How To Build a Metahuman, Farts As Free Speech and Canada's Radical Immigration Idea | Non-Obvious Insights #265

Dear Newsletterest,

Would you want your own photorealistic digital human? Should farts be a protected form of speech? What did a "monkeydactyl" dinosaur with opposable thumbs look like? And why is Canada's wildly different immigration system one that other countries may soon be copying? These questions and more are all part of this week's Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter. As always, I'd love to hear what you think about these. Just hit reply to let me know what you think and I promise you'll get a direct response from me as well. Thanks for reading and being part of our Non-Obvious Nation!

How To Create Your Own High Fidelity Digital Human In Minutes

Bringing compelling real-time digital humans to life is incredibly challenging and time-consuming. What if we could make the process radically simpler, faster, and more scalable—without compromising on quality?

The MetaHuman Creator is a new tool that will let anyone create a photorealistic digital human in a matter of minutes. The results of this technology are stunning, but it's hard to see why anyone beyond game developers or filmmakers would really need access to this. Yes, it's definitely cool. But the implications of giving this ability to everyone are just a bit worrysome too. It's not immediately obvious how this might be used for evil - but someone will probably figure that out. For now, go ahead and sign up to create your own metahuman. I am going to try it too. I'm just not sure what I'll ask my metahuman to do once I have built it.

Pandemic Dating with Video Speed Dates and Belief Badges

Given how much Facebook knows about you, it was only going to be a matter of time before they branched out into online dating. This week, there was an article about their new beta service called Sparked and how it enables "video speed dating with kind people." While it's not clear how they judge if you are kind, the platform allows quick four minute dates, followed by a ten minute date after you both agree. This week for Earth Day, dating platform OK Cupid also added a feature to let users wear a badge declaring their belief in climate change. So far, users with the badge are getting 44% more likes and 72% more matches than non-badged users. There may be a theme emerging here. If you want to make it all the way to a ten minute date, you better be kind and love science.

Man Farts On Police, Then Argues Farts Are A Protected Form of Expression

Does a fart or a burp contain "communicative content"? This was just one of the hotly debated societal questions that arose in a curious court case held in Vienna, Austria over a flatulent man who was fined for deliberately farting "on a police officer." Leaving aside the obvious question of how you can fart on someone (as opposed to in their general direction), the case has hit the international media ... most probably because the farting perpetrator has declared not paying the fine or settling as "a matter of principle." Why am I bothering to share this story? Because this guy had a lawyer who actually had to go to court to defend this story and do it (probably) with a straight face. So the next time you are faced with your own ridiculous task to do for work--just remember it could definitely be, and smell, a whole lot worse.

The Most Ambitious Media Harrassment Protection Policy Ever

How much responsibility does a media organization have to protect its journalists from online and real life harrassment? If you work for subscription sports publisher Defector Media, the answer is ... a lot. AdWeek broke down the amazingly ambitious program created by Defector this week that included some amazing protections for employees and their families to prevent online harrassment and to protect them in the event of an attack. This included online reputation protection services, proxy services to manage targeted social media accounts, safe lodging in a hotel for 10 days, and paid sick leave for any time taken away from work. The initiative is so comprehensive that it is already being celebrated as a model that should be copied by other media organizations.

Canada's Wildly Different and Successful Approach To Immigration

In most countries around the world, immigration is tightly controlled by the federal government: except in Canada. For years, the country has had a unique form of immigration where trade groups, community groups and private employers each sponsor workers to get permanent residencies. This could include butchers, mushroom harvesters, greenhouse workers and hundreds more categories. These microprograms add up. In 2019, the country accepted over 341,000 permanent residents and almost 30 percent were nominated by someone outside the federal government.

In other countries, immigration policy is defined by who to keep out (or kick out for overstaying their welcome). In Canada, this decentralized system is messy, accidental, inefficient ... and might just be brilliant. Read more about the way this system works here, it's considerable problems and why it still is (and has been) attracting exactly the right kind of workers that the country will need in the future.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. In case you're looking for some more reading this week, here are a few other stories that captured my attention ...

New Film Announcement: The Big Bull

Sponsored Post: This week streaming service @HotstarUSA is exclusively premiering Bollywood superstar Abhishek Bachchan's new stock market thriller #TheBigBull with subtitles. Watch the trailer >>

#HotstarPremiereNights #hotstarUSApromotions @juniorbachchan @ajaydevgn

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Want to discuss how I could bring this thinking to your next event as a virtual speaker? Visit my speaking page >>

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How To Build a Metahuman, Farts As Free Speech and Canada's Radical Immigration Idea | Non-Obvious Insights #265

How To Create Your Own High Fidelity Digital Human In Minutes

Pandemic Dating with Video Speed Dates and Belief Badges

Man Farts On Police, Then Argues Farts Are A Protected Form of Expression

The Most Ambitious Media Harrassment Protection Policy Ever

Canada's Wildly Different and Successful Approach To Immigration

Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...

Older messages

VW's Underrated PR, Nike's Hypocrisy and the Myth of Sustainable Seafood | Non-Obvious Insights #264

Vaccine Tourism, Dangerously Gamified Investing, Chief TikTok Officers and the Saddest Date Ever | Non-Obvious Insights #263

Asian American Identity, How Misinformation Spreads and Why Trump Was Right | Non-Obvious Insights #262

Chicago's Lost Businesses, The End of Video Games and Bringing Bob Ross Back To Life | Non-Obvious Insights #261

Sunday Recap: Disney's Insignificant Stories, Haunting Ice Music, and Funny German Pandemic Vocabulary | Non-Obvious Insights #260

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