's confidentiality rules prevent employees from disclosing violations of state and federal law, either within Google to their managers or outside Google to private attorneys or government officials," they alleged, according to the court, including "disclosing information about unsafe or discriminatory working conditions, or about wage and hour violations."


"They are forbidden even to write a novel about working in Silicon Valley or to reassure their parents they are making enough money to pay their bills, matters untethered to any legitimate need for confidentiality," the court said of the workers.

The contracts also allegedly barred employees from talking about the "skills, knowledge, and experience they obtained at Google." In practice, that meant they couldn't discuss those skills or their pay at Google when negotiating a job offer with a competitor, or even recommend coworkers who might be open to a job offer, according to the document.

Google has faced growing scrutiny over its treatment of temporary, vendor, and contract-based workers — or TVCs, as Google calls them — who aren't guaranteed the same pay, benefits, and labor law protections as Google's full-time employees.

Those concerns — raised by both TVCs and full-time workers who are increasingly standing in solidarity with them — range from unequal pay to second-class treatment at work to failing to adequately protect them during the pandemic and even active shooter situations.

An actual clown on the PRESIDENTIAL debate: 'I hope we can set the record straight on what clowns actually are, and they are not Donald Trump'
Juliana Kaplan
Sep 30, 2020, 
 

The word "clown" ended up playing a big role in the debate. sturti/Getty Images

At Tuesday's night presidential debate, Democratic nominee Joe Biden called President Donald Trump a 'clown.'

Business Insider spoke with Tim Cunningham, a clown and emergency nurse, about the usage of the term in the debate.

Cunningham said he laughed when he heard the term used, but that Trump does not exhibit the virtuosity of a clown.


Tim Cunningham decided to watch the presidential debate while on vacation.

Tuning in from a rural cabin in North Carolina, Cunningham felt he should fulfill his "obligation as a citizen" and listened as Democratic nominee Joe Biden called President Donald Trump a "clown."

One undecided voter — who said he voted for Trump in 2016 — was asked by CNN post-debate whether it was appropriate: "Is it great that Joe called him a clown? No, but when the shoe fits. When the clown shoe fits."

It was a clownish moment that reverberated around the world, but for Cunningham there was particular personal resonance. That's because he's a clown.


"When I heard it, I laughed out loud," Cunningham told Business Insider. "I'm fully behind what Biden is trying to do. We need to replace this person as soon as possible — this person being the current person who calls himself president."

Cunningham began studying to be a clown in 2000, and began working with a nonprofit clowning organization in 2003. After working as a hospital clown, he was inspired to go back to school and become an emergency nurse.

Today, he works as a nurse admin in Georgia, where he's been working with nurses and caregivers to help weather the COVID crisis.

For Cunningham — who stressed that his opinions are his alone — Biden referring to Trump as a clown is a nuanced issue. He stressed the artistry that goes into clowning, saying that clowns are ultimately "virtuosos."




"The clown is capable of making that virtuosic act look easy, and in making it look easy, they also open themselves up to vulnerability and failure. And that's where the clown is beautiful, because we see an artist doing this incredible feat, and then every now and then they have a hiccup and they fail," he said. "And it's that moment of failure that we laugh. And then they bounce back up. They're truly resilient, and they guide us through a performance, and they connect with us."

While a clown may be virtuosic, that's not necessarily true of who the "c-word" was lobbed at last night. Does the clown shoe fit?

"The person who calls himself president is clearly not a virtuoso," Cunningham said.

And that gets at the paradox of calling Trump a clown, according to Cunningham. While he may not exhibit the traits that Cunningham identifies as intrinsic to a clown, the usage of the term against him instead reflects where societal standards lie.

"It's concerning that Trump has lowered the standards of human decency so much — lowered the standards of what it means to hold the office of president, to be one of the most powerful people in the world — he's lowered it so much that the response from otherwise highly intelligent, compassionate people is to denigrate him by calling him a clown."

Cunningham said that ultimately he's both "offended" and "honored" by Trump being termed a "clown."

And looking towards the future, he said that, like a clown, he maintains a sense of optimism — and hopes for a future where, instead of bouncing back, we can bounce forward.

But there is one thing he wants to clear up:

"I hope we can set the record straight on what clowns actually are, and they are not Donald Trump."