Freeports are tax-free storage facilities that wealthy people use to store their investments in art, wine, and artifacts. The Geneva Freeport stores more artworks (both in quantity and value) than the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. In 2013, the freeport contained about 1.2 million artworks. In addition to paintings and gold bars, it stores about three million bottles of wine. Freeports are closed to the general public and have been repeatedly used to store stolen paintings and cultural valuables.
They are not exactly free, or rather, not free at all. The only “free” thing you get is the right to store, buy, and sell anything within a certain territory without paying taxes… the goods, while within its territory, are considered “in transit,” that’s all. But this only lasts until you export the goods from there. At that point, you will have to pay taxes to the treasury of the country into which you are importing the item or money.
I learned about such a model from a recent video by Varlamov-Chichvarkin about wines, googled it, and it turns out that while wine is a minor thing, it’s much more significant with art.
I found out that if you bought a jacket or a TV (for instance, at Target, Best Buy, or Costco), and a week later that item went on sale, you can come back with your receipt within 14–30 days. This is an official policy of almost all major Western retailers, it’s a standard of customer service and is called Price Adjustment. However, a receipt is often necessary. Most stores suspend this policy during the Black Friday season, Cyber Monday, and special holiday promotions.
I wonder if there exists an agent that takes an Excel table significantly larger than the context window and begins to document its essence. Here are several tabs. Here on tab 5, there is a table with a million rows and five columns. The columns are as follows. We take random data from the table, looks like there are numbers, and there – surnames. We assume that there are numbers everywhere – we write a code that checks this assumption and at the same time calculates min/max and a set of unique values. So, few values, only five. We record it. Now we check the surnames. Yes, these are just strings, new sampling showed that they are indeed surnames. Here’s a formula. We see where it points. And so on. And this column – unclear purpose. We look at the data – these are some numbers from 0 to 1. We measure the average and the spread. We ask the user – maybe they’ll provide some comments. They did. It turned out to be a KPI issued to this user from an external system. We record it. And so on. Documentation emerges. Later, when there is documentation, one can request to perform some operations with all this, since the LLM now more or less understands the purpose of the data and their connection, and can build some hypotheses on detecting outliers and verifying them.
It turned out that initially Carlo Collodi, who wrote “The Adventures of Pinocchio,” did not intend to turn his hero from a wooden puppet into a real boy. Pinocchio was destined to be hanged by the Cat and the Fox on an oak tree—as a lesson to all children who lie and disobey their elders.
The author was persuaded to continue Pinocchio’s adventures by the editor of the “Children’s Newspaper,” who said that otherwise it would be their last publication. The readers were so outraged by the death of the hero that the editorial office was inundated with letters demanding a continuation.
Eventually, after a few months, the author was forced to “resurrect” the puppet. This is how the Blue Fairy appeared in the story, who saved Pinocchio from the noose, and the grim parable gradually turned into the familiar fairy tale with a happy ending.
When Pinocchio was already hanging on the oak tree and gasping for air, a Beautiful Girl with Azure Hair appeared at the window of a nearby little house. At that moment she is described not as a kind fairy, but rather as a ghost or spirit (she says that everyone in this house died, and she too is waiting for her coffin).
Seeing the puppet dangling from the tree, she took pity and organized a whole rescue team. The fairy clapped her hands three times. A giant Falcon arrived. She ordered him to fly to the Great Oak, gnaw through the rope with his beak, and carefully lower Pinocchio onto the grass. Then she summoned her servant—a poodle named Medoro. He was dressed in festive livery, with a cocked hat and a curly wig. Medoro was sent for Pinocchio in a luxurious carriage drawn by a hundred pairs of white mice. When the puppet was brought to the castle, he was neither alive nor dead. To decide what to do next, the Fairy summoned “luminaries” of medicine. By Pinocchio’s bed came the Crow, the Owl, and the Talking Cricket (the same one that Pinocchio “killed” at the beginning of the book, but he returned as a spirit).
Harsh.
Essentially, the hero owes his happy ending not to the author’s mercy, but to commercial success and public pressure.
We have one gas station near the CIA that simply sets gas prices 40 percent higher than anywhere else. Just an ordinary shabby station that follows the principle of “if it works, don’t fix it.”
Everything is normal, I’m working, suddenly there’s a knock from the backyard and the power goes out in the whole house. I look over my right shoulder – and there through the window IN MY LOCKED BACKYARD is some guy.
I go out, say hello. He’s like, “I’ve done everything.” I say, I noticed, but who are you exactly? He’s like—you submitted an application to switch to the EV tariff. Well, I had to press a button here. I say and you’ve pressed everything already?
He says – yes. I say then close the door behind you, because my dog got freaked out here.
Then the dog comes up. Sleepy. Stunned. Who’s this, he asks.
But generally, it would be nice at least to be warned about visits and the sudden power cut. I could have shut down my computer or something.
But now it will be $0.0732 per kWh at night, and $0.12694 during the day.
For fun, I decided to make a matrix of who is friends with whom and who is enemies with whom. For each country-country pair, I asked Gemini which of the five categories the relations fall into: “at daggers drawn” (purple), “predominantly unfriendly” (red), “neutral” (yellow), “predominantly friendly” (blue), “friends” (green). Lisa said that “neutral” should be purple. Overall, the quality of Gemini’s assessments is quite good.
Among all countries, three red lines stand out. These are countries that are on very bad terms with many others. Well, you guessed Russia right. And what is the second country? Israel? No, it’s Belarus and Venezuela.
In the top five countries that everyone is friends with and who have many friends themselves, LLM included the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany. There is an anti-rating – these are countries that have very bad relations (“at daggers drawn”) with many others. In this rating, Russia is in first place with 21 countries, and Israel is in second place with 18 enemies. Following them, with a significant gap, are Syria and the USA with 9 enemies each. There is also a separate Conflict Zone rating – this is the sum of red and purple. Russia, Venezuela, Belarus, Israel, USA, Iran, Ukraine.
There is a “pacifists’ club”. These are the ones who have no enemies at all, sorted by the number of friends. Rating: Bahamas, Vatican, Luxembourg, Angola, Singapore, Iceland, Jamaica, Tanzania, Zambia.
I was curious, what if I apply the formula: the enemy of my enemy is my friend? What would change? This led to new colors on the matrix – logic friends.
The most unexpected leader of the Master Pragmatists ranking was Taiwan (25 logical connections). Why so? In the logic of LLM, Taiwan is a country that is officially recognized by few, but because of its global opposition to China, it automatically becomes a “logical friend” for everyone who has strained relations with Beijing. This is confirmed in the Shadow Bridges section: Taiwan has 23 connections beyond its region. It literally “stitches” different parts of the world together through a common problem.
The report “Secret Partners” – a list of geopolitical oxymorons. These are pairs that are “at daggers drawn” in official news but are forced to be friends by Gemini’s calculation. For example, Afghanistan – USA/United Kingdom. Despite the status “rather bad relations”, Gemini’s logic sees them as “logical friends”. Possibly due to common regional threats (like ISIS) or dependence on humanitarian and back channels. Or here’s a strange alliance “Belarus — Hungary”. Nominal — different camps, factually — similar style of rhetoric and common “enemies” in Brussels. Eritrea — Ethiopia: Status “at daggers drawn”, but at the same time, they became logical friends.
In the report “Most Controversial,” the first places are taken by the USA, and then with a significant gap, Russia, and even larger – United Kingdom, Canada, Ukraine. These are countries with the highest Love x Hate product value. That is, countries that have many friends and enemies at the same time.
Another report – the indifferent ones. About them, LLM couldn’t say much, apparently because they bother no one (both literally and figuratively). There are, for example, Madagascar and Haiti.
I also tried to cluster by the strength of friends and got four groups of countries.
The largest cluster. Core: China, Russia, Iran, India, and BRICS+ countries, as well as almost the entire African continent (from Egypt to South Africa) and a significant part of the Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar).
The second cluster mainly included European countries. Core: France, Germany, United Kingdom. The algorithm determined Ukraine and Israel to be here. Logically: their survival depends on “predominantly friendly relations” with the European core. In this same club are Armenia, Georgia, and Serbia. Apparently, despite all the political swings, Gemini considers their ties to Europe more fundamental than any others.
The third cluster included the USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and, for example, Taiwan. Officially, it can be a “logical friend” to all of China’s enemies, but by “strength of friends,” it is permanently sewn to the American block. The Vatican also ended up here, which makes this club not only economic but also somewhat “values-based.”
The fourth cluster, the most compact and specialized, included countries of Oceania and Southeast Asia. Leaders: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore. This turned out to be a club of countries trying to balance in the most complex region of the planet. Here are almost all island states (Fiji, Samoa, Tonga).
My first job as a programmer, with an office in Kolomna and for money. It was 1993, or maybe even a year earlier. 10th-11th grade of school. And this company still exists, and the guys I worked with are still there! Natalya Bakulina, Pavel Bunakov, Nikolai Kaskevich. Imagine that. Moreover, they started back in 1986, that is, 40 years ago already! I can hardly remember other commercial companies of such age in Russia. When I came to work there, there was MS DOS, they wrote in Turbo Pascal, but they had started many years before me on the SM-1420 computer, though back then, the company was not entirely commercial. At the time of my arrival, their system was a competitor of AutoCAD in the market, locally also competing with “Kompas”. I made an installer from 5.25″ and 3.5″ disks – to capture the spirit of the era. Later they switched to Delphi and Windows. After that, they narrowed down their focus, transitioning from CAD for engineering to CAD for furniture, where they still hold very strong positions.
I don’t believe in the altruism of giants. When it comes to large states or billionaire corporations, believing that they are guided by “principles of good” and “the common good” appears, in my view, to be either naivety or dangerous self-deception.
The real goal always remains in the shadows. Why? Because if everyone understands the true intentions, achieving them becomes much harder and more expensive. Or more precisely, everyone does understand them; it’s just that the circle of those in the know is small.
Take “liberation wars.” When a dictatorship receives democracy at the point of a bayonet, it’s not about human rights. It’s a way to infiltrate another system and show who’s the “alpha.” There are always specific interests in that state. Simply put, it’s about creating a geopolitical “roof.” In certain cultures, respect is earned only through strength. If you don’t show dominance, you’re not listened to. But if you do show it, you get invited to the “council of elders” and asked to “solve some problems.”
If a corporation suddenly starts caring vehemently about the planet—look for the ulterior motive. Most likely, their old production method has become too costly to maintain and needs changing. But under the guise of “reducing emissions,” modernization is warmly welcomed. Tax breaks, grants, and the chance to earn on government contracts come as bonuses. Ecologically, it’s just a pretty façade for expense optimization.
Often, the initiative does not come from inside the system, but from outside. Example: A luxurious park with benches and ducks is being built in the area. Concern for people? Relatively speaking. The main stakeholders are developers. Apartments in buildings near the park cost 20-30% more and sell twice as fast. Whether it’s a business or a politician, they just support an idea that generates profit (financial or electoral) for specific groups.
Even the holy of holies—science—is not held up only by curiosity and the desire to create a better future for people. A huge part of discoveries is driven by mere vanity. For a scientist, it is important to leave a name for the ages, step higher in the hierarchy, or at least feel like a “rock star” at a profile conference. Personal ambitions move progress more effectively than an abstract desire to help humanity.
When tech giants launch free satellite internet or distribute cheap smartphones in developing countries (Africa, India), it’s presented as a “mission to connect the world.” The real interest—markets in the developed world are saturated. The only way to grow is to create new consumers. By providing “free” access, the corporation hooks people to its ecosystem, gains access to the biometric and behavioral data of millions who are yet not protected by privacy laws. It’s the colonization of the digital space in the 21st century.
The largest philanthropic organizations often spend billions fighting diseases or hunger. The real interest—tax optimization and “soft power.” Transferring assets to a foundation helps avoid inheritance or capital gains taxes. Meanwhile, the founder maintains control over the funds through the board of directors. A bonus is the status of being “untouchable” in the media: criticizing someone who “saves children” amounts to reputational suicide. It’s the best insurance against antitrust investigations.
Mass promotion of “agendas” in Hollywood is often seen as a triumph of liberal values. The real interest—risk minimization and audience expansion. Film studios are huge bureaucratic machines. For them, “diversity” is a checklist that insures against boycotts and scandals (which cost money). Additionally, by adding a character from a specific ethnic group, the studio automatically taps into that group’s local market globally. It’s pure reach arithmetic.
The world is ruled not by kindness, but by interests and hierarchy. And possibly, that’s even good—at least, it’s predictable and logical. This was all about the altruism of giants. But I very much believe in the altruism of individual people.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 