Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. China’s International Stratagems

While much has been written about China’s ambitions for Taiwan, Elizabeth Economy goes deeper. Her blockbuster essay in Foreign Affairs describes a China with far greater ambitions:

[China] is partnering with other countries to embed itself in institutions and flooding these bodies with Chinese experts and officials, who then campaign for change. When it cannot co-opt existing institutions, it builds new ones. In all these efforts, Beijing is highly adaptive, experimenting with different platforms, reframing positions, and deploying capabilities in new ways.

American policymakers have only started waking up to the full extent of China’s success at building power in key areas of today’s world. Now, they are at risk of missing its commitment to dominating tomorrow’s. The United States, in other words, is not just abdicating its role in the current international system. It is falling behind in the fight to define the next one.

2. And the Winner Is...

Just in time for the holiday box office, Ella Mackay, a movie by veteran director and showrunner James L. Brooks, is getting panned. One sample of the reviews from Letterboxd:

An absolutely baffling experience. Not a single character resembles or speaks like an actual human being - it plays like it was written by someone who’s never had a real human interaction in their life. The filmmaking is incomprehensible on every level: supremely unfunny, wildly overwritten, and full of botched dramatic beats that end up funnier than the actual jokes. One of the year’s worst films. Truly awful.

3. Peak Copper?

The world needs more copper – but what if there is no more to be found? The substack, Honest Sorcerer, digs deep on the scarcity and implications of the critical mineral:

A full transition to an alternative energy system—powered entirely by a combination of “renewables”, nuclear and hydro—would require us to mine 4575 million tons of copper; some four-and-a-half-times the amount we have located so far. To say that we have embarked on a “mission impossible” seems to be an understatement here. Even if we could extract every ounce of copper in the ground in the coming decades, we could only replace 22% of our ageing fossil fuel energy system with an all-electric one, then would be left wondering what to do with the remaining 78%… We clearly have a serious math problem here. 

4. Popular History

The Rest is History – Apple’s podcast of the year – may be the last form of soft power from the United Kingdom. The long-running podcast by two, tweedy British historians examines everything from Caesar to Churchill. Ed West explains the appeal and why it has amassed a cult following:

It doesn’t treat history as a morality tale, which is how the educational establishment and the media too often view it, and this approach is especially appealing to the young. Indeed, half of the show’s listeners are apparently under 35, while the median age for BBC viewers is around 61, and even among BBC iPlayer users only nine per cent are below 35. If the show is a great success, it also serves as an admonishment to those within the broadcast media who failed to appreciate the continuing popularity of history, and the thirst that young people have for the past.

5. The Art of Overcommunicating

During an interview at the New York Economic Club this month, Brad Jacobs - CEO of QXO, founder of four companies, and author of How to Make a Few Billion Dollars - describes his annual tradition of asking employees for one idea to make the company better.  Jacobs says that more than 50% always respond: communications.

I send out a daily email to the entire company every day. Every day. We call it QXO AM. So, first thing in the morning, you come up and you say, hey, “here's what we're working on.” It's a long list of what we're working on. People want to see “here's what I do.” People want to understand, what is this company? Who am I working for? Like, what are you doing? And how do I fit into that? And what are other people doing? How can I network with other people in the company to further my career and to be more successful. So, you want to be communicating a lot. You can't overcommunicate with your employees. It's literally impossible. 

6. On the High Lantern Group Nightstand

The December tradition at our firm is to ask our team to suggest a favorite book they read this past year. We then share our list with one another, and everyone gets to select one of the books as their holiday gift. We are delighted to share this list with you, faithful readers, of The High Lantern Group Notebook:

High Lantern Group Best Reads 2025

Websites Worth Reading

AI Eats the World: Semi-annual presentation by Ben Evans

Shopping on ChatGPT: Just in time for the holidays

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gold standard of philosophy websites

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