Demographic dividend, or demographic disaster? As India is about to overtake China as the world's most populous country, it's worth considering if holding that title is still the win it once was. Not so long ago, more people meant more growth, more productivity, more progress. Hence the term: demographic dividend. If your working age population … Continue reading Assets to Liabilities
Category: observations
Connecting the Dissapeared
Everywhere we look, people are disappearing. Disappearing into their bedrooms, into their phones, into the metaverse and out of their real lives. As life becomes more virtualised and more artificial, as our digital lives supersede our physical existence, as our stores of value - of both worldly financial wealth and social credit - become increasingly … Continue reading Connecting the Dissapeared
Guardians of the Past
Over the last few years, Minecraft users have been painstakingly building a 1:1 replica of Earth to preserve a record of our planet and our current civilisation in event of its destruction. (Goodness knows there are enough options - from climate change and pandemics to nuclear and bio warfare - for total world-ending destruction available … Continue reading Guardians of the Past
As above, so below
I've been thinking lately about codes. Not cryptography, but rather the codes by which we govern our lives. At the societal level, the two critical poles come down to trust or control (or liberty or authority). At the individual level, this becomes a choice to be governed by duty or by authority. Similar to how … Continue reading As above, so below
The fine print
Perhaps the biggest policy skeleton key of them all has to be single-payer, free-at-the-point-of-purchase (that is, paid for by strangers) national health insurance / social security. This is, let us be frank, a new experiment. The first test subjects are still alive, and the future sustainability of these nice entitlements is far from guaranteed. What … Continue reading The fine print
2021 a Year in Books
What I read in 2021, the comprehensive list. How to read this list: * = Recommend** = Really recommendNC = No comment (or, really, do not bother)RR = Re-readF = FictionNF = Non-fictionP = Plays No, I won't be posting purchase links, I suggest you purchase a copy of whatever sounds interesting from your favourite local second … Continue reading 2021 a Year in Books
The Future – Governments’ Edition
A very short summary of the base-case near-term global future scenario at this point in time: Don't like it? Nothing is set in stone. Remember you cannot comply your way out of (even the banal, bureaucratic sort of) tyranny and do something about it. Don't understand it? Contact me and I'll talk you through the … Continue reading The Future – Governments’ Edition
The truth machine
If you can take a collection of junk bonds and securitise them into A-grade "investment" assets (hello collateralised debt obligations); or if you can do the same thing with bundling shitcoins and DIY NFTs into "no risk" lending opportunities - if you can take trash and by simply combining it with more trash magically transform … Continue reading The truth machine
Skeleton Key Laws
Not with a bang, with a whimper, the world moves from objective rule of law, to subjective rule by law. There are more and more open-ended, multi-purpose "skeleton key" laws being passed in (supposedly) liberal democracies that can be used to punish, criminalise almost anyone at will. Of particular concern are any laws that criminalise … Continue reading Skeleton Key Laws
Let them eat VR NFT cake
"You will own nothing (aside from NFTs), but you will be happy (in VR anyway)”. There is a twisted idea floating around the richer corners of the internet - the idea of "reality privilege". The reality privilege idea is best summed up in this quote from Marc Andreessen: “Your question is a great example of … Continue reading Let them eat VR NFT cake