I've lived in the US, New York, Los Angeles and Columbus Ohio for a brief period.
(I also lived in Berlin and Barcelona, but that doesn't really count as a radically different experience for an European)
I have strong northern African looks, but am still white and loved every moment in the US.
But the devil is in the details, I could not ignore that when my friends there told me that some neighborhood was dangerous it really was dangerous, not dangerous as we usually mean it when we say it in Italy.
I could not ignore the staggering amount of homicides reported in the news.
This year LA will surpass 300 homicides in a year, Italy has 12 times the population of LA and there were "only" 270 homicides last year.
I could not ignore that the police is scary there and you should not talk to them or engage in any way.
I swear I notice a difference when I see one.
Having said that.
Globalization is real, but the media here are not trying to exploit my weaknesses to sell me ads, they are putting ads on their products, generic ads, not "I know who you are and I know you're gonna like this" ads.
I'm ok with the first kind, not so much with the latter.
The point of decentralised web is a misguiding one.
The decentralised web is the web!
Everyone can build their own website and host it at home on a raspberry PI on their connection.
That's what made the web a novelty that could (hopefully) spread culture and knowledge.
The dicotomy between centralised and decentralised web was born because the web has been taken away from people and transformed in a targeted ads delivery machine by the same companies that sell ads (FB, Twitter, Instagram and most of all Google, they sell ads as a primary business)
They are fighting to get screen attention so that they can deliver even more ads to the people.
And when we say ads we are not simply talking about product advertisement, we are talking about political ads used to radicalise the debate, that the same companies selling ads control, thanks to the network effect.
And since the majority of companies doing it are American, I blame the USA that let them do it
As paradoxical as it might sound China doesn't need to sell ads to people to convince the people to support this or that position, because there is no alternative position.
They rely on good old State propaganda, which existed for centuries ans has been studied for decades and is a well understood topic.
It's, as the same implies, a spectrum.
I've lived in the US, New York, Los Angeles and Columbus Ohio for a brief period.
(I also lived in Berlin and Barcelona, but that doesn't really count as a radically different experience for an European)
I have strong northern African looks, but am still white and loved every moment in the US.
But the devil is in the details, I could not ignore that when my friends there told me that some neighborhood was dangerous it really was dangerous, not dangerous as we usually mean it when we say it in Italy.
I could not ignore the staggering amount of homicides reported in the news.
This year LA will surpass 300 homicides in a year, Italy has 12 times the population of LA and there were "only" 270 homicides last year.
I could not ignore that the police is scary there and you should not talk to them or engage in any way.
I swear I notice a difference when I see one.
Having said that.
Globalization is real, but the media here are not trying to exploit my weaknesses to sell me ads, they are putting ads on their products, generic ads, not "I know who you are and I know you're gonna like this" ads.
I'm ok with the first kind, not so much with the latter.
The point of decentralised web is a misguiding one.
The decentralised web is the web!
Everyone can build their own website and host it at home on a raspberry PI on their connection.
That's what made the web a novelty that could (hopefully) spread culture and knowledge.
The dicotomy between centralised and decentralised web was born because the web has been taken away from people and transformed in a targeted ads delivery machine by the same companies that sell ads (FB, Twitter, Instagram and most of all Google, they sell ads as a primary business)
They are fighting to get screen attention so that they can deliver even more ads to the people.
And when we say ads we are not simply talking about product advertisement, we are talking about political ads used to radicalise the debate, that the same companies selling ads control, thanks to the network effect.
And since the majority of companies doing it are American, I blame the USA that let them do it
As paradoxical as it might sound China doesn't need to sell ads to people to convince the people to support this or that position, because there is no alternative position.
They rely on good old State propaganda, which existed for centuries ans has been studied for decades and is a well understood topic.