Category: opinion

DAVID BOWIE: A Reflection And Tribute

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

Today marks the 10th anniversary since David Bowie passed away. I still remember that day clearly. I was in South Africa watching the news on the TV and seeing the wealth of tributes. It was a shock. He kept everything very private. In fact, I was thinking of him just a few months before he died and I was wondering when he would, if ever, decide to go on tour again? His last world tour was more than a decade before that point and I foolishly turned down the chance to see him play at Wembley Arena back in 2003. 2003-4 would be the last time he properly toured and save for a few sporadic and brief live appearances, he would never tour again. 

Just a couple of days after he died on January 12th 2016, I wrote a piece entitled, “The Death Of David Bowie, The Future And 3D Printing”. This would also be my very first blog post for my newly established blog website that was originally called The Slider.  In this post I not only reflect just on David himself, but also the wider context of the future and new and emerging technological developments. For example, I talk about the concept of The Singularity and the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil’s prediction that in 2045 artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence. Back then the topic of AI was not on everybody’s lips like it is today.

And what has all this got to do with David Bowie, you may ask? For me, it is all very relevant when I think of him. Aside from being a great artist who changed the face of pop music and expanded the parameters regarding the possibilities of what being a mainstream pop artist can be, he also had remarkable prescience. As well as embracing and harassing change (as opposed to fighting it), he had a unique ability to see far into the future and had a pioneering spirit. A great example of this is his interview with Jeremy Paxman from 1999. Back then we were still in its early days of the evolution of the internet. There was a lot of excitement and hype over the internet. Naturally, there were believers and sceptics. The doubting Thomases saw the internet as just a fad whereas the believers saw the net’s huge potential. Bowie was definitely in the latter camp, but he wasn’t a blind and blinkered believer. He was one of the first artists to release his own music online and he saw the great possibilities of the internet and how it would shape our lives. Yet he could also foresee the negative impacts it would have on humanity. In the interview, Paxman remarks that the internet is “just a tool”, although I suspect he may have been playing devil’s advocate and trying to gauge Bowie’s response.

It is a popular theory to say that Bowie planned his death all along and that he checked out at the perfect time before the whole world turned to custard. It is a compelling theory, but I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it, because I firmly believe that Bowie loved life for all its ups and downs. Yes, he may have been highly secretive about his illness and meticulously planned his final album, but if he had the chance he would have given anything to live longer on this planet. In fact, I recall reading somewhere after he died that one of the things that made him the most sad about knowing that he was going to go so soon was knowing that he wouldn’t be around to see his young daughter grow. Moreover, I also seem to remember reading a tweet by his son Duncan, a few years after his death, where he said that if only David had not smoked so much throughout most of his life there would have been a good chance he would still be around. So no, I am not one of those folk who thinks that he “died at the right time”. 

On the day he passed away and the days after his death, I watched people who grew up with Bowie as far back as those Ziggy Stardust days being absolutely heartbroken; as if they had lost a beloved soulmate. I was very shocked and saddened when he died. I love his music and spent a lot of time listening to his records. However, I did not grow up with his music from the early days of his career. It was the Ziggy Stardust period that was the tipping point and that finally turned him into a star after several years of struggling and false dawns. Those veteran fans remember when Bowie appeared on Top Of The Pops in the early 70s playing his song Starman with a blue guitar. For them, it was like witnessing some exotic and androgynous extra-terrestrial being. In those days long before the internet, social media and hyperconnectivity, witnessing this on the TV was exciting and a blast of colour in a colourless world. Throughout most of the 70s Bowie was firing on all cylinders creatively and almost every album he released during this period was excellent. He took risks and never rested on his laurels like some of his glam rock contemporaries and he knew when the time was right to wrap up the Ziggy phase of his music career. 

Sometimes I ask myself, if Bowie were starting out today would he strive to make it as a pop star or even go into the arts full stop? Personally, I feel that he was more than just a pop star and he didn’t have all his huevos in one basket. I think one of the most important things to deduce about him, as I already explained earlier, is that he had a pioneering spirit. He embraced change and new and emerging landscapes. He was terminally curious and open minded. When Bowie’s career first really took off in the early 70s, the music industry was still growing and there was still a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of creative musical experimentation and what could be achieved. Even though there were wild and unconventional musicians that existed before Bowie first emerged, one could argue that Bowie was the first mainstream pop star who created the template for all future popstars regarding what they could be. Thus in the same way that The Beatles were probably the most influential band of all time, it would not be unreasonable to argue that David Bowie was the most influential pop star of all time. 

By Nicholas Peart

10th January 2026

©All Rights Reserved  

The End Of Free Content

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

There is seldom a day that passes when I trawl through the feeds of my social media accounts and stumble upon an article or post that laments the current state of affairs for many individuals in the creative/media industry. It is true, especially in the last 15 years, that many writers, journalists, musicians, songwriters etc have had a rough time. The internet, since it’s mainstream adoption almost 30 years ago, has had a colossal effect on this industry.

The emergence of the music file sharing site Napster at the end of the 90s was the first real taste of the seismic effects that the internet would have on the music industry in the coming years since this platform was first unleashed onto the world. Yet, even back then, very few people were able to foresee the long term effects. The internet and technology were moving at an exponential rate and much of the music industry was slow to adapt. In fact, some of the large record labels decided to fight those early disruptive file sharing platforms rather than to evolve and try to stay ahead of the curve.

In the past, bands and artists were able to make a comfortable living on their physical record sales alone. The most successful bands and artists sold records in the millions. Today, the internet has completely taken a sledge hammer to this business model. It is now very easy to listen to most music for free. In the past 10-15 years, streaming platforms such as Spotify have emerged where for a monthly subscription fee one has access to vast libraries of music both old and new. Unfortunately, for the musicians, even a substantial amount of listens does not generate anywhere near the same income like back when people actually bought records. There is the option to purchase or download a song or album, but against options like Spotify and You Tube, nowhere near enough people consume music via this route making it very hard for musicians to make a decent living just via their songs alone.

The internet and digitisation of the printing presses have also had a corrosive effect on the incomes of many writers and journalists. Now many people can create a website and start a blog to share their own articles and written content. Print sales of newspapers have been in decline and the revenues from digital subscription sales falls short of revenue numbers for physical sales from years gone by.

However, I don’t think the current status quo of oceans of free content will continue. In the coming years we will see artificial intelligence (AI) play an increasing role in the way we live our lives. I have been fascinated by the development of AI for over ten years now, yet it’s only been in the last few years that it has really entered the public consciousness and everyone seems to be talking about it. Yet, despite this, most people are understandably very worried about the development of AI and see an almost dystopian future ahead.

I am going to throw my hat in the ring here and say that AI will benefit humanity and lead to a much better world. In the context of the creative industries, I think AI will be on the side of the creators. In my view, I think that as AI continues to improve it will get to the stage where it will be able to do most tasks better than humans can. As the internet further evolves, I can see the net also being policed around the clock by increasingly sophisticated AI. This will be a very good thing as it will lead to a crackdown on all the toxic and nefarious forces of the net. Currently, the internet is a very messy place, but AI will do a remarkable job of cleaning it up and protecting users from the dangerous aspects of it, making it very hard for unsuspecting users to fall victim to fraud, deception, undesirable entities etc.

Ever since the internet first became mainstream, it has, for the most part, been a free wheeling and wild west place and many government bodies and authorities have been slow to keep up with it. However, with AI, I expect in the coming years that the internet will be much more regulated and less of an uncontrolled wild west space. The implications of this will be lots of new legislation created and passed and also applications put into place, which protect internet users.

I think when all this is finally realised, it will have a huge effect on the way we consume content. Suddenly, almost all content will not be free any more. It will not be possible to listen to a song for free or read an article for free like we currently do. To listen to just one song or read just one article, you will have to make a payment in advance. The super strong and sophisticated AI that now controls the internet will mean that there is no other way around those rules. It will be impossible to fight these AI safeguards. Today, free content is taken for granted, but it won’t always be like this and people will eventually have no other choice, but to accept this new reality. I would go as far as saying that people will and with it their values will change. They will begin to fully appreciate what they are consuming and they will be happy to pay for it.

Musicians and writers will be able to make a decent living again through their art. Popular streaming services like Spotify will be doomed if they don’t change their business model. I envisage that if they want to survive they will have to go down the same route as Apple and offer music as a download service where the consumer pays for each downloaded song and album rather than a flat monthly fee for an unlimited tap of music. Furthermore, AI will provide much of the traditional print media with a new financial bonanza. Many news sites have been struggling with the decline of print sales and falling ad revenues. Subscription revenues have been meagre by comparison. However, when people start paying per article I think that there is a good chance that revenues will cease to decline.

Contrary to much of the prevailing narrative that AI will only further increase the hardships of musicians and writers, I think AI will financially enrich them. Back in the beginning of 2022, I wrote an article entitled, ‘The Future Could Be Very Bright For Song Rights’. At the time that the article was written, many musicians were selling the rights to their songs. Some, like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, for vast sums of money. However, despite all this, I was stressing the importance for musicians to think twice before parting with their song rights – even with lots of money involved. You see, it is very likely that AI will open up many new income streams for song rights. The big labels also foresee this, which is why they have been very active buying up all the song rights they can get their hands on. They see these huge new potential money fountains that AI will give birth to for song rights and they are acting now before it becomes a reality.

It is increasingly likely that at some point over the coming years, many musicians will deeply regret that they sold the rights to their songs. At the time they probably thought that they were making the right decision, especially given the precarious and fragile state of the music industry and their natural concern that it will continue to get worse. Recently, Queen sold it’s entire music catalogue to Sony for over $1 billion. A monumental sum of money. However, there is a good chance that over the next ten years, the value of Queen’s back catalogue swells to $5-10 billion. If this were to happen it would become prohibitively expensive for any of the surviving members of the band or members of their family to buy back those rights. This is something to consider for those tempted to sell their song rights at this stage in their career.

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved

8th August 2024

Image: Larisa Koshkina

The Next Fifteen Years

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

When I look back on the last 15 years going back all the way to the beginning of 2009 and the aftermath of the 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis, it is clear that this has been a difficult and rocky period for humanity as a whole. In some ways it feels like many people have still not fully recovered from this crisis. There are so many people who are still struggling and with that there’s a palpable sense of tension and discontent. 

In the UK, for example, the early years since the financial crisis were marked by government funding cuts and austerity. Most notably, university tuition fees were tripled. The last fifteen years for young people, especially, have been very tough. As the years progressed we saw the emergence of politicians from the more extreme ends of the spectrum come more to the fore; reflecting this discontent. 

Economically, the last 15 years have been a disaster for many people. For over a decade, from 2009-21, the main central banks such as the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the ECB, etc, kept interest rates at near zero percent. The effect of this has been very real. When interest rates are at rock bottom levels, prudence is thrown to the wind. There is no incentive to save money (as it yields no interest) and only encourages rampant speculation and risk taking. And this is what happened during this period. Asset prices for property and many stocks and securities went to the moon. Also, due to interest rates being so low for such a long time, debt levels exploded. During this time frame, total US government debt went from just over $11 trillion at the beginning of 2009 to almost $30 trillion at the end of 2021. As I write this US government debt is now over $33 trillion. Furthermore, average US house prices doubled and the S&P 500 index increased more than 5 times in value. Meanwhile, during this time average wage growth was relatively flat. 

Keeping interest rates at such low levels for over a decade has been very damaging for society as a whole. The huge inflation in asset prices, far eclipsing income growth, has not been a good thing. This is certainly true for most of the younger generation where the possibility of owning a home is now very remote. But it isn’t just younger people who are hurting. This prolonged period of Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) has resulted in a level of inequality not seen since 1929 just before the great stock market boom of the Roaring Twenties collapsed and led to the 1930s Depression and a lengthy period of unrest and stagnation. 

Globally, it feels like the recent 2020-21 COVID pandemic was this monumental event to manifest during this difficult 15 year period pushing an already hurting population even further into the abyss. It was almost like the punishing final act.

In my view, I believe that we are now at a stage where we have reached a major turning point in economic history. Looking beyond the last 15 years, I think we are now at a moment in time where the wheels of this era of neoliberalism that has prevailed since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were in power are slowly coming off. This epoch is coming to an end. 

What Will The Next 15 Years Bring?

I envisage that the next 15 years is going to be a period of enormous societal and economic changes. The current status quo and core orthodox beliefs of today are going to be turned upside down. This will be an incredibly disruptive time, but ultimately I truly think that it will be beneficial for all of humanity. If I had to compare this forthcoming period to a period in history, I believe that what we are about to experience will be similar to what happened during the French Revolution and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution as well as the Reformation more than 200 years before those two events. 

The Industrial Revolution was a time of unprecedented change through game changing innovations that radically transformed the lives of society. Yet in the beginning, at least, some of these inventions were met with fierce resistance from a population worried that such inventions were destroying their livelihoods. However, these inventions created new opportunities and new types of work. Before the Industrial Revolution, large swathes of society, especially those not born into aristocracy, worked gruelling and extremely long hours without the aid of any industrial production units that today are taken for granted. 

The French Revolution occurred around the same time as the Industrial Revolution was already getting going. It was a seismic period in history that completely altered the status quo in French society that prevailed for too long. Before the French Revolution, France had a feudal estate based system where society was divided into three estates; the First Estate (made up of the clergy), the Second Estate (made up of the French nobility), and the Third Estate (made up of “commoners”). The Third Estate comprised over 98% of French society that were not part of the clergy or nobility with next to no chance of improving their lot. Basically, if you were not born into money or privilege you were trapped. The Revolution was a violent and bloody event in world history, but it ultimately transformed French society for the better creating a much fairer and more progressive society. 

On that same note, I think that during the next 15 years we are going to experience something similar to those years towards the end of the 18th century. We will see many groundbreaking innovations just like during the Industrial Revolution. There will be new and emerging technologies and inventions that will be met with resistance and in some cases with violence by some sections of the global population. However, ultimately, this will all be hugely beneficial for all of society. As a specific example, let’s focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI). This technology has been around for some time, but recently it is being increasingly discussed and there is now a lot of hype around it. Yet there is no denying that this is a powerful technology that doesn’t stand still. People are right to be fearful and concerned by this technology, but I find that a lot of people are looking at it all too myopically. The very real possibility that it will eventually have the power and skills to do any kind of job that a human can do should be embraced. I actually think that AI will make the world a much better place. It will vastly reduce or even eliminate global poverty and will also negate the need for people to work. By this point I don’t even think that we will have an economic model based on Capitalism any more. In an earlier article I wrote back in 2019 entitled, THE TRUE SINGULARITY: A Universe Of Unlimited Abundance And Eternal Harmony, I stated how there would eventually be a “Post-Scarcity” economy of unlimited abundance facilitated by the exponential growth and development of new and emerging technologies like AI, 3D/4D Printing, nanotechnology, etc. Such a “Post-Scarcity” economy of abundance would negate the need for and nullify all the previous economic and ideological models of the past. 

I also believe that the political leaders of the next 15 years, compared with the last 15 years, will be of a much more enlightened breed who have more empathy and more of a human touch. They will be less self-serving and less career driven. They will encourage and support new and emerging technologies whilst making sure that everyone benefits. This culture of greed, Silicon Valley mega riches and extreme wealth inequality that has prevailed for far too long will become a thing of the past within the next 15 years. 

In the last 8 years, we have already had a taste of the discontent that many feel. Of those who feel neglected, marginalised and struggling economically amidst an unprecedented level of wealth inequality vote for more radical leaders. There is a sense that the current system and status quo is just not working any more for increasing swathes of the population. As long as the can of the current system continues to be kicked down the road, the more unrest and distrust there will continue to be. This is why I foresee in the coming years an event similar to the French Revolution. It will be an ugly, violent and potentially dangerous and unstable time, but it will also result in much needed changes that will lead to a better and more stable world. It will also create a society with a completely new set of values and core beliefs. And I would even go as far as saying that we will all be much more enlightened and more caring and altruistic as a society. I very much believe, as unrealistic as it may currently seem, that this is the new kind of world that will exist in the next 15 years and it will be a much better world than this existing one. 

Nicholas Peart

16th January 2024

©All Rights Reserved 

Image: Pexels

Searching For Honesty In Financial Markets And Why Short Sellers Should Not Be Demonised

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

Today, I think there are too many people dabbling in the stock market and investing in highly speculative assets. Despite the cratering in stock prices in 2022 and the very brief crash in 2020, we are still in one of the longest bull markets of all time that began in 2009.

But whether we are in a bull market or not, I am still blown away by the valuations of many stocks and other assets and the sheer amount of dumb money still in the market. Over three years ago, the well known short seller Jim Chanos commented that, ‘We are in the golden age of fraud’. In an interview with the Financial Times from July 2020, Chanos commented on the market environment at the time as; “a really fertile field for people to play fast and loose with the truth, and for corporate wrongdoers to get away with it for a long time”. He further expands on this by getting to the root of how such an environment was created;

‘ a 10-year bull market driven by central bank intervention; a level of retail participation in the markets reminiscent of the end of the dotcom boom; Trumpian “post-truth in politics, where my facts are your fake news”; and Silicon Valley’s “fake it until you make it” culture, which is compounded by Fomo — the fear of missing out. All of this is exacerbated by lax oversight. Financial regulators and law enforcement, he says, “are the financial archaeologists — they will tell you after the company has collapsed what the problem was“. ‘

In this paragraph Chanos nails beautifully the problem not just with the present state of financial markets and the industry as a whole, but with the current zeitgeist. The post truth world of ‘my facts are your fake news’ where real truth and wisdom has been forsaken is a real problem and dangerous. The Silicon Valley “fake it until you make it” culture has been exacerbated by the huge tail wind of a decade plus of zero percent interest rates and mountains of cheap and easy money. Such a background of very loose monetary policy has enabled many startups and companies with shoddy fundamentals that should have gone bust a long time ago to remain a going concern and in some cases even thrive with massively bloated market valuations. During this time wild levels of risk taking and speculation are rampant resulting in highly distorted and inefficient markets. Huge bubbles in highly dubious securities emerge with many dishonest charlatans with large followings on social media pumping these garbage entities to naive and unsuspecting investors. When the bubble eventually bursts it is those same impressionable investors who are left holding the bag. In the worst cases, some bet with money they didn’t have and couldn’t afford to lose. These incidents are especially common in the cryptocurrencies space and also for so called meme stocks – stocks made popular by a large following on social media. Often these stocks have market valuations completely divorced from their true intrinsic value. In some cases these companies should be insolvent, but are kept going by a zealous cult like following of investors happy to pay any price without questioning the fundamentals and integrity of the companies.

Short sellers often get a bad rep. In some cases this is justified. There are indeed short sellers who are nefarious and have a vulture-like mindset. However, there are those like Jim Chanos who play a very crucial role in the markets by searching for companies that are committing fraud and lying to investors. And they are often onto those companies at a very early stage way before the financial regulators get involved. As Chanos comically states, these regulators ‘will tell you after the company has collapsed what the problem was‘.

Chanos is famous for his large bet against Enron. At the time it was a darling stock and very popular with investors, but Chanos after having undertaken a deep fundamental analysis on the stock realised that the company was cooking its books and that at some point this would land the company in serious trouble. Whilst numerous financial commentators would be speaking glowingly and talking up the stock, Chanos, however, knew that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. The financial regulators were asleep at the wheel only acting after the fact.

Today we are still living in the golden age of fraud. Despite the 2022 wobble in equity prices and inflation spikes and rapid increases in interest rates, there are still too many investors playing foolish games who haven’t learnt their lesson. There are still zombie companies and entities trading on eye watering market valuations and worse, companies still trading at huge valuations that are committing fraud and the financial regulators continue to do next to nothing. This is precisely why short sellers like Jim Chanos should not be vilified. In fact, quite the opposite. They should be revered and respected. They search for honesty in the markets, pointing out the bad actors and the companies engaging in crooked behaviour. And I have no problem when they make money. Even when they make a lot of money. It is much easier to go long on a stock than it is to go short. Short selling is a difficult and highly risky venture. Even if you have spotted a company engaging in fraud and other egregious activity, the difficulty is getting the timing right when betting against it. The market valuation of the company may continue to remain irrationally high for a very long time creating huge losses for those that chose to bet against it. Short selling can be a very lonely path and often a financially ruinous one too.

Nicholas Peart

January 3rd 2024

(c)All Rights Reserved

LINKS:

Financial Time article: Jim Chanos: ‘We are in the golden age of fraud’ July 24th 2020 (https://www.ft.com/content/ccb46309-bba4-4fb7-b3fa-ecb17ea0e9cf)

Image: https://pixabay.com/photos/reading-glasses-book-read-4330761/

The Anti-Tourist

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

According to the writer Daniel Kalder;

‘As the world has become smaller so its wonders have diminished. There is nothing amazing about the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, or the Pyramids of Egypt. They are as banal and familiar as the face of a Cornflakes Packet.’

He further embellished on this via the following decrees originally established at the Shymkent Hotel in Shymkent, Kazakhstan on October 1999 as part of the so-called ‘first international congress of Anti- Tourists’;

The duty of the traveller therefore is to open up new zones of experience. In our over
explored world these must of necessity be wastelands, black holes, and grim urban
blackspots: all the places which, ordinarily, people choose to avoid.

The only true voyagers, therefore, are anti- tourists. Following this logic we declare that:

The anti-tourist does not visit places that are in any way desirable.

The anti-tourist eschews comfort.

The anti-tourist embraces hunger and hallucinations and shit hotels.

The anti-tourist seeks locked doors and demolished buildings.

The anti-tourist scorns the bluster and bravado of the daredevil, who attempts to penetrate danger zones such as Afghanistan. The only thing that lies behind this is vanity and a desire to brag.

The anti-tourist travels at the wrong time of year.

The anti-tourist prefers dead things to living ones.

The anti-tourist is humble and seeks invisibility.

The anti-tourist is interested only in hidden histories, in delightful obscurities, in bad art.

The anti-tourist believes beauty is in the street.

The anti-tourist holds that whatever travel does, it rarely broadens the mind.

The anti-tourist values disorientation over enlightenment.

The anti-tourist loves truth, but he is also partial to lies. Especially his own.

Considering these resolutions were written a little more than 20 years ago, I wonder what Kalder would make of travelling today? In 1999, the internet was barely a few years old. Back then, households that had an internet connection had a slow dail-up connection. There was no broadband and neither were there smartphones. 1999 seems rather ancient compared to the world today in the context of the exponential growth of global digital connectivity.

The world today is much more globalised than the world of 1999. A consequence of this has been even more demand to visit the worlds ‘wonders’ be it the Taj Mahal or the Great Wall of China or cities such as Venice and Florence. The ‘very desirable’ places that the so called anti-tourist snubs.

Then again, on the other hand, such wonders are an important part of the history of a country regardless of whether they are popular or not. Most visitors to India visit the Taj Mahal yet the Taj Mahal is an important part of the history of the Mughal Empire. Indian history is fascinating and one of the best documenters and narrators of this history is the writer and historian William Dalrymple. Dalrymple is a black belt regarding the history of the Indian subcontinent and has a deep passion and interest for that part of the world. So much so that he has lived in India for over 35 years. What this means is that this goes beyond any labels or identity. Dalrymple is neither a tourist nor an anti-tourist. Traveller or dilettante. He is simply someone who loves the subcontinent and dedicates a substantial chunk of their time to writing, educating, reading and learning about it.

When I think of my very first trip to India, I did a lot of the typical tourist things. I visited the Taj Mahal in Agra, I visited all the well trodden places in Goa and went on popular tours. Yet I also, unwittingly, did a lot of anti-tourist activities. I stayed in some of the cheapest and most unsavoury guesthouses I could find. I ate street food at rock bottom prices. I developed a habit of roaming the streets of the more down and out parts of the cities I visited. I didn’t document any of this neither did I really brag about them. I had no digital social media accounts at the time and I never kept a physical journal. Friends and family would ask me if I was writing about my trip, but I had no desire to. It wasn’t indolence. I suppose I was adrift in multiple intangible fleeting experiences and frequent moments of disorientation and I had no inclination to hole myself in my threadbare guesthouse room to put it all down to paper. People often talk about ‘finding one-self’ or ‘becoming enlightened’, but I wanted to get away from myself. In at least a semi-masochistic way, I revelled in my anonymity and frequent discomfort.

Every time I spoke to a tourist who expressed an interest to visit Brazil they would invariably say that they wanted to visit Brazil during Carnaval and specifically visit the city of Rio De Janeiro. In my mind I would say to myself, ‘I would like to visit Brazil anytime except during Carnaval.’  During this period, especially in Rio, accommodation prices go through the roof, many parts of the cities become unbearably overcrowded and the levels of crime spiral out of control. Rio is already a dangerous enough city at night, do I really want to visit it when it becomes even more dangerous? Nao obrigado!

Staying on the subject of Brazil, one popular activity many backpackers undertake when they visit Rio is a ‘favela tour’. Favelas are slums located on the the outskirts of cities in Brazil. Rio has a much higher proportion of them compared with other cities in Brazil owing both to the layout of the city and the extreme inequalities of wealth. Even the richest neighbourhoods in Rio seem to be just a stone’s throw away from one. I think the popularity of such tours is down to the belief that backpackers think they are doing something ‘edgy’ and ‘non-touristy’. Yet the irony is, considering the relatively recent popularity of such tours, they are anything but. It may be considered ‘anti-tourism’ on the surface and such activities do conform to Kalder’s resolution; ‘The anti-tourist does not visit places that are in any way desirable’. There is nothing desirable about these favelas. Yet neither is it clever or cool to visit such places which are downright dangerous. Also most of the people that go on such tours do so to brag and get a so-called one-upmanship over other travellers. The anti-tourist would never brag or boast about such things. Furthermore, there’s no danger during these tours since you are always accompanied with protection just in case anything does flare up. My Brazilian friend Carlos finds it comical that such tours exist; ‘Why would any tourist want to pay to visit a favela? Anyone who lives in a favela wants to pay to get out!’

There are other tours with anti-tourist themes. They could be ‘street tours’, tours to visit abandoned buildings or tours to visit derelict and defunct places destroyed by war. When I visited Bosnia a few years ago I went on a tour in the capital, Sarajevo. The city was under siege for three years from 1992-95. It was a fascinating tour and I dont regret doing it. Our guide lived through this terrible period and almost died at one point during the conflict. It would be pathetic and poor form of me to categorise it as a tourist or anti-tourist experience. I don’t wish to plunge to such low depths.

I guess the bottom line is that the anti-tourist does not purposefully try to be an anti-tourist. The anti-tourist is not aware that they are an anti-tourist. It is almost like a hardwired way of life with no underlying agenda or anything to prove. We seldom ever hear about such people, because they have no desire for notoriety. They prefer to remain invisible and anonymous.

Calling oneself an ‘anti-tourist’ is missing the point completely.

 

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved  

 

Image: something-interesting.com

REFERENCES:

http://www.danielkalder.com/antitourism.html

The Future Of Tech, Work, Education and Living Post COVID-19

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

This year’s COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive in many areas of our lives. As I type this article, there have been statistically nearly 5.5 million cases and almost 350,000 deaths from this pandemic around the world. In addition to the toll this virus has taken on peoples’ lives, there have been grave economic ramifications. Many businesses and industries have been hit hard and as a consequence millions of people have either lost their jobs or have had to take a pay cut.

The unstoppable growth of the internet over the last 20 years has had a profound effect on our lives. It could already be said that we live in both the physical world and the virtual world. Yet during the lockdown period of the last several weeks, we have been spending considerably more time in the latter world. The growth of the internet has already had a noticeable effect on the physical high street as more people do their shopping online. Yet, the lockdown restrictions, at times, have given people no choice, but to buy almost all their groceries online thus increasing greatly the rate of e-commerce transactions. We have also been interacting much more with other people virtually, both for work and pleasure. And as educational institutions remain shut, or at least severely restricted, we have been doing a lot more learning online.

In an article I wrote back in 2017, I discussed new and emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and how they could change people lives, especially in the areas of education. As students are still currently unable to physically go to university and attend lectures, much of their courses and lectures are now online. In my 2017 article, I discussed how via VR technology one could be completely immersed in a setting and interact with it from anywhere with an internet connection. The education industry has long needed such a change. One of the biggest current problems facing young people is the unbelievably high costs of going to university. By the time they have graduated, they are saddled with staggering sums of debt. Yet I have long felt that it doesn’t always have to be that way and that given time, technology would soon provide a much needed solution to this issue. Even though I went to university and got my degree many years ago, I find that a lot of all the most recent knowledge I have gained has been via content online. I, of course, also supplement this knowledge with books in both physical and digital form. There is so much free and good quality educational content out there on the web. And I am also happy to pay for exceptional online resources too. Yet the total amount of money I pay is still far less than what I would pay going to universities, where tuition fees in the UK are currently still over £9k per year.

In an earlier article from 2016, I discuss how VR could potentially change all aspects of our lives, not just within the realms of education. During the lockdown period, the video communications app Zoom has taken off in a big way. Zoom has been the default option for not just video calls between family and friends, but also for remote working and playing. By the latter, I mean having a kind of ‘virtual night out’. Rather than physically going out to a bar or club with friends, Zoom has been used as a virtual platform for replicating a physical night out. VR and AR are both powerful emerging technologies and now is the perfect time for them to be harnessed to a greater level. Interacting via Zoom is still a 2D experience, yet VR and AR have the potential to make this a more immersive 3D experience. This would reduce the chasm greatly between the physical and virtual worlds.

There is no question that remote work will continue to grow and these new and emerging technologies will accelerate this growth. Yet will traditional office spaces be made completely redundant? It is tempting to go down this route and its currently all the rage to have the belief that this virus will make the traditional office space obsolete as an increasing number of workers find the option of remote work to be more appealing and perfectly feasible. To be clear, as I already stated, there is no doubt in my mind that remote/virtual work will grow, yet I think it’s at this stage too premature to say that the traditional physical office environment is dead. Even if technology develops exponentially, we are still, fundamentally, organic human beings and creatures of emotion more than logic. As long as we remain 100% organic human beings, we will still long for that human touch and physical interaction. I think to completely 100% forsake the physical world for the virtual world, we will need to physically merge with technology. I am with the futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil on his prediction for the coming Singularity in 2045 when Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be at the same level as human intelligence. This will be, arguably, the most significant event in human history and I will never bet against the infinite potential of AI. If software is currently eating the world, soon it will be AI. Yet as AI becomes further developed, the options for us to merge with technology will also arrive. AI, rather than posing an existential threat, I believe, will make our lives easier and more comfortable. What’s more, it will also enhance our lives and enable us to reach our fullest potential.

Going back to the topic of post COVID living, could the development of cities/urban spaces be affected? What if there was a growing trend whereby there was an increasing migration from cities to more rural areas? For some time, as technology improved – more specifically; internet speeds and bandwidth improved further – there has been already to a small degree such a trend. You can go and live in the remotest part of the country, but if you have access to a high speed internet connection over there, then you have full sophisticated access to the virtual world no different to that in a big city no matter how remote the physical environment may be. Yet will there ever be a complete deurbanisation type of migration where the physical location of people is much more fragmented? If such a migration were to happen in the near future and we are still 100% organic beings, we will be incredibly reliant on the virtual world and by extension the cell towers connected to our internet providers. Even if SpaceX, via its Starlink project, intends to beam super-fast satellite internet on all corners of the world in the next few years, for now we are still reliant on onshore cell towers as the source of the internet. This is quite a fragile situation, as any disruption to these cell towers disrupts the internet itself and thus a great chunk of our lives. We become instantly irritated with slow internet speeds let alone having no internet. It is amazing how dependent on the internet most of the world is. The cells towers providing the internet are powered by electricity and electricity is powered by energy from both renewable and non-renewable sources. In spite of all the technological advances since the first Industrial Revolution, we have still not found a permanent and workable solution to the long standing energy problem, that is, how do we generate an abundant and unlimited supply of energy for every corner of the world without having to tap into any non-renewable sources?

I sometimes feel that I overestimate the speed of technological development. Earlier in the last decade,  I thought that within the next few years (now), every household would have a 3D printer and the smartphone would be replaced by some form of smart-glasses with fully integrated and advanced VR and AR technologies. This has simply not happened. Even if these technologies may be available in some shape or form, we still use smartphones. The smartphones of today may be more sophisticated than the smartphones of just a few years ago, but they are still smartphones. Our interaction with the virtual world remains a 2-D experience. This is why I feel that in order for us to live completely in the virtual world with little to no living in the physical world, we have to adopt some form of transhumanism where our minds and bodies are fully integrated with technology.

Going back to the economic ramifications of the current COVID-19 pandemic, I wonder whether, at least in the short to medium term, the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) may become more widely adopted? Already technology has been automating many menial and repetitive jobs that has resulted not only in vast swathes of people losing their jobs, but also in these same people being ‘left behind’ as technology marches on. This is a serious concern as such people become naturally angry and turn to political parties and figures who echo and amplify their frustrations rather than turn to transformative solutions. The virus has hit hard industries requiring a constant physical presence. Some of these industries that have been hit hard such as, for example, the physical high street retail industry, has long already been affected by the growth of the internet. This virus has almost been like the final nail in the coffin.

Technology never stands still and the number of people using the internet will only keep growing. If you look at the S&P 500 (the top 500 companies) you will see that the biggest companies today are all technology companies. My concern however is with the demise of all these low skilled repetitive jobs. Although I personally think that a lot of these jobs are time wasting jobs (and time is an increasingly scarce and valuable asset), which offer no spiritual or intellectual nourishment, many people are employed in such jobs and depend on the income for their survival. If such jobs disappeared on an even greater scale and the people employed in these jobs had little or few alternative skills for other jobs, how will they survive? I hear a lot of emphasis on ‘learning to code’. Whilst computer programming is very useful and currently provides a lot of employment opportunities, who’s to say that such jobs also won’t get disrupted? Furthermore, why would anyone want to learn something purely for the ’employment opportunities’ it will bring? Surely one would learn computer programming, because there are interested and fascinated by it? Learning it just purely to make money seems very flawed and short sighted to me. If we want to continue to live in a capitalist economy then a Universal Basic Income may have to become more widely adopted. Otherwise the alternative is a socialist economy. I do in the long run, however, believe that we will enter a brand new kind of post-scarcity and post-work environment of abundance created by exponential technological innovations. This would transcend any economic model of the past. I wrote about this in greater depth in my article from last year entitled ‘THE TRUE SINGULARITY: A Universe Of Unlimited Abundance And Eternal Harmony’. This kind of vision for the future is also outlined very clearly in the excellent 2011 book by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler ‘Abundance’. Yet in order for this to become a closer reality, we also cannot take technological development for granted. One of the early internet pioneers and entrepreneurs, Marc Andreessen, wrote a recent article entitled ‘Its Time To Build’ talking about this. We cannot take innovation for granted and rest on the laurels of the technological advancements of the past. When the virus hit the world, we were unprepared. There was no available vaccine to protect us. Thus we had to adopt measures that have been very disruptive to our daily living. Several companies may currently be working on a cure and it could still be several more months before one is in place, but the point is there was no available permanent remedy at the time. Technology may have provided many vital solutions to long standing limitations, yet, as is currently clear, there are so many more limitations that require solutions. And it is only via continuing to innovate and build that we can ensure that these other limitations begging to be solved are solved.

 

By Nicholas Peart 

Published on 24th May 2020

(c)All Rights Reserved

 

Image: qimono

Don’t Fight The Trend…

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

the trend

But don’t be off your guard either.

A lot of the time, stocks are priced at a value quite debased from their fundamentals. Thus they are either overvalued or undervalued. This is true since markets are, for the most part, driven by sentiment. In the most extreme circumstances, total greed or fear takes over.

I have been rather baffled by the stock market rally over the last few weeks after having witnessed some of the most spectacular series of crashes over the brief one month period from the end of February towards the end of March. This rally far from reflects the economic reality on the ground. Many people have lost their jobs and are struggling financially. Yes, there have been huge stimulus packages to soften the blow, but these are artificial and only increase an already substantial debt load.

Yet markets can behave irrationally for a very long period of time. Far longer than one can stay solvent, to quote the economist John Maynard Keynes. Instead of trying to be right, sometimes it can pay to just go with the trend. That often quoted adage, the trend is your friend, is very true. Rather than fighting it, it can be less painful to simply ride with it in whichever direction it may blow.

But don’t get carried away. Always be on your guard. As the tide can abruptly change without warning.

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved 

 

Image: Peggy_Marco

It’s Only When The Tide Goes Out That You Discover Who’s Been Swimming Naked

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

low tide

This is probably one of the wisest bits of advice related to the current market turmoil. And it was said by none other than one of the most successful investors of all time, the Sage of Omaha himself, Mr Warren Buffett.

What this present crisis has exposed are those companies that are worst prepared to handle a downtown. A company should always have sufficient emergency cash reserves or at least some margin of safety to protect it in the event of a slump such as the one we are currently experiencing.

The most prudent companies always have this margin of safety. On the other hand, the most ill prepared companies overleverage themselves and take on large piles of debt during the good times. Then when the bad times arrive and the tide goes out, they are the ones who are most vulnerable.

Right now boring old cash is king. Some of the most indebted companies are currently facing a genuine liquidity crisis and the very real possibility of going bust as their cashflows have virtually dried up. However, those companies who have set aside enough cash, have no or at least manageable levels of debt, and don’t have unsustainable overheads (or a low cash burn rate) will survive this downturn period the best and will bounce back the strongest when the markets do eventually recover.

I think this is something we can all learn when we make investment decisions, especially when we buy shares in companies during a bull market. It is always important when doing your own due diligence on a company to figure out how well it would fare when the tide changes. When the tide goes out, will it be sufficiently covered?

 

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved 

 

Image: TimHill

THE FURORE-ING TWENTIES: My Thoughts On The New Decade Ahead

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

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As we leave the 2010s and head into a new decade, I naturally like to meditate on what the next ten years will have in store for the world. Approximately ten years ago to this day I was in Peru in the Andean town of Huaraz. Back then my eyes were not so open and I couldn’t see beyond my own little self-created bubble of rock n roll, existential literature and nomadic travelling. I had little to no understanding about global politics, technology and the financial system.

Predicting the future is hard enough. Very often, the predictions that turn out to come true are ridiculed from the start. If I were to say to a group of fellow travellers at some bar in Huaraz on New Years Eve 2009 that during the following decade Donald Trump would become president of the USA and that there would be a referendum in the UK where the UK would vote to leave the EU, they would have looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

What do I think will happen in the 2020s? I think it will be a very interesting decade where lots of changes will occur.

I will begin with the financial markets. As of now, many stock markets are at all time high levels. The 2010s has been an absolutely stellar decade for US stock markets, especially the NASDAQ. Back in 2009, towards the end of the financial crisis, the NASDAQ was trading below 1500 points. Today, it’s close to hitting 9000 points. That’s a six-fold increase within the space of a decade. The question now of course is, will this rally continue or are markets in danger of crashing? When I try to make my own predictions, I like to also gauge what the general consensus is. On social and traditional media sites, there seems to be no shortage of videos and articles predicting that 2020 will be the year when markets are going to crash. With such an overwhelming consensus, I, naturally, have to re-evaluate my own thoughts and vision.

The important point is that for all of the 2010s since the 2007-9 financial crisis, interest rates have been at very low levels. In some countries they are now at negative levels. The consequence of this has been that since the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, total global debt levels have increased by almost 50% from $173 trillion to $255 trillion. This era of cheap money has played a large role in this decade long stock market boom. Instead of trying to predict when the next crash will occur, it may be better to predict when interest rates will finally return to more normal levels. My feeling is that this is not going to happen anytime soon and that interest rates will, at least in the short run, continue to fall even if they breach negative territory (as they already have in some countries). This will be bad news for trying to reduce the already gigantic levels of global debt. Debt will only just continue to increase and stock markets will continue to rise, until the moment when inflation will kick in, which will immediately trigger central banks to raise interest rates.

Throughout the 2010s, gold has never dipped below $1000 per troy ounce. It has always remained above that level. At the start of the millennium, 1 troy ounce of gold was trading between just $250-300. It was almost as if it were considered obsolete, a relic from another age. With hindsight one can shoot down in flames the UK’s former chancellor Gordon Brown for selling off half of the UKs gold reserves back in 2001 at such low prices. Yet at the time, gold just wasn’t on many people’s radars save for a small selection of far-sighted individuals. As the 2000s chugged on, the price of gold went on a phenomenal ascent breaching $1000. By the end of 2011, just 2-3 years after the financial crisis, the price of gold nearly hit $1900 an ounce . As of today, the price of gold is hovering around the $1500 an ounce mark.

Why does all this matter? It matters, because I believe in the 2020s precious metals will do very well due to the extraordinary circumstances we are facing with record levels of global debt, perpetually low/falling interest rates and stock markets showing no signs of slowing down. The ‘kicking the can down the road’ mantra can only go on for so long until eventually the music will have to be faced.

But it’s not just fragile economic circumstances that will contribute towards precious metals doing well. Political circumstances will also play their role. In continental Europe, populist governments will continue to rise as will government spending. The economic situation in several Eurozone countries remains very precarious and this could lead to the Eurozone facing a genuine existential crisis. There are vast financial imbalances between the major Eurozone countries. During the last Eurozone crisis at the start of the 2010s, the European Central Bank (ECB) was able to utilize monetary tools such as Quantitative Easing to stimulate flagging Eurozone economies thus saving the Eurozone. The question now is if the Eurozone were to face another such crisis, would the ECB this time be able to successfully avoid a disastrous situation? It is trickier now for two reasons. Firstly, the Eurozone is carrying much more debt than before. Many Eurozone banks also continue to remain in dire shape. Secondly, the discontent of citizens in Eurozone member counties and the rise of populist parties in these countries could only exacerbate and make worse any already fragile/vulnerable situations.

Another thing that will be interesting to see is how the whole Brexit saga is going to play out in the coming months. What kind of a trade deal will be negotiated between the UK and the European Union? Will there even be a deal? If the UK were to leave the EU completely with no deal, it’s likely that the burden of keeping the EU together (and contributing more money towards it to keep it going) would fall increasingly more on Germany and to a lesser degree on France. This would put the entire future of the EU project in a very difficult position, especially if the German economy were to fall into a recession due to factors such as additional tariffs on the bulk of its exports as well as the very real prospect of a substantial government bailout to save two of the country’s largest banks; Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank.

It pains me to say that the 2020s could very well see the first stages of the Eurozone being dismantled followed by the EU itself. I am praying that such a situation doesn’t happen, but I feel this may unfortunately become a reality. A breakup of the EU could lead to Russia gaining much more dominance in the region with some former EU countries forging stronger ties with Russia. At the same time, I can also foresee some of the southern European Eurozone countries, especially Italy and Spain (which, like Germany, also have large manufacturing industries), experiencing multi-year long economic booms once they have their own currency (which they will be able to devalue and thus re-gain their economic competitive advantage). Whilst the German economy benefited greatly from adopting the Euro currency, the Euro hurt the economic competitiveness of other major Eurozone countries such as Italy, Spain and to a lesser degree even France.

One of my boldest and most off-the-wall predictions would be to say that the USA will experience a taste of some kind of socialism at some point in the 2020s. I feel there’s a high probability that, as unlikely as it may currently seem with the impeachment inquiry hanging over him, Trump will manage to secure a second term in power in 2020. However, his second term will be more challenging than his first. It is also highly likely that the long-awaited stock market crash that everyone is predicting will happen at some point during his second term. And when it does occur it will be very painful and cause another economic recession. In the wake of this, it is possible that many of Trump’s most loyal supporters begin to turn against him. By the time of the 2024 elections in the USA, I think the Democrat party will have moved more to the left just as has happened with the Labour Party in the UK over the last few years. By the time of the 2024 US elections, I envisage the Democrats winning the election with a barely tested transformational socialist agenda. By 2024, many of Trump’s traditional Midwest supporter base, who will have felt let down and failed by him, will opt for any kind of new change regardless of the consequences.

Any kind of future socialism though will likely not be like the socialism of the past, but more a kind of technological socialism. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the internet didn’t even exist, and it was possible to easily control information. The world was a much larger place. A future kind of socialism could be one where technology is so advanced that everyone’s most basic needs are all provided for and there is no need to perform any repetitive jobs or tasks. Technological socialism within the paradigm of a post-work or post-scarcity society. However, this kind of a vision is still some way off.

The truth is, in the coming years ahead, one is likely to witness an increasing number of savvy and hyper aware Millennial and younger Gen Z politicians come to the fore, who will want to change the rules. In the United States, the politician Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a prelude and prime example of those next generation politicians who will eventually rise to prominent positions of power.

The 2020s will be a decade of exponential technological progress. The implementation of 5G networks will be crucial and integral towards the development of the so-called Internet Of Things, where every electronic device – be it your electronic household devices, street lights, transportation vehicles etc – is connected to the internet. Once this has been further developed, the transition from Smartphones to Smartglasses with enhanced Augmented Reality capabilities will become more of a reality and I predict this transition will begin to bear fruit from around the mid to end part of the 2020s.

In one of my very first blog posts back in 2016, I made a moonshot prediction that by the beginning of the 2020s, every household would have a 3D printer. It seems that I got that prediction horribly wrong. Back in 2013/14 there was quite a bit of hype around 3D printing and how it would revolutionise manufacturing. I am still a big believer in 3D/4D printing or however one wishes to call it. Such a technology makes it possible for anyone to print any physical thing no matter where in the world they may be.

The 2020s will also be a decade to watch regarding the development of Space Exploration and Sustainable/Renewable Energy. Elon Musk is at the fore of those developments with his companies Tesla and SpaceX. Most people who are aware of Tesla view it as a company that sells high priced electric vehicles. Yet the mission of Tesla is to transition the world away from fossil fuels. The building of its giga-factories in various locations around the world will enable Tesla to develop a level of scale to successfully achieve its mission. In many financial circles, lots of investors and analysts have been predicting that Tesla will go to zero. Lots of people have been betting against Elon Musk. However, I feel that such a move is unwise. I believe that Tesla will ultimately succeed in its mission and will become a very valuable and important company.

The 2020s will also see quite a lot of activity from Musk’s other company SpaceX. I think that SpaceX will lead the way in the nascent space industry and be responsible for dramatically reducing the costs of space exploration. The last part is very important as its currently prohibitively expensive to launch even just a satellite into space. Hence that’s why there are not many players operating in this industry due to high costs and high barriers to entry. In the 2020s, we are likely to see via SpaceX, the greatest accomplishments in the space industry since 1969 when the first person landed on the moon. The mission of SpaceX’s Starship rocket is to transport people to Mars and create a permanent human colony there. Using ground-breaking bioengineering innovations, the goal is to turn Mars into a planet similar to Earth (via the process of ‘terraforming’), with a climate and atmosphere containing vegetation and oceans and the right temperature and levels of oxygen for living organisms to flourish. Although all this is highly unlikely to occur as early as the 2020s, the next decade may well see the beginnings of the initial stages of such a mission coming into fruition.

However, one SpaceX project to keep an eye on in the near future is Starlink. This project involves sending lots of satellites into low orbit to beam down high-speed internet on all corners of the world, event the most remote corners. The last point is very important. Even though billions of people are already connected to the internet, there are billions of people living in remote and undeveloped parts of the world with no access to it. Currently, almost all of our wi-fi and telecommunications networks come from land-based cell towers. A mass adoption of super strong satellite beaming internet would be a real game-changer in the next level of network/internet connectivity, as it has the potential to enable everyone in all corners of the world to have access to a high-speed internet connection.

It will be interesting to also see how cryptocurrencies/blockchain technology will evolve in the 2020s. Lots of people invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin hoping that the price will go higher, yet what does the future hold for cryptocurrencies? My greatest fear is that increasing government regulation will affect the development and performance of the main cryptocurrencies. In an article from earlier this year, I wrote about certain cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Zcash acting as a store of value. Many people also tout Bitcoin as a form of digital gold and some even say that it will disrupt physical gold as a store of value. I fear that such a situation is unlikely to occur and that Bitcoin will likely never again see the highs it witnessed at the end of 2017.

Privacy coins, especially Monero, have long been a thorn in the side of governments around the world. Of all the privacy coins, the one I am keen to watch is Zcash (where privacy is just an option – transactions can be shielded or unshielded), especially since I think it is currently fundamentally undervalued compared to other privacy coins. Furthermore, the other advantage it has is that, unlike many other cryptocurrencies, it was created by professional academic cryptographers.

The underlying blockchain technology itself will continue to evolve, and I can see further development of so called ‘stablecoins’ (which are not prone to fluctuate madly in value) becoming more widely adopted. One project I am interested to see manifest is Facebook’s own digital Libra currency. Facebook has the unique advantage of unbelievable network effects with over 2.4 billion users from around the world. So, Facebook simply introducing its own digital currency, means at least a third of the world’s total population potentially using it. This could be a huge benefit for Facebook users in countries with unstable currencies. However, I fear that the implementation of Facebook’s Libra currency will be met with lots of opposition from governments around the world who may fear that it will pose a threat to the stability and performance of their very own national currencies.

In fact, there is a big chance that at some point during the next decade both Facebook and Google/Alphabet will face even higher amounts of regulation by governments around the world with the very real possibility of both these companies eventually being broken up. This kind of regulation as well as the more extreme break-up threats will likely begin to kick off in a big way in Europe and could further manifest in the USA itself if a left-wing Democrat party politician (with an anti-billionaire, anti-Big Tech agenda) where to come to power in the 2024 elections in the USA. However, taking an axe to both Facebook and Google could also have the effect of further empowering their Chinese rivals, Tencent and Baidu. It could well be that Facebook and Google’s loss become Tencent’s and Baidu’s gain.

So, these are my thoughts for the coming new decade. Reading them over again, they can seem to oscillate wildly from overly pessimistic to naively optimistic with scant middle ground. When writing these predictions, I tried very hard to overcome any well ingrained cognitive biases by envisaging potential events that could likely occur even if I don’t want them to happen and/or they are against my beliefs and values. In a sense, this is also a kind of experiment and I expect to get several of my predictions completely wrong. Yet I feel that the unexpected black swan events we all witnessed throughout the 2010s will continue into the 2020s taking many by surprise.

 

By Nicholas Peart

27th December 2019

©All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

SOURCES/FURTHER READING

https://mises.org/wire/150-years-bank-credit-expansion-nearing-its-end

https://www.ccn.com/edward-snowden-zcash-interesting-bitcoin-alternative/

 

Image: aitorvz

 

 

Labels Are Meaningless

Posted on by Nicholas Peart

labeling-people photo

Alt right, hard left, SJW, influencer, gender neutral, trans gender, queer, vegan, hipster, bi-polar, activist, eco-fundamentalist, post-modernist, hippy, rocker, mod, socialist, capitalist, liberal, radical, anarchist, feminist

Please.

Give me a break.

I don’t know what any of these labels mean.

They mean nothing to me.

Would you like to know what does interest me?

I am interested in who you are as a person.

I am interested in what you have to say.

I am not interested in your identity.

I am interested in the true and authentic substance of you.

I am interested in your heart.

I am interested in your mind.

And I am interested in your soul.

 

By Nicholas Peart

(c)All Rights Reserved 

 

Photo source: harikalymnios.com