Do humans really desire convenience?

"There's two conflicting narratives that you'll often find in the public domain: the banal mainstream narrative, [which] is that everything is driven from consumers wanting convenience. And then there's sort of a top-down narrative—which is often where the conspiracy theorists lie—where they say stuff like, okay, it's being pushed by global elites who want to control you. So they imagine all the power is projected downwards upon people. And all [of] the [tech] industry says, oh, no, it's everybody [from] the bottom up, who wants these changes to happen. [But] the reality is, actually, there's a complex feedback loop between all these things that are occurring."

Contributors

Brett Scott

Brett Scott is an economic explorer and financial hacker traversing the intersections between money systems, finance, digital technology and cities. He is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (2013), and collaborates with a wide range on groups on diverse topics, including banking systems, financial activism, digital finance, blockchain technology, hacker culture, technology politics and the dynamics of cashless society.

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Nathalie Nahai

Nathalie Nahai is an author, keynote speaker and host of The Hive Podcast, a series that enquires into our relationship with one another, with technology and with the living world. With a diverse background in human behaviour, persuasive tech and the arts, Nathalie brings a unique vantage point from which to examine the complex challenges we face today.

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