Blue and Yellow

Editor's Note

Hello from London!

Making sense of war and the awful events of the last few days has been difficult, to say the least. This is not a political newsletter but I feel compelled to consolidate some of my thoughts. Just as we edge away from Covid, another global disaster comes at us - democracy gets hit by aggression - in an act of force that we never really thought would happen. It reminds me of 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and we couldn't keep our eyes off the TV. Now, we can watch through a multitude of channels. In trying to understand the reasons for this attack, I think you will realise that ultimately sanctions and non-military measures will cripple the Russian economy but will affect the Russian people more so than the regime - but in the meantime it will also leave us to watch an invasion of Ukraine with multiple casualties and deaths. Either way, this is a betrayal of the Budapest memorandum and questions will be asked about why more wasn't and hasn't been done. This article helped me understand the basics - but there are so many angles to the story, the human one, a refugee crisis and, of course, a tech one.

Ukraine has called on the hacker underground to defend against Russia and Anonymous has joined the fight by taking down Russian government sites. There's also a question of Russian misinformation being spread on social media. However you look at it, this war reminds us why liberal democracy is worth defending. But it also begs the question - what is the best way to defend democracy if you have the threat of nuclear disaster? Finally, if you read one thing, I would read this translation of a heartfelt and defiant speech by the Ukrainian President. As I said, I'm no expert, but I hope the reading helps you understand where we are and what's at stake moreso than a minute-by-minute play-by-play. (If you're looking for quality coverage of the invasion Niemanlab has curated some excellent resources.)

Best Tech Newsletters

A bunch of newer subscribers asked me for sources and other newsletters I recommend. Here's a list of the Best Tech Newsletters from Technology Magazine...and here are some of my suggestions worth exploring:

Sources/Tools: Revue, Cronycle, Feedly, Pocket

Newsletters: This one!, Ben Evans, Stratechery, Exponential View, Emerging Tech Brew.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, more, and you can check out my long list if you want to go wider than just tech or try The Sample.

Stay Curious,

Onward! - Rahim

Must Reads

The metaverse is upon us. Soon it will be as omnipresent as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook (now Meta). As technology advances to bring us new immersive and imaginary worlds, how we educate children and prepare teachers must also advance to meet these new opportunities. When education lags the digital leaps, the technology rather than educators defines what counts as an educational opportunity. This is largely what happened with the introduction of “educational” apps designed to be used on smartphones and tablets meant for adults. Today, as the metaverse infrastructure is still under construction, researchers, educators, policymakers, and digital designers have a chance to lead the way rather than get caught in the undertow. To leverage the potential of the metaverse as a 3D, global, interconnected, immersive, and real-time online space, we need new ways to connect the physical world with augmented and virtual reality (VR) experiences. This report from Brookings is an interesting foray into how to envision education ten years from now. Also, Will the metaverse send education into a new dimension?

Meta, formerly Facebook, showed off a prototype of an AI world creation system that could power its "metaverse" Horizon virtual worlds. Meta is testing an artificial intelligence system that lets people build parts of virtual worlds by describing them, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off a prototype at a live event this week. Proof of the concept, called Builder Bot, could eventually draw more people into Meta’s Horizon “metaverse” virtual reality experiences. It could also advance creative AI tech that powers machine-generated art.

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Now

“Everything was a lie,” said one woman lured into a recent scam.Tho Vu spent nearly her entire life savings after being tricked by a crypto scammer posing as a man named Ze Zhao on the dating app Hinge. Crypto-level Tinder Swindler?

The pandemic didn’t bring us together, but it did show us what we need to change the most. Coverage from this issue feels like a retrospective of the last two years.

We might even say it's the default destination for most careers, if you can stay in one place long enough. If you don't change direction, in other words, you may end up where you're heading. But is that what you want?

Walk down a major street in Manhattan or Brooklyn today, and—wedged between a coffee shop and a FedEx shipping center—you might stumble across a storefront that looks, for all intents and purposes, empty.

Why are some people were happy in the second half of life and how can you make sure you enjoy those decades.

How are you feeling right now? Your brain has many jobs, but it's most important might be to answer this question.

Near

A lot of Web3 ideas seem to run directly into the existing legal system in complicated and sometimes very funny ways. The NFT world seems to have an impressionistic understanding of copyright law. DAOs, well, they aren’t actually recognized as legal entities in most states. So in a very technical sense, they can’t actually do anything in the real world. But all these things still exist, and at some point, the law will have to catch up.

So far, attempts at building the blockchain-integrated metaverse, an idea that has existed as dystopian sci-fi since the 90s but which NFT-hawkers and flailing tech CEOs have suddenly decided absolutely must happen right now, have been faltering.

Without fungi, the world as we know it would not exist. Humans have harnessed the molecular powers of fungi since the beginning of civilisation, turning wheat into bread and fruit into wine, and our lives are richer for it.

Ten words you need to know in 2022, adapted from the Future 100: 2022. Metasocieties: Growing virtual communities that nurture connection, collaboration and discovery.

End Note

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