New World Same Humans #25 – Audio Edition

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

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The internet was supposed to bring us closer together. The reality: not so much.

This week, though, I look at an internet trend that may do more than any other to estrange billions of people from one another in the decades ahead.

Intrigued? Hit play!

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #25.

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Links in this week’s instalment

One wall, two realities:

1. TikTok is pulling out of Hong Kong.

2. New World Same Humans #13, in which I wrote about the trend towards human unification.

Lucky for some:

1. Anduril is building a virtual border wall between the US and Mexico.

2. Young workers are missing the office more than their older counterparts.

3. Niantic, makers of Pokémon Go, are partnering with UK immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. This will remind regular readers of a NWSH obsession: augmented modernity.

4. The historian Peter Turchin predicted that 2020 would be a year of unrest in the US.

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Internet dream time

Thanks so much for listening this week.

When it comes to the future – and bifurcation – of the internet, New World Same Humans will keep watching. This instalment covered an unlikely trifecta: TikTok, Trump, and the CCP. With those players on the field, who can say where the game goes from here? It’s a crazy time.

In the meantime, though, the New World Same Humans community is busy building its own little corner of the internet. And we should invite more people to the party!

So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and people know why you find this newsletter valuable.

Until next week, thanks for listening,

David.

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David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.