Nuclear Nerves. Super-Annuated Super Athletes. The 21C’s Best Sci-Fi – Plus More! #194

Grüezi!?I’m Adrian Monck – welcome!

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1???Nuclear Nervousness

In case you were expecting 2024 to start quietly...

North Korea is to geopol what Iceland is to geology.

And its leader Kim Jong Un’s latest volcanic speech has got some people very worried.

One of them is Siegfried Hecker, a veteran nuclear scientist who’s seen inside Kim’s nuclear programme.

What worries Hecker is Kim’s close relationship to Vladimir Putin, and what North Korea is getting in return for giving Russia bombs and bullets – namely plutonium and advanced missile technology for nuclear weapons.

This week Hecker co-wrote wrote this alarming commentary with former CIA staffer turned academic Robert Carlin. It starts:

“Like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war.”

Their case?

• ???? Kim’s humiliation at the 2019 Hanoi summit with Donald Trump ended the strategy of trying to normalise relations with the US.
• ???? Since 2021, he has moved to Russia.
• ?? The groundwork for justifying war on South Korea is being laid. US faith in nuclear deterrence is misplaced.
• ?? With potentially 50-60 nuclear warheads that can hit South Korea, Japan and Guam, Kim may believe even a suicidal war is worthwhile if he sees no prospects for engaging the US.

???? The biggest US overseas base –?Camp Humphreys – is in South Korea. ????

?? It is home to over 35,000 US personnel, perched on the edge of a geopolitical volcano. ??

If you want a less alarmist view, Rüdiger Frank has this analysis.

??Elsewhere Iran and Pakistan are currently attacking each others’ territory.

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2?? What’s The Sport For Your 90s?

Indoor rowing is the sport of nonagenarian champions.

The reward for making it to your 90s? Yanking a chain on an indoor rower. Not much to look forward to, but better than the alternative.

What does it take to be a super-annuated super-athlete? This scientific study has the answer.

It features Richard Morgan, now 93, a 4-times indoor rowing champ who was put in a lab by his grandson, a sports scientist.

Morgan only started rowing in his 70s.

Want to train like a champ? The Washington Post has Morgan’s fitness regime:

• Regular: 40’ rowing a day, averaging about 30 kms a week.
• Mixed intensity: About 70% percent of workouts are easy, 20% are a difficult but tolerable pace, and 10% are all-out.
• Weights: 2/3x a week, three sets of lunges and curls, repeated to failure.
• Diet: Protein, above the usual 60 grams a day recommended for his weight.

??Morgan is hardly alone, here’s another indoor rowing champ.

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3?? Own Nothing, Be Happy

How conspiracy theorists made people‘s lives miserable.

This is an interesting listen from Jon Ronson about how conspiracy theorists targeted the place I used to work – the World Economic Forum .

Although the programme team never picked up the phone, the podcast leaves a really important question unanswered –?who started the conspiracy? (You can read some of my thoughts here.)

This is the problem with a lot of #disinformation reporting. It looks at the symptoms and ignores the cause.

The reason is the cause is often hard to find, or opaque. But there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Russia is ground zero for the phenomenon.

Below is a US intelligence assessment, obtained by the Washington Post last year. It says a top Russian government cyber unit had improved its systematic influence operations to such an extent that fewer than 1% of hundreds of thousands of fake social media accounts were being detected.

Why was WEF targeted? Only a hunch, but Davos plays a unique role for the Russia elite –?as this podcast with Bill Browder and Gideon Rachman makes clear.

And you can see a little more history here.

??If you want to go further – may I suggest James Ball’s book?

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4?? The Biggest Risks Ahead?

Disinformation, climate change. The usual.

??One Wall Street bank ranks geopolitics as the biggest threat in 2024.

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5???2023 Was Hot. 2024 Could be Hotter.

‘Since records began’ is sounding like a broken record.

??Climate change denial is still big on YouTube, but its messages are shifting.

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6?? The Secret of Great Schools?

In the toughest circumstances values makes kids resilient.

Good schooling is second only to good parenting in making kids happy.

So what makes schools good? Hours spent learning arithmetic? Sports?

Surprise, surprise – it’s instilling values, identity, and a sense of belonging.

In Ukraine, despite missile attacks and bombardments, students reported feeling safer and more supported at school than those in the US.

Why? Because schools were putting values, identity, and relationships first.

Even in wartime, putting psychological and social parts of school first keep academic standards high and students happy.

How did they do it?

• Relationships seem to be key – student-teacher relationships were made a priority.
• Giving students a voice and agency helped make them resilient.
• And involving parents helped too.

??This is from the 2022 PISA survey of 15-yr-olds in over 80 countries.

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7?? The Best Thing You’ll See This Spring?

I confidently predict it will be this...

Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem is –?IMHO – the best sci-fi of the 21C. Yes – come at me in the comments!

???More reading on Bea’s?book club podcast.

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If you enjoy this newsletter – please recommend it!

Best,

Adrian