Welcome to New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.
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This week, I heard news of strange sightings in the night sky over London.
The mystery was quickly solved. And it inspired this reflection on global challenges, the technology revolution, and new forms of government for the 21st-century.
Hit play!
If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of Do We Need a World Government?
Links in this week’s instalment
1. This weekend, a series of Londoners took to Twitter to ask the same question: did anyone else see that weird line of tiny lights trail across the sky tonight?
2. Elon Musk’s Starlink is a project to deliver internet connectivity anywhere on the planet via a network of satellites in low-Earth orbit.
3. The US Federal Communications Commission has given Starlink permission to launch 12,000 satellites, and Musk says the end vision is for 42,000.
4. Two weeks ago the IAU made representations to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).
5. In the early days of the pandemic former UK prime minister Tony Blair called for the World Health Organisation to be given more power to direct the response of nation states.
6. Francis Fukuyama, the political philosopher who wrote 1992’s The End of History, recently argued that increased cooperation between nation states is the best way to address global challenges in the 2020s.
7. The next iteration of the internet, sometimes referred to as Web3, will be built on decentralised systems.
Star Man
Thanks for listening this week.
Elon Musk will continue to launch his satellites. This newsletter, meanwhile, will continue to track the story.
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I’ll be back on Wednesday with another New Week Same Humans. Until then, be well,
David.
Do We Need a World Government? – Audio Version