Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Orange County Register
by Rafael Perez

“At some point in the future, AI and robotics will be advanced enough to perform nearly all of the jobs currently performed by humans. Such a future will require that we radically change the relationship that we have with the economy and the means of production. Corporations will be forced to share their revenues as a universal basic income if they want to exist at all. However, before we achieve complete automation, there will be a period of gradually increasing AI adoption that will present unique challenges that cannot be so straightforwardly remediated (relatively speaking) as a world with full automation. So, what does a world look like where artificial intelligence has led directly to an unemployment rate comparable to or exceeding that of the Great Depression (25%)?” (12/17/25)

https://archive.is/CuPAl

Source: Persuasion
by Michael Kranz

“Zelenskyy has made the concessions he can, but that may not be enough.” (12/18/25)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/ukraines-impossible-dilemma

Source: The Atlantic
by Tom Nichols

“The president of the United States just barged into America’s living rooms like an angry, confused grandfather to tell us all that we are ungrateful whelps. When a president asks for network time, it’s usually to announce something important. But tonight, Donald Trump did not give anything like a normal speech or address. He was clearly working from a prepared text, but it sounded like one he’d written—or dictated angrily—himself, because it was full of bizarre howlers that even Trump’s second-rate speech-writing shop would probably have avoided …. We could take apart Trump’s fake facts, as checkers and pundits will do in the next few days. But perhaps more important than false statements—which for Trump are par for the course—was his demeanor. Americans saw a president drenched in panic as he tried to bully an entire nation into admitting he’s doing a great job.” (12/17/25)

https://archive.is/pUava

Source: Reason
by Jack Nicastro

“Americans purchasing their robot vacuum cleaners from China is not a national security threat, nor does it mean that the market will be flooded with shoddy imports—Picea will compete with Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, Xiaomi, and other manufacturers to deliver increasingly inexpensive and high-quality products to consumers around the world, just as Amazon would have. However, thanks to the American government, a once American firm is now Chinese.” (12/17/25)

https://reason.com/2025/12/17/thanks-to-antitrust-officials-irobot-will-be-acquired-by-a-chinese-robotics-firm-instead-of-amazon/