Tag: Society

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How We Win To Save The Climate

tl;dr: Covid-19 shows us that we can change. Now let’s make it work for saving the climate.

We all make new experiences these days. And that “we” is an estimated 1.7 billion strong, around 20 percent of the global population. We spatially distance ourselves and adapt our everyday practices in a grand social experiment on a scale unimaginable only a month ago. Some of these changes might revert back once the Covid-19 pandemic is over, depending on how long it lasts and how long we have to participate in this experiment.… Read more

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Publication on Digital Sustainability

tl;dr: The digital economy needs Sustainability as a normative reference frame

My recent article has been published (in German) in the Yearbook on “Sustainable Economics”. In it I am reconstructing digitalization as a social phenomenon while applying social practice theory, while at the same time focusing on the material underbelly of digital technologies. My main argument: the digital economy is not a pathway to a more sustainable economy unless Sustainability is set as a clear normative reference frame.… Read more

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Data, Karl Marx and the End of Money

tl;dr: Data will succeed money as the lifeblood of the economy thus making money irrelevant.

What is going to be the lubricant of the Next Economy? The go-to answer most likely is “data”.  My interest here is not so much on the more technical aspects of data gathering, mining, artificial intelligence and what other buzzwords might be up in the air. I am more curious about larger scale transformations in the fabric of the economy, especially when it comes to the role of data and money. … Read more

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Utopian Sustainability, Sustainable Utopia

tl;dr: Utopian Sustainability needs to balance boldness and humbleness to envision a convivial future in which every individual can feel both at home and free.

500 years ago, English lawyer, philosopher and humanist Thomas More published his book »Utopia«. In it he described the »republic’s best state« on the island of Utopia, a fictional place that he used as a criticism and social commentary on the present state of European society at the beginning of the 16th century.… Read more

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Progressive Degrowth

Degrowth is a conservative perspective on humanity’s future and thus always runs into serious  acceptance problems when dealing with progressive proposals of “limitless” developments. What is needed is a reframing of these proposals as conservative and limiting our future while degrowth is presented as a “new progressivism”.

If you are an optimist regarding your life, technological opportunities and the general scheme of things, degrowth is hardly an attractive political-economical idea – less a philosophy you’d like to call your own.… Read more