China’s ‘Social Credit’ is at home in the West

There was a recent piece of coverage by the Spectator on China’s new attempts to role out its Social Credit system in an effort to better manage its growing populace. I was shocked when listening to the journalists on a recent podcast on the topic discuss the advantages of the system and confess that because …

Word of the year ‘fake news’

Post Truth has been announced as the word of the year by the team behind the Oxford English Dictionary. Discussion around it mainly pertains to the idea that sentiments and emotions rather than ‘truth’ are now dictating the outcome of our political endeavours. This is often in reference to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton …

The Investigatory Powers Bill

There was a recent article circulated that sums up a troubling development in the UK. The Investigatory Powers Bill was recently passed into law legalising government behaviour in the UK that enables the government total invasive access into the online lives of everyone within its borders. The passing of this bill is troubling but what …

Interaction, imposition, individualism and technology

What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I …