A walk across Afghanistan.
My play on Rory Stewart's walk across Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. How to rely on your own thinking. Is theatre much different in post-pandemic times?
A walk across Afghanistan. I’ve made a private online copy of my BBC Radio 4 play, Places in Between. This was my adaptation of the Rory Stewart book about his solo walk across Afghanistan (in 2002) just after the fall of the Taliban in that period. If you would like access to a copy just reply or leave a comment.
UnConference Invite, Sep 16
Future Podcasts: Social impact, history of free markets
Market thinking: Aphorism and idea, poor decisions result from caring too much about opinions of others.
Is theatre (or anything) much different now?
Links: Births outside marriage data by country. More hydrogen innovation. Music with calculators. Scotland leads on tampons. Tom Gosling on if missing 1.5c causes problems for Net Zero committed managers. UFO pictures. Existential risks papers.
You are still invited to come to the UnConference on Sep 16. Do come! Sustainability Accelerator UnConference on Sep 16 on the long-term. I’m co-hosting this and if you are interested in the future of humanity, you should come. London, Chatham House. Register here.
A walk across Afghanistan. Stewart arrives in Afghanistan in January 2002, beginning his journey in Herat and proceeding on foot to Kabul. He is initially accompanied by two armed guards, Qasim and Abdul Haq, at the insistence of Governor Yuzufi but travels without human company for much of his walk, accompanied only by his dog, Babur. On his journey, Stewart encounters many of Afghanistan’s most notable historical sites, including the Minaret of Jam, the Dome of Chist-e-Sharif and the Buddhas of Bamiyan (which were later destroyed by the Taliban.)
Rory is more famous in the UK for being a former conservative MP and a notable centre-ground politician currently co-hosting his own podcast.
I have always been more interested in his time walking (he walked much of the south Silk road route) and his time as a governor of Iraq. He was also (briefly) a member of the Black Watch (a scottish infantry battalion), which has a most brilliant piece of theatre about its history. (A play I have seen twice in two different cities, London, Edinburgh)
His father was a colonial administrator in then Malaya (now Malaysia) especially in Penang, where I have family. Drawing a thread through this, you have this form of empire ruling through at least two generations of Stewarts but, to my mind, a very ethically torn Rory. Rory also writes poetry. He represents a certain form of British tradition and thinking (Eton, Oxford, diplomat, writer, soldier, politician) and rule.
This is as preamble to my thinking about the play. Adapting a work - for me - means engaging much more deeply with a text and what it means. There are leaps of imagination especially with regards to character.
I also came to understand some of the complexity of Afghanistan and how its shape in modern times has been formed from its physical geography and its history. I suppose like all countries, but in particular I had a glimpse of how complex Afghanistan is, how deep rooted some of the problems are (intersected with poverty, culture and the like).
I found this relevant when speaking with philosopher Larry Temkin (see recent podcast) and reading the work of Angus Deaton. Deaton is skeptical of international aid and thinks it may do more harm than good. If you look at the humanitarian challenges to Afghanistan these past decades and attempt to understand why you can appreciate why Deaton ends up in his position.
How complex the tribal and ethnic population of Afghanistan is and was, all represented… Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch, and Sadat as large ethnic groups and Pashai, Nuristani, Kurds, Gujjar, Arab, Brahui, Qizilbash, Pamiri, Kyrgyz as smaller groups. (Rory speaks many languages sufficiently for his treks)
Pashtuns are 40% of the population, and Tajiks 25% and Hazaras perhaps 9%. Hazaras are often persecuted and you can see that in the book and Rory’s travels.
You can also see the importance of walking. Many of the villages, and stopping points are one full day’s walk apart. The middle of Afghanistan ruled by warlords controlling geographically difficult terrain, and part of cultural traditions going back decades if not hundreds of years.
One amazing aspect of Rory’s walk is him “re-discovering” the Minaret of Jam (which was again found in 1958 or so but hadn’t been reported on for a number of years until Rory walked to it).
The 65-metre high minaret was built around 1190 entirely of baked bricks and is famous for its intricate brick, stucco and glazed tile decoration, which consists of alternating bands of kufic and naskhi calligraphy, geometric patterns, and verses from the Qur'an.
His meetings with various warlords and people were memorably described as were his brushes with death. But the heart of the book for me was his relationship with his dog, who he named Babur and who has a heart breaking end.
My radio play, I think achieves some of the heart and the drama of his book, but not perhaps the cultural and geographic complexity. If you want to listen to it, message me; or the book is worth reading as well.
I’m due to podcast with the New Zealand social impact fund Jasmine, CEO, Nina Gené - let me know any questions.
Also scheduled is Jacob (Jake) Soll who has a book on the history of free market thinking coming out but also a previous book about the history of the role of accounting - basically how accounting has lead to the rise and fall of nations!
Let me know if you have questions you’d like to ask.
I am exploring expanding on my previous set of collected investing aphorisms and what they mean. Here is an old set, Investment Aphorisms:
Corruption and poor decisions result from caring too much about opinions of others.
Seek newsfeed stimulation and management piffle, if you are too stuck to think for yourself.
Hardly abundant are ideas from a narrow mind.
An investment expert who answers all questions and talks all they know, is likely ignorant.
Greed for knowledge better than greed for reputation.
Being blind to what everyone obviously sees can be an advantage at times. Visionaries are like that.
You need to develop and rely on your own judgement. Too much weight on others’ opinions makes for poor investment decisions.
Explanation. We are influenced by what others think about us. We gain a certain amount of joy, or as economists might say “utility” from these social reputational endorsements.
However an overreliance on what others think about us can lead us astray. For investing, as in life, you need to make a set of your own judgements. Weighing expert advice for its trustworthiness and sense especially where you have limited experience.
A blind following will not allow you to make a clear assessment.
There are variations on this lesson worth thinking about. Experts in the media who seem to talk only from one view and with certainty about most topics is overconfident. We should be wary of placing too much weight on their opinion.
Occasionally, you will observe an opinion or view shared seemingly by a vast number of people. Even those you view trustworthy. Many times this consensus view will be correct. But often enough, this view will be incorrect and rarely you may have the alternative view.
While you should tread carefully with contrary views, you should also learn to nurture them because then you can make large investment gains, or in life, make a break-through idea or action work.
This is potentially a reason why in personality psychology work the trait of “disagreeableness” can be associated with success. I would not overweigh this observation heavily but there seems to be some truth to it.
Within investing, as in life, you can not and should not always agree.
Gathering ideas and opinions, sifting them and then thinking through what you think you shold weight is a skill you should nurture.
Investment example. I once was examining an experimental biopharmaceutical drug. Most of the written reports were arguing that its side effect profile was too toxic. The drug could trigger an inflammatory response known as a cytokine storm that is a severe immune reaction which can be life threatening and lead to organ failure. However, I knew that inflammatory responses can be mitigated with other techniques. I asked other medical experts and there were a variety of opinions suggesting the side effects could be mitigated. Weighing the evidence and opinions, I thought the drug was more likely to receive regulatory approval than not. This was seemingly not the consensus view. Several months later, the drug was approved as the benefits were seen to outweigh the side effects (which indeed did look to be able to be mitigated) and the company’s stock price reacted very positively.
Poor decisions from weighing others opinions too highly are plentiful outside investing as well.
Theatre in London and the UK seems to be re-emerging. My Twitter is full of Edinburgh, and London theatre seems to be full - tickets are sold out for well regarded shows. This is a point suggesting that we are somewhat recovered from the midst of pandemic times.
There was talk of how theatre could come back differently, emerging from the depths of COVID. This was with the relationship with its freelancers, its accessibility, its pay, other areas of progressive concerns. There has been perhaps a nudge in a new direction (you can buy a digital copy of a programme, maybe 5 -10 % of the audience are in masks) but mostly it seems to me to be quite a lot the same. I’m somewhat an outsider but if I am correct, I put this as a point to how much of the world will anchor back to before COVID times.
I recall speaking with a pharma company CEO making this argument based on their view of what happened post swine flu, bird flu and SARS. Not quite everything, but indeed quite a lot reverses back to whatever trend was happening before…
Links:
Births outside marriage. Suggestive of different cultures, but I also didn’t expect France to be at the top of the list, nor would I have guessed Tukey, Japan, S Korea at the bottom
More hydrogen innovation. And more soon please.
Music with calculators
Scotland leads
Tom Gosling on if missing 1.5c causes problems for Net Zero committed managers
UFO entry
X-risks
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Hello
I’d really appreciate a link please.
Many Thanks
Alan
Hello Ben,
Please can you send me a link to 'Places in Between'?
Many thanks, Marjorie