Persistence of Vision Can Mislead Investors, But It's Not Inescapable

Humans tend to hang on to stories, but we must recognize outdated tales to spot good investments

- DEVINA MEHRA

Quick, which is the largest crude oil-producing country in the world? You'd be wrong if you said Saudi Arabia. The US overtook it in 2018 and now produces about 20%-25% more oil than Saudi Arabia.

A friend said last year that he couldn't recognize Bhubaneswar and Puri where he had spent the early part of his career. These examples got me thinking on both their specifics as well as data changes, in general.

Odisha has been a success story, relatively speaking. From being at the bottom end when measured by the percentage of people living in dire poverty, it is now marginally above the all-India average. Rajasthan has shown a similar trajectory. Tamil Nadu did it a decade or two before them, and from once being the country's fifth-poorest state, it is now at the top of the chart among our major states.

Many of the impressions we have of many things, including countries and states, may be outdated. We have all heard of persistence of vision in our school science classes. The human eye can see about 12 frames per second. Animation films, for instance, rely on this. By running roughly 24 frames a second, they can give us an illusion of smooth movement.

But persistence of vision goes beyond optical vision. And connects to another characteristic of human beings—of being creatures of the story. We love stories, we remember stories, we learn through stories. This is common to all human civilizations, from the pre-historic onwards and across geographies.