The Economist - UK (2022-04-30)

14 The Economist April 30th 2022
Letters

ThepluralityofSiliconValleys

Itisa longoverduedevelop­

mentthatSiliconValleyisnow

a globalstateofmind(“Anew

atlas”,April16th).Asyour

articlecorrectlynoted,weare

seeinganabundanceof

innovationaroundtheworld,

resultinginmanyclusters

fromSãoPaulotoBengaluruto

Estonia.Havingbeenclosely

involvedinthegrowthofthe

EstonianandLondon

ecosystemsI can’twaittosee

manymorecomeabout.Often

theirdevelopmentisaccelerat­

edbyhavingearlybigsuccess­

esthatactasaninspirationfor

thenextgenerationof

entrepreneurs.

However,whenrankingthe

clustersweshouldtakecare

nottoforgetthatthesmallest

canoftenbethemightiest

examples.Estoniahasa pop­

ulationof1.3m,buthasgiven

birthtotenunicorns,firms

witha valueofatleast$1bn.

OrzoomingoutfromEstonia,

theregionknownastheNew

Nordics(theNordicandBaltic

countries)hasa combined

populationofmorethan30m

peopleandhascreateda

similarnumberofunicorns.

Asthesamepopulationto

unicornratiospreadsover

Europewewillsoontakethe

leadoverAmerica.

taavethinrikus

Technologyfounder

andinvestor

Tallinn,Estonia

China and Taiwan

You once again made a com­

parison between the Taiwan

issue and Ukraine (“How to

become a porcupine”, April

23rd). You incited Taiwan to

increase its military budget

and strengthen its defence

capability in order to resist a

so­called invasion from China,

and even advocated that Amer­

ica upgrade its political and

military links with Taiwan and

provide it with more weapons.

Those statements are seriously

wrong and we strongly

condemn them. 

The issue of Ukraine is an

international dispute between

two sovereign nations. The

issue of Taiwan is purely an

internalaffairofChinaandis

completelydifferentinnature.

ThereisonlyoneChina.Tai­

wanisaninseparablepartof

China’sterritory,andthegov­

ernmentofthePeople’sRepub­

licofChinaistheonlylegiti­

mategovernmentrepresent­

ingthewholeofChina.The

one­Chinaprincipleisthe

extensiveconsensusofthe

internationalcommunity.

TheTaiwanissuebearson

China’scoreinterestsandwe

willbrooknoexternalinterfer­

ence.ResolvingtheTaiwan

issueandachievingthecom­

pletereunificationofChinais

thecommonwishandfirm

willofallChinesepeopleand

isa historicaltrendthatnoone

canstop.Chinawilldoits

utmosttopromotethepeace­

fulreunificationofthe

motherlandbutwillnever

allowanyonetosplitTaiwan

fromChinainanyway.Noone

shouldunderestimatethe

strongresolveandcapability

oftheChinesepeopleinsafe­

guardingthenation’ssover­

eigntyandterritorialintegrity.

zengrong

Spokespersonofthe

ChineseEmbassy

London

Big majorities are a problem

Presumably many Conserva­

tive voters now recognise that

the good­chap approach to

governance has ceased to be

effective, if it ever were (“Wait­

ing for Boris”, April 16th). As

long as a government can

obtain a majority of 80 seats on

44% of the vote, any prime

minister can change any

governance rule they like.

After Boris Johnson’s historic

lawbreaking, will defenders of

the status quo still argue that

the first­past­the­post voting

system brings stability and

strong government? Or will

One Nation Tories realise that

the democratic values and the

rule of law they claim to value

would benefit from a more

representative voting system

with better accountability?

kathrine santos

Executive member

Liberal Democrats for 

Electoral Reform

London

ViktorOrbanwonanelection

withroughlyhalfthevote,you

say,but,“thankstogerryman­

dering”,two­thirdsofthe

parliamentaryseats(“Imagi­

naryhobgoblins”,April9th).In

theBritishelectionof 2019 the

Torieswon44%ofthevoteand

56%oftheseats,andin 1983

42%ofthevoteand61%ofthe

seats.ClearlyBritain’selectoral

systemismoreunfitforpur­

posethanHungary’s,even

withoutgerrymandering.

michaelshipman

London

Help yourselves

The transition to self­service

in retailing, of all kinds, not

just for petrol, was one of the

great wealth­creating engines

of the 20th century. Walmart

and ikeaowe their fortunes to

the phenomenon of replacing

paid shopworkers with cus­

tomers whose labour (select­

ing and picking goods) in their

stores is free. This enhances

their economies of scale.

For those who study or

obsess about fuel retailing

(and there are thankfully, just a

few of us), New Jersey’s ban on

motorists pumping their own

gas has always been a charm­

ing fossil (“To pump or not to

pump?”, April 16th). Smaller

stations persist because, with

smaller economies of scale, it

makes sense for retailers to

maintain more numerous

smaller outlets rather than

fewer, larger ones. Think of

hairdressers. The same logic

explains why there is no such

thing as a vast “Hair Cuts R Us”

outlet on the edge of town.

The move to self­service

petrol has been accompanied

by a drastic reduction in the

number of fuel courts in Amer­

ica. In the 1960s there were

around 450,000 gas stations,

nearly all full­serve. Today

there are around 125,

despite the bigger fuel market. 

nicholas hodson

Partner, PwC (retired, mostly)

Salt Lake City

Your correspondent really had

to go there and mention pork

rolls. Just to be clear, nothing

can start a fight in New Jersey

sooner than the mention of my

state’s pork­product naming

convention. It is called pork

roll in south Jersey and Taylor

ham in north Jersey. Our del­

icious ham, egg and cheese on

a roll or bagel can’t be found

anywhere else in America.

tim o’keefe

Long Branch, New Jersey

Manifold prefixes

Johnson’s column on prefixes,

such as tera­ and nano­,

mentioned that some people

object to words that combine

elements from different lan­

guages (April 9th). We could

tackle this objection by match­

ing Old English prefixes with

units that have English roots.

For mega­ and micro­ there

are the nicely matched words

for large and small, mycel­ 

and lytel­, as in mycelwatt 

and lytelfoot. 

As for giga­ and tera­, the

Anglo­Saxons seem to have

been fascinated by giants and

monsters. I recommend ent­

and aglac­, as in entapound

and aglacyard. Ents were said

to be giants, credited with

building impressive Roman

ruins. And Grendel’s mother in

“Beowulf” is described, rather

gallantly, as “ides aglacwif”,

lady monster­woman.

roy white

St Paul, Minnesota

Time is an illusion

The gulf between Henri

Bergson’s and Albert Einstein’s

theories of time can be recon­

ciled by the thinking of yet

another 20th­century genius

(“Time v the machine”, April

9th). Douglas Adams concoct­

ed the hitch­hiking “wave

harmonic theory of historical

perception”. It states that

“history is an illusion caused

by the passage of time, and

that time is an illusion caused

by the passage of history.” 

simon goldman

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

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