What emerging signals, patterns provide a spark of insight or glimpses of change to come?

That guy from finance with all the ideas? Somebody’s been talking to him about snackwave and witchcraft. Huh. Didn’t see that one coming.

Tracking interesting signals, ideas and questions in the field of economics and society at large.

A collection of ideas and thoughts that point to the future of architecture and urbanism.

CRISPR brings transhumanist dreams of technologically-mediated human perfection nearer to reality, but our complex world of human affairs might not be disrupted so easily.

The history of toilets is the history of humanity. It’s abundant with good intention but it’s messy and it stinks. And despite every great civilization’s best efforts to solve the fecal problem, we still can’t quite get it right.

Unfinished business with some dreamers of the red planet dream

Why would an established writer with a penchant for creativity move to Singapore? Because while New York may call itself ‘the capital of the world,’ for Fredrik Härén, Singapore is the world.

The algorithm that made Bitcoin possible provides a handy fix for the all-too-human problem of trust. Imagined to its extreme, it might make possible the libertarian’s wet dream: the end of the nation state. Gulp.

Lately, Moscow’s public spaces have been showing a new hipster swagger. But is a high-minded approach to urbanism masking a darker politics beneath?