Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Jan 29th, 2023
“Everything you can imagine is real.”―Pablo Picasso
"There is no sudden turn-around or change. This is still the same Xi, and the policy is one of hypothesis “readjustment” or “rectification”.
In order to make the economy “harmoniously” grow in the long term, they have to accept short-term slow-downs and policy changes. To simple observers, they look like zig-zags; to the perceptive eye, they look like a straight line."
https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/not-a-new-xi
2. I've always loved Bulgaria. Even more so now. Good people overcoming the toxic Russian influence there.
https://www.politico.eu/article/bulgaria-volodymyr-zelenskyy-kiril-petkov-poorest-country-eu-ukraine
3. Hayes Valley is a great hood.
"Cerebral Valley is ultimately a term coined by the founders and hackers behind the newest trends in generative tech—but it might just result in a rebranding moment and lifestyle shift for the tech world, an industry that once prided itself on its cushy work-life balance.
And the growing popularity of a more residential, neighborhoody work-life model might have broader ramifications on San Francisco, a city that has historically struggled with tech-centered gentrification and currently has millions of square feet of office space sitting empty in Downtown SF.
Nonetheless, the rise of these hacker homes feels, in many ways, like a return to tech’s Wild West era, when scrappy startups sought to change the world from the garage of a Palo Alto home—or in this case, an Alamo Square Victorian."
https://sfstandard.com/technology/what-is-cerebral-valley-san-franciscos-nerdiest-new-neighborhood
4. This is an incredible interview with a former CIA operative. A wide ranging and great discussion: on geopolitics, the media, his time in the service, politics in America. Worth a watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGaht_p8QeY
5. This is an inspiring story. Smart kid here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BggZbyYkPos
6. This is an excellent discussion on geopolitics and America's place here & how power drives everything. Lessons from history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSTzXQvLah8
7. This is really inspiring. Angels do exist on earth it seems.
https://news.yahoo.com/farmer-died-town-learned-secretly-181429538.html
8. "These days, it’s a rare thing to see Nims face defeat. Over the past four years, the former Nepalese special forces soldier has electrified the climbing world and the wider culture beyond. He became mega-famous in 2019 by scaling all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in just six months and six days.
After that inventive feat, his notoriety was multiplied by the releases of his book, Beyond Possible, and Netflix movie, 14 Peaks, both of which helped confer a level of power on Nims that climbers seldom achieve.
Now he’s deciding how to wield that influence, both for himself and his Sherpa compatriots. He’s aimed at nothing less than remaking the Himalayan guiding industry in his image—and along the way is raising questions about what it means to be a mountaineer in the age of the influencer.
It’s a lot. Nims is a lot. But his hustle and bravado are precisely the things that have allowed him to break into the mainstream from Nepal’s deep bench of climbing talent. I’ve covered mountaineering and Sherpa culture on and off for more than a decade, and while there have always been insanely strong climbers with roots in Nepal, nobody has ever amassed the mind share, as the marketers say, that Nims has.
In the process he’s gathered a legion of devotees and plenty of critics, all of them hoping to cement his reputation as either a generational talent among high-altitude mountaineers or else an egotistical self-promoter flying perilously close to the sun."
https://www.gq.com/story/nims-purja-profile
9. This was fun and yes, Davos is a complete grift. F--k the WEF & Klaus Schwab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7E22zdUDpk
10. "Peak AI indicators abound. VC thought pieces and tweetstorms have reached all-time highs. Fair-weather fans from the crypto boom have migrated. MBAs may soon outnumber nerds."
https://luttig.substack.com/p/is-ai-the-new-crypto
11. A great model for young (and old) men.
"A bias for action and a thoughtful mind need not be incompatible.
Here are thirteen men who became war heroes, super spies, and more - while also achieving literary greatness."
https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/13-writers-who-lived-like-action
12. Fascinating international business man here: Adolf Lundin.
https://twitter.com/Fritz844/status/1616653527484628993
13. "As we’ve written about before, power is a psychological intoxicant. Any system that guarantees individuals power based on their bloodline is bound to fail — because eventually, you’re going to get a bad king/queen/prince/actress. We’re witnessing this in real time. Monarchies passed their expiration date a century ago.
The grace of Queen Elizabeth was royalty’s (formidable) last line of defense. What Marx said about capitalism, that a system based on self-interest would collapse under its weight, is playing out in the Houses of Windsor and Soho.
Distraction
Last week’s news about the monarchy reminds us how irrelevant they’ve become. France realized this centuries ago and separated its monarchs from their head(s), while the U.K. (more elegantly) subordinated the monarchy into a PR function. As the weapon of mass distraction that is H&M captures our gaze, more meaningful things are happening in Britain. Specifically, a government led by the democratically elected son of Indian immigrants has made an important decision."
https://www.profgalloway.com/porn-and-tanks
14. "While US and other Western officials don’t always have perfect insight into exactly how Ukraine’s custom-made systems work – in large part because they are not on the ground – both officials and open-source analysts say Ukraine has become a veritable battle lab for cheap but effective solutions.
“Their innovation is just incredibly impressive,” said Seth Jones, director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies."
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/15/politics/ukraine-russia-war-weapons-lab/index.html
15. "Of course, while it is ultimately Russians who will shape their country’s post-Putin fate, the West will also play a role. In the 1990s, an historic opportunity to create a true partnership and encourage genuine democracy in Russia was squandered, not least by short-termism, supporting Boris Yeltsin when he essentially stole the 1996 elections, as well as when he shelled his own parliament into submission in 1993, because his Communist and nationalist opponents were so unpleasant.
What was understandable in the short-term was disastrous in the long-term, furthering cynicism about a still-emerging democracy and creating conditions propitious for the rise of a revanchist nationalist and statist like Putin. It may be that the Ukrainian disaster will be a second chance for both Russia and the West."
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/is-there-hope-for-russia-after-putin
16. An amazing business book list here. All very good.
https://bowtiedtetra.substack.com/p/recommended-business-books
17. I'm very bullish on Japan.
"All said, Japan has remained very rich, is now creating high-quality full-time jobs, and has an inspiring track record of distributing wealth equitably."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-reality-check-2-what-is-japans
18. "At present, an estimated 22 million people move to Africa’s cities each year. By 2050, the urban population in Africa will be over 1.3 billion, or nearly as much as the entire population of the continent today.
As they did in Asia over the past 50 or so years, these trends offer enormous opportunities for businesses and investors. At African Lions Fund, our goal is to benefit from some of them.
In spite of a number of short-term challenges, such as high inflation, debt distress, and foreign exchange shortages that are afflicting some of the countries in our frontier Africa investment universe,these long-term demographic trends have not changed.
Moreover 2022 proved that a carefully selected portfolio of the best companies in frontier markets in sub-Sahara Africa can offer investors a rare safeharbour of non-correlation with the rest of the current global financial markets storm."
https://globalvaluehunter.com/why-now-might-be-the-right-time-to-invest-or-invest-more-in-africa
19. "There are a number of super talented product founders right now that are either going after Twitter (betting on its decay) or Google (betting on their political inability to integrate ChatGPT-like results into search).
Both may be an opportunity, but trying to displace an incumbent with an atomic unit that smells too similar seems tough.
The gravitational pull of both products’ existing network effect is just too strong. Neither TikTok nor ChatGPT look like Google, but both are keeping Google up at night. I’d wonder how to innovate on the core atomic unit."
20. "So what do we tell our students, our children, ourselves about our current progress in the Long Singularity? That flexibility is key. That everyone should be experimenting with these new tools to understand what they mean for us.
That we should be prepared for a possible future that is very different than the past, in ways that are unknowable right now. People are flexible, and technological change usually gives more than it takes, but we need to be ready for a much stranger world."
https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/becoming-strange-in-the-long-singularity
21. "It’s the same story of Rome’s elite plundering the empire all over again, just a few thousand years later.
No matter the country, the result is always the same. Governments are responsible for creating laws that allow the elite to pay less than their fair share, then punish normal citizens and small business owners when they need to recover the funds needed to keep a nation functioning. The modern taxation system is designed to eat up the limited financial resources of the poor, while allowing the richest to keep everything they earn."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/eat-the-poor
22. "Long before he became a Hollywood superhero, Momoa says, he was a climbing bum. It all started when his mother, Coni, took him to the Needles, in South Dakota, when he was about 13. There a guide introduced him to bouldering. “I just became obsessed—my body felt beautiful,” he says. “I suck at walking and running, but when he put me on a wall, I could move.”
https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/jason-momoa-the-climb-chris-sharma
23. Important discussion on geopolitical risk in 2023: China's re-opening and the barbarian Russian invasion of Ukraine. Worth a read.
https://www.thelykeion.com/max-geopolitical-macro-uncertainty-in-q1-2
24. This is a good discussion: for founders or investors who have not been through a downturn.
Brad has been through 3 of them in his 30 years of investing in the tech sector.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1M6S2zdPf8
25. This guy is fearless. Really important discussion that is worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jToRiehoX4E
26. Maximum bullish on Japan (yes I am biased but love the place).
"Perhaps, though, there actually might be a little bit at stake here. As Japan becomes a more open, globalized country, Western ideas and opinions have the potential to change Japan for the better. Outside perspectives could help Japan to solve the very real problems of the 2020s — corporate ossification, technological slowness, etc.
But if Westerners essentialize Japan — if they think of it as a country and culture frozen in amber — they won’t have much to offer the country in the here and now. Japan is, in fact, a very dynamic and changeable place."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/actually-japan-has-changed-a-lot
27. Pretty disturbing conversation on the drug cartel insurgency in Mexico & China's influence there (and fueled by America's addiction to drugs).
Hybrid warfare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHxM8cX_OdA&t=5883s
28. Very valuable conversation with NIA boys on the edge of the internet. Good stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHtjGYZcsh8
29. "My point here is that AI research efforts have this kind of hedge fund quality to them, in that are different groups competing with each other in secret so that nobody has a birds-eye view of the whole space and can therefore say with any confidence when something really big is about to unfold in it.
In this respect, the AGI chatter is the Valley version of Wall Street rumors about a big trade that some whale is stuck in that’s supposedly going sideways, or about some other major move deep in the plumbing of the financial system."
https://www.jonstokes.com/p/agi-is-silicon-valleys-first-native
30. "The recent announcements of more aid to Ukraine, including Western main battle tanks, demonstrates only greater Western commitment to Ukraine’s cause. It also indicates that not only do Europe and America want Ukraine to defend itself. They wish to see Russia defeated.
Therefore, Putin’s view of being able to outwait the west may be another of his poor strategic assumptions. And, if Putin loses this war, it may just be the start of a cascading series of catastrophic events for Putin and Russia."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/thinking-about-putin-and-russian
31. Disturbing but also possible thread. Conclusion is clear: it’s going to be messy in the world of the near future.
https://twitter.com/0xAlaric/status/1617623235222437891
32. Nothing wrong with biohacking if you can afford it.
"A middle-age software developer worth nine figures says he spends around $2 million each year to bio-hack his body into regaining its youth.
His goal is to eventually have all of his major organs — including his brain, liver, kidneys, teeth, skin, hair, penis and rectum — functioning as they were in his late teens, Johnson said.
The initiative, known as Project Blueprint, requires Johnson to abide by a strict vegan diet amounting to 1,977 calories per day, a daily exercise regimen that lasts an hour, high-intensity exercise three times a week, and going to bed every night at the same time.
“What I do may sound extreme, but I’m trying to prove that self-harm and decay are not inevitable,” Johnson told the outlet."
https://nypost.com/2023/01/25/bryan-johnson-45-spends-2m-to-get-18-year-old-body/amp/
33. This is a good discussion of geopolitics and lessons from the Cold War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr3GdJDMzA8
34. This was a fun interview on Unicorn Bakery. Check it out.
35. This is pretty stark information on demographics in the orthodox world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuhgLlxJMkU
36. Interesting observation.....
https://twitter.com/wander_investor/status/1618568161179357184
37. Not a fan of Davos or the crowd there but it’s where the elites meet and is a signal for where things are at on technology, economic and geopolitics fronts.