Category: Culture

  • In other news, Dezinformatsiya has been democratized

    Many of the countless mesmerizing stories in the Mitrokhin Archive deals with the KGB’s disinformation campaigns, mostly to sway public opinion in various European countries. We, in the West with upper-case Freedom-of-the-Press were outraged to learn that the press sometimes was printing deliberately falsified information, planted, for money or otherwise, by the KGB. How Could…

  • “World After Capital” Summary

    When a Venture Capitalist writes a book “World after Capital“, it might be worth paying attention. If he happens to be a partner at Union Square Ventures in New York, you know it’s going to be good. Here are my notes about his draft book which is available for under a Creative Commons License in…

  • Why Varoufakis’ “Democracy In Europe Movement” (Diem 25) Matters

    Earlier today, former Greek finance minister, economics professor and self-described “erratic Marxist” Yanis Varoufakis launched his long-awaited new political movement in Berlin, Germany. It calls itself “Democracy in Europe Movement“, aka Diem 25. This is rather significant, and I get to why in a second. But first I want to talk about why it looks…

  • Confusing the Robot Takeover and the robots’ masters’ takeover

    Even Steve Wozniak makes this mistake: The artificial intelligence that will control the world used to worry Wozniak, he told a technology conference. But he has realised that it will be good for us because robots will opt to keep us as part of nature. So far, there is NO INDICATION that any kind of…

  • Reading the Holacracy Book

    Just about everybody is unhappy with how large organizations function, or rather, dys-function. One of my first big-company experiences were the seemingly endless, back-to-back meetings at BMW. I remember coming home one one day to the townhouse I shared with several other people, complaining that I had just gotten a degree called “Diplom Ingenieur” (Master…