You’d think something called the General Data Protection Regulation might actually protect data. You’d be wrong. Along with its elder cousin, the ICCPR, GDPR was hailed as the Great Hope™—a beacon of digital dignity in a world run by surveillance capitalists. But instead of taming the beast, it handed it a clipboard and told it to tick some boxes. The GDPR officially kicked in at the stroke of midnight on 25 May 2018, like some sort of data privacy Cinderella. It was meant to give users the sacred gift of choice—to say yes or no to having their personal lives vacuumed up, analysed, monetised, and passed around like cheap party favours. What we actually got was an avalanche of “consent” banners and passive-aggressive pop-ups saying: “Agree or get lost.” ...

The elephant in the room—the one everyone recognises—is overt bias: those charmingly blatant attitudes and prejudices someone proudly wears on their sleeve. It’s delightfully obvious and enables some truly impressive mental gymnastics. Then there’s the other elephant—the one lurking in the shadows, rarely discussed. This is unconscious bias: our hidden preferences for or against a person, thing, or group, neatly tucked away where even we can’t see them. Despite our best efforts to be impeccably fair-minded, we might harbour deep-seated resistance to differences—race, gender, physical traits, personality types, sexual orientation, you name it. How embarrassing. ...

That fine, silken cloak draped over the naked emperor of power, carefully stitched with phrases like “you ought to”, “you must”, or the always-a-red-flag “we are required to”. One might almost think these words were woven by bureaucrats with a thesaurus in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other. At its core, legitimate power is the quiet agreement that some people get to tell others what to do—not because they’re better, brighter, or morally upright, but because we’ve all tacitly accepted a hierarchy that says, “Yes, you get the chair at the head of the table… and I’ll just sit over here by the bin, cheers.” ...

We’ve got two brain hemispheres, structurally asymmetrical. The left one? Brilliant at building bridges, splitting atoms, counting beans. It’s been instrumental in all that humankind has achieved. Unfortunately, it’s also a terrible driver of the human experience. A wonderful servant, yes — but an appalling master. The right hemisphere, though not dependent on the left in the same way, needs it to achieve its full potential — to be its wild, flowing, metaphor-loving self. But the left? Oh no, it pretends it doesn’t need the right at all. Denial, thy name is cortex. ...

Poverty is that charming social construct we can pretend isn’t entirely our fault. The greatest challenge of our time? According to The Spirit of Poverty, it’s gently coaxing the middle classes into understanding that the homeless man shouting expletives at them is, in fact, a fellow victim of the same system that keeps them comfortably numb. How terribly inconvenient. Debunking the Greatest Hits of Poverty Misconceptions Myth 1: “Poor people did it to themselves.” Oh yes, because nothing says personal responsibility like being born into a postcode with failing schools, zero job prospects, and a healthcare system that considers paracetamol a luxury. Poverty is absolutely a choice—if your choices are between starvation and indentured servitude. ...

Poverty isn’t just a lack of money—it’s a meticulously engineered trap (done mostly by “developed” countries). While the so-called “developed” world pats itself on the back for occasional charitable gestures, billions remain ensnared in systems designed to keep them poor, hungry, and powerless. The bitter irony? The very countries lamenting global poverty are often the ones perpetuating it through exploitation, climate destruction, and a stubborn refusal to address root causes. ...

As we huddle in our homes during this charming pandemic summer, Silicon Valley’s finest have apparently decided that what the world really needs isn’t a vaccine or functioning government - but a way for rich men to never die. Because billionaires clearly don’t have enough advantages already. Today several biotech companies, fuelled by Silicon Valley fortunes, are devoted to “life extension” — or as some put it, to solving “the problem of death.” ~ The Men Who Want to Live Forever, Dara Horn, New York Times, Jan 2018. ...

In Governmental Ghost Stories, the chills don’t come from creaking doors or sudden screams, but from the slow, clammy realisation that your digital life has more uninvited guests than a haunted manor on All Hallows’ Eve. It’s less The Conjuring and more Yes, Minister meets Dr. Strangelove in a dimly lit GCHQ break room. The UK Investigatory Powers Act (IPA): Or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the snooper’s charter ...

Space—the final frontier, the great beyond, the… shockingly cluttered dumping ground for humanity’s discarded space toys. Forget the romantic image of a pristine cosmic void; what we’ve actually created is a high-altitude landfill, where decades of forgotten satellites, exploded rocket stages, and even rogue flecks of paint whiz around at speeds that could turn a pebble into a shotgun blast. Back in the glory days of the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union treated space like a shooting range, gleefully blowing up satellites just to prove they could. And why not? It’s not like anyone would have to clean up the mess—except, well, everyone launching anything into orbit for the next few centuries. Fast forward to today, and we’ve got everything from frozen clouds of rocket pee (yes, really) to shards of shrapnel zipping around up there, turning what should be a celestial highway into a demolition derby. ...

Once upon a FOIA, a group of researchers got their hands on 2,000 pages of bureaucratic bedtime reading from Serbia’s data protection overseers. Their aim? To expose the country’s surveillance architecture. Spoiler: it’s less Big Brother, more “nosy landlord with a master key to every flat”. Here’s what they found: Metadata mania: Every call, text, and pixel of mobile data generates metadata – and Serbia’s telcos are required to store it all for 12 months. That’s every call you’ve made, every base station you’ve connected to, and even what phone model you’re using (yes, they know your burner’s a Nokia 3310). Who’s watching?: The police, civil spies, military spies – all lining up at the metadata buffet. Some go through official channels (paperwork, court orders), while others are gifted magical software logins with unlimited access to the nation’s digital exhaust pipe. Who needs due process when you’ve got root access? Slightly illegal hobbies: In a fun twist, one carrier just hands over everyone’s metadata to the intelligence agency daily. Another gave the same spooks a direct line into their data centre. Both activities have the same legal standing as Monopoly money – i.e., none – and violate both Serbian and international law. But hey, what’s law if no one enforces it? Wiretapping 2.0: Classic phone tapping’s had a glow-up. Now it’s called “interception of electronic communications” and comes with a healthy dose of legalese and plausible deniability. Telcos are even required by law to buy spy gear and hand it to the intelligence agency. Then they get to pay for the maintenance, too. Talk about state-sponsored gaslighting. Geo-stalking as a service: Thanks to cell towers and triangulation, your phone’s location can be pinpointed in real-time. This info is happily made available to state organs, complete with bespoke tracking devices and BIA’s sole discretion. If you thought you were off-grid, surprise – you’re on three grids at once. Conclusion In Serbia, surveillance isn’t just a tool – it’s an entire shadow industry, built into the very bones of mobile infrastructure. The lines between legal oversight and unchecked spying are not so much blurred as enthusiastically redacted. And while mass surveillance is technically illegal, all the loopholes are working overtime. ...