Trump offline. The Big Tech firms in the US have denied President Trump access to their platforms. And immediately, of course, there were all kinds of reactions. Are these firms allowed to deny private individuals, and perhaps especially a President, access to their platforms? Answer: yes they may, at least in the US. They are private… Continue reading Trump Offline
reflections on digitalization and society Original review published on Reedsy Discovery Free book preview The fluid society is a name for the digital society that humanity will grow towards in the coming years. Over the last ten years I have written many columns about the digital transformation of society, comparing the old situation with ice cubes –… Continue reading A plea to think differently in the digital world
Prolonged low inflation. Recently, economists have questioned why inflation remains low for a long time, while it is expected that when the economy picks up, inflation will also rise due to higher wages, higher energy costs and resource use. At the moment the economy is apparently behaving differently than “normal”. The question is asked whether this… Continue reading Does digitalization lead to low inflation?
Disinformation. The world is flooded with ever-increasing amounts of disinformation. According to the American technology researcher Aviv Ovadya, this could eventually cause the world to go under. He coined the term infocalyps for this purpose. The huge amount of disinformation is intended to put us on the wrong track when it comes to information. The well-known… Continue reading Infocalyps ?
Physically living here, but mentally being somewhere else. In the digitalizing world, it is becoming ever easier to live in one place and work – digitally – in another. It is also becoming ever easier to live in a random place and stay connected to your homeland and culture. At one time it used to… Continue reading The scrambled world
Technology has no political attention in Europe. It is not only busy political agendas that are blocking the recognition of the importance of global digitization and the will to steer it. There are simply interests for both large and small countries to give something relatively new such as “technology” or “digitization” no place in the European… Continue reading Looking away from the digital tsunami
There are too many people. Many of us are working hard on the big problems the world is struggling with: climate problems, sustainability, biodiversity, migration problems. However, the dominant cause of all these problems is the – too often forgotten – fact that there are far too many human beings in this world. And we can… Continue reading Overpopulation: the real problem
There has been a long-standing discussion about the position of the Tech Giants, the social media they have brought to the market, the Apps and what it all entails. On the one hand, many governments in particular are of the opinion that the power of these companies is gradually becoming too great. So there is… Continue reading Digital Utilities
The world has been groaning under a group of authoritarian leaders such as Trump, Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Orban, Bolsanaro, with the result that no progress is being made in the transition to a more sustainable and just world. It is no coincidence that these old-school leaders are all men and democratically elected, except Xi. They represent… Continue reading Stop “we-they” thinking
It was with interest and amazement that I read about ING Group’s debacle with the Unite programme and IT project in Belgium in the article ‘Digital future dream ING top man degenerates into deception’ (FD 13 June). The story resembles yet another international project in which IT is used as a crowbar to force organisations… Continue reading Digital debacle at ING illustrates the risk of lack of IT knowledge at board level
