Posts

Going Bearish on Bitcoin: Cryptocurrencies are the tulip mania of the 21st century

By Yaël Ossowski | Devolution Review Admitting you’ve changed your mind is daunting. Even more so when you’ve poured money, time, and effort into promoting a particular cause and idea. For me, that time has come with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the promise of the underlying Blockchain technology. In the beginning, Bitcoin was something of a revolution to me. The digital currency represented everything from…

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Bitcoin Has Become About The Payday, Not Its Potential

Cryptocurrencies aren’t a store-of-value nor safe haven for anyone’s assets. They’re experiments. In the beginning, Bitcoin was something of a revolution to me. The digital currency represented everything from my rebellious youth. It was a decentralized, denationalized, and digital currency operating outside the traditional banking and governmental system. It used tools of cryptography and connected buyers and sellers across national borders at minimal transaction costs….

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What will be the legacy of the New South?

Once again, the eyes of the nation, and indeed the world, are transfixed on the tale of the American south. The dust of the violent and deadly clashes in the streets of the college town of Charlottesville between right-wing and left-wing fascists has settled and self-reflection has begun. For many around the world, the American south remains an odd place with many strange rituals and…

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The Innocents Abroad Episode 14: Ruled By Algorithms

On this episode, Todor and Yaël debate Man versus Machine. What happens when the machines take over? What about our simulated realities? Are we already taken over by algorithms? Are social networks actually expanding, or are we filtering them even more to cater to only specific interests and people? Plus, some thoughts on the dystopian nature of everything. https://www.recode.net/2017/7/15/15976744/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-regulations-ai https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q854v/elon-musk-simulated-universe-hypothesis https://www.facebook.com/donate/853885781427111/ 16. July 2017…

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Why Austria’s Millennial Minister Sebastian Kurz Could be Dangerous

By Yaël Ossowski | Metropole Magazine On Saturday, July 1st, in a muted and highly uncontested leadership election in Linz, Austria, 30-year-old Sebastian Kurz secured 98.7 percent of the vote to head the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) before October’s elections. A mere three days later, the headlines surrounding Kurz were far less flattering. A scandal surrounding a study on religious kindergartens was added to whispers…

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WHO’S REALLY ANTI‑SCIENCE?

Green NGOs are peddling dangerous junk science By Yaël Ossowski | spiked On Earth Day this year, in London and close to 600 other cities across the world, an estimated 1.1million people took to the streets to defend the idea of science-based policymaking. Protesters called for ‘science over ideology’, the use of ‘peer-review in politics’, and more scrupulous application of evidence-based criteria for laws and…

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‘Free’ EU roaming is great for travelers like me, but at the expense of everyone else

By Yaël Ossowski | PPE.life On my last train ride between Prague and Vienna, that twice weekly jaunt I’ve commandeered for the sake of studying economics, I put down my red wine and closed my half-finished Word document to check my phone’s signal and make a call. When I saw that I had left my Austrian mobile SIM card in my phone all day without…

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Austria’s millennial leader in waiting may surprise by embracing the far-right

By Yaël Ossowski  Last Saturday, in a muted and highly uncontested leadership election in Linz, Austria, 30-year-old Sebastian Kurz secured 98.7 percent of the vote to head the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) before October’s elections. Well-dressed and soft-spoken in a posh Viennese accent, the young Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration unveiled his platform and strategy for earning the conservatives a majority in the Parliament…

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