Really thoughtful framing on how social capital functions as transferable wealth. The Mason jar story hits particularly hard - dude literally invented something we still use everyday but died broke in a tenement. Makes me wonder if there's a middle ground between pure patents (which clearly failed him) and something more like ongoing royalties tied to continued use. The Assyrian trader marriage setup is wild tho - it's basically formalized bigamy as a businesss tactic, which I guess makes more pragmatic sense than the "fell in love twice" version but still feels pretty transactional.
Very interesting post. About foreign elites: Kim Jong Un and his older brother and younger sister were partly raised and educated in Switzerland, although I believe this was all done in secrecy and Switzerland didn’t take any advantage of this fact.
About people inventing important things without recognition: Jan Ernst Matzeliger was the Surinamese-American inventor of the automated lasting machine, which made production of shoes 14 times faster, improved quality and cut costs by at least half. The importance of this machine wasn’t fully recognised during his lifetime, and Matzeliger died of tuberculosis without seeing the true impact of his invention.
Really thoughtful framing on how social capital functions as transferable wealth. The Mason jar story hits particularly hard - dude literally invented something we still use everyday but died broke in a tenement. Makes me wonder if there's a middle ground between pure patents (which clearly failed him) and something more like ongoing royalties tied to continued use. The Assyrian trader marriage setup is wild tho - it's basically formalized bigamy as a businesss tactic, which I guess makes more pragmatic sense than the "fell in love twice" version but still feels pretty transactional.
I get the impression that most relationships in the ancient world were pretty transactional; those at least seemed mutually beneficial, I suppose.
Very interesting post. About foreign elites: Kim Jong Un and his older brother and younger sister were partly raised and educated in Switzerland, although I believe this was all done in secrecy and Switzerland didn’t take any advantage of this fact.
About people inventing important things without recognition: Jan Ernst Matzeliger was the Surinamese-American inventor of the automated lasting machine, which made production of shoes 14 times faster, improved quality and cut costs by at least half. The importance of this machine wasn’t fully recognised during his lifetime, and Matzeliger died of tuberculosis without seeing the true impact of his invention.