In partership with The Sofia Globe
Observed by an alien who has now waited seven hours for a Bulgarian stamp
There is an old Talmudic riddle that people like to attribute to Einstein, presumably to give it a scientific compliance label and a comforting German accent. This is understandable. Attaching famous names to old ideas is one of humanity’s most reliable forms of intellectual outsourcing.
It usually begins with a student asking a deceptively simple question: “What does logic mean?”
The Einstein of legend - imagined, apocryphal, and already exhausted by committees that do not yet exist - replies: “I will answer you with a question.”
“Suppose two workers enter a chimney to clean it. One comes out with a dirty face and the other with a clean face. Who will go wash their face?”
The student, unburdened by experience and regulation, answers immediately: “Obviously, the one with the dirty face.”
The fictional Einstein sighs - the long sigh of a man who understands the meeting could have been avoided - and says: “Incorrect. The one with the clean face will wash his face, because he sees the other man is dirty and assumes his own must be the same. The dirty man sees a clean face and assumes his own is clean.”
The student nods. “That is logical.”
Einstein pauses again, possibly checking whether the chimney meets updated safety guidance, and replies: “No. It is not logical. The question itself is flawed. Two men cannot enter the same chimney at the same time and come out one clean and one dirty.”
And there it is. Logic collapses not with a bang, but with a polite explanation. The answer was never the issue. The question was badly framed, and no amount of clever reasoning can rescue a faulty premise.
This is important, because it turns out to be Europe’s core competency.
A Change of Era, Not a Change of Font
We are not living through an era of change. We are living through a change of era, which is significantly more disruptive and far less impressed by legacy processes.
Europe, unfortunately, is still arguing about soot.
The continent cannot go to war - economic or otherwise - with the United States. Not because it lacks moral authority (that debate has been outsourced), but because it lacks the fundamental instruments: geopolitics, geostrategy, and geoinnovation. These are not interchangeable words. They are not vibes. They are not values. They are tools.
And Europe currently treats tools the way it treats nuclear power: with fear, nostalgia, and a very thick binder.
Behind Door Number 2 is a world that moves first, apologizes later, and monetizes both. Europe remains in the hallway, adjusting the signage.
Denmark, Beer, and the Tragedy of Not Doing the Math
I find it genuinely funny - in the way one finds an emergency budget review funny - that Denmark is busy musseling up instead of doing the obvious thing: monetizing its position and becoming, quite possibly, the number one economy in Europe.
This is not radical. It has an extremely boring name. It is called a sovereign fund, otherwise known as dividends for life, which is what happens when a country behaves like an adult with a spreadsheet.
I once gave a keynote for Merrill Lynch in the UK one week after Brexit. The room was full of tears, soggy faces, and people mourning spilled beer as if it were an irreversible tragedy.
My only question was: Why cry over spilled beer? Stop crying. Start monetizing. This is not ideology. It is arithmetic.
Greenland, Vikings, and Corporate Feudalism
I genuinely do not care what the U.S. wants to do in Greenland. Anyone who has watched Vikings remembers Floki’s reaction upon discovering it - a mix of awe, madness, and a very clear “why the fuck are we here?” - which remains the most accurate geopolitical analysis available.
The real issue is not Greenland. The real issue is that elitist billionaires - Gates, Thiel, Altman, Bezos - are circling it like consultants around an unregulated budget. They are proposing a “freedom city,” a corporate-run micro-territory modeled as a network state.
Critics describe it as radical. Supporters describe it as innovative. History describes it as something that usually ends with guards, NDAs, and a disappointing cafeteria.
Suspend trade with the U.S.? Sure. Why not. Europe stopped generating meaningful intellectual assets a long time ago, so it could always create a different kind of dependency - possibly worse, possibly beige, but definitely well-regulated.
We already play with China in the same sandbox. We buy everything from them. We ban them from our infrastructure. We call this “strategy.” Are you confused? Good. Confusion is the correct emotional response.
The Question Nobody Asks (Because the Form Is Missing)
Here is the question nobody seems to ask:What the fuck is the future of Europe?
Not the values. Not the heritage. Not the flag density. The future.
While this remains unanswered, Trump announces a neat little policy sketch: A 10% tariff on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Finland starting February 1st - rising to 25% by June 1st - until “a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland.”
This reads less like policy and more like a Michael Bay script written during a delayed flight.
Meanwhile, if you’re tired of this, move to Bulgaria. Life is genuinely better here. This is not a joke. This is a field report.
(Update from the waiting room: The stamp has been approved, but the ink pad is currently undergoing an environmental impact assessment. I continue to wait.)
Meanwhile, In the Waiting Room of the Future
While nations lose sovereignty to treaties, you are losing sovereignty to your dashboard.
Toyota has remotely disabled pre-heating on fuel cars in Germany - in winter - so owners comply with Net Zero. Your car now has opinions. They are wrong. And they are enforced via Wi-Fi.
The same idling laws exist in the UK, so this particular madness has franchise potential. EU Parliament discussions about a “no confidence” vote against Ursula and her talented team have become regular. This is stated. We move on.
Great news for Europe: Eutelsat ordered 340 satellites from Airbus for OneWeb, on top of the 100 already contracted. First deliveries in 2026. Starlink has 10,000. The font, however, is excellent.
Europe cannot regain competitiveness unless it rewrites its entire regulatory mindset, starting legislation from the reality of micro-companies instead of apologizing to them afterwards like a disappointed IKEA drawer.
Compute, Clouds, and the Illusion of Ownership
Jeff Bezos once said your local PC is as outdated as a 100-year-old generator. He was not wrong. He was just early - and wearing a space suit.
The idea that computation lives in your pocket is cute, like believing sovereignty lives in a press release. The future is not faster devices, but access to power - compute as a utility, not a fetish.
Yes, the cloud is just someone else’s computer. Yes, it probably belongs to an intelligence agency. No, that doesn’t make it less inevitable. Scalability is not pocket-sized.
Final Sketches from the Fire: Elon Musk warns that Apple and Google collaborating concentrates too much power. This is true. It is also funny coming from a man who launches satellites like party balloons. Google already controls Android and Chrome. Adding Apple is less synergy and more gravity well.
Eastern Europe and the Arithmetic of Survival
The bigger news this week: Moldovan President Maia Sandu openly supports unification with Romania. Not tomorrow. Not next quarter. But the idea is planted.
Because survival is becoming arithmetic again. Eastern Europe has spent decades exporting talent quietly - shy, hidden, bullied by larger neighbors, but undeniably real. The intellectual capital exists. The question is no longer whether it’s there, but whether anyone is competent enough to monetize it without smothering it in beige policy.
Mercedes is relocating production to Hungary. 20,000 German jobs evaporate politely. I’m just saying.
Western Europe is busy trying to save the world. Eastern Europe is busy trying to survive it. History suggests the survivors usually end up owning the ruins.
Return to the Chimney
The chimney parable remains perfect: Europe keeps answering questions that were badly framed from the start. Who should wash their face? Neither. Both. It doesn’t matter - two men cannot enter the same chimney and emerge differently soiled.
The real question is simpler and more brutal: what chimney are we actually in?
Not the one described in treaties. Not the one celebrated in summits. Not the one promised by regulatory harmonization. The actual chimney - the geopolitical infrastructure of the 21st century - is being built by actors who do not wait for consensus, do not apologize for ambition, and do not confuse process with progress.
The world is not ending. It is being reorganized by people who understand incentives better than feelings.
Ask better questions. Anchor them in the future. Monetize reality. Stop filling out forms for the old world.
And for the love of God - buy a pen.
Draw a new chimney.