The Friend-Shore World War. Why Being the Best Means Getting Away With the Worst for Elites. Do We Improve With Age? Plus More! #186
Grüezi! I’m Adrian Monck – welcome!
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1️⃣ The Friend-Shore World War
‘De-risking’ means finding other people to depend on.
Heard of friend-shoring? Off-shoring meant sending production where it was cheapest. Friend-shoring means moving production to where it‘s safest.
The problem? All depends on what you think is safe.
Regardless, Europe’s big corporations are increasingly looking to ‘de-risk’ their exposure to China.
That means shifting suppliers or holding bigger stockpiles in case of supply squeezes. Both involve higher prices for consumers.
Reality is a little more complicated.
Take iPhones. Tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts a chunk of Apple’s production is about to shift to India from China:
Apple plans to make nearly 25% of its iPhones in India by 2024.
De-risking? Friend-shoring? Well sort of...
Four things are happening:
India is taking off as an iPhone market.
Apple faces China competition from Huawei.
Foxconn is losing out to Luxshare.
Foxconn is increasing investment in India.
So...
One is a story about India’s economy and growth.
Two and three are stories about China’s ‘domestic champions’.
Four is a story about diversification responding to one and two.
Friend-Shore Wars are complicated.
⏭ The Economist’s long look at the People’s Liberation Army.
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2️⃣ Elites – Why The Select Are Not The Elect
Why being “chosen” can bring out the worst in people.
Britain‘s elite air display team – the Red Arrows – are a national icon. Selected from the Royal Air Force’s best pilots. They’re also subjects of a damning new report detailing a truly terrible culture.
Elites know they’re special they are. They’re selected for it. As psychologist Geoff Beattie says:
“Elites trust only those who know the score and who have passed the same rigorous selection tests that they have.”
Elites also breed:
Narcissism;
Immorality;
Callousness.
Beattie reflects on how these toxic traits become embedded in our organizations, businesses and societies.
His advice for us non-elites? Resist the “bystander effect” and don’t let elite bad behaviour fly by*.
⏭ Elite toxicity can manifest anywhere. Even swimming clubs.
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3️⃣ See Mont Blanc With Snow!*
*Offer may not last long.
I’m lucky enough to live an hour’s drive from Europe’s highest peak – Mont Blanc, the white mountain. Except these days it’s not so white.
Europe’s glaciers are vanishing, and with them the tourism industry built around climbing and alpine sports. As Bloomberg reports:
Nowhere is this problem as visible as Mer De Glace, France’s largest glacier. In 1909, a train line was built to take tourists to a station positioned on an overlook just above the ice, from which they could descend a short distance to reach it by foot.
In 1988, the glacier had shrunk so much that a gondola was opened to ferry passengers to the ice. As the ice continued to recede, a staircase was added.
That now has over 500 steps, necessitating a new, longer gondola that will open in December to accommodate the roughly 350,000 tourists who visit each year.
I’ve done that climb after skiing the Vallée Blanche. If you think climate change is a hoax, take the stairs!
⏭ Global heat: “Exceptional” autumn sets up 2023 to break records.
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4️⃣ How To Make Friends
No need to influence people.
There’s been a lot research on what makes us miserable. Very little on what makes us happy.
One thing that improves everyone’s life? Friends.
What does friendship look like? Here’s the social science:
Women “prefer to engage in activities that allow for self-disclosure and sharing secrets” like one-on-one talking.
Men “prefer to engage in activities that are group-based and have a clearly defined outcome,” e.g. sport.
There are strong preferences for friends to be loyal, trustworthy and warm.
How to make friends?
Work out what you value in friends.
Close friendships take time. 30 hours for a casual friend, 140 hours for a good friend and 300 hours for a best friend.
When you demonstrate characteristics people want in friends, you make more satisfying friendships.
⏭ The relative importance of friendship to happiness increases with age.
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5️⃣ Sustainable Energy Source? Try Coal Mines!
Well, disused coal mines…
⏭ More new ideas for old coal mines.
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6️⃣ Do Young People Still Want to Volunteer?
Yes, but not like you used to.
⏭ People generally are volunteering less.
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7️⃣ Can We Improve With Age?
A Lesson From ‘Hamlet’
Richard Burton played Hamlet at 38. He knew the speeches well enough to recite them to interviewers.
Hamlet is a youngish man. Yet the words are spoken here by Burton towards the end of his life – he died at 58.
They’re a chance to reflect not just on the magnificence of Shakespeare’s words, but the genius of performance, personality, voice and delivery that comes with age.
These words are lived.
And just to see what Burton sounded like a decade or so earlier, here’s the same speech:
Here is the speech Burton delivers:
“I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise.
“And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth ... look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire – why, it seems no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
“What a piece of work is a man, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!
“And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?”
Few of us have Burton’s gifts – or his demons – but all of us can draw hope from a craft that grows with time and lived experience.
⏭ The New York Times’ original review of Burton’s performance from 1964.
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If you enjoy this newsletter – please recommend it!
Best,
Adrian
