Blog
We talk, we write, we share and we act. Here, we write, mostly on current tech policy issues.
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The lie at the heart of hopelessness
Most people I know are fighting severe anxiety about their individual and our collective future right now, struggling to picture a life worth planning. It is paralysing, also for me.…
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Is there a need for “AI” after capitalism?
Do we have a use for “AI” after capitalism? This question is – of course – more a rhetorical device than a genuine question. It serves as a starting point…
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Descale the internet! Why going against maximum scale does not scale at all
Economists love scale. Start-ups love scaling up (and so do investors). Politicians love large-scale, global stuff. And in all things digital, economies of scale are assumed to be a common…
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The politics of decentralization and the libertarian allure of Mastodon
I am currently reading the fabulous “Hayek’s Bastards” by Quinn Slobodian. It made me think about decentralisation in Mastodon (yes, the federated social network). And it made me think about…
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Cyberlibertarianism: deconstructing the tropes in all things digital
I devoured David Golumbia’s 400-page critique of cyberlibertarian digital discourse. Read. This. Book. In case you cannot (while I still recommend it!), I would like to highlight a few key…
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Intentional inefficiency as bureaucratic anti-fascism
Fascism is back. And Big Tech is its willing enabler. Both statements are hardly controversial. Both statements are also deeper related than widely accepted. This post explains how (digital) capitalism…
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On tech sovereignty – how to nail jelly to a tree
After briefly commenting on the EuroStack, politics have continued to escalate, warranting another, slightly longer post on the broader European perspective. What is the policy context, what kind of sovereignty…
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Solidarity beyond individual privacy and data protection
Progressive digital policy people are on the defensive. Europe has politically been shifting to the right. Border violence, authoritarian surveillance and commercialisation of data are threatening people that move to…
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The EuroStack – a critical appreciation
Many tech policy people are pondering the EuroStack proposed recently as a collaboration between Bertelsmann Stiftung and Francesca Bria. I would like to join the discussion with some observations; others…
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Illegal Instructions – at the 38c3
Hacking has always been political. This is why we went to the 38c3, the 38th annual congress of the Chaos Communication Club, in Hamburg. It is the largest hacker congress…