When cathedrals and manor houses become museums and billboards, open to "the public" (for a fee), but closed to being an integral part of our individual, personal lives their beauty becomes ugly, garish, and unnecessary. They no longer belong to us. They are just objects to be looked at, not spaces to play and pray … Continue reading Look, don’t touch
There is a difference between minimalism and utilitarianism. The difference is between removing everything that is unnecessary and stoping before you have removed too much. That one proverbial straw that broke the camel's back - or the one removed detail that turned elegance into homogenous banality. The distinction between functional form and the function without … Continue reading On minimalism Vs Utilitarianism
Let’s talk about capitalism. Everyone has an opinion on it. Definitions, of course, vary according to personal agendas; its merits (or lack thereof) are even more hotly contented depending on what quadrant of the Nolan political compass the subject leans towards. Today, however, I want to focus on the future of capitalism, specifically the near … Continue reading The herasy of pricing that which is invaluable
Sometimes a picture gets the point across quicker. Money is a necessary evil for allocating real scarcity - therefore it needs to be definitively scarce itself. Markets make more (good for maximising and allocating goods, bad). Monopolies make less (good for limiting bads; evil for limiting goods). Artificial abundance has unintended consequences (artificial goods can … Continue reading Of Markets, Money and Monopolies
"But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats." ~ The Amazing Maurice I can't help noticing the protection rackets all around us at the … Continue reading Protection Rackets
The rise of the machines (aka AI everything) is like fire. In that it's awesome and dangerous. Particularly dangerous in that it (like fire) is seductive - indeed, more literally seductive than fire. AI generated girls and boys paired with AI generated conversational (manipulation) skills can give you everything you want, all of the time, … Continue reading Don’t Sleep With The Fire
People are just waking up to the fact that the same cryptographic game theory and technology involved in creating and securing the digital scarcity and ownership immutability that make cryptocurrencies, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) of digital goods and services (from gifs and articles to tracks and tweets) valuable and tradable, can also be used to mint … Continue reading Very Personal Futures
Why does optimism make people angry? If you even mention the word in mixed company, not only do you get ridiculed and treated as though you are a little simple, it actually makes people angry. At you. But why is this? As a natural pessimist (I am terrible cynic) I have a few ideas. Pessimism, … Continue reading Why Optimism Makes People Angry
“…a peculiarly American loneliness: the prospect of dying without having once loved something more than yourself" ~ David Foster Wallace Sex and loneliness (and how porn may, indeed, be more human than Hollywood after all). How masculinity is falling out of fashion. Critical culture wars over words (and how he who controls the dictionary controls … Continue reading Consider the Lobster (and Friends)
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
