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The Coming Middle-Class Existential Crisis

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The urban middle class, once the backbone of stable economies, is facing an existential crisis unlike anything since the 18th century. And this time, the threat isn’t feudal lords or monarchs, but algorithms and concentrated capital. Image: Pavel Danilyuk An existential crisis for the urban middle class, which in the 18th century corresponded to the bourgeoisie or trade classes, making the situation, if unresolved, a potential modern analogue of a French‑Revolution–style crisis. Instead of feudal oppression, it is driven by technological displacement and concentration of capital, both reinforced by feedback loops. A Historical Lens To understand the stakes, it helps to look back. In pre-revolutionary France, the bourgeoisie were educated, economically active, and socially ambitious. They were the merchants, artisans, and professionals who created value, paid taxes, and yet had limited political influence. Frustrated by rigid hierarchies, systemic inequality, and structural injustice, t...
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The Simulation Argument Revisited in a Functional Universe

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What if the most commonly overlooked assumption of the simulation argument is also the most consequential? That assumption concerns time itself. Irreducible duration of interactions The Hidden Temporal Assumption Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument rests on a deceptively simple statistical premise: if sufficiently advanced civilizations can run vast numbers of simulated conscious observers cheaply and at scale, then simulated minds will vastly outnumber biological ones. From this numerical dominance, it follows that we should assign a high probability to being simulated ourselves. What is often left implicit, however, is a strong assumption about time, namely, that simulated realities can be executed arbitrarily faster than the physical universe in which they are implemented. The Functional Universe (FU)  challenges this assumption at its root. Time as Transition, Not Parameter In the Functional Universe, time is not an external parameter that indexes state evolution. It does no...
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Rethinking Time in Computation: From Wall-Clocks to State Transitions

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In most computing, “time” is an external parameter. Your operating system ticks away milliseconds, trading platforms timestamp orders, and distributed systems rely on synchronized clocks. But what if a computer, or any engineered system, could measure time from its own internal causal activity rather than an arbitrary external reference? This idea draws inspiration from the Functional Universe (FU) framework (link for the computer model here ), a conceptual model in which the universe evolves as a sequence of compositional functional states . In FU, time is not fundamental; it emerges from the succession of irreversible transitions . Applying the same principle to engineered systems, where time is counted by actual state changes rather than wall-clock ticks, opens a new paradigm in computation. Internal Clocks: Counting Transitions, Not Seconds Imagine a computer whose “clock” advances only when its internal state actually changes . Every completed computation, memory update, or mean...
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Math Education: What If We Started with Sets and Groups Instead of Numbers?

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Image: Katerina Holmes   We all remember how math began for us: counting blocks, fingers, or apples, writing the number “2” over and over, memorizing that 3 + 2 = 5. Arithmetic was the foundation, and numbers were treated as the most basic element of mathematical understanding. But what if that foundation is, in fact, not the most natural starting point ? What if we began math education not with numbers, but with sets and groups ? It may sound like a move reserved for graduate students or pure mathematicians, but I believe that reframing the beginning of math education around sets and structure   - rather than counting and calculation - could unlock a deeper, more intuitive, and more meaningful mathematical journey from the very beginning. Why Start with Sets? Before children ever learn to count, they’re already experts in categorizing the world. They sort toys by color or shape, they understand what belongs in the “group” called family, and they can tell the difference betwe...
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How AI Agents Are Splintering the Financial Industry

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For decades, banks and large financial institutions have served as the backbone of our economic systems. Their services were essential, their expertise exclusive, and their infrastructure unrivaled. But today, a new force is emerging that challenges their dominance not through confrontation, but through quiet, scalable substitution:  AI agents . AI agents are software systems that can reason, fetch data, analyze financial instruments, and produce actionable insights—all without human intervention. They don’t just replicate the work of a junior analyst or a robo-advisor; they represent a fundamental shift in who controls financial knowledge, access, and execution. This shift has major implications. It threatens to erode the fee-based models that many financial institutions rely on. It undermines the very idea of centralized financial authority. Most significantly, it lays the groundwork for a splintered financial ecosystem: a future where finance is no longer controlled by a fe...
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The Hidden Golden Ratio in Bicycle Geometry

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A Surprising Personal Discovery in Frame Proportions While designing a minimalist aluminum bicycle frame, I stumbled upon something remarkable that appears to have gone unnoticed in cycling literature: the relationship between front-center and chainstay length across most mountain bike frames approximates the golden ratio (φ ≈ 1.618). This mountain bike features an almost exact golden ratio. Image: pexels.com - Jahangeer Bm - Superimposed Golden Rule vector: Wikimedia commons The front-center is the horizontal distance from the front wheel axle to the bottom bracket, while the chainstay length runs from the bottom bracket to the rear wheel axle. When you divide the front-center by the chainstay length across various bicycle types, a consistent pattern emerges. Road bikes typically show front-centers of 680-720mm with chainstays of 410-420mm, yielding ratios between 1.62 and 1.71. Mountain bikes display front-centers of 700-750mm and chainstays of 430-450mm, giv...
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Rethinking Luggage Privacy in the Age of Oversharing

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In an era where we casually share vacation selfies, location data, and even our DNA and heartbeat with apps and platforms, one thing we continue to fiercely protect is… our suitcase. What's in a suitcase? - Images: Grok The average piece of checked or carry-on luggage contains nothing revolutionary: a few outfits, some toiletries, maybe a laptop or paperback novel. Yet, we insist on opaque bags, as if the contents were deeply private. It’s a habit we’ve inherited, not one we’ve ever really thought about. And it may be time to ask: why? Privacy Theater: A Game We Keep Playing This instinct to hide our belongings is less about protecting personal information and more about repeating a social ritual. We cover our bags not because we need to, but because that's what everyone does. It’s behavior on autopilot. But here’s the irony, we’ve already surrendered most of our truly private data . We have already surrendered everything which is important: Our phones track us, our...
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