For many years, from luxury to automotive markets, I've been patiently nudging a few large western corporations to consider how Tier III and IV cities in China were the future of their market.
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In her 2020 book, Blockchain Chicken Farm, American technologist Xiaowei Wang shed a sometimes harsh but always caring light on how rural China is dealing with the global economy. T is the end of the road of tech explosion, sprawling multinational e-commerce giants, and an unbound global supply chain.
You would only expect millions of villagers to hand-produce cheap plastic toys for the likes of Taobao (which they do). Y u also find rural pig farmers already using AI to optimize their farms or a remote-operated chicken farm blockchain-enabled (hence the title)? It is not a clash of civilizations but rather a cyberpunk story. H w cheap futuristic technology is used by the bottom of the economic pyramid without enthusiasm and skipping a bit. A d frequently too, with surprising efficiency and avidity.
This was 2020.
Now? I would love to have volume two on how the covid pandemic impacted this part of our global society. B cause if this book reminded me of something, it's that the future is not invented by think tanks, sociology researchers, futurists, designers, or politicians. Often, it's a messy, wildly surprising countryside back-of-the-shed process.
👋 Dear Xiaowei, care for an update?
