We Have Been Harmonised by Kai Strittmatter makes for uncomfortable reading. The book details the seemingly unstoppable slide towards the total surveillance state (or the 360 degree, 4D WiFi curtain, as I like to call our emerging omniscient open air prison reality), not just in the Communist Party of China's China, but all over the … Continue reading We have been harmonised
"Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?"~ Terry Pratchett When it comes down to it, although our day to day lives may be driven by envy; what we want, what we really, really want, as conscious human beings, is immortality. Traditionally, this has taken one of three routes … Continue reading Deed, seed, creed – and the war on death
"If one merchant or one group was as good as another in gathering information and guessing about supply and demand, the one able to operate with lower costs would gain larger profits. A very substantial part of costs was what had to be paid for protection and for insurance against losses that might be inflicted … Continue reading The Social Contract
“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups” The premise of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson is simple: Policy should be honest about the losers, … Continue reading Economics in One Lesson
Virtuocracy : A society which is ruled by the most virtuous. Aristocracy, where one's station in life is tied to the accident of birth, is plainly unfair. Theocracy, where one's station in life is tied to one's proximity to the nexus of clerical power is likewise unjust. Meritocracy, where one's station in life is tied … Continue reading The Rise of Virtuocracy
"Your iPhone is all that is left of your once limitless future" ~ Eric Weinstein There is a difference between volatility and dynamism. There is a difference between invention and innovation. There is a difference between technological adoption and technological disruption. There is a difference between technology that accelerates and (re)distributes that future, and technology … Continue reading Volatility is not Dynamism
Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - based, of course (loosely) on the infamous, real-life story of the Manson Family's murder of Sharon Tait and her friends story gives us a glimpse of the dark side of happy hippie culture - and how counter-culture-culture can turn into a cult. Recently, I was asked to co-author … Continue reading On cults, climate and culture
At the end of last year, I was asked to write a few thoughts on the most important, most disruptive technological milestones for each year of the last decade that will continue to have an impact in the future of the decade to come. Here follows the original version of that article, before it was edited … Continue reading Trend retrospective, a decade in the rearview mirror
When fallible human priests fail to fill the void, and reveal themselves to be more human than divine; we turn to man-made synthetic deities. Japan's robot priest confirms that we are looking for new gods for our new age - made in our own image, yet perfectly, and programmable. (And not all that different from … Continue reading (A)I Am
Reflections on the Revolution in France... a book written by a rich Englishman of leisure, critiquing the working-class French Revolution from the other side of the pond... Revealing, (although perhaps more revealing of Burke himself than the author may have intended) as much for what it gets wrong about the French revolution itself (Burke was … Continue reading Reflections on the Revolution in France
