Are we heading for a one world order of powerful corporations? Will commercial brands dictate the popular culture of the future? It might not be what you expect. It’s time to Mattsplain.

Episode Excerpt:

As the world becomes increasingly wired, we often hear that culture is becoming more uniform and homogenised. Are we really heading for a one world order? Someone who’s not sure, but is pretty certain that it may not be the one world we imagine, is Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage. It’s time he Mattsplained.

Is it true you’ve had Jeff locked up for the crime of sarcasm?
•In a fake news world those of us with power can bend the judiciary to our will.
•Last week, Jeff said some horrible things about me. They may have been true but I choose to call them untrue.
•So, he’s way this week: I’ve had him locked up for a week to teach him to be more polite.

I assume this has some link to the show?
•You know what they say about assuming.
•But yes, there is a link.
•Nobody seems to know which way is up, right now.
•True is false. Green on red. Orange is not the only fruit.
•We are living in this weird and uncertain age where no one knows the rules.
•It’s like we’re futuristic and medieval at the same time.
•On social media, our lives are there for everyone to see.
•But IRL we’re walled up in castles, behind all kinds of physical and mental barriers.

How is this leading us to a one world order?
•Conspiracy fans are more than familiar with the new world order.
•That’s not what we’re talking about today.
•As you mentioned in the intro, people are starting to wonder whether Digital technology is actually pushing us towards more singular vision of the world around us, rather than allowing us to share and celebrate the differences of cultures around the world.

We’re talking Amazon and Facebook, rather than a sinister plot to take over the world?
•Precisely. Strange thing is, it’s possible that they could end up being same thing.
•No conspiracy, but power still concentrated amongst a handful of companies by virtue of their size.
•We did a show on Amazon and a few weeks back, in the company really is poised to become this global trade monolith.
•Along with the Alibaba group based in China, these two companies are starting to carve out a niche for themselves where almost all of our trade touches them at some point.
•Whether it’s an online payment, an app using cloud services or something we buy, it’s quite incredible the number of the companies and products we use in our daily lives that have some direct or indirect connection to companies like Amazon and Alipay.

But you’re not sure that this is where the future is heading?
•A lot of today’s show was actually a bit of a thought experiment.
•Usually when I do these shows I’m quoting from lots of sources, or at the very least a couple of websites.
•A lot of them to talk about today’s conjecture.
•That’s one of the best things about futurism, you look at the information you have today, he hope that you handle on what’s going to happen tomorrow and use that to project or predict what’s going to happen in 10 or 50 or 100 years time.
•So I can’t cite any particular studies to back up what I’m about to say,
•but if I’m on track, I think a lot of people Will be researching this very soon.