Toronto Travels
Toronto Travels
Toronto travels. Notes on Responsible Investing conference. Ibsen: Conservatives vs Progressives. Meet-up.
Toronto travels
Notes on Responsible Investing conference
Ibsen: Conservatives vs Progressives
Education: Peter Gray podcast coming up
Links: Zvi on Nate Silver, Risk; Meet-ups; Sam Altman, Julian Gough.
Dates for your diary: Meet-up, Mon Oct 14, London: details here.
Mon Dec 16, Bigly Climate Game. Come test our game.
Jan 8, Thinking Bigly: How We Die. My surprisingly funny show on death and making my own funeral.
I was in Toronto for work at the largest yearly Responsible Investing (RI) conference hosted by PRI. 16 take aways on my linkedin here (for the specialist). Aside from those more detailed thoughts, I thought I’d describe the vibe.
The vibe to me seemed down this year. (Despite Mark Carney giving a part upbeat assessment of where transition has come). This is a movement of people who are (mostly) driven by the belief they are doing the right thing, they are playing a part in solving hard challenges. The movement is mostly in-system compared to activists for work out-system for change.
This year, I sense people feel critiqued by (to be generalist) progressives who argue RI is not doing enough, not fast enough or is even false marketing and by (to be generalists, Burkean) conservatives who argue RI is doing too much, is wasted resource or even worse pointed at the wrong challenges in the wrong way.
I wrote my defining reports on responsible investments, drug pricing, HIV drugs in Africa, access to medicines and patents in around 2002 and 2003. In that span of 20 over years, while far from perfect, HIV has become a very treatable diseases and millions of drugs have been delivered to poor nations that would not have occurred without the push of many companies, governments, NGOs and the like. Investors may have played only a part, and maybe a small part, but they did play a part.
I think we fool ourselves into how much moves in straight lines. Burkean conservatives fear throwing the baby our with the bathwater, but in doing so miss the important change elements of our time such as women’s rights, the end for slavery and more recently minority and disability rights.
For progressives, I think it’s worth noting two aphorisms. Travelling further together, and fortune favouring the brave.
Theatre: I managed to catch a piece of Ibsen and piece of dance theatre, arriving at the weekend (for cheaper flights). GPT suggests Toronto has 20 - 30 theatres which is decent for a 3m sized city (6m in the greater area). Discovering a city by theatre buildings is a good way of exploring a place. Or once, we explored Tokyo by visiting yarn shops which revealed lesser seen slices of urban life.
The Ibsen piece - Rosmerholm - reflected clearly the ideological arguments between conservatives and progressives as seen through individual conflicts and desires.
The overall plot is:
Johannes Rosmer, a disillusioned former clergyman, struggles with the burden of his family's legacy and the guilt stemming from his wife's death. He forms a deep bond with Rebecca West, a woman seeking freedom from societal constraints. Uncertainty around West’s motives on the eve of an important election drives the plot points of the play.
Kroll (the conservative) vs Rebecca West (female progressive) and Rosmer (conflicted conservative to progressive journey).
The overall themes are:
Idealism vs. Reality: The play grapples with the tension between the ideals of its characters and the harsh realities of life. Rosmer struggles with his vision of a perfect society and the disillusionment that accompanies it, leading to existential questions about morality and purpose.
Freedom and Constraint: The concept of freedom is central to the play. Characters seek personal freedom but are often constrained by societal expectations, personal guilt, and past decisions. The struggle for autonomy reflects broader societal issues of the time, particularly regarding social and moral norms.
Guilt and Redemption: Guilt permeates the characters' lives, especially for Rosmer and Rebecca. Their past actions haunt them.
Society and Morality: Ibsen critiques societal norms and moral standards, questioning the validity of traditional values.
The Role of Women: Rebecca West embodies the struggle for female independence and agency in a patriarchal society. Her character challenges traditional gender roles, and she has a complex her relationship with Rosmer
The Influence of the Past: The past plays a crucial role in shaping the characters' identities and choices. Ghosts of past relationships (and family) hover.
The arguments seemed very fresh, in part due to Duncan McMillan’s translation.
(The staging was well done [and directing seemed sharp] considering the in the round stage, and I thought lights and costume also very sharp. My only small dramaturgical critique would be on an over use of haze, which adds little and seemed to me to emphasize a certain type of artifice rather than atmosphere).
While the debate on womens’ votes have mostly moved on and been won, a modern audience can read similar debates (eg reproductive rights, identity culture battles) happening today. The central love tragedy also resonates beyond the social-political arguments. Ibsen reminding us of the intensely personal alongside the societal.
Of passing note, the audience looked much like an audience I would expect in London. Perhaps tilting slightly younger for a Sunday afternoon.
There was a piece of outdoor sculpture near the theatre. Sited in what is meant to be a mini parklet. The piece seemed lonely at this moderately busy interchange. I can see the idea of a creating neighbour place making but the entire city grid seems to lean against this type of space. I think it might need a cafe square in the French / European way of things.
Getting to the central east of Toronto was so much quicker by Uber than street car that it seemed to me public transport could be improved. While on the subway lines travel is quick (and there only two main lines), away from them the city is very car-centric. The central population is 3m and rising so the ability to build this transport seems important to me.
My Uber driver came from Iran. He was a physician but his English is poor and he has no ability to re-write his medical exams here. His daughter was studying medicine in Liverpool, UK. He felt London had the edge over Toronto in part because of the public transport although he sensed the average cost of living was better in Toronto. There is quite a large immigrant Iranian community in Toronto (around Richmond Hill) around 100 to 150K.
Still there was a sad tinge to the conversation that someone so well qualified in theory was not fulfilling his potential.
Rosa. The dance I saw, I could not entirely understand. At the high level, that this was a story of how current generations have been built on the back of previous generations, and the role of women and Mexican indigenous culture in building what we have today has been under played. There was a visceral physicality and some compelling images but the language of the many low to the ground forms of movement was alien.
The blurb:
ROSA, a peasant Indigenous woman from Ixtacamaxtitlan, located in the highlands of Puebla State, flees her community with her six small children on her back. As she escapes a life of abuse at the hands of her husband and her in-laws, she crosses valleys, climbs mountains, and faces enormous challenges. After three weeks she arrives in Mexico City where she will face her greatest challenge yet: brutal discrimination. This will force her to make a choice that will have an impact on her, her children, and will reverberate for generations to come.
Outside the theatre, a piece of performance art played which seemed very on vibe.
I caught some Brahms’ (3rd symphony) and Mozart (requiem). The Roy Thomson Hall (opened in 1982, home to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; modernist build) was comfortable and the sound good. I’m far from expert on music but both pieces were moving. The hall was mostly full, with a decent young-to-old mix suggesting the classical music scene (at last for size and place) has Toronto fans.
Walking around in the downtown area at evening. It was busy, but lacked the intensity of a London Soho, or a NYC east village vibe. There was a certain fashion look that placed us in a North America vibe over Europe or London.
I met only a smattering of Canadian people over the week, but they broadly seemed happy.
Of note, a reasonable number of cannabis cafes. Unsure, if they are adding much to the city life. Cycles have taken some small inroads into the city as well, despite the car-centric nature of the city. Some random snaps below to give you a favour of the walk.
Links and other notes:
• I’m podcasting with Peter Gray soon. His major ideas: the importance of self-directed learning, arguing that children are inherently curious and motivated to learn through play and exploration; and the critical role of play in children's emotional and cognitive development. He argues that play is not just a leisure activity but a fundamental process through which children learn about the world.. Let me know if you have questions.
• Nate Silver has a book on risk-taking out. It seems quite well read in certain circles. This is Zvi’s take. It’s quite long, so you don’t have to read the book (!)
On the Edge is a book about those living On The Edge, the collection of people who take risk and think probabilistically and about expected value. It centrally covers poker, sports betting, casinos, Silicon Valley, venture capital, Sam Bankman-Fried, effective altruism, AI and existential risk.
Collectively, Nate Silver calls this cultural orientation The River.
It is contrasted with The Village, which comprises roughly the mainstream mostly left-of-center institutions, individuals and groups that claim that they are The Experts and the Very Serious People.
and,
What is The River?
The River is a sprawling ecosystem of like-minded people that includes everyone from low-stakes poker pros just trying to grind out a living to crypto kings and venture-capital billionaires. It is a way of thinking and a mode of life. People don’t know very much about the River, but they should.
Most Riverians aren’t rich and powerful. But rich and powerful people are disproportionately likely to be Riverians compared to the rest of the population.
• Sam Altman (Open AI) has an essay on the future.
In the next couple of decades, we will be able to do things that would have seemed like magic to our grandparents.
This phenomenon is not new, but it will be newly accelerated. People have become dramatically more capable over time; we can already accomplish things now that our predecessors would have believed to be impossible.
We are more capable not because of genetic change, but because we benefit from the infrastructure of society being way smarter and more capable than any one of us; in an important sense, society itself is a form of advanced intelligence. Our grandparents – and the generations that came before them – built and achieved great things. They contributed to the scaffolding of human progress that we all benefit from. AI will give people tools to solve hard problems and help us add new struts to that scaffolding that we couldn’t have figured out on our own. The story of progress will continue, and our children will be able to do things we can’t.
Unsure exactly what to make of it, but this is a man who is making the future so notable to think about. His essay here.
• ICYMI: Julian Gough on his ideas on the universe.
Julian Gough is an award-winning writer and musician. We explore the breadth of his creative journey, from crafting the 'End Poem' in Minecraft to writing children's books and rock band experiences
We discuss his latest project 'The Egg and the Rock,' which investigates the universe's evolutionary complexity, paralleling biological evolution, and its implications on life, consciousness, and AI.
This conversation extends to a critical reflection on current scientific approaches, the importance of interdisciplinary thinking and writing in public and creative processes.
Interview here, or on podcast.
Thanks for reading.