Hi, I’m Azeem Azhar. I convene Exponential View to help us understand how our societies and political economy will change under the force of rapidly accelerating technologies.

In today’s charts: freeing Assange; the prospects for the talented; understanding smileys.

Dept of now

Alone doesn’t mean lonely, or does it?

The diversity of interactions and time spent with other people in the US considerably decreases as people get older. Source: Our World in Data

A new era of cyberpunk activism

AssangeDAO, a decentralised autonomous organisation set up to raise money to cover the fees and publicity campaigns towards Julian Assange’s release, collected over $20 million in three days. As of writing this, the campaign has raised 16427.8 ETH or just over $50 million. This is a fascinating act of political subversion—worth following. Source: Wikileaks