Category: Misc

Here’s an estate in Shropshire in the UK — only 10 million pounds or about $12 million US. Ludstone Hall was built in 1607 and sits on about 175 acres of land, has a moat — which was apparently intended more as an attractive addition rather than an actual fortification — and a gatehouse with two bedrooms. The main house is about 8,000 square feet and has a ballroom where the floor retracts to reveal a small swimming pool.

Continue reading “Always wanted to be the lord of the manor?”

You may or may not know the name Yancey Strickler — if you follow startups or venture capital at all you might, since he was a co-founder of Kickstarter, arguably one of the most successful product launches of the last couple of decades. It has taken in about $7 billion in funding over the past 15 years or so, and it was also one of the first companies I know of to become what’s called a “public benefit” corporation, which means that its corporate goals specifically include making a positive impact on society.

Since Kickstarter got big, Strickler has gone on to do a number of things, including writing a book called This Could Be Our Future, about building a society that looks beyond profit as its core organizing principle. The book also introduced a philosophical decision-making framework that Strickler calls “Bentoism,” since it involves the use of quadrant boxes that look a little like the Bento box you might get at a Japanese restaurant and is designed to get people to think about more than just the short-term personal benefits of a particular decision (Strickler says the name is short for “beyond near-term orientation”).

I don’t know about the whole Bentoism thing, but it is an interesting way of trying to get people to broaden their perspectives. But I really wrote this post to highlight a specific essay that Strickler wrote in May about the development of something he called a “post-individual” approach to society. I’m not endorsing everything Strickler writes in this essay, but it is worth reading and it gave me lots to think about. Here’s part of the intro:

Continue reading “A post-individual society”

When General Electric formed the Radio Corporation of America or RCA with Marconi assets in 1919, conflicts over patents prompted a push for cross-licensing agreements with the other large electrical and telephone interests. In addition to RCA, General Electric, AT&T and Westinghouse, a fifth partner in the patents pool was the United Fruit Company, a conglomerate whose primary business was banana production in Latin America.

The United Fruit Company actually started out in the railway business: In 1871, U.S. entrepreneur Henry Meiggs signed a contract with the government of Costa Rica to build a railroad connecting the capital city of San José to the port of Limón. He was assisted by his nephew, Minor C. Keith, who took over Meiggs’s business after his death in 1877. Keith began experimenting with the planting of bananas as a cheap source of food for his workers. When the Costa Rican government defaulted on its payments in 1882, Keith had to borrow money from banks and private investors to keep going. 

In exchange for this, and for helping renegotiate Costa Rica’s own debt, in 1884 the government agreed to give Keith 800,000 acres of tax-free land along the railroad, plus a 99-year lease on the operation of the train route. The railroad was completed in 1890, but the flow of passengers proved insufficient to finance Keith’s debt. However, the sale of bananas grown in his lands and transported first by train to Limón, then by ship to the United States, proved very lucrative. Keith eventually came to dominate the banana trade in Central America and along the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

Continue reading “Why was a banana company involved in the creation of radio?”