{"id":262565,"date":"2024-07-24T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T15:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=262565"},"modified":"2024-07-24T10:00:24","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T15:00:24","slug":"the-professional-soccer-player-who-was-also-a-cocaine-kingpin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/07\/24\/the-professional-soccer-player-who-was-also-a-cocaine-kingpin\/","title":{"rendered":"The professional soccer player who was also a cocaine kingpin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Washington Post<\/a>: “The ball blazed five feet over the goal\u2019s crossbar. Even the team\u2019s security guard couldn\u2019t hide his frustration, kicking the dirt, wondering aloud why Capiat\u00e1\u2019s fate had been put in Marset\u2019s hands. Over the next two years, the reasons would become clear. Sebasti\u00e1n Marset, it turned out, was among the most important drug traffickers in South America, and one of the key figures behind a surge of cocaine arriving in Western Europe, according to Latin American, U.S. and European investigators. Instead of hiding from authorities, he had used his fortune to purchase and sponsor soccer teams across Latin America and in Europe. U.S. and South American investigators would learn that he was using those teams to help launder millions in drug proceeds.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we can learn about decision making from hunter-gatherer tribes like the Ju’hoansi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Aeon<\/a>: “For the vast majority of human history, people made group decisions through consensus. It is perhaps the most conspicuous feature of political life among recent hunter-gatherer societies, from the Ju\/\u2019hoansi to the Aboriginal peoples of Australia to the Indigenous societies of the early Americas. As an anthropologist, I have observed consensus-based decision-making myself among hunter-gatherers in the rainforests of Malaysia. Though the small-world life of hunter-gatherers may seem far removed from our global world, the problems of group life have remained fundamentally the same for hundreds of thousands of years. In the face of conflict and polarisation, ancient human groups needed processes that yielded good outcomes. What can we learn from a political form shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of trial and error?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

This couple\u2019s hobby is illegally scaling the world\u2019s tallest buildings together<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From CNN<\/a>: “What was your most thrilling first date? In 2016, two young Russians known for their extreme \u201crooftopping\u201d adventures \u2014 where they attempt to illegally climb vertiginous landmarks like La Sagrada Familia and the Eiffel Tower \u2014 skipped the perfunctory happy hour cocktail and instead ascended China\u2019s tallest incomplete skyscraper, the 1,957-foot-high Goldin Finance 117. At the time, Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau didn\u2019t know they\u2019d end up together. Beerkus had invited Nikolau, a rare female member of the rooftopping community (she was scaling the proverbial glass wall before breaking it), to join him for the climb to produce sponsored social media posts. But it was the beginning of a long romantic and creative partnership, which has led them to travel thousands of miles \u2014 and thousands of feet in the air \u2014 together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Editor’s note<\/strong>: If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else. And if you really <\/strong>like it, perhaps you could subscribe, or contribute something via <\/em>my Patreon<\/em><\/a>. Thanks for being a reader!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Jonathan Swift was a pioneer of microfinance in the 1700s<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From The Fitzwilliam<\/a>: “Jonathan Swift was the Anglo-Irish Dean of St Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in Dublin, and a public intellectual who wrote about a wide range of social and economic issues. Swift was already famous by the time Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/em> was published in 1726, which further boosted his fame across Europe. Both through the sales of his books, and his position as Dean, Swift amassed substantial personal wealth. At some point in the 1720s, Swift started a fund with \u00a3500 of his own money, and began making interest-free loans sized between \u00a35 and \u00a310 aimed at \u201cpoor industrious tradesmen\u201d. Swift\u2019s fund had two distinctive features: first, borrowers were expected to make partial repayments on a weekly basis. Second, in order to get a loan from Swift, you had to provide signatures from two people who knew you and attested to your good character.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists find oxygen being created in the deep ocean where photosynthesis is impossible<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the BBC<\/a>: “Scientists have discovered \u201cdark oxygen\u201d being produced in the deep ocean, apparently by lumps of metal on the seafloor. About half the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. But, before this discovery, it was understood that it was made by marine plants photosynthesising – something that requires sunlight. Here, at depths of 5km, where no sunlight can penetrate, the oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metallic \u201cnodules\u201d which split seawater – H2O – into hydrogen and oxygen. Several mining companies have plans to collect these nodules, which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process – and damage any marine life that depends on the oxygen they make. The nodules form when dissolved metals in seawater collect on fragments of shell or other debris, a process that takes millions of years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He hiked across Switzerland, guided only by the locals\u2019 hand-drawn maps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the New York Times<\/a>: “Last summer, frustrated with the predictability of recent travel experiences, I set out to walk across Switzerland without a phone or a preplanned route. I allotted 12 days, beginning on the shores of Lake Geneva, in the west, and heading in the general direction of Lake Constance, in the northeast \u2014 a distance, as the crow flies, of about 150 miles. Nostalgic for the time before ubiquitous connectivity, when we relied on paper maps and conversations with strangers, I came up with a novel way to organize my trip: Each day, I planned to ask locals I met to sketch hand-drawn maps for me, which I would then follow as best I could. I wanted to know if it was possible to walk across a country like this. I wanted to know what it would teach me about how technology and convenience have changed the way we travel. I wanted to be lost.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dolphin plays with air bubbles it creates with its blowhole<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

Dolphin practicing her water bending \ud83c\udf0a pic.twitter.com\/OdseMvOPuI<\/a><\/p>— Interesting As Fuck (@interesting_aIl) July 23, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>