Ibsen's Ghosts, Venture Philanthropy
Venture Philanthropy, Social Impact: a conversation with Nina Gené. Theatre: Ibsen’s Ghosts. My theatre show: Jan 3, London. Do come.
Venture Philanthropy, Social Impact: a conversation with Nina Gené (she is looking to add to her team currently)
My theatre show: Jan 3, London. Do come and see my theatre show if you are about.
Education UnConference: Tickets (Free) now available (27 Apr 2024)
Theatre: Ibsen’s Ghosts, London, Globe
Links: Egg fried rice is controversial in China; Between techno-optimism and degrowth sits some ideas of Vitalik Buterin, climate links, social care, tank museum and being a modern day historian.
It’s my birthday. Let me know if you’d like to come to my meet-up this week. And I’m going to plug my show again for Jan 3. Do come!
“one of the most gifted actors of her generation”
so says critic Andrzej Lukowski on Hattie Morahan. Hattie is a friend I went to University with and who is currently playing in Ibsen’s Ghosts at the Globe theatre, London.
Theatre and plays remain one humanities endeavour which are vectors for ideas.
Tyler Cowen has argued that economists are no longer vectors for society influencing ideas. I would suggest some plays and writers still are. Perhaps not as firmly as in Ibsen’s time, nor maybe Beckett or Pinter’s time but still relevant.
In British playwriting today and in recent times we have the likes of Caryl Churchill, Tom Stoppard and others. I mention Churchill whose ideas lean a complex left and Stoppard whose ideas lean a complex right. American writers are like Mamet, a form of right, and many on the progressive left and complex and diverse from Lori Parks to Langston Hughes in time.
Our great plays carry ideas forcefully and through time, even in the modern era (Death of a Salesman) and currently - Angels of America (HIV); and re-discover history and ideas. (Alexander) Hamilton.
Ibsen’s Ghosts was important for several reasons. Short summary:
Theme and Plot: "Ghosts" delves into the consequences of past actions and societal hypocrisy. It revolves around Mrs. Alving, who is preparing to open an orphanage in memory of her late husband. However, her son Oswald returns from Paris with a terminal illness, revealing hidden family secrets and the truth about his father's debauchery.
Realism and Controversy: Ibsen was a pioneer of realism in theatre. "Ghosts" was controversial for its frank discussion of venereal disease, incest, and infidelity, challenging the moral values of the conservative society of the time.
The play did not do as well at that time as his previous Doll’s House due to the social taboo elements.
There are many ideas which resonate today:
Hypocrisy of Social Morality: Ibsen sharply critiques the moral hypocrisy of society. The play reveals a stark contrast between public morality and private immorality, particularly in the character of Captain Alving, who is publicly revered but privately debauched.
Impact of the Past on the Present: The title "Ghosts" symbolizes the lingering effects of past actions on the present. The play suggests that individuals and societies are haunted by their past, with previous generations' decisions and morals impacting the current generation.
Questioning Traditional Family Values: Ibsen challenges the traditional notion of family and its supposed moral sanctity. The play exposes dysfunctional family relationships and suggests that the idealized family unit can be a facade for abuse and neglect.
Criticizing Religious Orthodoxy: Pastor Manders represents religious and societal orthodoxy, often exhibiting a lack of compassion and understanding of human nature. The play criticizes the rigid and often hypocritical moral standards imposed by religious institutions. (You’d probably extend this to all kinds of orthodoxy today).
The Role of Women in Society: Mrs. Alving's character is central to the play's exploration of the role and treatment of women in society. She is portrayed as a strong, independent woman who challenges societal norms but is also constrained by them.
Inheritance of Sins: The concept of inherited sins, both literal (in the case of Oswald's inherited illness) and metaphorical (the societal and familial legacies), is a key theme. It suggests that the sins of one generation are passed down, creating a cycle of suffering.
Personal Freedom vs. Social Conformity: The characters often struggle between their desires for personal freedom and the pressures of social conformity. This tension highlights the suffocating nature of societal expectations.
Realism in Depicting Social Issues: The play’s realistic portrayal of issues like venereal disease and infidelity was groundbreaking. Ibsen doesn’t shy away from showing the ugly truths of society, which was revolutionary for its time.
In the play, Hattie performs brilliantly. In part - in my view - as her portrayal is a conflict of restrained fireworks. Hitting notes of explosion and of controlled inner turmoil. The director Joe Hill-Gibbins has reimagined the play as Ibsen can be done today. The performance in general are great. I like the candle light setting. The playhouse is awkward for some, but I enjoyed my seat. Recommended if you’d like to understand more of Ibsen’s influence in drama today.
My podcast with Nina Gené is out. Nina is CEO of a venture philanthropy firm, Jasmine Social ventures.
Nina leads Jasmine’s investment strategy and diligence process, guiding the team to identify and support the next generation of great social entrepreneurs. Jasmine funds high-performing social ventures and outstanding social entrepreneurs who are solving a basic need of the very poor.
Ben and Nina discuss what venture philanthropy means and the Jasmine strategy on philanthropy.
We delve into the investment process that Jasmine uses. How Nina identifies opportunities, the type of qualities Nina looks for in a social entrepreneur and an organisation.
We discuss success investment examples, how we might think of impact investing and how it may differ from grants. We talk about the advantages of being neutral to structure, ie, being able to fund using grants, debt or equity. Whatever suits.
We chat about the influence of venture investing and how entrepreneurs think. How Jasmine shares information and due diligence and what help they give investee companies.
We talk about measuring impact, and the challenges of scaling up.
We mentioned the pros and cons of working in New Zealand, whether Spanish food is under rated and finish on advice Nina has.
Nina on the importance of the ability to scale:
“I'd say that scale is one of the most important criteria that we have because we want to make bets on people that will end up figuring it out and have a survey that will save lives. When this happens, we obviously want this to go to millions and millions of people; so that's kind of the hope and dream of it. The way we define scale we define it as an intervention that can reach up to 1 million people. It doesn't necessarily need to be multi-country. We work with an organization called Luala that are influencing the way that health is provided to a million people in one district in Kenya. That's very important and we support those groups during the R&D phase.
But what we do expect then is to scale the work only when they have that strong evidence on hand, but also the right economics of that impact. We support them through that journey and fund them as long as they show us success every year. That's why having a set of metrics and scorecards and milestones-- We're not sticklers for, "Oh, you said you were going to do ten and you've only done nine. You're out the door." We understand that there are ups and downs and we're very long term funders.”
Video with captions is available here. You can listen above or wherever you get podcasts. Transcript follows below.
PODCAST INFO
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gJTSuo
Spotify: https://sptfy.com/benyeoh
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh
All links: https://pod.link/1562738506
Transcript is here: My podcast with Nina Gené.
Also of note for you in particular if:
(1) to understand a large venture philanthropy fund and how they thinking about impact and grant making for deep poverty
(2) if you are in New Zealand or could be then Nina is looking to add to her team and there might be a role here might be for you, check out her Linkedin.
(3) If you are at scale-up, or, seed stage and think this might be a source of funding for you.
Vitalik writes on his view on technology:
“My own feelings about techno-optimism are warm, but nuanced. I believe in a future that is vastly brighter than the present thanks to radically transformative technology, and I believe in humans and humanity. I reject the mentality that the best we should try to do is to keep the world roughly the same as today but with less greed and more public healthcare. However, I think that not just magnitude but also direction matters. There are certain types of technology that much more reliably make the world better than other types of technology. There are certain types of technlogy that could, if developed, mitigate the negative impacts of other types of technology. The world over-indexes on some directions of tech development, and under-indexes on others. We need active human intention to choose the directions that we want, as the formula of "maximize profit" will not arrive at them automatically”
And the reflections from Michael Nielsen also worthwhile:
“A question that I really enjoy is why technology does so much to help us live better lives. It's a very simple question, but all the answers I've heard (or have thought of) tend to be rather shallow and question-begging. Technology is a way of gradually doing more with the same resources, an actual free lunch3: it really, genuinely, creates wealth from nothing! Where is that free lunch coming from? What are its upper limits? We know a few very basic things – things like the Bekenstein bound and Einstein's mass-energy relation. But we don't have very good theories on the ultimate limits of technology.”
The essay is in particular worth noting for those working in climate. Technology can really help eg solar; but useful technological solutions are not a given at all.
There are many ideas in the essay but one in particular is an increased emphasis on a decentralised route of innovation rather than centralised (although willing to accept government interventions to achieve the right type of acceleration.)
I learn something new about the interpretation of egg fried rice:
“in recent years, the popular stir-fry has become a highly sensitive subject for China’s online nationalists, especially around the months of October and November.
Emotions are running so high this week that one of the country’s most famous chefs has been forced to apologize – for making a video on how to cook the dish.
“As a chef, I will never make egg fried rice again,” Wang Gang, a celebrity chef with more than 10 million online fans, pledged in a video message on Monday.
Wang’s “solemn apology” attempted to tame a frothing torrent of criticism about the video, which was posted on Chinese social media site Weibo on November 27.
Angry nationalists accused Wang of using the video to mock the death of Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying, who was killed in an American air strike during the Korean War on November 25, 1950.
Wang’s video was solely about making egg fried rice, but for some Chinese nationalists, any mention of the dish around the anniversary of Mao Anying’s death or birthday on October 24 amounts to a deliberate act of insult and mockery.”
As
“The controversial account has it that Mao Anying, an officer in the People’s Liberation Army, disobeyed orders to take shelter during the air raid. Instead, the hungry young man fired up a stove to make egg fried rice, which sent smoke into the air and gave away his position to enemy jets.
That version of events was mentioned in the memoir of Yang Di, a military officer who worked alongside the younger Mao at the commander’s headquarters. But Chinese authorities have repeatedly refuted it as rumor.”
This for me is an odd example of the Streisand effect.
“The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead backfires by increasing awareness of that information.”
Tank museum has $2.5m revenue from Youtube/Online. (NYT)
Mark Carney: The climate data gap is a major barrier to climate action so I was proud to launch the Net Zero Data Public Utility proof of concept alongside @MikeBloomberg and Mary Shapiro today. It will help make high quality data freely accessible to all. Try it at http://NZDPU.com
Jen Williams: ““It’s not a vote winner and it feels like nobody understands what children’s social care — and particularly social care for disabled children — is.” The crisis in children’s services helping to drive more and more councils to the financial brink: FT
Anton Howes: “Writing history for the public comes with risks and responsibilities.”
Lifespan extension drug for large breed dogs reaches key milestone with FDA. (X Thread)
John Arnold on Energy over last 5 years, X thread.