Society

Plastic has become embedded in everyday life. That’s because for the last 70 years, the plastics industry convinced consumers to embrace the material for its low cost and disposability.

Questioning the design and dev progress was apparently "against company policy."

Under the motto “Who Cares” Re:Publica gathered a few thousand people in Berlin and I got to give a talk continuing the path I started out on with my last two talks in 2022 and 2023. Titled “Empty Innovation” I tried outlining my understanding of the patterns of the weird technological hypes we’ve gone through […]

Hungary used to host one of the world’s most powerful empires—the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, it’s not even in the top 10 EU countries by GDP and is among the bottom countries in GDP per capita. What happened? Why are Hungarians so bitter about their present-day borders?

On Lever Time, we look at TurboTax's decades-long campaign to prevent the government from letting taxpayers file directly with them for free.

Rob Leathern says regulators could empower third parties to compare platforms’ progress on ad transparency against clear baselines.

A Facebook post claiming Einstein warned in 1949 that the rich control communication and damage democracy is true.

In a digital landscape overrun by algorithms and A.I., we need human guides to help us decide what’s worth paying attention to.

The real threat with super intelligence is falling prey to the hype

Tokyo says the trend will become virtually irreversible by the 2030s.

Thousands of electronic components, which should improve life and serve development, are turned by aggressors into instruments of murder. Their weapons depend on foreign components. Without them, they cannot continue to fight, occupy and kill.

What is the future of the canon?

I was recently invited to participate in the Trends with Friends podcast, co-hosted by long time friend Howard Lindzon. The podcast primarily focuses on “markets” and less on “technology,” as…

"I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our smallest minorities," wrote the 'Peanuts' creator in 1970.

For the next few posts, I want to take a look at how some ‘tribal’ peoples raised armies, in contrast to the way that ancient (or later) states raised armies. As moderns, we are so fami…

Image via Wikimedia Commons Most of the twentieth century's notable men of letters — i.e., writers of books, of essays, of reportage — seem also to have, literally, written a great deal of letters.

Silicon Valley tech billionaire politics: authoritarianism, fascism, plutocracy, weirdness

Statesmanship in a post-Constitutional moment

My father, Allen H. Searls, was an archivist. Not a formal one, but good in the vernacular, at least when it came to one of the most consequential things he did in his life: helping build the Georg…

If you enjoy this post, why not subscribe to my podcast Better Offline? This week's a two parter that further expands on the Rot-Com Bubble, coming out Wednesday and Friday. The noxious growth-at-all-costs mindset of the Rot Economy sits at the core of every issue that I've ever written about.

We talk to the famed futurist about his new book, 'The Singularity is Nearer,' and why he's doubling down on his prediction that humans will merge with machines by 2045.

Thoughts on how capitalism intersects with work, art, technology, urban planning, life and love from around the internet - Notado: Content-first bookmarking

To understand the right-wing legislative attacks on higher education, follow the money, Isaac Kamola writes.

Loops, explore and share short videos on the fediverse. Available soon!

Last week, someone behind the @AmazonNews Twitter account took a fistful of pills, washed them down with a handle of Old Grand-Dad, and started tweeting.

Kevin Carson Credit As an Enclosed Commons 2020 Originally published on 23 March 2020 (Part I) and 1 September 2020 (Part II).

Who should do the heavy, tricky, fraught work of making and keeping our networks good? How should they work? To whom should they be accountable, and how can “accountability” be redeemed from its dissipated state and turned into something with both teeth and discretion?