Weekend Briefing No. 611
Capitalism Solves Housing Crisis -- Artificial Vision Restores Reading -- The Limits of Gentle Parenting
Welcome to the weekend.
Prime Numbers
3 — Chinese criminal organizations have made over $1 billion in 3 years by sending scam texts about unpaid tolls and postal fees, stealing credit-card information through phishing sites, then using an ingenious trick to load stolen cards into digital wallets in Asia and remotely make purchases through the U.S.-based accomplices.
20 — A Chinese container ship completed a maiden Arctic voyage to the UK in 20 days (versus 40-50 days through traditional routes), halving delivery time for EVs and solar panels as melting sea ice opens new shipping lanes through Russia’s exclusive economic zone.
59 — Support for expanding nuclear power in the U.S. has surged to 59% of Americans, up 16 percentage points since 2020, driven by bipartisan increases as the nation’s 94 reactors continue a decades-long decline from their 1990 peak of 111.
Capitalism Solves Housing Crisis
Throwing charity at the $20 trillion global housing crisis is like trying to fill an ocean with a garden hose—even all $500 billion in annual global philanthropy wouldn’t make a 10% dent. The breakthrough lies in using philanthropic capital as risk-absorbing seed money that proves out business models like affordable mortgages in underserved markets, then letting capitalism’s scalability take over. Organizations like New Story demonstrate this by creating self-sustaining towns where families become customers rather than charity recipients, building credit profiles and owning assets that grow over time. Instead of building 20 homes with pure charity, smart philanthropists derisk entire markets so that tens of thousands of families can access life-changing housing through profitable, replicable systems. Youtube (8 minutes)
Artificial Vision Restores Reading
A microchip implanted under the retina is letting blind patients read books and complete crossword puzzles by converting camera signals into electrical bursts that bypass damaged photoreceptor cells. Science Corporation acquired this advanced technology for just $4.7 million from a bankrupt French startup, leapfrogging years of development to reach near-market readiness with a device that helps patients see using tiny solar panels activated by infrared light. The current 400-pixel system produces yellowish-blue vision that patients perceive as continuous lines and letters, with next-generation versions promising five times more resolution. Unlike direct brain implants still in early testing, this retinal approach already works for geographic atrophy patients—about one in ten people over 80—and is seeking regulatory approval in Europe and the US. MIT Technology Review (6 minutes)
42x: The ROI of Newsletters
Email delivers $42 for every $1 spent—if you do it right. Most newsletters get lost in the noise. The ones that don’t? They solve problems for readers. They build trust. They tell unique stories in an authentic voice. A few strategic changes can transform your newsletter from something people ignore to one they don’t want to miss. Take the Newsletter Health Check: 10 proven ways to boost open rates, engagement, and ROI. Future Forest (Sponsored)
The Limits of Gentle Parenting
Saying yes to every feeling might actually be saying no to your child’s need for stability. A mother’s seven-year journey with gentle parenting revealed that validating every emotion and negotiating every boundary left her exhausted and her children unable to handle the word “no.” The turning point came when her four-year-old, after she finally caved to his demands, looked disappointed and said “But you said no”—he’d been testing whether limits were real. Research now shows that many gentle-parenting adherents experience burnout, and there’s no empirical evidence the approach produces better outcomes than balanced parenting that combines empathy with firm, consistent boundaries. Maclean’s (12 minutes)
When One Cable Controls Everything
A single undersea internet cable connected Tonga to the world—until a volcanic eruption severed it and revealed how fragile modern civilization has become. For five weeks, ATMs stopped working because banks couldn’t verify account balances, businesses couldn’t export produce without online compliance forms, and families had no way to know if relatives on other islands had survived. The eruption exposed a harsh reality: the internet has replaced so many technologies that losing it doesn’t send us back to the 1990s, but to a time before telegraphs, plunging even small nations into 19th-century isolation. With only 550 submarine cables carrying 95% of the world’s international internet traffic—vulnerable to accidents, natural disasters, and increasingly, geopolitical warfare—what happened to Tonga could happen to anyone. The Guardian (15 minutes)
Billion-Dollar Fraud Built on Slavery
Building trust with victims over weeks or months before stealing their money is called “pig butchering”—and one operation just lost $15 billion in bitcoin to the largest DOJ seizure in history. The Prince Group ran forced-labor compounds across Cambodia where hundreds of trafficked workers, held under threat of violence, operated 76,000 fake social media accounts from 1,250 mobile phones to romance victims into cryptocurrency “investments” that vanished instantly. The operation’s founder, Chen Zhi, used bribes and political influence across 30 countries to protect his criminal empire while his victims lost billions and his workers lost their freedom. This case exposes how modern financial fraud increasingly depends on human trafficking, turning scam operations into literal slavery operations that exploit both the people sending money and the people forced to steal it. CNBC (4 minutes)
Fire Is Stored Sunlight
Trees don’t grow from the ground—they grow from the air, capturing carbon dioxide and using sunlight to rip oxygen away from carbon, leaving the carbon behind as wood. When you light that wood on fire, carbon and oxygen are reuniting in a catastrophe of atomic collisions, each “snap” creating heat that makes other atoms move fast enough to overcome their repulsion and snap together too, perpetuating the chain reaction. The light and warmth you feel isn’t coming from the wood itself but from ancient sunlight that the tree stored years ago, now released all at once as the atoms rush back to their preferred state of carbon dioxide. This simple reframing reveals that a campfire is just a rapid reversal of photosynthesis—yesterday’s sunshine, cached in carbon bonds, exploding back into today. Youtube (3 minutes)
Should We Work Together?
Hi! I’m Kyle. This newsletter is my passion project. When I’m not writing, I run a law firm that helps startups move fast without breaking things. Most founders want a trusted legal partner, but they hate surprise legal bills. At Westaway, we take care of your startup’s legal needs for a flat, monthly fee so you can control your costs and focus on scaling your business. If you’re interested, let’s jump on a call to see if you’re a good fit for the firm. Click here to schedule a one-on-one call with me.
Weekend Wisdom
The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so, is a myth. Millions in Africa are poorer today because of aid; misery and poverty have not ended but increased. Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world. - Dambisa Moyo