Spring 2021 - Issue 1

Slower News - Quarterly

Spring arrived.

Slower News is one year old. To celebrate it, as announced, I’m lauching a newsletter with the articles added during last quarter. I was reluctant to start it - there is RSS - but now I regret taking so long: a digest is interesting or even useful.

geopolitics

• Eurosclerosis.¹

democracy

• The war on disinformation is a war on dissent.

• America’s new corporate tyranny.²

• China CCP to nationalize Alibaba.

free speech

• Cancel culture.³

• Poland announces online freedom of speech bill.

economy

• Two worlds.⁴

inequality

• Google workers announce plans to unionize.

demography

• New visa allows 70% of Hong Kong residents to migrate to UK.⁵

• The Great Replacement.⁶

social

• Flattery-driven open-source.⁷

work

• Four-day week means «I don’t waste holidays on chores».

parenting

• We are sending more foster kids to prison than college.

• Parents of daughters are more likely to divorce than those with sons.

health

• mRNA COVID-19 vaccines herald a new era for vaccinology.

• Myopia correcting «smart glasses».

• Patient regains sight following artificial cornea implantation ending a decade of blindness.

media

• Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor.

tourism

• Crowdfunded wandering.⁸

business

• All companies are technology companies now.⁹

• Bringing back old features.¹⁰

retail

• Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free.¹¹

reduce, reuse, recycle

• Kenya is recycling waste plastic into strong cheap bricks.

ecology and climate

• Wall Street begins trading water futures as a commodity.

farming

• 2-acre vertical farm out-produces 720-acre flat farm.

• How to lower the price of plant-based meat?

drones, robotics and ai

• Machine learning: the great stagnation.¹²

tools

• Your phone vs Supercomputers.

blockchain

• How I heat my home by mining crypto currencies.

• The Crypto-Chernobyl.¹³

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See you in Summer.

1. Suboptimal article of a relevant concept (with a suggestive naming). Article may be updated in the future.

2. More centrist view on the «Progressive Purge».

3. Concept that grew in relevance in recent years.

4. Updates Stock market and economy have parted ways. Same viewpoint but better articulated.

5. Relevant demographic and geopolitical movement. Open question: did Brexit precipitate it?

6. Independently of personal perspectives and beliefs, this concept is here to stay and a relevant “market mover” in contemporary politics.

7. Social media is a role-playing game. Odd example.

8. Interesting edge case of sustainable wandering lifestyle. This is not a sponsored link of any kind.

9. More broad view on «banks are tech companies now».

10. Interesting edge case. Profiting from bringing back old features instead of creating new ones.

11. Relevant solution. Will this become a trend?

12. Updates AI at late 2019. Similar viewpoint.

13. Updates In 2018 Bitcoin mining is consuming more electricity than 175 countries.