Have you ever heard northern Europeans telling southern Europeans they're lazy?
It's false.
So why are northerners richer?
Small thread 🧵
1. Northerners work substantially LESS than southerners
2. Northerners make substantially MORE money
Here's GDP per capita PPS, indexed at 100=EU average
Which mean Northern Europeans are substantially more productive.
Why? If you ask a Northerner, he might tell you it's because they're better educated, have better institutions, the protestant work ethic, it's colder so ppl work harder...
Suspicious.
Alternative: geography.
This is Europe's topography map.
Look at it and try to figure out the biggest patterns.
Do you see any?
The biggest one: the north is made up of the gigantic Northern European Plain, while the south is mostly mountains.
Why?
Because the African tectonic plate hits the Eurasian plate.
Looking at the details, you can see the formation of Southern Europe due to these tectonic plates.
A bit like the Indian plate forms the Himalayas hitting the Eurasian Plate
But mountains don't create wealth. Plains do. Wherever there's a plain that is well irrigated, there's ppl. Where there's ppl there's wealth.
Why?
Flat :
➡️ you can irrigate. Water doesn't run away.
➡️ build up of sediments from rivers, so +fertile
➡️ Rivers are slower, easier to control. +irrigation
➡️ easy to trade (walk, roads, navigable rivers)
➡️building is much cheaper
Now look back at the map of Europe, this time with navigable rivers. What do you notice? 1. So many mountains in the south, you can't develop agriculture as well, grow a big pop, create much wealth. And everything is + expensive
2. The mountains stop the water from the clouds, which falls quickly into the mediterranean in the south (mountains), but very slowly in the Northern European Plain, creating lots of navigable rivers, amazing for irrigation and trade.
Remember all of this when you hear northern Europeans calling the southern neighbors "lazy".
This Sunday are Germany's elections
These are the best maps to understand the country:
Why is it so rich?
What makes it special?
What lies in its future?
1. We can still tell the East/West divide, 35 years after the reunification. These are Germany's phantom borders
2. Before WW2, East Germany had more:
• Working class ppl
• Vote left
• Women working
• Births out of wedlock
• Protestantism
3. The main reason is because this region industrialized early. One of the reasons of that industrialization is because of the Bohemian Mountains and their coal and iron
UNPRECEDENTED
The singularity is near. We're 1-6 years away from AGI according to: 1. Prediction markets 2. Insider insights 3. Benchmarks 4. Lack of barriers to growth 5. Current progress
This breakneck speed of AI progress is illustrated by OpenAI's o3 and DeepSeek🧵
1. Prediction Markets:
Average bet on AGI: November 2030
Mode: June 2027
Two other bets in Metaculus match this:
• Two years to weak AGI, so by the end of 2026
• Three years later, Superintelligence, so by the end of 2029
This remote corner of the US has something unique that might soon make it one of the most important cities in the world—the city of the future. It is officially Boca Chica today, but it might soon become Starbase 🧵
This point at the south of Texas is the southernmost point in the continental US
That is extremely useful for rockets
The biggest share of weight in rockets is fuel. Most of it is burnt just to carry the rest to orbit! Rocket makers do anything they can to reduce fuel consumption
We should transform Guantanamo Bay into a 21st Century Hong Kong 🧵
Hong Kong was a deep water port surrounded by a Communist country—China
By building up the port, urbanizing the surrounding area, making business easy, and taxing little, Hong Kong showed China what capitalism could do by becoming a global port and financial center
Seeing this success, Deng Xiaoping made the neighboring Shenzhen into a special economic zone (SEZ). The area exploded and is not the epicenter of global manufacturing, along with the broader Guangzhou, on the Pearl River delta