Researcher Donald Hoffman calls it a headset, biophysicist Wilhelm Reich called it a sieve, Plato called it a cave wall, the Buddhists and Hindus called it ‘Maya’ and the Quran […]
Category: Information & Power
The Last Analyst
In the ever-fascinating realm of information, where anything from timeless wisdom to the analysis of current events is flowing or contained, those who have the most important things to say […]
The Meaning of Semantics
To discover meaning it is sometimes sufficient to discover what is meaningless. In public debate the careless usage of words is as popular as it is problematic, rendering words meaningless. […]
The Memetic Heretics
Memetics, the science of information flows, existed long before the internet, but a Belgian court went against long-held knowledge when it sentenced a group of digital Memetic Heretics last week. […]
Computer Still Says No
Humor is often prophetic. The sketch from Little Britain –‘Computer says No’– is exactly twenty years old. An unfriendly, cold-hearted hospital receptionist conveniently suspends all of her humanity and responsibility […]
Between Coincidence and Conspiracy
There is one specific article by Edward Snowden that has been inspiring me since its publication in August 2021. It’s called Apophenia – How the Internet Transforms the Individual into […]
From Individual Power to Collective Shame
In 1919, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays (1891-1995) founded America’s first public relations firm, applying psychoanalytic discoveries to promote consumerism and to use latent sexual energy to manipulate the masses […]
I’ve Closed My Substack
Yesterday I migrated most of my ‘Old Revolutions’ Substack content here to my own website. If you are subscribed to my publication Old Revolutions on Substack you don’t have to […]
All Talk, No Action
Journalism Since the Great Financial Crisis In early 2009 I attended a memorable panel discussion at Columbia University’s Journalism School in New York. A handful of elite journalists who were […]
Dutch Media’s Unforced Errors
Balancing the Scales after Deceit A law of nature dictates that energy always tries to balance itself, like a scale that’s always moving to the middle, which is the most […]