What we've been reading

From the World to Detroit (and it’s not House Music)

World Bank President Ajay Banga told the Council on Foreign Relations that fighting the climate crisis and fighting inequality are two sides of the same coin. So do Damon Silvers and Marianna Mazzucato, commenting on the auto strikes in America.??

Truth in advertising

Karen Mathiasen of the Center for Global Development? wonders why the United Nations General Assembly is doubling down on the Sustainable Development Goals, when everything indicates they won’t be achieved. She recognizes that there may not be political alternatives, but worries that it lets “cynicism and disenchantment fester.” And she has astute recommendations.

Neurotechnology is coming to a brain near you

Azeem Azhar speaks with Professor Nita Farahany, a leading scholar on the ethical, legal and social implications of emerging technologies. His set up of the conversation: “In five years we will legally own our own thoughts.” Elsewhere, but not too far, the Physicians for Responsible Medicine ask the SEC to investigate Neuralink CEO Elon Musk for misleading investors about the death of monkeys used to test the implants (he said none died, records say some died.)??

Leadership is overrated

Margaret Heffernan splendidly deconstructs the vagaries of our obsession with leadership. Mostly, we ignore the context for corporate success, and make attribution errors as a result.

Si Vis Pacem

NATO may not be training Ukrainian soldiers adequately for the realities of the frontlines. For example, “NATO trainers did not consider how much of the fighting would involve small units having to battle through thick tree lines.” Soldiers also cite “a lack of training on drone and mine awareness, explosive ordnance disposal and defensive combat.” It’s a recurrent theme in history, armies preparing for wars they don’t end up fighting. There is also a bit of a parallel, albeit distant, with financial regulation, which is usually decent at averting a repeat of the last crisis, but blind to the next.?

Books some of us may have read

Economist Albert Hirschman’s classics keep coming back in our conversations. The self-explanatory Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, which every investor activist, and every activist, should read, and his candid observations of development policies in Development Projects Observed. Or ditch the books and watch this show about his days in the French Resistance (h/t Emily Brearley PhD ).