Digital Red Button. In the digital society, countries no longer make it difficult for each other with the threat of nuclear weapons. President Trump’s red nuclear button has probably already been replaced by a red button that he can use to digitally force any country to the knees: stopping all communication in a country (telecommunications, internet,… Continue reading Digital Arms Race
“Don’t become a victim of the populist rear-guard fight“ As a CIO (Chief Information Officer) you will be called into the boardroom where the Board asks you how to deal with the technology war between China and the US! Should your organization, perhaps working worldwide, watch out for Chinese technology because it may have embedded… Continue reading What should you do as a CIO with global political instability?
Ethics in the digital age. The digital age that we are entering requires a different approach to ethics than we were used to in the classical world. Now that literally anyone can scold anyone, falsely accuse anyone, spread fake news, produce deep fakes, and no one can do anything about it, a new world is looming.… Continue reading Digital System Risk
Tragic Politicians. The tragedy of people like Xi and Trump is that they live and think from the past. They were brought up in the world in which large powerful states determined the economy of the world. And now that they are finally sitting on the plush themselves, they wish to continue this way of thinking… Continue reading One Fluid Society
The old world order. Since the Second World War, the world has increasingly been dominated by a system of all kinds of international institutions such as the UN, the WTO (World Trade Organization), NATO and other institutions that tried to play a mediating role in many issues or conflicts. The balance has always been shaky,… Continue reading World in Transition
New insights. That we live in an information society is no news. What is interesting is that our view of how the physical world around us is working is also changing. Two centuries ago, physicists viewed the universe, based on the laws of Newton and Kepler, as a kind of huge mechanical timepiece, in which planets… Continue reading Everything is Information
Tinkering with humansThere has been a lot of fuss about the Chinese twins conceived in China with modified DNA with the aim of protercting these babies form HIV infection in the future. Scientist He Jiankui received the full load of criticism even from Chinese scientists.What is the underlying moral problem? Technology is now so far… Continue reading Makeable humans
What is the problem with software? The disasters with the Boeing 737 MAX unfortunately show once again the importance of good software in the operating systems of devices and transport systems in particular. With software for these types of important systems, two questions are extremely crucial: 1. Is it clear in all situations who is in… Continue reading Software “killing you softly”?
Boundaries. A core problem at the Brexit is the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. This conflict symbolizes the transition from the classical to the digital world. From the world where national sovereignty is the dominant structure to the borderless world of the future digital society. Maintaining or drawing borders in an increasingly borderless world costs… Continue reading A borderless world?
Or how digitization divides the labour market. Dichotomy. For weeks France was plagued by actions by the “yellow vests”. People who organized themselves through social media and initially protested against higher petrol prices. In the meantime we saw comparable actions in other countries. What happened here? This action is a well-known occurrence in a long series… Continue reading Yellow Vests
