I occasionally drop by the local Rants & Raves forum in Craigslist; usually there is inane banter and idle discussion. But sometimes, just sometimes, there are some thoughtful questions, of which this was one. What defines you, the anonymous poster asked.

“Remember the good old days before [insert-​​invention-​​here]?”

Truthfully that one statement irks me to the bone. And I’m compelled to take the side of the defendant in this rather unfair portrayal of technology as somehow abrading our humanity.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill recently hit the headlines. In a nutshell, SOPA is supposed to be a blanket solution to digital piracy. Vocal proponents of the Internet reacted almost immediately, understandably outraged by the removal of basic freedoms of the Internet.

Myself, I’m more concerned about the implications of such measures.

This was a supplemental essay I wrote for my application to a Masters program in Technology and Public Policy. The task was to craft an essay in strictly layman terms, that would introduce any acquaintance not familiar with the field, to what I intend to do.

An essay prepared for Z Academy’s Marketer of the Year 2021 competition. The task? To prepare an entry that creatively justified why we’d won a hypothetical award in 2021 for changing the world of marketing. Didn’t get any prizes for this one, but all the speculating was fun!

Having personally witnessed the global explosion of computing & consumer electronics, I think the change has been for the best. Which is why I don’t look too kindly upon people who defend increasingly archaic things. In this case, I call out the paper book.

Thinking out loud about why we collect things. Is it an evolutionary impulse to hoard resources, or is there something more to it? Can the pleasure derived from having a collection be justified quantitatively? Or is it simply an irrational indulgence, like many of Man’s other vices? Hmm, questions, questions!