Yesterday I called Wells Fargo in an attempt to make some progress on one of my goals for the year.
I explained to the customer service rep that our house was “severely underwater”, and that I wanted to find out what my options were.
She asked if I’d filed a Damage/Loss of Value claim.
I replied no, and asked what that was.
Turns out, she thought “underwater” meant we were suffering from flood damage.
If only.
Tags: california
I’ll be honest. I didn’t get more than a few chapters into Robert Wright’s Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. Sorry Chris.
It’s not that it wasn’t interesting or insightful. It was both. But it was also 400 pages of dense academic prose and it wasn’t really working out for me as bedtime reading before it came due at the library.
Wright argues that over time, human society trends toward more complexity and more interdependence. As our collective brain expands, life for everyone improves. We play nonzero sum games, over and over and over again, and everyone is better off because of it.
The logic makes sense. If you depend on your neighbor for meat and he depends on you for grain, you’re less likely to attack each other. Fast forward a few thousand years, if we depend on China for iPhones and they depend on us for jobs, we’re less likely to attack each other.
Wright’s LONG term, BIG picture view makes the petty discourse that dominates our politics seem silly.
Are we on a predestined path to global peace and prosperity? I don’t know… I didn’t make it to the end.
On the plane back from China, I killed a couple hours with Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS Shoes. It caught my attention with the entrepreneurial angle and clinched the deal with the shoe connection.
TOMS, Shoes for a Better Tomorrow, is a remarkable brand. Everyone knows TOMS and everyone loves TOMS. If you’re not familiar with their story, they give a pair of shoes away for every pair they sell.
Did you know they’ve only been around since 2006? It’s hard to believe, but I think illustrates the strength of a powerful story.
As a charity, TOMS is terribly inefficient. Other organizations help far more people for far less money. But that’s the beauty of TOMS — it’s not a charity.
It’s a for-profit company with a do-good story.
And it’s a good reminder that economic growth has lifted more people out of poverty than every charity, welfare program and NGO combined. Non-profits have their place, but the profit-seeking companies typically generate more innovative solutions to the problems of the worlds poor (as argued in Capitalism at the Crossroads).
The book is a quick and interesting read, especially if you’re interested in how TOMS got started. It’s inspirational in that it makes you wonder what other businesses the “one-for-one” model could be applied to.
Tags: shoes
The Great Wall was even cooler than expected (and it was expected to be awesome), because in the late afternoon, we had the whole place to ourselves.
With the setting sun and the rolling hills, it was pretty magical.
Despite the vast length of the wall, it’s track record as a defensive monument was spotty. Apparently some traitorous (or just scared) guard opened the gate for Genghis Khan.
Well worth the trip.
Did You Know?
The Great Wall is not “the only man-made structure visible from space.” (Consider the fact that any two-lane highway is wider.) But if you zoom in far enough on Google Earth, you can see it.
Tags: china
Panda Porn
The Giant Panda is endangered, but apparently the pandas themselves are at least partially to blame. Turns out they don’t much like the company of others, and they’re terrible parents.
According to our guide, certain panda centers have taken to showing the animals videos of their panda peers having sex, so they, you know, know what to do when the time is right. Apparently it helps.
One thing it doesn’t help with is parenting, though. If they can get two pandas to stand each other long enough to mate, mom really doesn’t want anything to do with the baby once it’s born. Seems to go against biological nature, but apparently it’s a serious issue. Zookeepers have to rush in and take the baby panda into protective custody or risk it dying of neglect.
One Child Policy
To curb population growth, China has enforced a strict One Child Policy since 1978. The penalty for having a second baby is enough to “make an average family broke,” according to our guide.
Some unintended consequences:
- Since boys were preferred, and no-questions-asked abortions were readily available, millions of pregnancies were terminated as soon as the parents learned they were having a baby girl.
- This created a large gender imbalance. Lots of competition for a generation of Chinese guys.
- To stop this behavior, it is now illegal to find out the sex of your child before birth.
Some interesting exceptions:
- Twins and triplets are exempt from the penalty (and I assume other multiple-births as well).
- If your baby is born with mental or physical disabilities, you can try again.
- If you live in a rural area and your first-born is a girl.
- If both parents hold a master’s or a PhD.
- If you’re rich and can afford to pay the penalty. Apparently many celebrities and other wealthy Chinese laugh in the face of the One Child Policy.
Concubines
On our visit to Beijing we heard a lot about the emperor and his concubines. It was good to be the emperor; he was the only male allowed to live in the 178 acre Forbidden City, and had his choice of 3000 ladyfriends.
The evening’s entertainment would be delivered to him pre-stripped (so as not to conceal any weapons).
And what’s in it for the girls? Aside from the honor of serving the emperor, there was always the chance of becoming empress if you could produce a son.
Some emperors grew weary of the steady flow of concubines though, and would don disguises and venture beyond the palace walls in search of common prostitutes.
Whatever floats your boat.
*I fact-checked none of this.
Tags: china
