Global Culture

The latest book from Benjamin R. Barber, “Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Shallow Citizens Whole” presents a timely critic to capitalism, not as an economic theory, but as a flag to incite mass consumption where there are no real needs. Barber explains about capitalism:
…in the beginning of capitalism — in [...]

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After finding inspiration in the insightful fiction from Bruce Sterling about our hyperlocal future I wrote in hyperlocal culture:
The mechanisms that will enable society to hyperlocalize, therefore allowing to grow stronger as a unique entity are still to be developed, but if the future is anything like his imagination suggests, we are going to [...]

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A few days ago I had a very stimulating conversation with a group of friends, each one sharing their account of recent travel abroad. While talking about Prague and Budapest evoked great memories, it was the story about cultural shock on a trip to India that had me fascinated. Was it not for [...]

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hyper as in linked, and local as in location
In a fascinating dispatch from the future, author Bruce Sterling brings us the ultimate global citizen: Harvey Feldspar, who as a modern Phileas Fogg describes his encounter with world cultures with the only difference that he does it from the year 2017.

If there is a lesson [...]

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Jorge from Catenary has a brilliant post about life as an immigrant:
Being an immigrant can be an alienating experience: you come to a strange city and you just take it for granted –you’re there but you could be anywhere, the city’s history is a blur, it’s just a place where you sleep, eat, and work, [...]

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One of my favorite sites, WorldChanging posted the article Can Migration Change the World? by Alex Steffen. I applaud the fact that migration is recognized as a force that can shape the world and lead positive change:
Maybe we need to start to rethink migration, not in the light of the discussions we’ve had in [...]

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Having a growing readership is very important to me. Knowing that people return to the blog after their first visit tells me the discussion continues to be relevant. The curse of technology is that there are many different metrics that attempt to provide an idea of how well a site is doing: pageviews, [...]

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