Rahul Gaitonde

 For example, it is quite common for people in the West, including fairly well educated people to lump together Indian and Chinese civilizations as representative of some sort of “eastern” mode of civilization. This, however, greatly misinterprets both Indian and Chinese civilizations as well as Western civilization. It would be more accurate to posit that while Indian civilization does share some commonalities with Chinese civilization, it shares an equal number of elements with Western civilization, including in some crucial areas, such its philosophical premises. Thus, the civilizations of Eurasia are generally quite distinct from each other, and none deserve to be lumped together. This is not to obscure the fact that some regions have more similarities to one another than with other regions. Observers of South Asia would know that today, despite the earlier historical influence of Buddhism in Southeast and East Asia, South Asia is generally closer culturally (and genetically) to the Middle East than it is to East and Southeast Asia.

Kissinger Is Right: ‘Asia’ Is a Western Construct

The article also proposes that instead of distinguishing Europe from Asia, one look at it as a single landmass that has

…several regions, including Europe and many others. Different manners of division could emphasize civilization (Western, Islamic, Hindu, Confucian, and so on in Samuel Huntington’s sense) or common zones of interaction (the Mediterranean, for example). 

Did not know this about the CFA franc currency:

…established in 1945, the CFA franc is used in two African monetary zones, one for eight west African countries and the other for six mostly petro-states in central Africa. Since 1999, it has been pegged to the euro, giving the member states monetary stability while supporting trade with Europe.

In return, the members have to keep half of their foreign reserves in France, on which the French treasury pays 0.75 per cent interest.

A French official sits on the board of the regional central bank in both zones, and the currency is printed by France.

Emmanuel Macron signals rethink on French-backed Africa currency

Apparently things are changing because Macron the French President thinks it’s anachronistic and also because

“The optics are so bad I don’t think it is sustainable for France to continue this arrangement,” the adviser said. “There is such a strong demand from African youth to take back their monetary independence.”

To move all passenger car traffic in the US to EVs we need to come up with an additional 0.73 trillion kWh hours of electricity. To put this in perspective we currently produce about 4.18 trillion kWh of electricity annually in the US, so we are looking at roughly a 17% increase… another 12% or so increase in the total required electricity generation [for commercial vehicles].

So together we are looking at about a 30% increase in electricity demand to move all of our cars and trucks away from fossil fuels. Not impossible at all, but also not easy. Now please keep in mind that, though that today our electricity production is still over 50% from fossil fuels.

So that starts to give us a better handle of the true scale of the issue of getting away from emissions.

Albert Wenger, “Electricity and the Climate Crisis: Moving to EVs“

This person’s Walking Desk setup.

This curious bit in the Wikipedia page on Money Creation:

Furthermore, the Federal Reserve itself can and does lend money to banks as well as to the federal government. There is currently neither an explanation on where the money comes from to pay the interest on all these loans, nor is there an explanation as to how the United States Department of the Treasury manages default on said loans.

– Money Creation

Butter means end-user experiences that are frictionless and joyful. For example, I recently went to China and was blown away by the QR Code experience — straight butter wherever you go, linking the real world to the online world. Duolingo is Butter for Learning. Nurx is Butter for Health. Coinbase is Butter for Crypto. Amazon Prime is Butter for e-Commerce.

“The Butter Thesis” (via AVC)

“What’s something that wasn’t around 20 years ago that makes you feel like we’re living in the future?“