Post-Modernity in Fast Networked Cities and Slow Physical Worlds

The author's central argument is that people now live in two time scales at once: a slow physical world and a fast, networked city world shaped by AI, crypto and smartphones. He argues that cities act as "inverse gravity wells" that pull physical reality out of life, and that the fast world keeps speeding up relative to the slow one. Drawing on Venkatesh Rao's view that modernity began in the 1200s and 1300s but became visible later, he suggests postmodernity is similarly already being born now. The piece also cites urbanisation rising to about 81% in the most developed countries, and the 2007/2008 point when urban and rural population shares became roughly even.