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civilization and politics

big tech China civilization and politics fixed income governance macroeconomics narrative zeitgeist philosophy Social / Community

·Sep. 23, 2019

Facebook’s Supreme Court is like Compliance in Banks, or Chinese Communist Party entities in joint ventures

I've seen a whole bunch of headlines this past week about how Facebook is launching its version of the "Supreme Court", as if that were an app feature. The oversight board is meant to police controversial content decisions, and have the power to overrule Zuck's judgment on political matters. Its charter is drafted as if Facebook's 3 billion users were citizens of an Internet nation. Add to this the insanity over WeWork's failing IPO plans, where the CEO has been personally named in the amended filing documents with clear checks on demonstrated abuses of power. We are drifting into a Twilight Zone episode where modern corporations act as if they were feudal states run by divine kings negotiating with their nobility over a Magna Carta. Which is actually sort of where we are.

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central bank / CBDC China civilization and politics enterprise blockchain super app

·Mar. 15, 2021

The battle for Chinese Fintech as China highlights blockchain in Five Year Plan, ramps up Ant and Tencent regulation, phases in e-CNY

This week, we look at:

China’s Five Year Plan, the industrial logic of the system, and its ramifications for blockchain and fintech in the country
The regulatory challenges faced by Chinese tech companies, including the resignation of Ant Group’s CEO and the anti-competition fines for Tencent
The growth path of the e-CNY digital currency, as well as Beijing’s enterprise blockchain powering the city infrastructure and governance
Footnote: Stripe worth $95 billion, closing $600 million investment

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artificial intelligence big tech China civilization and politics Metaverse / xR visual art

·Jul. 27, 2020

OpenAI, backed with $1B+ by Elon Musk & MSFT, can now program SQL and write Harry Potter fan-fiction

This week, we look at a breakthrough artificial intelligence release from OpenAI, called GPT-3. It is powered by a machine learning algorithm called a Transformer Model, and has been trained on 8 years of web-crawled text data across 175 billion parameters. GPT-3 likes to do arithmetic, solve SAT analogy questions, write Harry Potter fan fiction, and code CSS and SQL queries. We anchor the analysis of these development in the changing $8 trillion landscape of our public companies, and the tech cold war with China.

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civilization and politics generational change macroeconomics microeconomics narrative zeitgeist philosophy Social / Community

·Nov. 19, 2019

Ok, Boomer — a meme for the broken political economy

Chlöe Swarbrick, a 25-year old climate MP was presenting her climate change case to the New Zealand parliament, and was heckled by an older audience member. Without missing a beat, she acknowledged and dismissed the challenger with a pithy “Ok, Boomer.”

The recording has since gone viral, inspiring everything from merchandise to Vogue articles. While the incident isn’t the source of the phrase “Ok, Boomer”, today it is the most well known manifestation. So what does the phrase mean? If you are inclined to more colorful language, see Urban Dictionary. But the meaning is obvious on its face — Gen Z is dismissing utterly and without consideration the judgment and protestations of society's elders on multi generational issues like economics, climate change, and social norms.

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