New World Same Humans

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 19,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

While I plan the next evolution of NWSH, I’ve been looking over past instalments of this newsletter. A few days ago, I came to the first email of 2021.

In that instalment I wrote about the late British philosopher and cultural critic Mark Fisher. At the heart of his thinking was a ghost. Fisher believed that we inhabitants of the 21st-century are haunted by futures – of abundance, leisure, and equality – that were promised to us but never arrived.

Want to hear more? Hit play!

If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of Revisiting the Ghost.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. In the first NWSH instalment of 2021 I wrote about the late British philosopher and cultural critic Mark Fisher.

2. All too often across this year, it’s felt as though the most powerful among us are only tightening their grip on our shared future.

3.

4. So many of the futures imagined for us – whether inside virtual worlds or on distant planets – appear radical. But take a closer look, and you’ll find they’re only new ways to sustain the same old systems of technological capitalism.

In the room where it happens

The NWSH end of year event, New Year Same Humans: Five Trends to Supercharge Your 2022, is approaching fast.

Over 140 professionals – founders, designers, marketers, insight professionals and more – have already claimed their place. 🙌 🚀

On the December 14th at 16:00 UK time, I’ll be sharing five powerful trends set to reshape human behaviours and mindsets in 2022 and beyond. And afterwards, I’ll send attendees a full recording of the event, plus the 60+ slide trend report with even more insights and examples for you to apply.

Typically these pro-grade trend reports sell for hundreds; even thousands. I’m keeping this event accessible to all with a price that has led some friends to question my sanity.

Check it out, and see you on December 14th!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday. Until then, be well,

David.

David Mattin is the founder of the Strategy and Futures Research Unit. He sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 19,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

This week, a short essay on robots and the human Good Life.

But first, a quick update. I’m thrilled by the response to the launch of our end of year extravaganza: New Year Same Humans: Five Trends to Supercharge Your 2022!

We’re just three days after launch, and over 100 members of our community have already booked their place 🙏. Think insight professionals, founders, marketers, product designers, and more.

My initial ticket allotment for the super early bird price has sold out, but I’ve decided to keep it open for a few more days. To learn more about New Year Same Humans, and claim your spot, just hit the button!

Okay, enough preamble; hit play.

If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of Our Coming Robot Utopia.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. Today’s instalment offers a new angle on a state of affairs I wrote about back in The Future that Never Came.

2. Having proven that the path they want to tread is viable, it was announced this week that Everyday Robots will move out of the X lab and into Alphabet’s Bay Area campuses.

3. I’ve written before on the huge challenges associated with AI embodiment, and the novel approaches under development at another division of Alphabet, DeepMind.

4. In Tools for Conviviality, first published in 1973, Ivan Illich mounts a ferocious critique of technological modernity.

5.

Everyday People

Thanks for listening this week.

The emergence of all-purpose helper robots, and their collision with our day-to-day lives, is a classic case of new world, same humans.

This newsletter will keep investigating. And there’s one thing you can do to help with that mission: share!

Now that you’ve reached the end of this week’s instalment, why not take a second to forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also find it valuable? Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why it’s worth their time. Just hit the share button!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday; until then, be well.

David.

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 19,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

A short instalment this week. Two related, and telling, stories caught my eye. Take them as two signs of the times.

To learn more, hit play!

If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of Theme Park Earth.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. A few days ago Jeff Bezos spoke at an event called Our Future in Space. You can see the whole conversation here.

2. At the COP26 UN climate summit, a promise to ‘phase out’ coal was diluted at the last minute so that it’s now a promise to ‘phase down’ coal.

Thanks for listening this week.

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday. Until then, be well,

David.

David Mattin is the founder of the Strategy and Futures Research Unit. He sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 19,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

Human activity is causing deep, irreversible damage to the Earth. A mountain of good science tells us so.

But what is our knowledge of all this doing to the collective human psyche? How is the climate crisis affecting us psychologically, and spiritually?

This week saw a new report on attitudes to climate change. The report celebrates the idea that most people still believe we can solve global warming. At first glance, that seems sensible enough. It’s great – and useful – that people still have hope, right?

I wonder if things are a bit more complicated. Sounds a strange thought? Hit play!

And if you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of Hoping for a Miracle.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. Working with global market research firm Ipsos, creative agency Futerra Solutions Union published The Solutions Survey, a report that asks, ‘does the world still believe we can solve climate change?’

2. Modelling in the wake of this week’s new emissions pledges shows that they put us on track only to keep warming under two degrees.

3. The reality is that the 1.5 C target is slipping out of reach. The UN admitted as much in a 2018 analysis.

4. I’m intrigued to hear what the NWSH community thinks about our prospects for managing climate change, and on the question of hope verses realism. If you’d like to have your say, then join us in the NWSH Slack group.

Strange Dreams

Thanks for listening this week.

In the 2020s, impending ecological collapse will produce strange new collective psychological and spiritual deformations. It’s yet another case of new world, same humans.

This newsletter will keep investigating. And there’s one thing you can do to help with that mission: share!

So if this week’s instalment resonated with you, why not take a second to forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also find it valuable? Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why it’s worth their time. Just hit the share button!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday; until then, be well.

David.

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 18,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

This week, a short note founded in two stories from the tech-industrial complex.

A few days ago in New Week #58, I wrote about Blue Origin’s plans for a commercial space station. The company wants to Orbital Reef to be traversing our skies by the end of the decade, and hopes it will come to replace the outdated ISS.

Meanwhile, on Friday Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is now Meta. This name change is part of a reorientation that will see the company put the metaverse at the heart of everything it does.

Hit play for more!

And if you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of Out of This World.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. A few days ago in New Week #58, I wrote about Blue Origin’s plans for a commercial space station.

2. The science-fiction visionary JG Ballard liked to tell literary critics that his great interest was not the outer space of Isaac Asimov or Arthur C Clarke, but inner space.

After This

Thanks for listening this week.

I know that these Sunday instalments have been shorter recently. And hey, we all have enough to read.

But I haven’t abandoned the longform essay! I’m planning a series of essay box sets, which will form part of the next evolution of NWSH. The first will be called The Worlds to Come, and it will dive far deeper into the some of the themes I explored in this note. Expect more on virtual worlds, and our estrangement from the real.

In the meantime, if you’d like support the newsletter, there’s one thing you can do to help: share!

Now you’ve reached the end of this week’s instalment, why not take a second to forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also find it valuable? Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why it’s worth their time. Just hit the share button!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday; until then, be well.

David.

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 18,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

I’ve been thinking a lot, across the last few days, about trend and foresight methods. That’s thanks to a new project that I’m hugely excited about; I’ll be able to say more soon!

But this week, a quick and early note on the direction my thinking is heading in.

This note lays foundations I’ll build on in the coming months. At its heart is a single idea: that we must revolutionise the foresight industry in this decade.

If you’d rather read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of All Life is Here.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. Last year in their Trends 2020 report, the iconic design agency Fjord talked about the need to move from human-centred design, which privileges the individual user, to life-centred design, which take a holistic view of people as inhabitants of social and environmental ecosystems.

2. We recognise the legal personhood of corporations; why not do the same for ecosystems?

Humans of Earth

Thanks for listening this week.

If this instalment resonated with you, then stay tuned for news of a NWSH project that will empower you to dive much deeper into trend and foresight methods.

And now you’ve reached the end of this week’s instalment, why not take a second to forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also find it valuable? Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why it’s worth their time. Just hit the share button!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday; until then, be well.

David.

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 18,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

This week two stories caught my eye.

Both, in their own way, offer a window on to the high-energy collision between the state and powerful technology platforms.

So this week, a note on that collision. Our journey starts with a doorbell in Oxford.

Hit play!

If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of The State of Us.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. This week a UK judge agreed that the installation of an Amazon Ring doorbell at a home in Oxford constituted an invasion of a neighbour’s privacy.

2. Meanwhile, on Friday a new Face Pay system launched across over 240 metro stations in Moscow.

3. It’s telling that in stories about the Moscow metro this week, journalists seeking a comparison with the Global North reached for Amazon One, a biometric payment system that allows users to pay with their palm print.

4. See the way China has moved definitively in recent months to seize control of Jack Ma’s vast Ant Group.

5. Back in Algorithms with Chinese Characteristics I compared the AI-fuelled, data-driven surveillance-and-control system that Amazon is building around its own workers to the technostate that China is building arounds its citizens.

6. This week’s Ring doorbell story is a reminder – along with the recent launch of the Astro in-home robot – that Amazon isn’t just building a surveillance system around its own workers: it’s building one around us all.

7. There’s never been a corporation driven by such ambition to know everything about us: the streets we live on, what’s happening inside our houses, and even what’s going on, moment to moment, inside our bodies.

8. In this week’s New Week Same Humans I wrote about the European Parliament vote to constrain the use of facial recognition systems.

Power Stations

Thanks for listening this week.

We humans are intractably social creatures; we must live together. Out of that truth emerges the need for the state. And since its beginnings, this newsletter has been obsessed by the implications that a connected world has for the nature of state power.

That’s no surprise: this story is a classic case of new world, same humans. And that’s why NWSH will continue to track the collision between the state and Big Tech in the years ahead.

If that mission resonates with you, then there’s one thing you can do to help further it: share!

Now you’ve reached the end of this week’s instalment, why not take a second to forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also find it valuable? Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why it’s worth their time. Just hit the share button!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday; until then, be well.

David.

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 18,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

This week, a note on a connected world, transparency, and the nature of organisations. It builds on an idea I’ve been playing with for ages: the Glass Box organisation.

And it’s all founded in what happening now at the world’s most valuable company.

Hit play!

If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of People in Glass Boxes.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. The outlines of a transparency revolution became more visible last week, when The Verge reported on Apple’s ongoing experiment with team messaging tool Slack.

2. Emboldened by the peer support they’ve found on Slack, some Apple staff have taken their concerns over pay and discrimination to Twitter.

3. Internal culture becomes a part – often the most important part – of an organisation’s public-facing brand. Welcome to the age of the Glass Box organisation.

4. The newsletter writer Nick de Wilde has talked about the rise of what he calls the Platform Brand.

Through the Looking Glass

Thanks for listening this week.

The Glass Box transparency revolution is only just getting started. No one fully understands the new world it will lead us towards.

But New World Same Humans will continue to track this shift, along with a wide range of others.

If that mission resonates with you, then there’s one thing you can do to help further it: share!

Now you’ve reached the end of this week’s instalment, why not take a second to forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also find it valuable? Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why it’s worth their time. Just hit the share button!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday; until then, be well.

David.

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 18,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

This week, a short note on AI and creativity.

This is founded in a thought I shared with the audience at last week’s NEXT Conference in Hamburg. Now, I want to share a slightly more developed version with you.

Hit play!

And if you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of AI Artisans.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. This week saw news that researchers at Rutgers University used an AI to complete Beethoven’s unfinished Tenth Symphony.

2. In a past NWSH, we saw how AI may in future offer artists and creators a new form of ghostly afterlife, which sees works in their unique style continue to be produced long after their death.

3. Brauer AI recently released their first beer, Deeper, which was created using machine learning.

Big Bang

Thanks for listening this week.

At the heart of this newsletter lies the idea that our shared future takes shape when new technologies collide with age-old human needs and values. The emerging story around AI and creativity is a perfect example.

New World Same Humans will continue to track this trend, and a whole host of others.

There’s one thing you can do to help with that mission: share!

So if this week’s instalment resonated, why not take a second to forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also find it valuable? Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why it’s worth their time. Just hit the share button!

I’ll be back as usual on Wednesday; until then, be well.

David.

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

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

If you’re reading this and you haven’t yet subscribed, join 18,000+ curious souls on a mission to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

A quick thought this week.

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal argued that Amazon is transforming the nature of work and production in the industrialised world. Writing in that paper, the technology reporter Christopher Mims even gave the set of practises via which this is happening a name: Bezosism(£).

Hit play for more!

If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of Algorithms with Chinese Characteristics.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. Back in New Week #22 we saw how Amazon is installing surveillance cameras in the cabs of its delivery vans; the company wants to apply the same close surveillance to its drivers as it does warehouse staff.

2. This week the California senate passed a bill that, while mentioning no names, takes direct aim at all this. The bill would force Amazon to disclose the metrics it uses to grade worker performance.

3. Reading about Bezosism, though, I’m also reminded of a recent Sunday note: The People’s Republic of Tech.

4. And the strategic thinking that underlies it sounds a lot like Bezosism. Or, if you like, Bezosism With Chinese Characteristics.

Thanks for listening this week. I’ll be back on Wednesday as usual. Until then, be well,

David.

P.S Thanks to those of you who joined the NWSH Slack group last week. If you didn’t, and you want to continue the discussion on Amazon, algorithmic management, and the CCP, then sign up for the Slack here!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz