Life is full of trade-offs: Equality or liberty. Indulgence or longevity. Spending or saving. Privacy or security. The merging of big data, big business, and big governments has brought the privacy/security trade-off to the forefront of our daily lives. Businesses, consumers, governments, and citizens now have to make some tough choices: Do we microchip our … Continue reading The Great Trade-Off : Privacy vs Security
The latest book from one of my favourite authors, Niall Ferguson centres on the history and the importance of networks in building, shaping and re-shaping human history, throughout the ages. The evolution of virtual, digital and physical social networks, in the form of social finance, social credit scores and influencer power, are at the core of … Continue reading The Square and the Tower
They say that if you want to be a good futurist, you should read science fiction. It is hard to argue that forward thinkers like George Orwell and Margaret Atwood and called a lot of things right in Animal Farm, 1984 and the Handmaids Tale. The Tin Men was written in the mid-20th century and … Continue reading The Tin Men
Vampires, countesses and the battle for who owns the future - new blog post out now on #immortality and #generational conflict for scarce resources
It has been said that the Internet never forgets. But the blockchain really never forgets. With current Internet, although difficult, it is at least theoretically possible to have your secrets, once exposed, removed from the World Wide Web. There are digital detectives and privacy law firms who, for a mere $50,000 and $300,000 per "project" (plus a "small" … Continue reading The blockchain never forgets…
Cyborgs already walk amongst us. Actually, this is nothing new. For decades already we have been able to upgrade our frail human bodies with a pacemaker to keep our hearts pumping, hearing aid implants to help us regain our sense of sound, and metal plates and screws to hold us together when our hips and … Continue reading Of Machines and Men
"How the technology behind Bitcoin is changing money, business and the world." The book's blurb is on the money. The Blockchain technology behind bitcoin is revolutionary. Beyond the ICO bubble and the global crypto mania craze, hype there are some really interesting ideas taking shape and shaping the future. Essentially, the Blockchain is the new - smart, distributed … Continue reading The Blockchain Revolution
“The first thing we do? Let’s kill all the lawyers.” ~ Vitalik Buterin Don't be fooled by the unicorn-llama-rainbow-UFO shirt. Vitalik Buterin, the polymath, polyglot, wunderkind of the crypto-economy - and founder of the 30 billion dollar smart-contract network Ethereum knows exactly what he is doing. Killing lawyers. Vitalik saw the potential to build off … Continue reading “First thing we do? Let’s kill all the lawyers.”
Michael Lewis is one of my all-time favourite authors. Behavioural economics is one of my favourite subjects. It is no surprise that I highly, highly recommend The Undoing Project to anyone who is interested in how we make decisions and how those same decisions can be manipulated using some really very simple physiological tricks. Not … Continue reading The Undoing Project
Iceland has outlawed companies paying women less than men in the same roles. This sounds very noble, however there are two major problems with this legislation. Firstly, there are the privacy and ethics issues around companies having to divulge that sort of information to governments which should have nothing to do with private companies' business … Continue reading On Equal Rites*
