"The effective leader understands that politics is as much about image as it is substance and acts accordingly." With all the Machiavellian power-grabbing going on by governments around the world at the moment in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, it seems like as good a time as ever to review the old bible of … Continue reading The Prince
I have been a reader as long as I remember. CS Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were as much as part of my family as my siblings and parents. A Hobbit, a Wardrobe and a Great War is a look at the men behind the books that I knew so well as a young child, the books … Continue reading A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and a Great War
"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
"Everyone except an economist knows what 'money' means, and even an economist can describe it in at the course of a chapter or so..." ~ A.H. Quiggin Best chased (in my opinion) with a little eurodollar crash course (like this) Money, The Unauthorised Biography is one of the better efforts in the genre of "attempting … Continue reading Money (the unauthorised biography)
How much do you value yourself? Or, another question, how much do you value your present self compared to your future self? Most of us are based towards the present. We discount the future and over-value the present. This is not entirely unreasonable. Life is finite. We have no guarantees that we will even have … Continue reading Trading personal futures – Discounting or investing in the future?
Are patents still a useful invention to carry forward into the future? Unaffordable price increases in the medical industry (where patent hoarding is a common practice where well-funded firms stock up on pre-emptive patents - i.e. patents for hypothetical future medtech innovations, new drugs, and medical devices) indicate that abuse of patents might be part … Continue reading Have patents outlived their usefulness?
"And so if we look at Europe and we say, well, how will Europe be different from the way it is today in the future? I think there's sort of three pictures of a very different future, and sort of behind door number one is Islamic Sharia law, and if you're a woman, you'll be … Continue reading Three doors; one room
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
One of the big trends and socio-economic trajectories I'm focused on right now is the concept of how life is becoming untethered from reality. I'm not just talking about virtual / augmented reality and literal virtual escapism; and fake news and deep fakes either (although that's indeed an important part of it), rather I'm talking … Continue reading Nothing is real, everything is possible
