You can see that the narratives public leaders share with their following have a massive impact in determining consequential behaviour. In the case of MAGA crusaders — it’s important to understand how earlier tactics of describing polls as a form of suppression led to a disgruntled fan base who started to believe that even the media are lying.

Trump spoke at the White House on the 6th of November, accusing “fake polls” of attempting to keep his voters at home. He called these polls “suppression polls”. …

In the fast-paced startup culture, Tony Hsieh stood out for his unique attitude and incredible values. He was a mentor to many young entrepreneurs and an internet icon for budding founders who wanted to embrace a unique purpose-driven life.

“The biggest (and hardest) lesson I’ve learned in life is that the external world is just a reflection of the world within.” — Tony Hsieh

Hsieh had incredible success in LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million in 1998. Then as the CEO of Zappos until 2020. …

Earlier this week I read a recent exclusive piece on the Guardian that caught my attention. The title read: “Call centre staff to be monitored via webcam for home-working ‘infractions’”. The article detailed how the company, Teleperformance, which employs around 380,000 staff in 34 countries, is using AI webcams to monitor staff while working from home.

The AI-enabled webcams scan for “infractions” like eating on the job, taking a toilet break without registering it, using your mobile phone and sitting idle. …

In my misplaced optimism, I felt like at least one benefit of Covid-19 was a shift in perspective about human productivity. I felt like we were all beginning to see each other as less robotic, more human. Humans with emotions, physical needs, copious amounts of stress and varying levels of wellbeing.

That was until I read that Teleperformance, which employs around 380,000 staff in 34 countries, was instituting specialist webcams to monitor staff while working from home. The AI-enabled webcam will scan for “infractions” such as eating on the job, taking a toilet break without registering it, using your mobile…

Working conditions in Amazon warehouses are horrendous. Amazon workers in the UK are forced to urinate in plastic bottles because they cannot go to the toilet on shift. The warehouses in the US have incredibly high rates of injury (three times the national average for warehouses). Amazon refuses to make reasonable adjustments for disabled workers. They have unrealistically high “productivity quotas”, where workers are forced to pack hundreds of boxes per hour, or face firing.

Amazon workers are monitored, supervised and fired by an algorithm.

Leaked Amazon documents reveal that: “Amazon’s system tracks the rates of each individual associate’s productivity, and automatically generates any warnings or terminations regarding quality or…

A few days ago I scrolled past a peculiar ad. I’m never sure what exactly the Instagram algorithm gods have in store for me, but here I was, staring into the void of what my micro-dosed brain could look like.

I fundamentally don’t like the idea that I am a little worker bee who needs to ingest psychedelics to increase my productivity (and thus increase the profit of whoever is hiring me). If I am not productive enough to keep up without psychedelics, then the system is flawed and my workload should decrease.

It reminded me that while I was…

When I saw Japan had announced $19 million to launch an “AI tinder”, my first thought was that this is a cosmetic, faddy solution to a wickedly deep problem.

I am confident that instead of wasting $19 million on an AI matchmaking program, using funds that were reserved for the “slumping birth-rate crisis”, we should would never assume that the reason women aren’t having more babies is that we aren’t meeting men. It’s because we don’t want them right now.

Please governments, stop getting caught up in the promise of what AI can offer, and realise that to fix sociological…

Lately, I’ve noticed that feeling of isolation which creeps slowly into your lockdown life. It bleeds in slowly at first, just into the corners, but then eventually paints the whole thing red. I was reflecting with a friend about how interacting with so few people has caused my perception of myself to shift.

I started to wonder, is being withdrawn from society always a challenge? Or can it change our stubborn perspectives, both on the world and the universe?

No one deals with the vastness of the universe and our small place in it more than astrophotographer, astronomer and astronomy…