Society | ForkLog

ForkLog 120 21.08.2025

A wallet as a passport: new world or prison?

How a crypto wallet becomes an instrument of social control.

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ForkLog 50 12.08.2025

The science of manipulation

Classical economic theory assumes people act rationally and strive to maximise their gains. Yet a strand of scholarship disputes this, pointing out that people often act irrationally, swayed by emotions, biases and cognitive limits. In this ForkLog article, we examine how behavioural economics has changed the way we think about human action, why it became […]

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ForkLog 79 11.08.2025

Piercing the silence

Not only in Russia, but across the world, regulation of the open internet has tightened in recent years. The result is that the global web is starting to fray before our eyes. In this ForkLog report, together with Ilya Perevalov, a technical expert at “Роскомсвободы”, we examine the degree of isolation in the Runet and […]

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ForkLog 95 07.08.2025

Silicon Tanks: Ted Nelson’s Vision

Ted Nelson is a man who foresaw the future of the internet long before it came into being. He introduced the terms “hypertext” and “hypermedia,” which became the foundation of the World Wide Web. However, the internet we use today is but a pale and distorted shadow of the philosopher’s original vision. Nelson dreamed of […]

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ForkLog 40 06.08.2025

The chat sovereign

The very phrase “sovereign AI” evokes authoritarian regimes few would choose to inhabit. Yet “global artificial intelligence” conjures its own spectres: digital colonialism and other delights of a brave new world. Why, in AI development, both notions are largely meaningless and serve chiefly as tools of manipulation is the subject of this ForkLog essay by […]

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ForkLog 53 31.07.2025

Freedom, the mother of order

Twentieth-century economic thought was defined by competing visions of an ideal society, each school offering its own blueprint. If Chicago School faith in the market as a universal problem-solver became the emblem of neoliberalism, the Austrian School charted a different course — philosophical, with an emphasis on individual freedom. Rooted in the ideas of Carl […]

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ForkLog 41 28.07.2025

General Algorithm

Artificial intelligence has become an indispensable aide across fields that improve daily life—from automating web search to education and medicine. Yet, like any technology, it has another side. In recent months, engineers at leading corporations have resigned in protest at the use of their work in the MIC; musicians remove entire catalogues from streaming platforms […]

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ForkLog 46 23.07.2025

How markets became dogma—and then cracked

Economics has its tales of triumph and failure, but few schools of thought have left as deep a mark as Chicago. In the 20th century its ideas captured the minds of politicians, economists and entire nations. Yet critics, not only on the left but also among classical liberals, argue that the Chicago School monopolised economic […]

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ForkLog 149 14.07.2025

Silicon Tanks: Evgeny Morozov, prophet of digital scepticism

While Silicon Valley promised peace, fellowship and democracy via apps, the Belarusian scholar Evgeny Morozov warned that technology is not magic but a tool of power. A decade ago he was branded an alarmist; today his books are read as manuals for the digital world. Why Morozov’s critique of “solutionism” and “internet-centrism” feels timelier than […]

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ForkLog 62 04.07.2025

Just add water: Pakistan between a crypto dream and hard reality

Pakistan seeks technological sovereignty, yet these ambitions collide with hard economic and political realities, low living standards and a long-running conflict with India, which controls the headwaters of key rivers. ForkLog examines how an Islamic republic with vast human capital is trying to build a digital future amid instability. First steps into the digital economy […]

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ForkLog 213 03.07.2025

Silicon Tanks: Nancy Fraser’s feminist view of digital capitalism

“Silicon Tanks” is a ForkLog series profiling the intellectuals, scholars and visionaries who, in our view, have shaped the internet and digital finance—or, conversely, have subjected them to critique. The subject of today’s piece is the philosopher Nancy Fraser, who coined the concept of “cannibal capitalism” to describe the link between technological progress, Big Tech, […]

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ForkLog 157 02.07.2025

The Srinivasan–Buterin Democratic Republic

In 2022 entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan unveiled the Network State, a concept that fuses an alternative vision of statehood with blockchain technology. In just three years, the idea has moved off the page and into the physical world. In this ForkLog piece, we explore the historical roots of the Network State, the launch of the Network […]

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