Celebrate this Halloween by reading about Albanian bunkers, Serbian nightlife, toilet paper, a practical guide to coups d’état, Martin Scorsese, and more. Enjoy!
(1) Traveling to a Country That Was Closed for 40 Years
A great travel video (not an article, sorry!) on Albania. The country is littered with an estimated 750,000 (!) bunkers built by communist dictator Enver Hoxha in an ill-advised attempt to fortify the country against an invasion by the USSR or Yugoslavia (fellow communist countries that he hated for, seriously, not being communist enough). While Albania is moving on from its brutal history, this video captures the burden of dictatorial technical debt better than any article could.
(2) Review of Coup d'État (by Edward Luttwak)
This was one of the best books I’ve read this year. This is a “practical handbook” for coups, and while that (probably) isn’t useful for most readers, the level of tactical detail really makes for an enjoyable and unique book. Ever thought about the best way to disable the air traffic control at a nearby military airport? Or create a road blockade? Or the relative prioritization between seizing the national radio station and arresting parliamentary leaders? Me neither. Don’t try this at home!
(3) Insider Trading Via the Corporation
Speaking of things to not try at home… “A U.S. firm buying and selling its shares can trade on inside information more easily than its own insiders because it is subject to less stringent trade- disclosure rules. Insiders exploit these relatively lax rules to engage in indirect insider trading: they have the firm buy and sell shares at favorable prices to boost the value of their own equity. Such indirect insider trading imposes costs on public investors in two ways: by systematically diverting value to insiders and by inducing insiders to take steps that destroy economic value.”
(4) In Belgrade, Nighttime is the Right Time
Belgrade has a thriving nightlife scene. This NYT profile focuses on Belgrade’s splavovi, their famous floating lounges on the Danube and Sava rivers. “Are you into folk music? Half-naked women dancing on platforms to drum and bass? Paintings of Frank Zappa’s face? There’s a party boat for everyone.” I certainly loved the food: “traditional Serbian food is meat, meat, meat,” And who could complain about the crowd? “Belgrade is known for high heels and beautiful women.” If you’re looking for a great boy’s trip… 10/10 would recommend.
(5) I Moved to Zanzibar to Avoid Lockdown — And Make A Fortune
Zanzibar is the latest offshore destination for ultra-libertarians. Thousands of Europeans fleeing COVID lockdowns moved to Zanzibar (the island off the coast of Tanzania). This article covers one of the entrepreneurs capitalizing on the exodus—he’s building hotels and condos, launching safari companies on the mainland, and promoting “cafés offering wi-fi with vegan pancakes and oat-milk lattes.” Could Zanzibar be the next hipster destination after Bali, Phuket, and Tulum? “It is like discovering St Tropez as a quaint fishing village early last century before the whole world arrived, or Marbella in the Fifties when the Costa del Sol was just a few beach huts.”
(6) Sam Altman Is the Oppenheimer of Our Age
A profile of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. I certainly share the author’s skepticism of his sanctimonious public persona—the effective altruists who claim to care about the greater good end up being hucksters more often than the shareholder value crowd—but I don’t see a smoking gun in this story. “It can be hard to parse who Altman is, really; how much we should trust him; and the extent to which he’s integrating others’ concerns, even when he’s on the stage with the intention of quelling them.” Still, the PR optics of the non-profit model and having no financial upside at OpenAI are hard to square “with Altman’s will to power [and] ambition like Musk’s.”
(7) They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work A Lie?
The replication crisis—most social sciences studies fail to replicate (and therefore are bogus)—has been uncovering outright fraud (not just p-hacking). Reality is stranger than fiction: the two most prominent academics studying dishonesty, Daniel Ariely and Francesca Gino, have been credibly accused of repeatedly fabricating data: “there are two different people independently faking data on the same paper. And it’s a paper about dishonesty.” Yet another reason to be skeptical of behavior psychology’s “perpetual motion machine of one-weird-trick gimmickry.”
(8) When Caroline Ellison Met Sam Bankman-Fried
An excerpt from Michael Lewis’s new book on FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried, Going Infinite. This covers the early days of FTX, when SBF hired and raised funding from effective altruists (red flag!). Perhaps the most tragi-comical part is SBF’s dogmatic commitment to Bayesian reasoning, often poorly applied—they misplaced $4 million of investor funds, but SBF estimated they had an 80% chance of relocating it, so he reported that they still had 80% of the money. Bold move.
(9) The Greatest Missed Luxury
Prince Charmin’ has been reading up on toilet paper. The Scott Paper Company created modern toilet paper rolls in 1890 and, by 1925, became the dominant brand (winning against over 2,000 other competing brands). It’s interesting to consider (1) the process of creating of new consumer packaged goods (CPG), (2) the initial fragmentation (and rapid consolidation) that tends to occur in CPG categories, and (3) how people take toilet paper for granted (until they travel to Cuba…).
(10) Martin Scorsese: “I Have To Find Out Who The Hell I Am”
A profile of film director Martin Scorsese (he turns 81 in November). Few things are as moving as the beautiful, and often tragic, reflections of an old man with a well-examined life: “There are things you can’t comprehend about being old until you’re old […] All those battles with yourself, the man you keep meeting and trying to know, whose flaws and hopes and dreams you’ve been trying to solve through your work since the very beginning? All those confrontations, the past bubbling back up, over and over again […] It’s just like: what are you going to do about it?”
(0) Miscellaneous Fun
Anti-gentrification gone wild. Cleaning up artisanal mining. How the parking garage conquered cities. We should all try yoga. DIY rental car empires on Turo. Why vape shops are everywhere in NYC. Dave Clark’s dismissal from Flexport. The secret of Taylor Swift’s charisma is saying “you” instead of “you guys.” I love Balkans overviews. My second favorite Austrian Princess.