EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Dangers Of Anthropomorphising A.I. Key Takeaway: Chatbots like ChatGPT have raised anxieties about machine sentience, but these worries are groundless as they are sophisticated sentence completion applications. They are a function of how predictable humans are when it comes to communication. The question of machine sentience is a red herring, as it is easy for people to anthropomorphize or […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY Is Web3 A Fad? Key Takeaway: Web3 is an alternative vision of the web where the services are purely algorithmic things hosted by everybody, and has been called “the hyperfinancialization of all human existence”. Data is no longer easily accessible, making it difficult for entrepreneurs to acquire more users, leading to a stagnant cycle. Web3 startups have focused on […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Future Of Taste Key Takeaway: In the past decade dining out has become a cultural touchstone and an essential form of entertainment. Gastronomy tourism continues to rise each year as people travel the world to seek out new dining experiences. After World War II, big shifts in transportation led to the emergence of new types of restaurants. TV, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CALLUM CONNECTS INTERVIEWS Mohamed Abdullah – CEO of Hobbs Holdings & the Owner of the Canadian 2 For 1 Pizza in Singapore This article was originally published here: Mohamed Abdullah – CEO of Hobbs Holdings & the Owner of the Canadian 2 For 1 Pizza in Singapore Despite having been serving his particular brand of pizza for 17 years, eating them with friends and family is still Mohamed Abdullah’s favourite way to unwind. What’s your story? My […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY How News Drives Economic Change News of a big pay rise might see you booking the nearest fancy restaurant for a slap-up meal to celebrate, or encourage you to go on a shopping spree even before your raise hits your bank account. Recent research shows that this is also essentially what happens on a wider economic scale when news breaks about future […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY Decentralized Autonomous Communities? The other day I heard Kim Stanley Robinson talk about The Ministry for the Future, his inspiring science fiction novel about tackling climate change and other huge societal challenges. I really like the book, even though I think “ministries” are the wrong direction. I believe that the energy needed to pull civilization back from the brink […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Retail Revolution In China China’s dominance in manufacturing has made it the factory of the world. The subsequent economic growth enriched an ever-expanding middle class, and the country’s retail industry has quickly adapted to supply a growing appetite for consumption. Some of these developments in the way people spend their money, powered by the latest technology, will soon be appearing on […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK What’s A Ghost Kitchen? While the phrase “ghost kitchen” may conjure up images of haunted houses, the reality is a bit more mundane. Ghost kitchens are food prep operations with no waiters, no dining room and no parking lot – really, no public presence whatsoever. But on food delivery apps, they’re alive and well. In short, ghost kitchens are physical […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
JOURNAL & RESEARCH POLITICS The Politics Of Intellectual Property Introduction: This Article argues that we need a politics, or perhaps a political economy, of intellectual property. Using the controversy over copyright on the Net as a case-study and the history of the environmental movement as a comparison, it offers a couple of modest proposals about what such a politics might look like — what theoretical […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
PSYCHOLOGY SOCIOLOGY ‘Bad News’ – A Psychological Vaccine Against ‘Fake News’ ‘Fake news’ and the manipulation of news media have become a fixture of the current political moment. Whereas, attempts have been made to regulate fake news and to direct internet users to more authoritative sources of information, these initiatives have also come under criticism for being overzealous and a break on press freedoms. In the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Makes Basquiat Special? Key Takeaway: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work highlights racial inequalities and the lack of representation of racialized people in the media, but also the violence suffered by African Americans. Jean-Michel Basquiat denounced the violence of cartoons, which he saw as a reflection of 20th-century American society. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting “Toxic” is an attempt to denounce a stereotypical […] Written by John Harbour March 15, 2023March 15, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why Did Signature Bank Fail? Key Takeaway: The failures of SVB and Signature Bank were caused by two major risks: interest rate risk and liquidity risk. Interest rate risk caused the market value of previously issued debt to plunge, especially for longer-dated debt. Liquidity risk is the risk that a bank won’t be able to meet its obligations without incurring […] Written by Vidhura Tennekoon March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Art Of Balding Balding is really common, affecting more than 50% of men. It’s also physically inconsequential (bald men live just as long as haired men). So why, in his memoir Spare, does Prince Harry refer to his brother’s baldness as “alarming”? As a social psychologist with a special interest in balding (and author of an upcoming book entitled Branding Baldness), […] Written by Glen Jankowski March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Evolutionary Origins Of Imagination Key Takeaway: Mammals evolved to hide out while cold-blooded dinosaurs hunted during the day, but had to eat a lot more food than dinosaurs per unit of weight to maintain their high metabolism and constant inner body temperature. Mammals developed a new system to efficiently memorize places where they’d found food, linking sensory aspects of […] Written by Empirics Asia February 28, 2023February 28, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Art Of Receiving Feedback Good feedback, whether you are on the receiving or giving end, requires an attitude of curiosity and openness. Intentionally creating space for feedbackcan help, but even with the right space, receiving feedback can be really scary. Many organizations have formal systems of feedback in the style of mid-year and annual reviews. And it’s not uncommon for informal continuous […] Written by Andrea Mignolo February 27, 2023February 27, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The World After Oil Key Takeaway: The production and consumption of fossil fuels is on the rise, and expected to peak within the next decade. To consider alternatives to oil, we need to be aware of the scale of its integration into our lives. Caleb Wellum, an assistant professor of U.S. history at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada, […] Written by Nehal El-Hadi February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Secret Chemistry Of Chocolates Key Takeaways: Chocolate has been around for at least 4,000 years, and is now a trillion-dollar global industry. It starts out as a dull-tasting bean, packed into a pod that grows on a cacao tree, and requires two key steps: fermentation and roasting. Roasting is an art form, with different temperatures and times producing different […] Written by Sheryl Barringer February 23, 2023February 23, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
