Research

Explore our collection of articles on the leading megatrends in technology, politics, and society.

Filter: Long-form articles

7

min

The future of inflation and interest rates

A long-term view on the drivers of inflation and monetary policy

7

min

FreedomLab Selects: Rinus van de Velde — The Armchair Voyager

Vivian Elion analyses the surrealistic exhibition of Rinus van de Velde through the lens of metamodernism.

16

min

Romantic robots: a new love paradigm

Will our society's progressive values lead us to embrace a new romantic paradigm?

15

min

Health is the luxury to fall sick and recover

Towards an enriched concept of the normal and the pathological

13

min

ChatGPT and the place of the human being in an automated society

An unconventional reflection on Hannah Arendt’s philosophy

11

min

Pills, pills, pills

Sebastiaan Crul discusses the inevitability of techno-fixes in a world haunted by crises

7

min

FreedomLab Selects: Metroid Prime Remastered

An adventurous and immersive journey to overcome an alienated world and yourself

14

min

The Deep Transitions Framework; an elaboration

A theoretical and empirical elaboration on the Deep Transitions Framework, designed to contribute to a just, equitable and healthy planet.

10

min

How Weirdcore and Y2K aesthetics took over TikTok in times of despair

What style reveals regarding playful nihilism, emotional spending, and dread

16

min

EU's digital strategy: where are we now and where do we go from here?

We should be strategic as we make strides toward digital sovereignty.

11

min

Vibegeist: rave until the grave

The revival of rave and rage in the roaring twenties.

16

min

To cyberspace and beyond

How the cyborg movies of the ‘90s made us fantasize about mind uploading, sentient AI and immortality.

16

min

The early days of cyberpunk

As man becomes machine and machine becomes man.

11

min

When the selfie becomes an avatar

How Instagram is preparing itself for the metaverse

15

min

Venetian, young and farming: three lessons from the new generation of Italian farmers on agri-food sustainability

Julia Rijssenbeek and Maya Turolla turn the spotlight on young farmers championing the transition to sustainable food systems.

11

min

An introduction to the Stack

Learn more about our framework that helps us understand the anatomy of digital systems.

16

min

A beginner's guide to the metaverse

Both praised and feared by many, the 'promises' of the metaverse are highly contentious. Sebastiaan Crul aims to separate the wheat from the chaff.

11

min

Resisting the green gold

Deconstructing my purchasing choices: why is it so hard to change behavior?

16

min

How the cyborg deconstructed the modern worldview

The evolution of the cyborg in science and popular culture

17

min

Religion and spirituality after the death of God

Secularism could lead to moral and spiritual nihilism that Nietzsche and Dostoevsky warn of. What are the socio-cultural consequences of this?

9

min

Can digital technology save humanity?

How the Digital Revolution will change the rules of the game

7

min

Does the future belong to Keynes and Mazzucato?

8

min

How do we distil a good narrative from 2020?

16

min

The Retroscope 2020

8

min

The 'Brussels effect' on digital legislation

Europe is reinventing its digital Stack by taking the lead in legislation implementation

6

min

Disinformation and the false believe we are autonomous in our search for knowledge

10

min

The future of Trumpism

8

min

Biden: neither friend nor foe to big tech

7

min

The sharing economy is dead, long live the rental economy

7

min

Are we sharing enough data?

Digital facts and objectivity in the 'TrustTech Stack' and network ontology

How can the Stack and Bruno Latour's network ontology help to give a more positive conception of the construction of digital facts and objectivity?

The quitters of open societies

What happens when we no longer play a common game

Is science to blame for post-truth politics?

How the left contributed to the deconstruction of truth

FreedomLab commemorates its 500th article with a retrospective of its publication history

The narratives struggling to define the impact of AI on the labor market

High expectations, disillusionment, and realism—the usual players in AI predictions are all present

Forget about the (human) parents

Meet the cyborgs

The enhanced human: stronger, better, happier

Why we might all become centaurs according to transhumanists

The deficient animal: artificial by nature

And why the idea of helpful AI agents might be a misleading, anthropocentric notion

Genuine writing in the digital age

An inconvenient effort worth pursuing

The AI chips race (part II)

Chips are at the heart of the generative AI Stack

Research

Explore over 400 articles on prevailing megatrends in tech, politics and society.