Why Musk’s access to U. S. Treasury payment systems risks a global financial meltdown
Giving Elon Musk and his callow team of computer coders access to the U.S. Treasury payments system is very, very dangerous.
Kurt Cobb
After DeepSeek, AI developers are wrong that The Jevons Paradox will bail them out
The dramatic drop in the cost of AI demonstrated by Chinese upstart DeepSeek is great for buyers of AI tools, but very bad for the incumbent developers of those tools.
Democratization of AI spurts ahead: More power to individuals for mischief
Empowering the individual has become a frequent slogan for today’s tech pioneers. As that empowerment grows, it makes it possible for an individual or a small group to threaten all of society. I have now posted my most
Wishful thinking? Sweden building nuclear waste site to last 100,000 years
Can you think of anything built by humans that you would expect to last 100,000 years? I can’t.
Elevator ‘crisis’ as symptom of our infrastructure predicament
A long-running elevator outage at my favorite cinema lead me to find out about America’s “elevator crisis.” It’s a symptom of our infrastructure predicament.
Bird flu: Will it be the biggest story of 2025?
Increasingly, it seems that the ongoing spread of bird flu among cattle and the possible evolution of a strain that can be transmitted between humans will be the biggest story of 2025. I hope I’m wrong.
When governments speculate: Orange County, British gold and Bitcoin reserves
All the recent talk about government Bitcoin reserves has gotten me thinking about what happens when governments speculate.
U.S.-China trade war: Is the latest battle really tit for tat?
Somebody needs to buy U.S. trade policymakers a periodic table of elements. China last week banned export of the key high-tech metals antimony, gallium and germanium to the United States. In this case, China has the upper hand.
President of the Titanic
Those coming into power now on a worldwide wave of discontent appear to understand little about the ultimate underlying causes of that discontent.
More deglobalization: Russia cuts uranium exports to U.S.
Deglobalization is proceeding apace for many reasons. Here’s one more.
Falling human fertility can’t be reversed by cheerleading for motherhood
Concern about a surprise acceleration in the decline of human fertility is missing the most critical factor.
Donald Trump and the impossible destination of Globalism (revisited)
The same factors that led to Donald Trump’s election in 2016 are still with us. The French philosopher Bruno Latour made the case that Trump’s perplexing popularity could be traced to his ability to give voice to the anger and fear generated by the effects of Globalism.