New social networks are a huge opportunity. Decentralization is just an architectural consideration, not significant to users. A novel user experience is needed to disrupt the market leaders. Clones of existing interfaces with "decentralized" ideology are not appealing products to most humans.
This is a non-serious piece. Not a single mention of mining/resource extraction or security. As long as people are fighting over rocks, we live in a capital-driven world. Key questions are who owns the minerals in the ground and the airwaves in the sky? "Humanism" has always been an ironic euphemism for imperialism, and I suppose it still is in "the world after capital."
Around the world, there are many "smart" people making autonomous weapons systems, "anti-fraud systems" that are really psychometric profiles, trading systems that front-run their customers, fraudulent advertising and fraudulent ad metrics, etc. It's pretty standard.
Believe whatever it takes to help you sleep at night. No one can persuade you otherwise.
Thank you so much, Jeff. I've listened to over 100 episodes. Your podcast is an incredible way to learn about a technology before deciding if it is worth a deep dive. For anyone who likes to maintain a wide general knowledge base to help them navigate the rapid advance of trends and truly transformative technologies, I would highly recommend SE Daily.
China is even more of a surveillance society than the US. America's top advertiser isn't happy. I am OK with America losing the race for total state control of information.
GMail still can't effectively distinguish between real communication and spam. If China overtakes the US in AI, Schmidt and co. are the folks to blame. They are in the drivers seat of intelligence development, yet their efforts are increasingly scattered, and their only consistent focus is on lobbying government.
Dear Alphabet,
Please make your products and services work before worrying about geopolitical balance of power.
Tether gets criticized for being fractional, but it's more stable than fancy collateralized derivative products. Cryptocurrency never ceases to amaze me.
I've had negative experiences with Meetup.com. I've attended multiple meetups around a technical subject with the hope of meeting peers who self-educate and work on side projects. Instead, I have been subjected to sales pitches for SaaS. I get it. Hosting a meetup is work, especially for introverted technical types. People only do work when they expect an ROI.
Snapchat is a tabloid. The professionally made content is pure trash. I have Snap opened right now. Here is the top 5 pieces of Featured content it shows to me, a 25-yo male:
1) DailyMail: "Khloe [Kardashian] shocks with new FACE".
2) BROTHER: "Do You Actually Know The Right Way To Eat THIS?" (pictures of pizza)
3) FRIYAY: "Watch This to Start Your Weekend"
4) MTV: "These Rapper Names are SO Cringey"
5) NOW THIS: "CAUGHT ON TAPE: Drunk driver tries to trick police"
If Snap can corner the tabloid market, it could be a profitable business one day. But Facebook is on another level. Facebook has the low brow covered, but it also aggregates news. Indeed, Facebook's news sharing is so important that Facebook is a propaganda platform. Nothing on Snapchat matters. Spiegel seems to be a Steve Jobs devotee. The Jobs I imagine rolls in his grave every time he's compared to purveyors of digital junk-food and softcore porn.
Aesthetics is a game of cat and mouse. Artists create some new things. Then critics and theorists observe the patterns of composition, color, proportion, etc., that are popular. These rules are canonized in books. Then artists challenge the rules.
The comparisons to music theory in this thread are apt. Music theory is always behind music production.
How can you understand aesthetics without understanding creativity?