Motivating the case for decentralized social identity

To avoid the worst pitfalls of existing identity systems, we believe any successful system must be humanistic, flexible, decentralized, and social

There is no such thing as truly “personal” or “private” data; nearly all data is created in the context of social interactions and thus inheres not in single individuals but instead in social groups.

The authors of this work argue that today’s identity systems do great violence to the richness of who we are. The issues of authentication, anonymity and private digital identity providers are discussed.

Motivating the case for decentralized social identity on RadicalXChange

Myths of Vaccine Manufacturing

A very accessible overview of the method of vaccine production and the debunking of a popular, non-obvious myth about it. All in six steps — by pharma researcher.

Why more drug companies haven't been enlisted for vaccine production has come up? […] There are not „dozens of companies who stand ready” to produce vaccines and „end this pandemic”. It's the same few big players you've already heard of, and they're not sitting around and watching, either

Myths of Vaccine Manufacturing on Science.org

New Fences

The divisions in European politics into the richer West and the poorer East from the still faintly heard, "Eastern" (Czech) perspective. As a resident of this region, I believe that it reflects well the feelings encountered here.

The western approach towards integration appeared to be a kind of a reversed Marxism: including CEE into the common market would supposedly transform former communist nations into prosperous liberal democracies. This was another great illusion.

In retrospect, it can be seen that the author's predictions do not differ from reality. Does it prove the ability of mainstream politicians to include anti-system postulates in their activities? This is a topic for a separate essay.

Populism, one of most ‘fashionable’ topics for liberal analysts, appears to be a much more limited threat to European stability than some alarmists would have us believe.

The key issue is that populist nationalism and Euroscepticism are defensive positions in today’s Europe. They lack real ideological drive and, unlike fascism and communism in the first half of the twentieth century, do not offer any radical or utopian project of social reorganization or ‘rejuvenation’.    

New Fences on Eurozine

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