In the last years, I’ve increasingly felt anxious about my dependence on a few big U.S. tech giants. I waited too long, but finally pulled myself together and did it! What I did: moved my personal data over to European servers. And made sure no private information about me is sent to American servers anymore. It took me a year… Continue reading Goodbye U.S. Big tech (+ step by step guide)
On a recent visit to the very cool Fenix museum – an art museum about immigration in Rotterdam that opened last year – I saw this “World Passport”. Nice idea and piece of art, I thought. “If only this existed”. And I took a picture. The concept stuck though, and I started reading more about it at home. It turns… Continue reading How to become an official “World Citizen”
Maxim Februari’s “Doe zelf normaal” (untranslatable I guess, but this house of representatives debate is the basis for the title) for me the most though-provoking thing I read in 2025. The essay (in Dutch) is from 2023. We like to imagine technology as something neutral: a tool that just helps us do things faster or more conveniently. And usually that’s… Continue reading The Automation of Virtue – Maxim Februari
Since the 1990’s I’ve been keeping a list of business ideas that I will most likely never execute. I’ve shared three social business ideas on LinkedIn. Hopefully I can inspire someone, in some way. Do get in touch to brainstorm, or if you need a co-founder who can do the back-office 💩 ! Idea 1: LocalTees The concept Sourcing t-shirts… Continue reading Never-started social businesses
The best podcast I’ve listened to this year is an interview by Lex Bolmeijer with Bart Brandsma (in Dutch), an expert in the field of polarization. Brandsma is a Dutch philosopher. He travels the world to study and train governments about the dynamics around “us versus them” thinking. He wrote Polarization: Understanding the Dynamics of Us-Them Thinking in 2016. Brandsma… Continue reading An eye-opening podcast about polarization
Sometimes, you read or hear something that explains something important about yourself that you’ve always known, but never knew how to articulate. It happened to me this week! Ever since I can remember (which is not a very long time), I’ve found “loving your country” a strange concept. I feel extremely fortunate that I was born in the prosperous, well-located… Continue reading Camus: “I love my country too much to be a nationalist.”
