Metaviews

One of the many contradictions you’ll find on YouTube are videos from people who claim to be living off-grid. And yet their videos are on YouTube! This may reflect a strict definition, but if you’re living off-grid, that means you don’t have access to YouTube (which is the grid).

Have you noticed a general increase in the level of current craziness? Granted this sort of thing happens this time of year around these parts as the cold weather and short days foster increased levels of stress and depression. However a pandemic obviously compounds issues, in a myriad of ways.

The industrial revolution would not have been possible without child labour. Is this current industrial revolution, driven by automation and data, also dependent upon child labour (at least conceptually)?

This time last the year the pandemic was still considered an epidemic, and Discord considered itself a chat service for gamers. A year later and the pandemic may not yet have reached its peak, and Discord, now focused on general chat, is also flourishing.

It can be difficult to get credible and accurate reports about what is happening in China, especially when it comes to technology (and the Chinese tech industry). However over the past couple of months there has been a notable shift in both Chinese government policy and the state of China’s technology companies

If I were to create a word cloud of the thoughts I had this past year, a big (and recurring) phrase would be Potemkin Village or at least Potemkin. I tried throwing the phrase or name into Twitter to see what comes up and the results were far too many and sprawling to be of much use. Although this could also be a reflection of the algorithm’s inability to grasp the significance of the phrase.