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…
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…
Robots for a $15 minimum wage
Robots for a $15 minimum wage. Help support the movement for our fellow androids by wearing this shirt and advocating for higher minimum wages to get us more jobs. Robots for a $15 minimum wage. Help support the movement for our fellow androids by wearing this shirt and advocating for higher minimum wages to get…
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…
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…
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…
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’,…
‘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…
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…
A Sole Flame Cast Against a Hall of Mirrors
By Yaël Ossowski | Devolution Review Being a sole flame cast against a hall of mirrors has always been an excitable affair. Customs and ordinary occurrences are strange and new. There’s a deep yearning for understanding the deeper meaning of each word, each syllable, and each dialect spoken from anyone’s mouth. Even if comprehension is…