Navigating the New Space Age

Today, the modern space industrial complex is poised to usher in the colonization of near-Earth space, posing myriad challenges for global governance. Without the right international space treaties in place, rivalries between space-exploring nations could lead to conflict. As Chaitanya Giri explains, lessons learned from the Age of Discovery can help nations navigate the new space age.

As much as the tech industry thinks it’s about the future, it’s astonishing how profoundly it replicates the past. European expansionism depended on modern technology to dominate, whether through deadlier weapons, faster ships or the laying of telegraph and railway lines across the west. In this latest Big Tech episode, Jeff Doctor, who is Cayuga from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and the impact strategist for Animikii, an Indigenous-owned technology company, talked with host Taylor Owen about the many ways in which colonialism is embedded in tech and how tech reinforces it.

As central banks around the world prepare to launch central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), Pierre Siklos takes a look in his new CIGI paper at issues surrounding a retail version of CBDCs that would complement notes and coins for consumers. To build the public’s trust in this type of digital currency, concerns such as loss of privacy and security of financial transactions must first be addressed.

For more on this topic, please see the op-ed by Pierre Siklos, “Digital money is here, so let’s take the time to get it right,” at iPolitics.

What happens when truckers are replaced by artificial intelligence? In his most recent opinion piece, which first appeared in Newsweek, Stephen Maher explains, saying that policy makers had better be paying attention, because none of us should want to live in a world where truckers are thrown out of work, facing hugely diminished economic prospects.

The accused have the right to know the case against them. But, when national security is concerned, some things must be kept secret. Aaron Shull writes that if we cannot try a person who is willing to risk everything to disclose highly confidential military information to a foreign power, what’s the message to other would-be amateur spies — or worse — our adversaries?