Hello everyone, so towards the end of the previous lecture we saw one of the most important theorems in expected utility theory and that theorem basically gave us the reason for why we should be using the maximization of the expected utility as our way of making decisions. It basically what that theorem told us that if a certain set of axioms hold then finding certain set of axioms about our preference ordering on the set of lotteries hold then we really have no choice then there must exist a utility function which maximizing which is equivalent to ordering our lotteries. So in other words finding the best lottery and or equivalently the best decision is equivalent to maximizing the expected utility. So before I move on let me I will just tell you a few characteristics of the theorem one of the few points about the theorem. So let us take note of the axioms that we had. Our first axiom was that the set of lotteries has a complete and transitive relation given by this curve less than equal to sign. This is the which so what is a complete and transitive relation it is complete if every two lotteries can be ordered and it is transitive if you have the following simple intuitive property that if p1 is less than equal to is less is less preferred to p2 and p2 is less preferred to p3 then it must be that p1 is less preferred to p3. So this is effectively just a logical consistency condition that if you prefer p2 to p1 and if you prefer p3 to p2 then obviously you prefer p3 to p1 as well. So this was our first axiom. The second axiom is very reasonable it said that well if p1 and p2 are equivalent if you are equivalent to each other which means you are indifferent between p1 and p2 then if I gave you another lottery p and I gave you and I mixed p1 with that lottery p. What does mixing mean mixing if you recall what I told you was that it is you can think of it as if there is another that is you think of it as if there is you are doing a coin toss where with probability alpha you would be choosing p1 and probability 1 minus alpha you would be choosing p. This now is another lottery on the set of outcomes and this lottery is has this lottery is basically is denoted by the left hand side here. The left hand side alpha p1 plus 1 minus alpha p is essentially the probability distribution that you would get from a lottery like this. So what this what axiom 2 tells us is that this kind of mix this kind of lottery on top of lotteries or a mixture of lottery p1 with lottery p in a proportion alpha to 1 minus alpha will also be equivalent to mixing p2 with p in the same proportion alpha to 1 minus alpha. So in other words if I if with probability alpha if I with probability alpha if I replace this with p2 then for you if p1 and p2 are equivalent then the resulting mixed lottery would also be equivalent. Axiom A3 tells you the same version of tells you a version of this if p1 was strictly less preferred than p2. So if p1 is strictly less preferred than p2 then mixing p1 with p and mixing p2 with p in the same proportions are in the same proportions alpha is before. So taking alpha p1 plus 1 minus alpha p or alpha p2 and 1 minus alpha p should give you should should continue to maintain the order of preference.  Now axiom A4 is a continuity axiom. Axiom A4 effectively says that well if you have 3 lotteries p1, p2, p3 and they are the preference order is in this way that p1 is less preferred to p2, p2 is less preferred to p3. In that case in that case you should be able to find a mixture of p1 and p2 sorry of p1 you should be able to find a mixture of p1 and p3 in such a way that by suitably tuning the mixture you should the resulting lottery the mixed lottery on p1 and p3 should be equivalent to p2. So you should be able to find an alpha in such a way that when you create this new lottery on new lottery on on p1 and p3 so with probability alpha you you get p1 with probability 1 minus alpha you get p3 this sort of new lottery should be equivalent to this should be equivalent to the lottery p2. So if so for every such p1, p2, p3 that are ordered in this way you should be able to find an alpha like this. So this is effectively saying that there are that that there is a continuum of of lotteries that that that are available to you in you can and you can you can find if there is an intermediately preferred lottery that is that can be realized using a lottery on top of lotteries. Right. So under this assumption what did what did we see we find that well there that the preference relation p1 less than equal to p2 is equivalent to the expected utility of the outcome being less than equal to the expected utility. Remember this is simply a preference relation that satisfies the axioms that that I have listed whereas this here is the numerical less than equal to. So what what what has happened is that you have a some set of preferences on on the set of lottery that are described through your axioms and what has what this theorem has given you is that there is a characterization of that preference relation in terms of a numerical optimization an optimization of the utility of the utility of the outcome where the expected utility of the outcome where the expectation is taken with respect to the lottery that or the probability distribution that you are considering. Right. So this this is effectively told us that so now we can move to lecture 4 and what this is effectively telling us that your preference between decision so if you you prefer d2 to d1 which we said was equivalent to saying that you prefer the lottery induced by d1 to the lottery induced by d2 and that we are we we now see is equivalent to the expected utility of the outcome under d1 being less than or equal to the expected utility of the outcome when you take decision d2. So in other words max in other words the problem of finding the best decision finding the best decision is becomes equivalent to maximize the expected utility of utility of the decision. One other so so this becomes a way of for us or this becomes a way for us to take find the best decision out of a set of decisions. One other thing I I did not mention about the theorem is that this utility function U is actually is actually unique essentially unique. It is essentially unique means that if there is another if if if u tilde is another so if u tilde is another utility function function satisfying satisfying satisfying this relation satisfying the relation star then it has to be that u is equal to some scalar s1 times u tilde plus a scalar s2 where s1 is greater than 0. So so what this is saying is that well you the utility function that that the theorem provides is actually unique up to a scaling and a shift. So you can scale it by by a constant s1 greater than 0 and you can shift it means you can add another constant s2 to it and that does not change that sort of a utility function will still satisfy these these problems. So so so these these two operations are actually something that since we are maximize since we are finding the best decision D by maximizing the expected utility these two operations do not change the maximizing decision. The the optimal D that comes out of this problem and the same that would come out of the the problem where this u is replaced by if I replace this u by u tilde if I replace this u instead by u tilde the optimizing D would remain still the same so long because u u and u tilde are related by this particular relation. So this is this is an this this is what the expected utility theory and the expected utility theorem basically teaches us. Now what is the what kind of utility what kind of a function is this utility function and what does it encapsulate what meaning does it encapsulate and what are the things that it implies. So let us let us look at this a little bit a little bit more. In in our previous lecture we had looked at a utility function in which we we had taken this particular utility function we where we took that the we had taken in the previous lecture we had taken this particular utility function if you if you recall we had taken the utility function where utility of an outcome o is alpha o minus o square right. So this this particular utility function if you see I had mentioned to you that this function is is a concave increasing function and as alpha becomes larger this function tends to become more and more linear. Now is this is this actually turns out to be a very generic property almost in most cases pretty much every case the utility functions have this this shape they are utility functions are typically are typically concave and increasing you and as we as we saw the quadratic utility function that we took alpha alpha times o minus minus o square was also of that of that kind of nature. So if they are concave and increasing then what this means is that because it is increasing u dash of x is greater than 0 usually and u double dash of x is less than 0 this is the this is usually the form of of a utility function. So this is of course assuming that the utility function is differentiable but under this as an under this assumption this is what this is this is this is how the utility function looks. Now this only tells us that it is concave and increasing does not tell you I fixed any particular form for the utility function. Now whether it would be quadratic whether it would be linear whether it would be whether it would be exponential or whatever really depends on the kind of preference relation that you have to begin with. So it really depends eventually on this this curved inequality the preference relation which satisfies all the axioms it encapsulates the it characterizes eventually the shape of the utility function. So based on the kind of a preference relation you would have your expected this problem of maximizing the expected utility can be quite non-linear eventually and in the most general case this would be a very this would be a a non-linear optimization problem in which you would be some some fairly nuanced or barely complex complicated concave increasing function. In so in that case therefore what what this effectively is telling us is that the the because because u is in general going to be non-linear the the expected utility when expressed in terms of the moment in terms of omega would in general have a contribution from all the moments all the moments of omega and not just the mean. So because this will have the contributions from all the moments of omega effectively it is saying that every moment would every moment matters every moment of omega matters. So so so this effect this also tells us the where we were going wrong when we were just looking at only the averages and and also answers the question of what actually should one look at well the we were going wrong in looking at the averages by basically ignoring all the higher moments. So if you if you one can think of it this way that you can think of u as as as basically as some kind of a power series suppose so it is it is say a 0 plus a 1 a 1 x plus a 2 x square plus plus a 3 x cube and so on and then and suppose suppose we have suppose suppose for simplicity suppose f you know f was suppose linear just like we had suppose f was linear then in that case you would you would get some you once you if you look at the expected utility maximization problem the expected utility of this would in general have would in would in general have contributions from contributions from say suppose some b 1 into into omega plus b 2 into omega expectation of omega square plus b 3 into expectation of omega cube and so on and of course additional terms in x and the and additional terms in x additional terms in D where these b 1 b 2 etc all of these would also be functions of D. But the main lesson here is that you would because because in a general nonlinear once the utility has a general nonlinear form you cannot wish away any particular moment you know the the moment various moments all the moments of omega could in general matter and our fallacy earlier was to somehow in per force in for you know enforce that only the first moment should it should be considered and all these later moments should it should for somehow be ignored. So, this is this is where we had gone wrong. Let us also now see how this this sort of utility function explains the cake versus house problem the dot v choice that we had or the contradiction that we had seen. So, let me draw a utility function like this. So, I am going to draw a utility function and what I want let us try to write out the expected utility and the cost of the expected utility from the lottery and the cost of entering the lottery. So, this is this is my this is my utility function what I have drawn here is is the outcome. So, this is 0 cakes this is 1 cake this is 2 cakes this is 3 cakes. Now, the cost the let us suppose somewhere here is is suppose here somewhere is 100 rupees. Now, the remember the expected utility that we that we get from the expected utility that we get from the lottery was two thirds the utility of of 3 cakes plus one third the utility from 0 cakes and that I am going to take as 0. So, it is going to be therefore two thirds the utility of of 3 cakes. So, if I look at the utility that I get from this is my utility function this the utility that I am getting from 3 cakes is out here. So, this is therefore the line here is utility from 3 cakes this is the utility from 3 cakes then in that case two thirds of that would be say somewhere around this height. So, two thirds the utility from 3 cakes is this height. So, let me write this here. So, maybe two thirds the utility from 3 cakes and as you can see that is in this case what I have shown is that what I have depicted is that is actually greater than that is actually greater than 100 which was the cost of entering the lottery and this is the expected utility from the lottery and this being larger than this implies that I would actually prefer entering the lottery. Now, let us now suppose I take this problem increase the stakes. So, when I increase the stakes this 100 is going to be this 100 is now going to be raised even high is going to be raised higher higher eventually to something like 1 crore. This is what it would cost me to participate in the lottery this would be very high somewhere here. The utility from 3 houses would be somewhere here. So, if you look at so I am going to just extend this just extend your imagination a bit and from where here maybe is the utility from is the utility from 3 houses. So, utility from 3 houses of course, it will be much more than the utility from 3 cakes but the point is that because this is a concave and increasing function effectively what is going to happen is that the increase is going to taper off. This is a function that increases but then eventually starts increasing at a slower and slower rate that is because it is concave that is u double dash is less than 0. So, because it starts increasing at a slower and slower rate it effectively means that they will come a time when the stakes become so high that the utility does not increase in proportionately. So, if I take a point somewhere here say for instance then this would be for instance my utility from a house of thrice the size two thirds of that. So, this here would be my utility from a house of thrice the size utility from 3 houses like this utility from a house of thrice the size and then two thirds of that would probably be somewhere here. So, this here is the two thirds times the utility of thrice the house. So, in the second lottery what is going to happen what is going to happen is that the expected utility from the lottery is going to be this red level here which is two thirds the utility of thrice the house but the cost of entering the lottery has gone way past that. The cost of entering the lottery is now here which is the green level the green level here. So, because now the cost of entering the lottery is higher than the utility that you would get from the lottery the expected utility from the lottery it automatically is telling us that that you would not want to prefer you would not want to enter this lottery. So, the earlier lottery was okay with you but the new lottery is not and because and that is because you have the stakes have risen so much that and the cost has increased linearly but the utility from it the expected utility has not grown linearly. The utility sort of tends to taper off and tends to grow slower and slower and as a result of that one does not one tends to prefer the one crore for to one tends to prefer keeping the one crore rather than get into a bet like this okay. So, this is what this is this is this comes out as a way of as a natural corollary of having developed the expected utility theorem. The expected utility theorem also gives us a very concrete and quantitative measure of risk now risk can be measured in many different ways but here is one particular measure so which I can which I will just tell you about. So, we say that a decision maker a decision maker is said to be risk averse decision maker is said to be risk averse if he has this if his expected utility with this you know computed under any probability distribution P is less than equal to its utility from the average out under that same probability distribution P. Now, this is a this inequality here is actually an example of what is called Jensen's inequality and this holds whenever U is concave. So, if U is concave then you would always have this property that the expected utility is always less than equal to the expected utility is less than equal to the utility of the expected outcome or the mean outcome. So, the expected utility on the left hand side is essentially the utility that you would get from the notary. The utility of the expected outcome is the utility that you would get when you when you are given with certainty the average outcome of the lottery. So, the right hand side the right hand side here is the utility the average outcome is given with certainty of the when the average outcome is with certainty and this is the utility of the lottery. Now, what does this mean for what does it mean for a decision maker to be risk averse it basically means that a decision maker does not prefer the lottery as compared to be given the average outcome of the lottery with certainty. So, although the lottery gives gives him a chance of getting more than the average he always prefers getting the average with certainty as compared to participation in a lottery in which the in which you know things could go either way. So, this is what it means for a decision maker to be risk averse. So, most decision makers essentially and most ways of posing a problem are problems have in them this property that they involve they assume they have utility functions that are risk averse. So, a utility function would be any concave utility function would have this particular property. However, there are some exceptions where there are some individuals who are risk loving or whose risk seeking or risk preferring in which for whom this inequality actually reverses. So, they prefer they enjoy the risk they prefer taking the risk as compared to taking the outcome which is which is available with certainty. So, we will not go and get into those kind of problems in this course. So, a measure of one measure of risk here is a measure of risk that can that we can talk of is as follows. Now, motivated from here we can ask the question. So, suppose if you had the option of if you had suppose you had the option of buying insurance to get get away from get away from uncertainty. So, suppose someone made you this offer suppose you pay y an amount y to get the average outcome outcome with certainty. So, then what you would have gotten is you would have got you have given you have you are receiving the average outcome with certainty but you are paying y for it. So, now question is what is this what should be the y for which what is the maximum y that you would be willing to pay. Well, it is the y for which the utility from the average outcome and now here I am assuming the outcomes are all just scalars. So, the utility from the average outcome minus the y that you have paid this this is what you are going to get with certainty right you are going to get an average outcome and you are also going to be you are also going to be poorer by an amount y. So, the utility from receiving the average outcome minus y that you have already paid for it this should be equal to the expected utility the expected utility of the outcome. So, here where x is a random variable. So, if you have a random variable x then you can ask what the the maximum y you can ask what should be the y I should pay to get away from the uncertainty in x well the amount that you the maximum amount you will be willing to pay is the y such that u of expectation of x minus y should be equal to the expectation of u should be equal to the expectation of u of x right. So, now we can try to do the following approximation. So, suppose I approximate with you know some kind of Taylor series type of approximation I approximate this as roughly u of you expected of the u of the average outcome plus sorry minus y times u dash of the average outcome plus terms that are very that are that are say small in y. I can also do the same for the other for the term on the right hand side I can write expected the expected utility as say the as again using using the Taylor series of expansion can write that this is the expectation of u of u evaluated at the average plus deviation of x from the average times u dash evaluated at the average plus the second d plus half times the x minus the average squared times u double dash evaluated at the average plus a bunch of other terms that are that that are small o of x minus the average of x there is the expectation of all of this. So, now equating these these two what we find is that so you can see a few things cancel out here. So, this this here when I take the expectation of this particular term this is going to be 0. So, the u dash evaluated at the average is going to disappear this term is a constant it will it will come out of the expectation. So, what we are eventually left with is is the an equation like this an equation where we say where we find that the the y that you need to pay is is equal to some is roughly equal to something like this it is negative half sigma square u double dash the average you double the you double dash of the average outcome divided by u dash of the average outcome plus plus terms that are where what is sigma square well sigma square is nothing but the variance sigma square here is the variance is the variance of x sigma square is the variance of x. So, this this coefficient this particular thing that we have here this quantity here actually the negative of that the negative of u double dash divided by u dash is r may is you can think of this as a measure of risk aversion. So, you can the r of x which is defined as negative of u double dash x divided by u dash x this is a what is called the aeroprat measure of risk aversion and it all what this measure basically is telling you is how much insurance would you be what is the maximum insurance you would be willing to pay to get away from uncertainty and get the average outcome of the lottery instead to get in exchange for participation in the lot in exchange for participating getting into the lottery itself how much insurance are you willing to pay to get the average outcome of the lottery and that that the amount you are willing to pay scales roughly as something like this be with this coefficient u double dash x divided by u dash x you can see also that this this this measure of risk aversion actually increases with increases with x sorry decreases with x. So, what this means the reason for that is usually so what this means is people effectively as their wealth increases as the x increases people become less and less risk covers. So, this all of these beautiful consequences are coming out as a result of result of a formal way of thinking about the utility or and about the expected about thinking about decision making under uncertainty in a formal way and through the expected utility theory. So, we will discuss more on the other side of in the next lecture.


Pantra has been texting me, sorry dude. Mr. Tex, I assume we meet at the coffee shop, whatever, I don't care. Sorry dude, I missed your text. I assume with me at the coffee shop, whatever, I don't care. Whatever, I don't care.  Do you even want to hang out and go to church? Do you even want to hang out and go to church? That's considerate. Like I said, whatever. Like I said, whatever? You're just unbelievable.  This unsaved heating? This love sheep of this- I got some for him. I guess, I guess I can do that. Okay. Okay. Do this now. Pantra, you're nuts. I'm not backing out. This, this is a, um, it's a, it's a, it's a baseball bat. From my baseball tryout. How did you know?


All right folks welcome on back here this Wednesday April 28th shortly after 2 30 p.m. Eastern time as always welcome on back here for our Afternoon meeting. Let's get a quick sound check just to begin of course I think I'm good to go across the cybergroup room great to see all of us though joining back on Social media Facebook live and YouTube great to see Taz skip Felix Greg Bonnie William All of our members here live inside the cybergroup room perfect. All right, so let's hop right into it folks We got Fausto finishing up the phase 3 stock course today So you know your last final trading session with the man himself He'll be trading the market close namely these picks that will be kind of scanning for you're heading into this meeting So without further ado, let's start the VXRT. I was pretty interested in this trade I was thinking I was gonna put this on our list for the afternoon, but unfortunately now I mean if it's not breaking higher. There's only one other way. It's gonna go I mean temporarily we say that so I gotta say to begin I dodged a bullet on this stack I was calling the stock out right before we started the meeting here live inside the trading room I said, you know look for more buying on the VXRT trade over the 870 level Hey, I whatever I call out folks. There's a very good chance that I'm trading it myself, right? I mean there might be some stocks that are out of my personal price range that I call out to cater to some folks That I know trade the more expensive ones or you know, whatever it may be But this is like my type of stock. This is most people's types of stocks I'd say I mean they should be for everybody, you know tight spread relatively inexpensive very liquid order book You know if you've been following us here in the trading room at least day to day week to week You've seen us trade the stock before you probably have traded the stock in the past yourself So it's to say, you know, hey, I was looking to buy looking for this to run off the 870 right here When I broke over 870 I jumped in long right off 872. I said a stop right below me at 870 or at 868 I ended up getting stopped out. Hey, right place wrong time or maybe Wrong time all together and this will come back down entirely. I'm not trying to risk that though So, you know what? I'll take the dinky 4 cent loss Look at where it's dropping down to now kind of seems like a Fausto flags building towards the downside here So, hey, I love VXRT. This was on my watch list going into the morning myself I didn't make the morning watch list But there were a lot of stocks that were very active this morning and VXRT was one that I noted at least ended up making the Nice push from earlier today at this point right now. We'll see if we'll make a pushback later on I guess we'll kind of come back to this at the very end of the meeting kind of put this on the side list to begin All right, let's just go right from top to bottom here and Tina one of our students here One of our members I should rather say saying BTX 42. Take a look at this thing.  Oh my goodness. This is insane I mean literally this is insane insanity is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again But expecting a different result. We're here day to day trading the stock and at some point We're expecting this to pull back. We're expecting the stock to make a you know a drop off after what like four or five You know updates in a row and not just updates, but really strong moves up I mean it's been every day that we've seen the stock near the top of the gainers list You know, hey for right now again This one is one that I probably wouldn't be trading myself going into the close for anyone that's trying to you know Try and run this up higher. You know trade this all-time highs Let me just triple check on that to make sure. Oh, yeah, it should be all-time highs, right? Oh Stand corrected not all-time highs at least from the daily chart that I it seems like this stock was trading around the 80s 90s back in like 2011-2012 So either way, I mean hey, it's great to see the run-up once again It seems like it's all-time highs, but nonetheless I'll put this on our watch list for any of our more level five traders for anyone else This is why we call it though, you know quote-unquote watch list, right? You're not forced to trade the BTX, you know, I like the VX RT still even though that's on our side list But we'll come back to that like I said at the end I'd like to be really patient on this trade honestly for as fast as this is moving up Be patient with your setup wait for it to come to you and then for then from there You know be quick with your execution and you know once it happens trying to be quick to get in at your price I would much rather be interested in this UXI and trade, you know I said that earlier and had pushed up very nicely, but now at this point I mean hey, it still looks really strong seem like there seemed like there was a lot of buying coming in off the 299 level and off of three Two specific price levels where we saw a huge iceberg order is getting filled So it's just had a tough time breaking higher so far But we typically know what happens going into the final, you know 30 minutes 45 minutes at least of the afternoon for a stock that's holding near its near ties So this UXI end trade definitely I mean this is more level one if anything Whereas like BTX was level five this UXI end level one and that's price aside This is cheap too right so you can trade a lot of shares of it So it's not just you know a slow mover. It's a pretty inexpensive one HT also inexpensive. I think we traded this back during the pandemic, you know vaccine news I think of some sort Could be wrong on that but ended up making a squeeze up earlier today This one also level one but not really making that strong of a move up right now So not as a sold on it just yet so to say I am in two trades I'll tell you about those trades in just a moment folks. I got a set stop set on both one. I'm Potentially getting stopped out soon. We'll see we'll jump to it. I'm sure at some point. Oh Talking too much about me here. Goal that will happen here another big pop Just broke out from 490 popped over five and now it's at the high here 511 Talking too much about me this gold trade though pushing up beautifully going into the close This one even more than the UXI end trade. I like the most so yeah gold definitely I mean, you know, it's hard to borrow right now It was easy to borrow for the last you know many days to be the trading the stock meaning that you know on days where it wasn't going to Break out higher then We could have shorted it but for right now don't try and short this thing this thing just broke out over a major resistance It looks like there was some buying coming in just recently over the last few minutes here But it stopped and then just popped higher a bit So wait to see if what happens around the five level it might break under and then back over five and then go from there But yeah gold definitely big a big trade today. All right quick. What a break there. We keep it moving though I got a warrant right there u.s. WS here Cheapy I don't mind the cheapies, but right now pulled back down RHE just not a lot going on there Boxel this this thing box light I should say but you know this stock has been such a tease of a stock over the last What how many months really? I mean probably over a year a year at this point But just it's been a known name nice level one stock So it's not going to shake down 50 40 25 cents in a minute bar But you know hey thankfully today it played very nicely for us ended up making a big pop as soon as the market opened up He maybe took a few minutes them broke, but you know namely it ended up holding that Prior resistance as a support level so you could see where it pulled back down towards exactly 270 269 You know move back up higher. That's exactly the type of run that you would love to see so You know for right now. I think it's kind of washed up, but I think it's kind of just Done for right now. I'd say Eto is another big mover from the morning at least kind of dying off at least from before All right, I got to jump to a stock right now folks. Oh, I guess we would have gotten to it Number 11 there we go. Perfect timing. I think I even skipped over it So it was first for anyone live inside the cyber group right room right now I've been in this trade from the 1050 level Louis. There we go, baby Love to see it right right back to that 1065 level.  I saw the price like 1064 1065 Mike. Let me jump to it So clover or clover.  There wasn't really news out on the stock and pre market So as soon as the market opened up, it wasn't on our main watch list and soon as the market opened up It took off. We called it out shortly after but you know It goes to show that you're still able to grab a good chunk of the pie here At least then to see this kind of holds support and then slingshot up higher from 10 Goes to show how strong that level really was and now at this point It's doing the same thing off 1050 10 not just 1050 1045 also 1045 and also 1050 were two huge iceberg levels from earlier today where it broke through that through those prices as resistance Well, that's where I'm in right now. I was playing this before off of a Where was I from like 1054? I took a 7 cent loss at a pretty good day It took a while to get the profits going but gotta say now It's been just as good just as successful today as it has been yesterday Monday Friday last week You can hear that I'm knocking on wood making sure I don't you know jinx myself there But for right now clove here pushing back over that really important level 1065 in particular We'll look to see you know if this can make the big squeeze up higher I know a few of us you know are looking for that right now. So yeah, definitely this clove trade And it fails to break out higher and hey at least this is one of the not to say few but one of the shortable stocks on trade station today Not as many shortable stocks today. I gotta say UXI and higher the day Tina says we'll jump back to that and I want to jump to another one Actually, I was being threatened of a stopout on this other one. I'll jump to that in a second But I'm actually checking it popped up really well for me. Yeah, Tina this UXI and broke over the three There we go. Nice push-up higher Come back to that at the end that that one, of course, you know is on our watch list already The one I want to jump to right now. I wouldn't have found it on the gainers or losers list ALDX I've been calling the stock out for you folks live inside the cybergroup room all throughout the afternoon one of three stocks I'd say that I've been personally watching Sands maybe us I UXI and but all 14 we had so much buying off of the 14 level yesterday That led to this like choppy but decent move Today it was kind of like lower volume at first. It didn't really make the big pop and that was expected But you know for right now once this re broke over the 14 it's held over it And here's our slingshot now So it's not up or down a whole lot But given the news that came out on ALDX from yesterday the big move that we caught from there It really hasn't dropped off that far. I mean, I feel like we can get more on this trade So I'll put this near like the bottom of our watch list. I mean certainly I like Gault a lot more I like my clover a hell of a lot more so long as that holds over a 1064 1065 UXI and obviously so this one will make the cut And we'll see if this could push up a lot higher like I hope like I hope for it to Don't want to rely on hope, right? XXII another one nice push from earlier today. I mean hey if you've been following me in the afternoon meeting I'm sure Fausto said the earlier said it earlier during the morning meeting this XXII stock is like a Very decent stock now to watch day to day Like it's a great sideless stock. It's not going to make a big move every day So we're not going to trade it every day But based on the run that it's had up to drop off and it's shortable and just it provides good opportunity So it ended up making a beautiful run earlier triple top breakout roughly off 535 Held a higher low from even from there like 540 as support I'm pushing up now. So, you know what? Hey, I'll give it a chance here again XXII I like the stock looks like the Dow is popping higher, you know, namely off to 230, you know press conference I know the FOMC was today. I didn't really mention that just from before but they left the rates unchanged Some headlines coming out from you know what Powell's saying right now, you know economy is a long way from employment and inflation goals Powell says don't have a test for Lift off or taper to do with the virus a whole bunch of stuff coming in But nonetheless the Dow ended up making a bit of a pop so far off that presser at 230 here So we'll see if there's anything else that's moving up not to say just with the market But you know any other big movers from earlier today if they're still holding strong. Why not? Just kind of skim through Mavis on the way down. It's hard to borrow today from trade station You know, it's so volatile. It's hard to not like put this on our watch list Guess I'll slip this on here the Mavis stock I don't know if I'll be trading this, you know myself But for anyone that does well on the stock day-to-day or has been then I'm sure that you folks are gonna follow Follow up on it and rightfully so Gotta love to see it. God. I love to see it folks. Mara at the higher the day. What's my Bitcoin up to? That's not doing a whole lot really So I got a little excited there just before just checking to see bitcoins move I know that we have fouls those phase 3 class coming up for all of us live inside the cyber group room Let's finish up pretty shortly here Just checking out Bitcoin, you know really just since the afternoon just a couple days back ended up making a big recovery Squeeze up not a whole lot happening yet But again folks like I said yesterday and this is the day that I'm really you know hoping for this to happen There was a rumor out and rumors We don't we know are not always true But there was a rumor floating around beginning yesterday that when Facebook releases their earnings today that they're gonna make an announcement Regarding adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet so Take it for what it's worth if it's wrong. Hey, it wouldn't shock me if it's wrong It's just a rumor But should that be true then it would not shock me for Bitcoin to make the type of pop that it had when Elon Musk and Tesla Announced the same news back a few months ago. So Again, we'll check in with it tomorrow briefly for right now. Oh my goodness now it like takes me at a standstill with Maura here because For anyone live inside the cyber group room that's been following us here I mean just you know month to month that let's say you know kind of a returning, you know member here You folks know my deal with Maura and right in the afternoon They normally don't make a big continued move up higher Especially when they're up big already they're at the highs. So I'm reluctantly putting this on our list Wouldn't shock me if this does not end up pushing up higher or at least making a big clean push up higher Into the close, but it's hard to not put this type of move, you know on our list here to us start All right got her good friend Mitch from YouTube once again welcome back Mitch She's asking about the NCT Y trade right now. I see it number 18 It's pushing up It's got a lot on the list already there Mitch Just I don't really feel the need to put a stock that has such a big spread on the watch list right now We already have one of those in BTX Yeah, Andrea clove is doing nice right now It's playing well for what I wanted to do and pushing up beautifully Make that move up to 1075 The stock has high short interest That's also another reason as to why I was really interested in this move up today or at least, you know going into the afternoon Doesn't mean that it's gonna pop higher Not necessarily out of the doghouse yet It would be pretty crappy for this to shake back down and for me to waste this big profit I'm up on right now, but Gotta keep the meeting going here folks if there's anything else that's up big type it in the chat board here for me I'm gonna hop over to the loser's list in the meantime just skim through it fast There are times where I do the meeting I'm in like one or two trades they work out Well, hey just like AMC yesterday finished up the meeting yesterday and AMC tank like 30 cents on my short But then there are times where I move on from a stock. It's hard to juggle it all That's why I say for all of us live inside the cyber group room, you know We're all human beings we can only focus on as much as we can like there are times where I'm in a trade I waste the profit, you know, it sucks. So let's try and zip through this meeting fast see what else we got Pinterest on the way down off earnings AMD on the way down off of earnings from earlier You know hey Mitch for Mitch on YouTube, how about this? I would rather follow Pinterest on the way down then that NCTY on the way up and this one's like five times more expensive. It's all based on the liquidity. Oh There we go David right from our coaching session I'm just checking the trading room chat right now David see one of our newer gold students news. I was with him in a coaching session earlier He picked up 20 cents just now in the UXI and trade he was in roughly from three He just closed out now though at 318 excellent trade David very nice beautiful All right, cool Got EMPH Spotify big names off of earnings or off of news I think there's news on Spotify regarding increasing their subscription that sucks I love Spotify. I pay for them every mama.  I don't like having my subscription raised All right, I think that's it folks Nicholas on YouTube just jumping back to the YouTube chat board here saying YouTube either Saying YouTube till right is a mover. It is. Wow nice push Yeah, I know that Norman was talking about the pot stocks live inside the cyber group room earlier today MJ was up nicely. I mean, I don't think there was really any news out on the pot stocks I think it was just more like, you know strength of sector pushing up well. So yeah, it's already moving up. Well with it, Nick ACP not a sharp AFA another good move I feel like AFA has been a better pot stock to trade compared to ACP I'm sure CGC canopy growth in there, too Let's check out VXR T here next this one cheese imagine if I held on to this trade Replace wrong time right folks. Maybe uh, right, please not any time here if this is gonna be a complete reversal So that's why I say just you know, if it breaks right back below the big important level that you're calling out And you're in the one that you're looking at Just get out quick try and re-enter the trade later on if it gives you the chance But if not then hey move away Let's see from Sonia here one of our new trial members asking about DPS T Nah, this isn't so this is an ETF first We're not as keen to trade ETFs all together, but the price the spread the everything this this just I wouldn't even follow I mean, we're primarily day trading first So we want to follow stocks that or first we want to follow stocks Secondly, we want to follow stocks that are relatively Inexpensive not to say super cheap. We're not looking for the penny stocks or bulletin board stocks or whatever But you know, we're looking for stocks that we could trade you know, 500 a thousand shares of You know, hey, if you're trying to do options do puts or calls are more expensive plays then that's different, right? You know you can read the order flow on the order book in order to try and dictate the direction of the equity And then play the option from there That's always an option All right folks, so I'll tell you I think that we're pretty much good You know, I'll keep the pot stocks on the side list for right now They do look nice for Nicholas on YouTube. That's a good call If you do well on Tilray in particular on a day-to-day basis or week-to-week basis or you know more consistently They're not then I would then I would definitely follow it But for right now, I mean between the UX in between the CLO V trade I mean hey for right now my ALDX is still pushing up nicely Oh just shook down literally the last second. I said that may have jinxed that All right Well, I got my stop set on this trade to take me out break even if anything so I would just waste the profit Unfortunately if this breaks but nonetheless, we got plenty more We got the XXII still we got the gold trade still pushing up nicely All right, folks So there's plenty to go around going into this afternoon then outside of that I keep in mind folks and know that rich just post the link before he'll repost it just coming up shortly But the link for phase three Fausto's live trading session going into the close He's gonna be trading the picks himself going into the afternoon So once again for all our gold platinum diamond C2 students make sure that you folks click the link That rich posted right there below just to join and then for those of you that don't have access to that No problem at all rich will be taking you going into the afternoon that myself I'll be back on at 3 30 at least myself taking you into the final 30 minutes All right, folks, I'll talk to you all soon for all of us in social media. I'll say to sign off Just make sure that you click the link on the banner below or go to the link on the banner below if you're interested in joining us At least for the final 30 minutes today and for the next seven days after all right I'll talk to you all there. Take care


Hello and welcome to Ask an Archaeologist. I'm Nico Tripsovich, the host of today's show. Ask an Archaeologist is a series of live streamed interviews co-hosted by the Archaeological Research Facility and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. In this series, UC Berkeley archaeologists and others who work with archaeological materials discuss their research and answer audience questions. For those of you joining us today live, you can post your questions in the live chat box you'll find adjacent to the YouTube video. Today, we are delighted to be speaking to Professor Bill White and his spouse, Clarity White. Bill, thank you, Bill and Clarity, thank you for joining us. Yeah, no problem. Professor William White grew up in Boise, Idaho and has been working as a professional archaeologist since 2004. He earned an MA from the University of Idaho and a PhD from the University of Arizona. He joined the faculty at UC Berkeley in the Anthropology Department in 2017. Bill is a founding member of the Society for Black Archaeologists and a long time blogger and podcaster as well. You can read more about Bill's biography and research in the YouTube description below. Clarity White is a human resources supervisor at UC Berkeley who has been working in higher education since 2004. She has a master's in human resources which she earned from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. So before we start, I wanna note at the outset the context of today's show. We're well into our third month of coronavirus quarantine and this week around the country, there have been enormous demonstrations against police violence targeting black Americans. Now, when we scheduled this talk weeks ago, Bill mentioned that rather than talking about his research today, he would like to talk about hashtag archeology life and living and quarantining with family as an archeologist. However, given the circumstances and your expertise as a historical archeologist, perhaps you can make some comments on the current events and in particular the history of social movements in our country. So Bill and Clarity, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for the introduction. You know, when we start the slide show, I do have a slide that kind of states what folks can do to help but right now when we're recording the third of June, 2020, there are crazy history-making events that are happening all around us. And in addition to the unprecedented shelter-in-place order that was across our country that's now slowly being lifted, we're now faced with racial strife that's caused by the mistreatment of African-American folks at the hands of law enforcement. And then as I read the news, I just hear about more and more individuals who have been injured and victims of violence by the police recently. This is actually nothing new in the United States. So rather than talking about the entire history of black anti-police uprisings, I'd rather just focus on what's going on right now and that we're still at a point where this stuff is still happening, unfortunately. And we still live in a country where the response from the government is very similar to what it's been for the last 50 years or even longer. And I see now as the riots which I'm not an advocate of violence at all but the riots are starting to slow down but we haven't really seen any concrete change coming from our government or law enforcement. We don't really see anything happen more than now they are able to absorb this kind of uprising and they expect it from us and they're able to weather the storm and just move on without really changing your agenda. And so in that kind of world with that kind of stuff going on, we have to take a new approach. And I really feel like each individual working together with folks that are close to them and working on them own self, that's really the solution because it's pretty clear that the business community, the government, the change is not going to come from outside. It's going to have to come from inside. Yeah, if anything else, if anything, we're seeing more militarization of the police and it's, but it would be helpful to know if you have comments about what we can do as archeologists and as allies. Yeah, so as archeologists, we're working with communities and with other people's heritage. So, step one is definitely be mindful of where we are getting this information and what we're doing with it and what the impacts are on the communities that we work. And especially folks like me that are working close with non-white communities that have had their histories marginalized, definitely involving those folks and doing whatever we can to try and allow them to insert whatever they need to say to the rest of the world into our work. That's definitely something that can happen. But then other folks who are working more distant on climate change or artifacts, artifact analysis or curation, things that are not necessarily connected to communities, be mindful of how our work can actually help those communities that are going to be affected because coastal communities, communities in other countries that don't have the same economic resources, they're going to be impacted by climate change. And so if we're not producing the kind of stuff that's going to help folks, it's only really for us. We're only serving our own self. So try to create the kind of stuff that can make change. Well, yeah, it's an important time to think about these things. I mean, one thing I've really seen is a lot of sort of rewriting of history in the media about how social movements happened and the more polite times of the past. But when you look into it, there was actually quite a bit of property destruction, 50, even 100 years ago, the suffragettes were early making a big impact. So it's nothing new. Not anything new, unfortunately. So would you like to, do you have a presentation you'd like to? Yeah, I do. I'm ready with this as well. Okay, well, maybe we'll have questions later. We can come back to contemporary events as well. Sure, no problem. Do you want to, yeah, there you go. Okay, you can see, the first slide here is talking about, it's a direct address to what's going on. If you are sick of what is happening in this world and you want to see something change, you can always start with yourself and you can always start with the number one thing that you have control over your own thoughts. The way that you can't control a lot of the things that happen in the world, but you can definitely change your mind and think about, or you can change the way you think about what's happening.  And I put some links to some good resources, but as a lot of folks that are looking at this, there are PhDs, there are professors, the website, tolerance.org has a lot of information about teaching tolerance and adding tolerance to the classroom at all different levels. So if you're an educator, you definitely have a disproportionate way to impact others. But if you're just an individual and you're trying to figure out what you can do for your own self, your own business and family, another website, racialequity.org or racialequitytools.org, they've got a lot of resources, including PDFs that will talk about case studies and other things where community groups and churches and other organizations have worked together to become anti-racism advocates. Because once again, you change your own mind, that's gonna guide your actions, but becoming an anti-racism advocate means that your actions are more likely moving towards the direction of equity, diversity, and breaking down the structures that support racism. So when you become an anti-racism advocate, you're really taking this upon your own self to change the way that you act, the way you vote, the way you purchase things and how you behave in public towards a stance that does not leave space for structural racism. I don't want that to take away from the whole presentation, but I do think that more people becoming anti-racism advocates is the pathway towards preventing this kind of stuff from happening more and more in the future. That's right, okay. Okay, so talking about this living with an archeologist, I asked my wife to come along because she's, I was an archeologist before I met her, but she definitely has put up with quite a bit of archeology for quite a few years now. And if there was anyone who knows what it's like to live with an archeologist and try to live an American dream life of raising kids and having a home and all that stuff with an archeologist, I think this fine young lady, she has firsthand experience with it. So if I say something that's not really the way it was, she'll set us all straight for the record. Okay, so this thing is really focused on us and our experience. I know my experience better than anyone else, but everybody who has lived with a spouse or a child or a sibling to an archeologist, they'll have a different take on this, but those of you out there who are interested in becoming archeologists, there's definitely some commonalities between being an archeologist, especially someone who worked in cultural resource management like I did. I always wanted to become an archeologist from an early age. And it was my dream job and now the dream is actually my job. And so I think a lot of these things that are in the talk here, they kind of parallel that fact that for years and years and years, it was my dream to be an archeologist. And now for a few years, actually more and more almost 20 years, it's actually my job as well. So I've been doing archeology since 2001 and I met my wife in 2004 and we've dated for a long time and then we've made marriage to each other. So she has watched me through more than a decade of doing cultural resource management and academic archeology. And also I'm a parent, I'm a husband and I'm trying to raise a family and do the right thing and everything by using archeology as my profession. So one of the things is that my family can't really escape archeology. So I'm just looking at the count, the years here. So it looks like you maybe studied it as an undergrad, did some CRM and then went and got a masters. And then continued and did consulting in graduate school through your PhD, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. So I, you know, as an undergrad, I wanted to do it. Well, I started off in marketing because everybody told me that that was a good profession and you could have a good job and a career and everything, but I couldn't stand business classes. Actually, that's interesting because my wife has a BA in business. Yeah, I find that interesting too because I studied both for undergrad, I did both business management and German. And so I've always told people that it was my study of language that helped me to get through business school because I too didn't particularly love business school. And so I've always found it interesting that, you know, Bill does archeology and cultural resource management. And I have a real affinity for learning about cultures. I've traveled and lived abroad. I speak a couple other languages. I got my grad degree abroad and I do human resource management, right? So it's like, there's these two sides of not to say they're the identical coin because it is very different work, but I find it really interesting that there are times when Bill and I have conversations at home that are looking at something that he's grappling with or something that I'm grappling with from a real different angle, but they do shed light on each other, right? Because we're still working with people and for me, it's like live people in their workplace and for Bill, it's more in a historical context and maybe not always tied to specific people, but a place, a time, a culture. But it is interesting to see how those different fields can complement each other. That's right. I mean, in business is a huge part of consulting and managing teams as well. That's a critical part. So it makes sense that you guys both have those backgrounds. Yeah, while we're on this slide, I'll add that things worked out well for us also in part because I was working in higher ed. So there have been several times that we've moved from state to state. And for me, because I already was working in higher ed, I was able to say, okay, Bill, as long as you find a job in a city that has a university, I'll find work and I'll find work that I enjoy because it wasn't always doing human resources, but I was predominantly working for a university. And so that has been a real, I guess, blessing, right? Because if I had a very niche, for example, the first job I had in higher ed, I was a study abroad advisor. Needless to say, I wasn't able to say, we're gonna move and I only want a job as a study abroad advisor because that would have been equally on par as equally difficult to land a job in a specific town. Many people that work in international ed have to move for the job, just like many archeologists do. So the fact that I was able to work in lots of different types of roles at different universities and then finally landing in my home of what I had studied of HR, made it that much easier for us together to stick together and move together. Yeah, definitely. So you did that in Arizona as well, Clarity? Yeah, yeah, so we moved to Arizona led by, again, just like I said, we were in Seattle and I said, you know, as long as there's somewhere with the university, I'll find work and that'll be fine. And then, yeah, we went there for him for work and then it just, again, worked out great because then I was employed there at the University of Arizona for nearly 10 years and it was a great place for building his PhD and we didn't have to uproot by then we had a family already. And so we were able to stay in that same city. I continued with my job.  And I don't know if we'll get to this but there were a lot of long nights of him reading or writing, sitting outside a small child's bedroom door because they wouldn't go to sleep without, you know, dad hereby.  No, I tried but it didn't quite work out. Yeah, it's a lot of... Yeah, it's a lot of things to do. It's a lot to be a student, have a family and everything and run a business. But working for businesses, that wasn't as hard. So, yeah, you know, as a PhD student, and also as a master's student, I did CRM and it ends up being crazy. You know, as a master's student, I was on a long-term project with the Idaho Transportation Department where I worked Friday through Sunday, 10-hour days and then Monday through Thursday was a TA.  I wouldn't be able to, you know, not even really change. Sometimes we'd be out there for the whole weekend. I remember grading papers and stuff on my laptop at campsites so that I could get my work done at night after dating all day. And it was, you know, as a PhD student, going out on projects, you know, I'll talk about it in a few seconds, going out on projects in between having classes and coursework and stuff and having to write technical reports at the same time that I'm writing my dissertation. So, it wasn't easy. Yeah, I'm kidding. Yeah, I'll go on to the next slide. Okay, yeah, it seems like you finished pretty quickly as I recall, right? You started, yeah. Emily definitely motivates you. Yeah, you know, I put five things to know just to really keep this in a short time period, but kind of like a warning for folks whose children are thinking about becoming archeologists or you're dating archeologists, you're thinking about marrying her. I mean, yeah, there's some stuff you need to know. So, I boiled it down to just five things that, you know, we've found are common in our life. And I know, you, Nico, as a parent, you know, as a family guy, many of these things are actually very similar and they parallel the lifestyle of a lot of folks who do archeology.   And then when you actually get into it, because you've invested so much of your life into that, you're thinking about the past a lot. You're thinking about archeology and history and prehistory and human cultures and stuff all the time.  I had, you know, this is going to be up for a thousand years and they're all- Desperation Ranch, huh? That's great. That's great. That's great. So, what do you have to bring your family with you, right? So on this side, I'm kind of suppressing laughter because you can see we've been talking about dates a little bit. 2004 was when Bill and I met. And this was in September of 2014. So it took exactly 10 years for me to join Dell. Yeah, she did not let it go. So I had a lovely experience, a rare opportunity when I was an undergrad student at University of Idaho, that when I took Anthropology 101, there was a real live dig going on on the campus, which as you, you know, it's a rare opportunity. It was an old dorm that had burnt down in the past. And so the archaeology faculty were doing, you know, some excavation there before a new building went in. And as it was presented by the professor, I thought, yeah, wow, you know, totally rare opportunity. I don't know anything about archaeology and this will be cool. So I went to volunteer at the site and I don't remember if I had a designated shift of a couple of hours or something, but very quickly, probably less than an hour or so to work, I realized that all they were finding or searching for was crumbs of wood and I was pretty much out. So I know that's probably the last of us to the rest of you here, but it's what it was, right? For me at the time. And so I'm interested in Bill's conversations, but this is case in point. Like it took me 10 years before we wound up going out together in the field. Yeah, and for very good reason too. You know, the separation of work life, my wife, since I started working in the Virgin Islands was really interested in, you know, coming to see what it's like and she wanted to go to the beach and hang out and everything. And yeah, you know, on St. Croix, there are definitely our beaches. And so for our anniversary, I said, yeah, come on and have a trip. You can come with me to the Virgin Islands. But if you want to get to the beach, got a big shovel probes. I think this might be one of the worst decisions of mixing work and life together that I've ever made, but it ended up happening. This is your anniversary trip? Yeah, my Gartania anniversary. There have been several moments that I've referred to as a bait and switch. And this one definitely was. Because he painted one picture and it did not include the sweat and the shovel. But the reality was, you know, I was out there and, you know, I didn't really have anything to do all day while he was working. So it felt like the right thing to do to help. Digging will definitely give you something to do. That's right. All right, so one of the other things too, that's, you know, a reality of being an archeologist, especially working in cultural resources, you're going to have to travel.  Most of the time I couldn't even come home at night. So, you know, wanderlust is definitely a part of the whole thing for, you know, our family and, you know, my own personal identity and everything.  Because you're out doing some projects somewhere else. You know, I missed probably, you know, nine months of my son's first year of life doing CRM projects and being out of town. And that's definitely something that, you know, I can't, I can't get back, but it's definitely something that you need to think about. Yeah, because some projects are those four 10s and that's in a way nice, but other times it might even be like 10 days on and then a week or whatever off. But that also was really, it created a really interesting dynamic for the family, especially when our kids were as little as they were, because there was this whole like adjustment over those, you know, four days that he'd be gone of like, okay, it's just me and the kids. And then another adjustment when he came home. And so we were constantly in this flux of him being gone for four days and then home for three days. And as Bill's saying, that went on for a good long chunk of time. And those are busy three days home, during laundry and recovering. So let me I'm in all the fun with your kids, but you didn't get to have for the week too, right? Yeah. So let me just remind our viewers that there's a live chat box. If they'd like to send questions in, they can type them into that chat box and I'll read them to Bill and clarity. Another interesting side effect that ends up happening because you'd spend so much time traveling is that your vacation is also ironically traveling. So the, you know, we mentioned before that we already liked traveling and experiencing new things, but that just ends up being part of the lifestyle of our family too. So our kids are, you know, they're pretty good travelers. In fact, you know, my daughter just asked for her seventh birthday. She wanted a spinning suitcase. That was what she wanted most of all since she went on trips, right? And since they were young, we've been going all over the place, you know, all these photos are from us on vacation, but whenever we get a chance to go somewhere, we definitely, you know, make the effort. Yeah. Well, it's probably a real change for them than being stuck at home. They're used to traveling. Well, we make everything an adventure though, again, right? It might just be an hour up the road. We haven't taken them on any international trips yet. That was in the works, but that's been canceled. The world's got changed. You know, it'll happen. The world's still gonna be there. Yeah. All right, so another thing too about, especially being an archeologist, a field archeologist, if you don't like being outside, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble. And so from an early, you know, time, I always wanted to be outside, you know, as a, especially when I was a, in my 20s, I felt like the inside part was just what enabled me to be able to do the outside part of, you know, camping every single weekend, if I could, year round, rain, snow, whatever, I still went camping. And I also always interested in hiking and just being outside as much as I possibly can. And that really translates well to being a field archeologist because you will be outside in all of those conditions. And like, that's not really something that's negotiable. That's reminding me of the first camping trip that Bill took me on, actually. It was really just dating a few months. And he said, let's just go camping. I don't know if it was one night or it's supposed to be the weekend, but I was just on board and fine with it. But he knew it was actually supposed to rain. And so it was a real test. I think I would be put to the test, but I was. Well, was it on Mount Rainier? Cause you're probably likely to get rain. Yeah, no, it was just in, it was just nearby in Idaho where we were at near Moscow, Idaho. Yeah, on Rainier, she kind of drew the line at camping in the snow. She's like, yeah, I'm not really gonna do that. I think on some hikes on Rainier, once we got up to the glacial line, I said, this is beautiful right here.  Oh, it looks like we got a question here on the chat. Someone writes in, I'm writing a novel in which my main characters are archeologists. Can I ask how you two met? Oh, should we tell them now or? I don't know, is it later in here? No, it's not later in here. Sure. Yeah, I'll let you tell the story. So we did meet in a very classic way, which was at a bar. We had mutual friends. I was out with my best friend and her then boyfriend and Bill and her boyfriend were colleagues at a grocery store where they were working during college. And so, yeah, Bill showed up with another of his friends and they just sat down and shared the table. And really, I mean, that's how we met. It's just very simple like that. But the story perhaps gets better in that my best friend introduced me to Bill as this is Clarity, my best friend. She just moved back from living in Holland and right away, Bill started talking to me and he shared with me that he was gonna be going to Amsterdam. And I was like, oh, gosh, you've got to be kidding me. Great, when are you going? And he said, it was a few months off. And I said, well, do you have your flight ticket yet? No, no.  No, no. And at that, I kind of was done with the conversation. She was like, oh. I just thought it was some way to try to talk to me or trying to say Amsterdam's cool, like you who've never been there, you know. And yeah, so that was kind of it. I mean, I don't really think we talked much more that night, but because we were in a small college now, but more. We didn't get to talk more because she wouldn't talk to me anymore. So that was the end of the conversation for her. So then because we lived in a small town, you know, once you've seen a person, you start to bump into them. Then I had the opportunity three or four times, I think, to see him in line for coffee or see him out at another bar and say, oh, did you buy your tickets yet? And well, two or three times he said no, and that was it.  And I was like, here's my phone number then. I have friends in Amsterdam. You can call with them on and on from there. So once she knew that I wasn't full of it, then all of a sudden she would talk to me. Right, right. Then you had to do some, some Dutch language practice. And time to thank you. I only had to get a passport. That's what it required to, you know, get into dating. We're here a traveler. Yeah, yeah. So then, you know, going on to about this, the outdoors ends up being what we do. And so the vacations and the traveling and stuff are almost always two places. The kids are interested in, you know, traveling and everything. Well, if we go somewhere it almost always has some outdoor component. And like they just have to get used to that. So, you know, right now they're indoors a lot for school and all that stuff. But we're always saying, go outside. Then whenever we can, we're going outside. And it's all just go outside, right? So they've actually gotten used to that too. That vacation basically means going somewhere where we're outside. Mm-hmm. Oh, here we got another question. Do your kids want to be archeologists and do you want them to be? I mean, I'm one of the best people to help them become an archeologist, but they're not interested in it. Yeah, they'll probably get their share of time screening and serving. Yeah. Yeah, in fact, Bill bought a little mini screen recently. So, yeah, Lydia has helped with that because we were resetting a fence post just recently. And so Lydia got to help us in screening just because we needed rocks from the bottom of the hole. So. But I told them when they're done with the, when they're too old to really go to the summer program. So they just have to come with me into archeology all summer. They don't have a choice. They just have to come with me and research and dig and whatever. Yeah. That's a good question. So, you know, the other thing about traveling and always interested if you're an archeologist, you're always trying to explore and figure out something new. So, you know, sticking with the routine or staying in place is not really part of what we, we're always looking for something new and trying to do something different.  It's like I have my own little historical encyclopedia, right? I'm not a history buff, but I can always ask Phil and I'll probably get a more in-depth answer than I need it. Yeah, I have, when she asked me questions on the past, I have time limits. In just seconds, in two minutes, tell me about this, right? You can't go all the way back. Yeah, but so that is the other thing that as an archeologist family, I know, you know, even when I was doing cultural resources and I couldn't bring my family with me, just the way that it was so close to my heart and always on my mind, you end up going along with the archeologists because they're always looking for stuff and they're always out there trying to figure out something new. And really, you know, you're along for the ride, whether you wanted to or not. And, you know, that seems to have worked out pretty good for our family. We've gone to quite a few different places and now the kids are actually old enough to look for artifacts. When my kids were toddlers, they knew how to identify different kinds of southwestern ceramics just because we were always hiking to sites and, you know, seeing a bunch of stuff. Pretty interesting, they went to the Presidio in San Francisco and they were doing excavation I think in 2017 in the summer. And so we were just there to hang out. And so we went over and saw the dig and, you know, they were saying, hey kids, have you ever seen a dobi before?  Oh yeah, this little dobi brick, you know what that is? And they're like, yeah, we know about that too.  And they were like, oh yeah. Well, there was a whole bunch of, it looks like there's a wall on another wall there. And these guys were like five years old and they were talking about it. So that, you know, they ended up learning a lot about the past and they know a lot. But trying to make it happen is actually the only thing about being an archeologist, you're working real hard towards a goal. And then the same thing translates to trying to make your family happen, trying to make your career happen and the lifestyle you want to happen. Well, this is the last slide. I think we went over on time a little bit, but you know, this is not any different than what people have been doing around the world. You don't have to be an archeologist to have all those same kind of experiences. You know, this is kind of actually part of being a human being, especially in the United States where we move a lot for jobs and we go, you know, to a lot of different places for vacationing in the United States. What I just described there is what a lot of folks are experiencing, you know, on the everyday level. And a lot of folks are also wrapped up in their work, you can imagine folks who own a family-owned restaurant. The relationship between work and life is, you know, totally meshed together, right? But when it comes to archeologists, you know, because we are spending so much time thinking about the past and spending so much effort trying to go out, you know, you do end up being with someone who always is figuring out something pretty interesting. And I can't say that all those trips and all those adventures were actually 100% exciting, but there was excitement somewhere in there, right? And digging the shovel probe and you find something in it, then that's kind of exciting. Well, we do have one more question here.   In the beginning, you know, when I was first starting out and just working from project to project, I mean, I wouldn't say I was homeless, I was renting a place and everything, but my possessions were pretty much expendable. I mean, whatever I needed could fit in my 1991 Geo Metro, and I could go to where the next project was. And when I got to that place, if I was there long enough, I rented an apartment and just went to the second-hand store and just got furniture or when God was on the curb and stuff and just put it in my house. And other than my computer and my clothes and my archeology equipment, I mean, when I moved out, I just gave it all away, put it in a dumpster, whatever. So in the beginning, I pretty much was just, I tethered going around looking for jobs. And, you know, when Clarity and I got together, then that changed a lot that I wouldn't say that we went out and bought a bunch of new possessions and everything, but the goal was to try to find these cities or metropolitan areas where we both could find a job. Ironically, the places that have big universities or several universities within the Everdrive also have several cultural resources companies. So in that place, it was like, we've had a symbiotic relationship where she has a job, and then when I lose my job and get unemployment stuff, my partner is there to actually help cover the bills. And then when she decides to change careers or change another job and her employment changes, then hopefully I have a job, right? So anxiety as far as, you know, not having a place to live, if you just live as if you don't, then it's not that big of a deal. When we got a family though and we had a mortgage and all that stuff, then the stakes were way higher and the choices were a lot less. And there was a couple of times where I had to decide whether I was going to keep doing archeology or do something different. Yeah, I'm remembering related to that, that Bill had read years ago, the book that's in contract. And that's one that helped also inform some of our actions and choices as a couple together in our early 20s that we already at that time did what we could. I mean, it wasn't perfect, so we strove to only spend one of our incomes recognizing this societal trap, so to speak, that we're all in somewhat, right? That, you know, we spend to the level of our income or beyond and then you're totally just stuck. And so that was something that we made some sacrifices early on and continue to make, right? Like that we always strive to live beneath our means both for, I guess it's just somewhat in our values but also for in how we raise our children that to us it's important that maybe we're setting aside for a rainy day or a cut and pay or for the kids as opposed to just getting that brand new car or whatever. And I'm not sure if that ties directly to the question that was being asked but it's just a series of little choices that helped us to be able to, you know, weather the ups and downs of the CRM reality. That's right. Yeah, well, thirsty traveling is probably a partiality of most archaeologists. I can remember the first time Bill and I went to Europe we part of the time we were in hostels and we did this alternating, like we would stay a night in a hotel for comfort and then we would mix it up and go to a hostel which definitely didn't have that comfort and things like that to be on a tighter budget and or like we had Bill put some pictures from our trip to South Korea and that trip we were staying with friends. And so yeah, absolutely traveling on a budget.  So we just get used to camping like that. We get used to just traveling like that and then the vacation ends up being now a car trip. But even if we fly a lot of times, well Airbnb has really made it a lot easier to travel as a family. But we will stay for a long time and we'll try to get mileage points and stuff like that on credit cards to be able to afford to travel. So we still try to live, it's not easy here in the Bay Area but we still try to live on one income. Well, yeah, well, we've run out of time here but I wanted to, could I ask you to repeat the name of that book that Clarity mentioned? Oh, yeah, the two income travel. Two income travel. I don't remember the author, but it's out here on the show. Yeah, we've had it somewhere. All right, well, thanks again. Thank you for sharing the photos of your adorable family. Yeah. Yeah, and I wanted to thank our listeners and the people who sent in questions and also I'd like to invite our viewers to come and see the next episode of Ask an Archaeologist. It's a Colin Domnauer and Christine Hastor will be speaking about iconographic investigations into the use of an Andean hallucinogenic plant. So that's next Tuesday at noon. So thanks again, Bill and Clarity. It's been a great talking to you. Thank you. Bye.


Thank you very much, and it's a real delight to be here. My brief was to speak about recent advances in future agendas of conflict research and links to development, and that's what I'm going to try to do in 15 minutes, so forgive me if a lot gets missed. This is my personal view on the field, and I want to talk about three main developments which have happened recently. I'm talking about maybe the last five to ten years in conflict research. The first is a shift to the micro level. The second one is this idea of civilian agency, and the third one, which I think is really, really important, has to do what we call wartime institutions. And I think this has really made a big difference. It has shifted and advances a lot of research on conflict which has exploded in the last ten years or so. For a long time, and we've heard Omar already alluding to some of these big debates, for a long time, the research, research on conflict, particularly in the development of economics of which there was not much, there was very much on the issues around security and capacity of states. It was about states, which really had a lot of importance because it brought attention to development and to development economics, particularly to the importance of conflict and violence across the world. About 15 years ago, and it's probably still the truth, right now, no developed economics textbook referred to conflict at all. This has shifted quite dramatically, and it did, policy reasons, the Millennium Development Goals highlighted the fact that the only countries that would not achieve the Millennium Development Goals had in common the fact that they all were conflict-affected countries. And there's been this explosion of work. And for a long time, the work is focused on the states, but then it starts becoming obvious that subnational patterns and trends and processes were really important. And while the first, call it conflict 101, was really important in kind of understanding the triggers of conflict and what drives civil wars mostly, we sort of forgot what happens at subnational level. And this has changed quite dramatically recently, and most of the new advances have been at the micro level. And some of it has actually been convened by the houses in conflict network, which I convened together with Tillman Brook and Philipp Verwimp, and was born here at YD 11 years ago, when Tony Addison brought us together in a panel that gave rise to the houses in the conflict network. So it's great to be here 11 years later to tell you about what's been happening in the field since then. And what's been happening is quite remarkable in the short space of time. One of the big contributions has been a lot of evidence, a lot of data collection has been happening, a lot of difficult work done under very difficult circumstances. We were told there is no way you can collect data, empirical evidence in war-torn countries, DRC, Afghanistan, so forth. It is possible, we've shown it's possible. And we have quite a wealth of data and the network now extends quite a few members I see present here today. And the other advance that this micro focus has brought to the field is this idea that people matter and actually people's behavior and the way different interactions and social interactions happen in the field really matter to explain why conflict lasts, why conflict reignites, what different processes of conflict take place. And this has been also highlighted in a policy world where there's definitely a lot of much more people-centered approaches have become much more prominent than in the past. One of the great examples being the World Bank community-led development programs which spend now currently billions of dollars focusing on getting the sort of relations on the ground right. And one of the big developments has been sort of a move from this idea that people, people that live in conflict areas, these are the people we're talking about here, when we talk about policy, how to make their lives better. And it turns out that people that live in conflict areas are not, they suffer a lot of conflict, there's lots of victimization and so forth, etc. But there's been a kind of slight shift from sort of focusing people as victims and trying to understand people as agents in the conflict itself. And this has been quite significant and it has led to new developments even with the development economics itself. And we now understand that actually these dynamics, these local dynamics really matter to understand why we're fighting takes place for whom, for how long and so forth. And the other big event, the sort of big body of research that has taken place recently over the sort of five years or so is a very simple idea. It turns out that what happens during conflict matters to explain post-conflict. And it's quite simple, but somehow it gets forgotten and there's this idea that conflicts are areas of unarchy, blank slates where once the conflict over we can come in and try to solve the situation, of course it's not the case. At the theoretical level, this kind of idea that you can do policy in conflict areas once the conflict is ended and you can sort of implement some of the development as developed as business as usual, like Graciella was mentioning, is theoretically we tend to think of conflict areas where social order has broken down. So we have large literatures on state collapse, the state failure literatures and so forth. However, if you've been to any of these areas where fighting takes place, what we see is that although state institutions may collapse, it's not necessarily the case that order collapses. This is what makes conflict areas so difficult to understand and to intervene in. And what happens is that spaces are empty and they're left for different actors, political actors to come in and occupy that space. If you remember, violence has been with us since the beginning of human history. Violence happens for a reason and it happens because violence is a means through which institutions are born and raised and created and destroyed. So if you start thinking in this way, it's not that surprising to see that lots happen in conflict areas. And we know these groups, we know some of these groups, and we have the FARC in Colombia, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, a lot of ISIS now. These groups are occupying empty spaces and they are providing order, which makes it really difficult to sort of break. Relations get established in different areas and they are very difficult to break. There's not surprising that the presence of the successful groups, many of them fail in the process of getting there, have to are present in conflicts of long duration as well. So there's something to understand there and there's been lots of work done around these issues. People have called rebel governance where there's a body of research on trying to understand how these relationships between combatants and non-combatants happen between algorithms and civilians with a lot of implications for policy, like combatants reintegration and so forth. Lots of work also around understanding changing of social norms during conflict, which has huge implications for how we do development at community level. And so where do we go from here? Again, this is my personal choice I'm sure a lot more could be added here. I could spend the next two hours going over various exciting areas of research. But I've picked three and the three I've picked are about linking these two different views of the world. It's about data and the fact, trying to make a point that violence happens outside Africa and it happens outside civil wars and this is sort of a new movement and new understandings that are happening in the field. So, we've started from states. We worked a lot on understanding states and state capacity. We've spent the last ten years on micro. How can we bring this together? If these new developments in micro level allow us to be successful, they can only be successful to the extent they'll explain that provide the micro solutions to understand the bigger phenomenon. So, can we actually use all these learning from field work and micro level to understand big questions such as why conflict persists and mutates, survival and security, negotiation process and so forth. We're not there but we're getting there and new work is happening quite significant and I can see a lot of it is going to happen in the next five years. There's lots of work on so called by status calibers and liable cells on technologies of rebellion. How do fighting strategies at the sub-national level actually have implications for both? What happens to people and what happens to states? The research agenda on wartime institutions is quite significant to have spoken about that. Collective action, where does civil society come from? We have three actors in conflict. We have the state, we have the civil society and the armed actors. We sort of focus quite a lot on state-civilian relationships. We don't focus so much on a sort of armed groups, civilian relationships and the rise of civil society and how that gets affected by the conflict. Quite a lot of research being done at that level. Systems of patronage. How do these institutional change that happen in conflict driven by relationships between armed groups and civilians mostly? And by armed groups I mean most rebel groups but also military. How does that then reflect in post-conflict politics? And it has huge reflections. And there's also a very interesting area of research around business and war economies at the local level which is quite interesting as well. And all this research is kind of amalgated to try to link these two views on the world. So conflicts are not just about the states and the people. There's something in between that will have to link states with the people and that's what the new research is coming up is trying to do. Then I have to talk about data. I do a lot of data collection and we've done a lot and we have a lot of data on populations living in conflict on sort of political events, on conflict and violence events. There's a lot out there that can be used but we still are at the case study level. Very little comparative work has been done and this requires huge investments. To do this kind of work at comparative level requires huge investments that only sort of the big international organizations can do. And Tillman and I, and Phillip Feving as well, we're working together with the World Bank to try to push this agenda a bit forward and see what comes out of that. And finally, we've spent a lot of time. Most of new research on conflict is about a restricted number of failed states in Africa where civil wars have taken place. It was obvious the analysis were going to start there. But one thing that is quite clear is that although you learn a lot about why conflict happens and why it lasts and so forth from these case studies, we sort of miss out the transition period. And if we think about history, think about the history of Europe, where wars have taken place and institutions have changed so over hundreds of years, not the 10 and 20 years that we're trying to do sort of policy in conflict-affected countries. Well, we need to learn from both how these transitions happen. How do you move from state of conflict to state of peace? And this is extremely complex and you don't learn that just focusing on countries that tend to go back into conflict constantly. You also learn those from those that succeeded, including Europe itself, the US, the Civil War in the US. So you learn a lot from these long transition periods and we should kind of try to do more about that. And also we know now that most violence takes place in non-fragile countries. So a lot is happening outside the traditional failed states in Africa. There's a rise importance that urban violence is another area which has been untapped but obviously has implications for how we understand the world today. And protest, social tensions and so forth, there is a lot to be learned from recent research on conflict in civil war conflict to understand the sort of rise of protests and when protests become violence and so forth. So I think there's a lot of research that's going to emerge there but I'll stop here. Thank you.