Crypto: Climate change means new tech has less time today to prove itself

I spent this weekend reading about permissioned and permissionless blockchain systems. If you want to get in on it, I can’t recommend this post by David Rosenthal enough. Much of the complexity of executing transactions of the major extant cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether, arises from the need for these systems to ensure they are permissionless from …

The BJP’s fake news (fake?) meeting

Reuters published a very interesting report on February 2, entitled ‘Exclusive-In heated meeting, India seeks tougher action from U.S. tech giants on fake news’. Excerpt: Indian officials have held heated discussions with Google, Twitter and Facebook for not proactively removing what they described as fake news on their platforms, sources told Reuters, the government’s latest altercation with Big …

On crypto-art, racism and outcome fantasies

If you want to find mistakes with something, you’ll be able to find them if you tried long enough. That doesn’t inherently make the thing worthless. The only exception I’ve encountered to this truism is the prevailing world-system – which is both fault-ridden and, by virtue of its great size and entrenchment, almost certainly unsalvageable. …