They Taught the World to Rise. And then Forgot How.

America loves a good story about itself. Freedom, liberty, rebellion, all sung in a major key and wrapped in a flag. They turned revolution into a genre, democracy into a Broadway soundtrack, and tyranny into something that only happens somewhere else.

For years, they sang along to Hamilton like it was gospel. They memorized the verses, quoted the lines, cosplayed on TikTok, cried over the Founding Fathers recast as rappers, a nation rediscovering its roots through rhyme. “Rise up!” they cheered, fists raised in theaters that cost more than a week’s rent. “History has its eyes on you!” they shouted, and then went home to post about how democracy works best when everyone just calms down.

They turned a revolution into karaoke.

What could have been a cultural reawakening became merch, mugs, magnets, tote bags. They treated it like nostalgia porn, not civic scripture. Hamilton made them feel brave for three minutes at a time, but not brave enough to stand up when their leaders turned liberty into a punchline.

And here we are, a government once founded on the act of defying tyranny now bending to a tyrant who rules by resentment and applause. He doesn’t wear a crown; he wears grievance. He doesn’t demand fealty through divine right; he earns it through fear. He’s convinced millions that oppression looks like fairness and equality looks like persecution, the oldest trick in the imperial playbook.

The same Americans who quote “Not throwing away my shot” on Instagram are now throwing away their rights, willingly, comfortably, with flag emojis. The same nation that fetishizes freedom lets it erode inch by inch, as long as someone else pays the price: immigrants, queer people, the press, the poor, teachers, women. Anyone whose existence complicates the myth of greatness.

But at least something is happening. Seeds have been sown and they’ve grown. Not everyone’s asleep.

There are pockets of resistance, people who still remember what courage feels like. Activists, journalists, students, veterans, mothers, workers, ordinary Americans trying to shake a system that’s calcified around comfort and cowardice. You can feel them humming under the surface, restless, angry, aware that something is deeply broken. They want to rise. They just don’t know what will make them finally stand.

Maybe they’re waiting for a spark. Maybe for a face, a name, a moment that makes rebellion feel possible again. But revolutions don’t schedule themselves, and waiting is a luxury the oppressed can’t afford.

Instead, everyone’s sitting around pretending democracy will course-correct, that the institutions will hold, that the next election will fix it, that accountability will come “through the proper channels.” Meanwhile, those channels are being rerouted, blocked, or bought. The republic’s on fire, and half the country’s still asking for the fire marshal’s permission to panic.

What America needs now isn’t another election cycle. It needs new leaders, ones who aren’t complicit, compliant, or conveniently silent. The revolutionaries of old didn’t wait for permission; they became the permission. They didn’t play by the tyrant’s rules; they rewrote them.

The irony is that the script already exists. They’ve been singing it for years. Hamilton told them exactly what to do: rise up, speak truth, make noise, leave a mark. Instead, they’ve isolated it as entertainment, something to consume, not something to live.

The country that once burned tea over taxes now shrugs as billionaires buy politicians in bulk. The land that preached “no taxation without representation” now lets votes be stripped and districts redrawn beyond recognition. The people who belt “freedom” before every game are fine watching it die, as long as the anthem still plays before kickoff and nobody is taking the knee.

It’s not that America forgot the revolution, it’s that it’s scared of what remembering it would require.

Because to remember is to act. And acting would mean admitting the system no longer works as promised. It would mean standing up to neighbors, bosses, governors, cops, to comfort itself.

They don’t know or don’t realize that this is what’s written in their own Declaration of Independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

And if this post somehow gains traction among Americans, I can guess what’s coming: the replies calling it “unfounded,” “uninformed,” or “too simplistic to understand the nuance of American politics.” But there’s nothing nuanced about the erosion of freedom, or the spectacle of cruelty being televised daily. There’s no complexity in racism and fascism when it’s parading down Main Street with a flag and these days they’re not just carrying the Star Spangled Banner, they’re flying the Israeli flag alongside and calling for allegiance to that other country ahead of their own.

Nuance is what people invoke when they’re too scared to pick a side. What’s left now isn’t nuance. It’s clarity. The kind that history forces on you when you’ve waited too long to act. Maybe history really does have its eyes on them. It’s just wondering what the hell they’re waiting for.

The Apple – Perplexity rumor that won’t go away

This is a longer think piece from the quick post I had on Mastodon the other day.

Every time someone floats the idea that Apple should acquire Perplexity to “supercharge” its AI efforts, I get whiplash, not just from the sheer strategic laziness of the suggestion, but from the deeper cultural misalignment it completely ignores. The very idea is a perplexing thought.

Perplexity isn’t some misunderstood innovator quietly building the future. It’s a company fundamentally unsure of what it is, what it stands for, or how to exist without parasitizing the open web. It’s been posing as a search engine, an AI-powered Q&A tool, a research assistant, and lately, some vague hybrid of all three, depending on who’s asking and what narrative sounds hottest that week. The only throughline is this: a constant need to justify its own existence, retrofitting its product pitch to whatever the industry is currently foaming at the mouth about.

And then there’s the CEO.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has made a habit of saying the quiet parts out loud, and not in a refreshing, brutally honest way, but in a way that suggests he hasn’t thought them through. Case in point: TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, where he was asked point blank to define plagiarism and couldn’t answer. Not didn’t answer. Couldn’t. That wasn’t just a missed PR opportunity. That was a red flag, flapping violently in the face of a company that scrapes content from other publishers, slaps a “summarized by AI” badge on it, and tries to call that innovation.

When you can’t define plagiarism as the CEO of a company built on other people’s work, that’s not strategic ambiguity, that’s an ethical void. And it’s telling. Perplexity has made a business of riding the razor-thin line between fair use and flat-out theft, and they want the benefit of the doubt without the burden of responsibility.

Which is where the Apple comparisons get absurd.

Yes, Apple stumbled. For more than a decade, Siri was a rudderless ship, a clunky commuter train in an age where everyone else was racing to build maglevs. The company completely missed the LLM Shinkansen as it rocketed past, leaving Siri coughing in the dust. What followed was a scramble, an engine swap mid-ride, and the painful attempt to retrofit a creaky voice assistant into something worthy of generative AI expectations.

That failure — public, prolonged, and still unresolved — gave the impression that Apple had no idea what was coming. That they were too slow, too self-contained, and too arrogant to evolve. And to some extent, that criticism landed. The year-long silence after ChatGPT’s breakout moment painted Apple as unprepared, reactive, even out of touch.

But here’s the thing: while Apple still hasn’t shown much of anything tangible since the Apple Intelligence announcement at WWDC 2024 (Genmoji? Really? Messed up email and notification summary?), the signals are clear. The company has changed course. They’ve acknowledged they’re behind and now they’re moving, quietly but with force. Once Apple has its engineering machine locked onto a target, the company doesn’t need to acquire noisy, erratic startups to plug the gaps. What it needs is time. And direction. And both are now in motion.

Which brings us back to Perplexity. Apple doesn’t need it. Not for the tech — which is just a UX layer on top of open models and scraped data. Not for the team — which seems more interested in testing the boundaries of IP law than building products people trust. And definitely not for the culture — which is allergic to accountability and powered by vibes over values.

Apple’s entire value proposition is control: of the user experience, of the ecosystem, and of the narrative. Perplexity brings chaos. Unapologetically so. It doesn’t have a sustainable moat, a mature product, or a north star. It has hype. It has press. And it has the moral compass of a company that thinks citation is a permission slip to republish everyone else’s work for free.

If Apple wants a better search experience, it can build one, with privacy built in, on-device processing, and full-stack integration. If it wants a smarter assistant, it can leverage its silicon and software in ways that Perplexity simply can’t touch. What it doesn’t need is a cultural virus from a startup that treats copyright like a rounding error and ethics like an optional plugin.

So no, Apple shouldn’t buy Perplexity. Not because it can’t. But because it finally knows what it needs to build, and it’s building it the Apple way. At least that’s what I think they’re doing.

Megawati: Indonesia’s political system doesn’t recognize oppositions and coalitions

Megawati Soekarnoputri is once again lecturing the nation from a podium padded with nostalgia and selective memory.

At PDIP’s 6th Congress in Bali, following her reelection as party leader until 2030, she confidently announced that “there’s no such thing as opposition or coalition in Indonesia’s presidential system,” arguing that such dichotomies belong only in parliamentary governments. She then doubled down, framing Indonesia’s democracy as one “based on the people’s sovereignty and the Constitution,” and insisting that PDIP would now act as an “ideological balancing force” rather than opposition.

It’s the kind of speech that sounds profound until you remember how politics in this country actually works.

Let’s start with the basics. Coalitions are not just a feature of Indonesia’s political system, they’re a structural necessity. You need them to qualify for the presidential race. You need them to pass legislation. You need them to govern. There is no constitutional path to power without them. The electoral threshold makes sure of that. So Megawati’s insistence on semantics changes nothing about how political parties operate in practice. If anything, it’s an attempt to overwrite the obvious with rhetorical fog.

Without a coalition, Megawati wouldn’t have had Prabowo Subianto as her running mate in 2008, the same Prabowo whose party just beat hers in the 2024 election, and who spent a solid decade as the loudest, most confrontational opposition to the Jokowi administration, which PDIP dominated. Never mind that in the final years of Jokowi’s term, Gerindra’s loyalty in that so-called coalition was visibly eroding.

That same “nonexistent” coalition also helped put Jokowi and Ahok into City Hall in Jakarta. And let’s not forget, oppositions, even if not enshrined in constitutional vocabulary, have existed and operated for decades in this country. Political parties outside power have always criticized, challenged, and scrutinized those in it. They hold press conferences. They file lawsuits. They propose alternatives. That’s called being the opposition, regardless of whether Megawati feels like saying the word out loud.

Oppositions and coalitions in Indonesia are as inevitable as Jakarta’s traffic jams, they only disappear during Lebaran holidays when no one’s around. So why deny them now?

Well, it’s hard not to notice the timing. Megawati’s sudden interest in redefining Indonesia’s entire political vocabulary coincides, coincidentally, of course with President Prabowo’s decision to grant amnesty to PDIP’s Secretary General who was convicted for bribing officials to parachute a party-hopping politician into parliament and sent to 3.5 years in prison. That politician has since gone missing. For five years. But sure, tell us more about constitutional purity.

This is the kind of gaslighting that only works when everyone else agrees to play along. Megawati wants to position PDIP as above the fray, “a critical balancer,” not opposition, not loyalist, just… conveniently in between. But you don’t get to erase the last 25 years of your own party’s behavior and pretend the entire system is suddenly different because you’re not in charge anymore.

Megawati still sees herself as the matriarch of Indonesian politics, cloaked in Sukarnoist symbolism and mythic authority. But at some point, that legacy turns into a liability, especially when it’s used to blur history, dodge accountability, and deny the very dynamics that made her party viable in the first place.

If PDIP wants to stay relevant in a post-Jokowi, post-victory Gerindra era, it needs more than ideological posturing. It needs to stop pretending that the system it thrived in doesn’t exist. Because it obviously does.

And it’s probably a sign that the party needs new leadership and direction. As it stands it will never not be known as the party of whatever she wants it to be.

Indonesia declared war on the One Piece flag

In what might be the most unintentionally self-owns in modern governance, parliamentary leaders have claimed that the Straw Hat Jolly Roger — the beloved skull-and-crossbones from One Piece — represents separatist tendencies and is being used by shadowy forces who want the Prabowo government to collapse (the news even made it to Screen Rant of all places). The flag has since been targeted for criminalization, under the claim that it’s “provocative,” “disrespectful,” and “threatening national unity.”

So let’s get this straight: a cartoon pirate flag — flown initially by angry truck drivers protesting against what they claim to be unjust safety laws — is now being treated like an act of sedition. Because in a country that refuses to hold corrupt conglomerates accountable, it’s easier to demonize drivers than fix the system. And it’s easier to vilify a pirate crew from a manga than face public anger that refuses to stay quiet.

The real kicker is that any One Piece fan can see it from ten thousand nautical miles away.

The people trying to ban the Straw Hat flag? They sound exactly like the villains in the story.

The rhetoric, about order, unity, suppressing dangerous symbols, and punishing those who question authority, is textbook World Government. This is Gorosei energy. This is the Tenryuubito clutching their pearls because the commoners dared to speak. This is CP0-level control tactics dressed up in nationalistic language. And just like in the manga, it’s not about real threats. It’s about protecting the illusion of stability, no matter how rotten the core has become.

The Straw Hat Pirates in One Piece aren’t the enemy. They’re the ones who sail against corrupt institutions, take down slave-trading elites, and expose the lies propping up unjust empires. Sound familiar? In that universe, flying the Jolly Roger isn’t an act of terrorism — it’s an act of refusal. A refusal to bow, to comply, to play along with a system built to exploit and erase.

And now here in the real world, when working-class Indonesians adopt that symbol in protest — not even violently, just by putting it on their trucks, on their front yards, on their cars, flown atop mountains and volcanoes, etc — the state starts echoing the exact same paranoia we see in the story. The same language. The same scapegoating. The same absurd claims that any challenge to the hierarchy must be criminal, foreign-funded, or anarchist.

It’s actually impressive, the level of irony involved in banning a flag that literally represents resistance to authoritarian overreach because you think it represents resistance to authoritarian overreach.

This isn’t about a flag. It’s about power — and who’s allowed to speak against it. It’s about fear — not of pirates, but of symbols that resonate. It’s about the ruling class realizing that a bunch of truck drivers with anime decals are suddenly more culturally relevant than their entire media machine.

In One Piece, the Jolly Roger is a symbol of freedom, loyalty, self determination, and righteous rebellion. It flies over ships that break chains and challenge tyrants. In Indonesia, it was flown by people tired of being silenced, manipulated, gaslit, and taken advantage of, and now the government wants to treat them like enemies of the state.

If that’s not the most perfect, painful parallel between fiction and reality, I don’t know what is.

So go ahead. Ban the flag. Call in intelligence briefings. Threaten legal action. But just know, you’ve officially cast yourself in the role of the very villains this generation grew up learning to resist.

The funniest things out of this? Vice President Gibran wore a Jolly Roger pin during an election debate last year (while also wearing a Naruto inspired denim jacket) and there is a parody version of the flag using the sideways logo of Indonesia’s 80th anniversary of the Independence Day declaration. Because it really does work and drives home the point much further.

By the way, Deputy Home Minister Bima Arya said nobody is banning the flag (never mind that the parliament leaders are rushing to ban it and demanding law enforcement to act against those flying the flag) and people are still free to fly it as a form of expression. When the government can’t even get their messaging right, nobody should surprised that people are doing what they do.

Malaysia’s debate over the name of their language

There’s a long running debate in Malaysia over the name of their language, whether to associate it with the people or country as, for example, Indonesia do, or with an ethnicity as do multiple other languages across Indonesia (Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, Minangkabau, Batak, Malay, Dayak, etc).

In 1928 Indonesian youth organizations gathered at a conference and adopted an ethnic minority language, Malay, as the basis to form and develop the national language, and called the resulting language Indonesian as a way to unite the people and the nation and avoid favoring any single ethnicity.

The Indonesian language ends up as an adaptive lingua franca, absorbing words, customs, and rules from various other languages the people came across, including Portuguese, English, Arabic, and Dutch, in addition to domestic influence from local ethnic languages.

In contrast, Malaysia faces a linguistic dilemma. While the country’s national language remains strongly rooted in Malay, it has evolved by absorbing foreign influences — mainly from Chinese, Arabic, and English — but nowhere near as heavily as Indonesian did.

The question they’re debating over: Should it be called Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian language) to emphasize its national identity, or Bahasa Melayu (Malay language) to acknowledge its ethnic origins?

This debate reflects deeper sociopolitical tensions between fostering a unified national identity and recognizing the cultural heritage of the Malay majority.

Proponents of Bahasa Malaysia argue that the term promotes inclusivity, making the language feels more representative of all Malaysians, including non-Malay communities such as the Chinese, Indian, and indigenous groups.

On the other hand, supporters of Bahasa Melayu contend that the language’s historical and ethnic roots should not be erased, as it is intrinsically tied to the Malay people and their traditions. They’re also saying the common language used in the U.K., Australia, the US, and other anglophone countries is called English, after the people.

To complicate matters, Malaysian governments over the years alternated between the two terms, reflecting shifting political priorities.

In the 1960s, the name Bahasa Malaysia was officially adopted to encourage national unity, but in 1986, the term Bahasa Melayu was reinstated. However, around 2007, the government reverted to Bahasa Malaysia to reinforce its role as a national, rather than purely ethnic, language.

This is why over the years I keep getting corrected when I refer to the language because I never kept tabs on what it was called.

While Indonesia settled this long before the nation was formed, Malaysia’s seeming indecision reflects the delicate balance they have to manage between ethnic identity and history and national cohesion. Before deciding on a definitive name, they must to decide what they want their language to represent.

Personally, I have a feeling non Malays wouldn’t have a real problem calling the language either way while the ethnic Malay majority will insist their language should be called Malay.

Komdigi Minister Meutya Hafid is Wrong About Esports

The Minister’s dismissal of esports as “not real sport” exposes an outdated understanding, trapped by language that excludes millions of digital competitors.

There’s a controversy brewing, and it’s centered on a simple, stubborn claim from Komdigi Minister Meutya Hafid: online games aren’t sport. Why? Because you don’t sweat, you don’t move your body, you don’t exercise. She said, “For me, sport still needs to involve physical activity too, not just online stuff. I’m not saying online is bad, but still, if you’re calling it sport, there needs to be a physical component to it.” It’s a statement that landed with a thud — but also one that perfectly exposes how trapped we are in a limited, almost archaic understanding of what “sport” means.

The Power of Language

In English, “sport” has a broad range of meanings, from recreation to competitive skill. In Indonesian, however, “olahraga” is literally “olah” (exercise, process) and “raga” (body), binding the word to the idea of physical exertion.This linguistic root shapes not only the word’s meaning but the public’s perception. If it’s not about sweating and moving, it’s not olahraga.

Yet the world of competition has never been that simple. Chess, bridge, and even shooting are globally recognized as sports, despite demanding far more mental toughness than muscle power. Motorsport, too, reveals the flaw in defining sport solely by physical activity. Drivers and riders may sweat during races, but it’s their precision, split-second decisions, and unwavering focus that elevate it to the level of true competition. These examples show that our traditional definition of sport — tied solely to physical movement — doesn’t capture the full spectrum of human excellence.

This is more than a semantic debate. It’s about who gets to play, who gets to compete, who gets to be taken seriously. and what kinds of human achievement we value. If we cling to the idea that only sweat and sore muscles can define sport, we shut out entire worlds of competition and excellence.

The roots of this mindset run deep. “Olahraga” is tied to physical movement, and even though Indonesia’s legal definition of sport has expanded to include online pursuits, public perception still lags behind. Words shape culture, and culture shapes opportunity. When we insist that esports aren’t “real olahraga,” we’re not just quibbling over definitions — we’re gatekeeping who gets to compete and be counted.

Sport Evolves, so Should Our Understanding

Sport has always evolved. What counted as sport a hundred years ago is different from what we celebrate today. Boxing was once considered too brutal to be a sport. Weightlifting was dismissed as circus spectacle. Now they’re both Olympic mainstays. Clinging to the idea that physical exertion is the only marker of legitimacy ignores the reality that skill, dedication, and competition take many forms — including digital.

Rejecting esports on the grounds of physicality isn’t just shortsighted; it’s a disservice to the millions who compete, train, and thrive in these spaces. Esports demand precision, strategy, and lightning-fast reflexes — the same qualities we celebrate in any athlete. The difference is the arena, not the intensity. It’s time to rethink what olahraga means, expand our definitions, and embrace a future where sport reflects the full range of human achievement. Or maybe even come up with a brand new term that’s more inclusive of the activities we humans consider sport in the modern era and even beyond – easier said than done, really, more practical to just detach the word olahraga from physical associations.

This isn’t just about a minister’s remark. It’s about how Indonesia defines itself in a world where competition no longer looks like it did fifty years ago. It’s about whether we’ll stay stuck in the past or embrace the future.

We need to evolve. Because sports aren’t just about calories burned or muscles flexed. It’s about pushing human limits, testing mental and physical endurance, and reaching the pinnacle of what we’re capable of, wherever that might be. On a track. In a pool. At a bar. Or yes, even on a screen. Even when it’s a Microsoft Excel competition.

I Wanted to Be Wrong About eFishery. I Really Did.

I remember the pitch. I remember the guy. I remember sitting in the same room as him around ten years ago, listening to people praising his tenacity, seeing well regarded people and startup figures laud him as a visionary, and walking away feeling that gnawing sense I’ve come to trust over the years. When the story feels too clean, too heartwarming, too startup-perfect.

But I didn’t say anything publicly to avoid being called out for having a markedly opposing view and being highly skeptic about it, not to mention the predictable judgment that would have come, accusing me of being envious while not being anywhere near successful. It was after all a gut feeling with little to back it up and I wasn’t about to go on a mission to take down the latest tech darling of the nation, the pride and Joy of the Indonesian startup community, with no support. This company was an international sensation and people in my circle knew of my doubts but I don’t recall posting publicly about it.

When everyone else was throwing praise and cash at a fish-feeder startup like it’s the second coming of Grameen Bank, it’s easy to start wondering if maybe you’re just being cynical. Maybe you’re jaded. Maybe the founder really was a scrappy visionary from East Jakarta who’s cracked aquaculture and was about to scale empathy and catfish across Southeast Asia. I mean look at all those articles about the company and how this guy appearing out of nowhere becoming something of a tech startup prophet.

Except now, here we are: $300 million gone, farmers screwed, machines abandoned, and the poster child of “tech for good” exposed as a meticulously constructed con.

And you know what? I’m not surprised. I’m pissed.

Because I wanted to be wrong. I wanted this story to be true. I wanted this to be the one that proved that impact and innovation and bottom-of-the-pyramid hustle could build something real. But from the beginning, eFishery had all the wrong kinds of charm: the underdog myth polished to perfection, the handcrafted pitch deck trauma-bonding with VCs who wanted to save the world without leaving the hotel lounge.

He said all the right things. He did all the right gestures, looking all pious and revered. And when the numbers didn’t line up? When the tech was too expensive for the people it was supposed to help? When the revenue made zero sense for a company claiming to transform Indonesia’s rural fish farms? Everyone just nodded harder.

I watched as global investors, SoftBank, Temasek, Sequoia (Peak XV), Social Capital, lined up to outbid each other for a slice of this sweet, scalable fiction. And the media? Oh, we played along too. We love a redemption arc. We love a startup that feeds fish and our desire to feel like capitalism might still be capable of doing something decent. Again, with all these big name international funds coming in to feed the fish feeding startup, who am I to contradict their supposed intellect and superior judgment?

But deep down, I kept thinking: this doesn’t smell like fish. It smells like a fishy performance.

Now that it’s unraveled, this wasn’t just a few optimistic numbers or an overzealous forecast. This was systemic. Two sets of books. Ghost transactions. Fake shell companies. A finance operation so convoluted it’d make a crypto bro blush. All of it propped up by a moral calculus so warped it might as well have been cribbed from a freshman philosophy seminar: “Yes, I lied, but I helped some farmers, so doesn’t that count for something?”

No, it doesn’t. You don’t get to run over everyone with the trolley and call it “net positive.”

The real damage here isn’t just financial. It’s reputational. It’s trust. It’s yet another blow to the already fragile belief that startups in emerging markets can build something real without burning down the ecosystem around them. This kind of fraud doesn’t just hurt investors. It makes it harder for every honest founder grinding away on a real solution with real traction and real limitations.

And don’t get me started on due diligence. Multiple rounds of funding, multiple term sheets, global funds with armies of analysts, and no one noticed the company stopped filing basic financials in Singapore? That feeder machines were supposedly deployed at scale with zero supply chain footprint? That fish feed producers weren’t even aware of this supposed revolution happening in their own backyard?

The worst part? Some people will still excuse it. They’ll frame it as a tragedy. As a good person corrupted by pressure. A “lesson” for the ecosystem. I get it. That’s cleaner. Easier. But I can’t do that. Not after watching people celebrate this company like it was changing the world, when some of us knew it wasn’t adding up.

There were moments when I wondered if I was just being too harsh, too skeptical. I thought, maybe I’m just tired of the hype machine. Maybe I’m projecting.

Turns out I wasn’t projecting. I was just paying attention and my gut was screaming against my rationale.

And now, here’s the wreckage: laid-off staff, bankrupt farmers, investors licking wounds, and a founder who thinks starting a frozen seafood business is part of his redemption arc.

No. You don’t get to fail upward on the backs of people you lied to.

This wasn’t inevitable. This wasn’t an honest mistake. This was a choice, repeated, amplified, and dressed up as progress. And he did it because everyone he asked told him it’s okay to do it because they all did it too. They all failed him and everyone paid the price. Fake it til you make it, they said. Well, in this story, nobody made it.

And I hate that my gut feeling was right.

On the other hand he managed to hoodwink Chamath Palihapitiya who deserves everything coming at him.

What a scathing take on Netflix

Over the past decade, Netflix, which first emerged as a destroyer of video stores, has developed a powerful business model to conquer television, only to unleash its strange and destructive power on the cinema. In doing so, it has brought Hollywood to the brink of irrelevance. Because Netflix doesn’t just survive when no one is watching — it thrives.

Film studios have always released duds: movies that fail to gain traction and are shuttled to the studios’ archives, where they disappear into obscurity. Until recently, for most studios, a forgotten film was a sign of failure. But Netflix, uniquely, seemed to relish making its films vanish as soon as they were released, dumping them onto its platform and doing as little as possible to distinguish one from the next.

There’s also a searing criticism on the “Typical Netflix Movie” having a generic approach that one can spot fairly easily

The editors of these films seem to have just given up, too. The cutting between shots is frenetic. The lighting is terrible. The TNM looks both oversaturated and flat, with the blacks brightened and the highlights dulled, a result of Netflix’s insistence that its originals be shot with powerful digital cameras that compress poorly on viewers’ laptops and televisions. (Netflix might be the first studio in Hollywood history to consistently make daylight look bad.)

They also scorched the executives for the amount of garbage production they push out

But high output alone can’t account for Netflix’s garbage quality. In the 1920s and ’30s, studios like Paramount and Warner Bros. put out as many as seventy movies per year. Around its peak in the ’90s, Miramax tried releasing a new film almost every week. The difference between Netflix and its predecessors is that the older studios had a business model that rewarded cinematic expertise and craft. Netflix, on the other hand, is staffed by unsophisticated executives who have no plan for their movies and view them with contempt.

Closing this with questions from a Hollywood producer:

“What are these movies?” the Hollywood producer asked me. “Are they successful movies? Are they not? They have famous people in them. They get put out by major studios. And yet because we don’t have any reliable numbers from the streamers, we actually don’t know how many people have watched them. So what are they? If no one knows about them, if no one saw them, are they just something that people who are in them can talk about in meetings to get other jobs? Are we all just trying to keep the ball rolling so we’re just getting paid and having jobs, but no one’s really watching any of this stuff? When does the bubble burst? No one has any fucking clue.”

Lots more in the article.

Apple’s billion dollar Indonesian drama

The Apple investment saga in Indonesia highlights the tension between government ambitions, expectations, and the realities of global business strategies.

Tirto published an article about what’s happening with the Apple investment story in Indonesia with quotes and statements from government officials and analysts. It wouldn’t be the Indonesian government if it didn’t generate drama out of foreign relations or commercial arrangements worthy of a telenovela.

A few things about this drama. Apple has yet to deposit or realize the last $14 million of its $100 million investment commitment made in 2016. It’s chump change for the company but necessary to unlock the permit for the latest iPhones and end the sales ban which the government enacted last year because of it. Only Apple knows definitively why they haven’t delivered on this. Meanwhile there’s been no update on the status of the Bali Apple Academy, announced by Tim Cook in April on his visit to the country. This fourth Academy in the country is likely to be part of the unrealized investment.

Indonesia has also been on Apple’s sales performance radar for a few years now having posted consecutive quarterly sales increases and mentioned specifically during multiple financial calls, so it’s in Apple’s best interest to keep the momentum going. The country makes roughly 50 million Android phones a year mainly for the domestic market, and 85% of phone imports in 2023, or 2.3 million of them, worth around $2 billion, were iPhones. The government is keen to reduce this foreign spending by getting Apple to make phones locally.

Armed with this information and situation, the Indonesian government decided to increase pressure on the company to make good on their promise and weaponised it to force them to eventually offer an investment worth a billion dollars late last year.

Political ego meets business reality

Expecting companies to invest in Indonesia just because they’re doing well in sales ignores the realities of running a sustainable business. Sure, it’s fair to want businesses to contribute to the markets they profit from, but investments can’t be driven by sales numbers alone. They need to make sense, whether it’s about supply chains, regulations, or long-term viability. Pressuring companies to invest without considering these factors often leads to rushed, unsustainable decisions that end up costing everyone in the long run.

That said, there’s room for a balanced approach. Instead of tying investments directly to sales, Indonesia could focus on creating conditions that make investing worthwhile, like improving infrastructure, offering clear incentives, and ensuring regulatory stability. This way, companies can contribute meaningfully without being forced into decisions that don’t align with their business goals. Fair contributions are important, but they should come from partnerships built on mutual benefit, not pressure. Otherwise, it’s just a short-term fix with a long-term price tag.

Apple’s Vietnamese success

Indonesian officials and analysts love to compare Apple’s meager investment in the country with the $16 billion Apple already spent in Vietnam since 2019. The company has 26 suppliers and 28 factories in the country as of 2022 and they announced in April that they will spend much more.

Apple didn’t invest in Vietnam because the market loves the iPhone so much, they’be been investing for years and each time increasing their commitment because the government offer attractive investment opportunities and incentives, provide a stable and consistent environment for businesses, deliver the necessary labor force, and ensure long term investment and production sustainability and security despite political upheavals. Not to mention the factories are mostly located near China which allows them to maintain a streamlined supply chain operation. Indonesia doesn’t have that advantage.

Vietnamese mobile developers also took up the Apple platforms because they saw opportunities, not because they were pushed or coaxed into the platforms. They didn’t need an Apple Academy to get developers going. Most Indonesian developers and companies only see opportunities based on local sales numbers and market size. They don’t see beyond the domestic market. That’s why it was a struggle to find quality Mac and iOS apps and developers from Indonesia before the Academies opened.

By the way

The article also mentioned about the Ministry of Industries spokesperson saying that Apple submitted their investment proposal over WhatsApp. It sounds like the government wants to shame Apple for sending such an important document over a chat app but the country runs almost entirely on WhatsApp. Comms within and across government ministries and agencies are done almost exclusively on the platform, with letterhead documents for official records.

What are the chances that they sent it that way because they were told to submit the document ASAP and the paper doc would follow after, and that they haven’t managed to schedule the meeting with the Ministries because November and December are holiday months for the company? I mean, if it’s that important, Tim Cook could get a few execs to drop their holiday plans and make the meeting but it seems that the urgency of this deal has yet to reach that critical level.

Indonesia 2045: Between Dreams and Reality

A personal take on potential, promise, paradox, and pragmatism

Growing up in Indonesia, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard the phrase “future superpower.” It’s a narrative that’s been woven into our national fabric, a story we tell ourselves about our destiny. As we approach 2045, our centennial of independence, this narrative has taken on new urgency. But we’ve watched years of grand visions collide with stubborn realities, so you can’t be hopeful about this country without a healthy dose of skepticism, probably much more than you might think.

Let’s talk about numbers first, because they tell an interesting story. By 2045, we’re projected to be home to 324-326 million people, up from today’s 284 million. Our GDP per capita could nearly triple from $4,900 to somewhere between $12,000-15,000 or optimistically, above $20,000 as set out by the government in their Digital Indonesia Vision 2045. The middle class could expand from roughly half the population to nearly 80%. These aren’t just numbers, they represent millions of individual dreams, aspirations, and potential futures.

But here’s where it gets complicated.

The Promise and the Paradox

Indonesia in 2024 is a study in contrasts. We’re a nation where gleaming skyscrapers rise above Jakarta’s perpetually flooded streets, where digital payments are ubiquitous yet basic infrastructure remains patchy, where tech unicorns coexist with traditional markets. Our youth are increasingly global in outlook while remaining deeply rooted in local traditions. It’s these contrasts that make both our potential and our challenges so fascinating.

The good news is substantial. Our digital transformation is real and accelerating. Barring any technological or societal collapse, practically everyone would have access to to the internet by 2045. Our demographic dividend provides a workforce that could power decades of growth. The country’s strategic location between the Pacific and Indian Oceans positions us perfectly for a time where maritime trade routes are increasingly crucial.

But, and there’s always a but, the challenges are equally substantial.

The Reality Check

Corruption isn’t just a governance issue, it’s a cultural challenge that has proven remarkably resistant to reform. Our corruption perception index, measured by Transparency International, had gone from 34 in 2014 to 34 in 2023. To be fair, it hadn’t been flat, in fact it went up by the end of Jokowi’s first term to 40, which is a good thing, but it fell back to 34 in 2022 and stayed there, while in terms of ranking we fell five spots. In 20 years, who knows where it will be, because it’s such a deeply rooted problem. Regional disparities remain stark as what’s true for Jakarta isn’t true for Bandung or Medan, let alone Denpasar, Pontianak, or anywhere else in the archipelago, and the gap isn’t closing as quickly as it needs to be.

The environmental challenges are particularly daunting. Rising sea levels threaten our coastal cities, especially our main cities like Jakarta and Surabaya. Deforestation continues despite commitments to the contrary. Our renewable energy transition, while accelerating from 12% to a projected 30-35% by 2045, may not be fast enough to meet climate challenges.

The Global Stage

This is where things get really interesting. By 2045, the global order will have shifted dramatically. China and India will likely be the world’s largest economies. The Indo-Pacific region will be the center of global economic gravity. Where does Indonesia fit in this new world?

Our potential role is significant. As the unofficial leader of ASEAN, a G20 member, a BRICS partner, and the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy, our diplomatic leverage ought to count for something, more significantly than it is right now. Our economy could be the world’s 4th or 5th largest by 2045. Our cultural influence, from cuisine to creative industries, is growing.

But here’s the cynical part: we’ve heard all this before. The question isn’t about potential, we’ve always had that, we are the sleeping Asian tiger after all. The question is about execution.

The Balancing Act

Our foreign policy challenges exemplify this complexity. We’re navigating between China and the US, between regional leadership and domestic development, between economic sovereignty and global integration. We’re trying to be everyone’s friend while advancing our own interests, a challenging diplomatic dance that will only get more complex.

By 2045, Indonesia could be:

  • A regional power with global influence
  • A key player in global supply chains
  • A leader in environmental and climate diplomacy
  • A cultural and religious bridge between East and West

Or we could be:

  • Still struggling with basic governance issues
  • Caught in the middle-income trap
  • Vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation
  • Left behind in the global technology race

The Hope and the Hurdle

What makes me cautiously optimistic? The resilience that’s evident. The youth’s entrepreneurial spirit. The way we’ve maintained a semblance of unity despite diversity that would tear many nations apart. Our ability to adapt and evolve while maintaining our core identity.

What keeps me up at night? The persistence of old problems. The way corruption seems to adapt faster than anti-corruption measures. The environmental clock that’s ticking ever louder. The risk that we might miss our demographic dividend window while we’re still sorting out basic educational challenges.

Looking Forward

By 2045, if I’m still around, I’ll be old enough to have seen this entire journey unfold. Will we look back at this moment as the turning point where we finally converted potential into reality? Or will we still be talking about being a “future” superpower?

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. We’re likely to see significant progress, higher incomes, better infrastructure, more global influence. But we’re also likely to face continued challenges with governance, inequality, and environmental sustainability.

The Personal Stakes

This isn’t just about national statistics or global rankings. It’s about the kind of future we’re creating for the next generation. It’s about whether my kids will have to leave the country to find opportunities, or whether they’ll be able to build their dreams right here.

The Indonesia of 2045 won’t be a utopia. But it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be better, more just, more sustainable, more prosperous, than today. It’s certainly achievable but my skepticism tells me it’s not going to be what it needs to be. I mean, ten years ago we all had expected so much more under Jokowi and yet here we are with a middle class crunch and facing further economic challenges.

The country is not going to be the superpower some dream of, never will. But it needs to be something perhaps more valuable, a nation that has found its own path to progress, balancing tradition with modernity, economic growth with sustainability, global influence with local wisdom.

That’s a future some people think they’re working to achieve while others are seemingly working to ensure something else happens.

A Final Thought

We need to stop thinking about Indonesia as a “future” superpower and start thinking about it as a present responsibility. The future isn’t something that happens to us, it’s something we build, decision by decision, day by day.

We’ll definitely not get everything right and will certainly face setbacks and challenges, and as always, the country isn’t defined by its challenges but by its response to those challenges.

Funnily enough when you look back, how the country responded to challenges will not be enough and will instead predictably stunt its own growth because what is disappointment if not Indonesian politicians and their lack of willingness to put aside personal greed over national gain? Not to mention the seeds of conflicts that seem to be consistently sowed. 

Will the country grow and get better? I mean look at the progress that’s happened over the last 20 years. We’ve got better infrastructure, strong economic growth, improved social welfare, but corruption, inequality, and institutional fragility continue to hinder progres. Our democracy keeps regressing and there are active efforts within the government and among the people ourselves, to return the country into authoritarianism and take away people’s rights.

Golden Indonesia by 2045? Tell ‘em they’re dreaming.