“It’s too early, obviously, to know whether LLMs like ChatGPT will make people more or less lonely on-net. In a new paper, (which I just wrote about) called Vicious Circles: Social Isolation and Poverty, my friend Michael Tanner cited research showing that some AI features moderately reduced loneliness in the near-term. However, people felt more lonely, more dependent, and did less socializing in the real world after heavy daily use. I think this matters because six years ago I wrote that loneliness is the biggest problem facing modernity. I have not changed my mind.” (02/19/26)
“I was doomscrolling again. It was a fall evening in 2023, and I found myself sucked into a stream of posts about our collapsing climate: droughts causing billions in Dust Bowl–style crop damage, Florida’s worst-ever coral bleaching, a record melt in Greenland. To distract myself, I picked up The Lost Cause, the latest sci-fi novel from author Cory Doctorow, a friend and fellow nerd. To my deep surprise, it stirred something unexpected: a feeling of hope. … Doctorow’s book is part of a sci-fi trend that’s gained traction in recent years, picking up on the threads Le Guin and Robinson laid down. Solarpunk poses a fascinating question: What would a world that had seriously tackled climate change look like?” (02/19/26)
Source: Orange County Register
by Veronique de Rugy
“Despite what progressives have been arguing lately, the United States does not have a tax problem. Federal revenues, even after last year’s extension of the Trump tax cuts, are running above their historical average as a share of GDP. What America has is a spending problem so large that the Congressional Budget Office’s latest 10-year outlook reads less like a fiscal forecast than a warning label.” (02/19/26)
Source: New York Post
by Ken Girardin & John Ketcham
“Budgets are usually about choices, but Mayor Mamdani’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal presents Gov. Hochul and state lawmakers with just one: They can sign off on the suite of tax hikes he’s demanded, or he’ll ask the City Council for a painful property tax increase of almost 10%. The mayor has complained — not without some merit — that the Adams administration lowballed expenses. If the city’s finances are truly in ‘crisis’ condition, the appropriate response is triage. But the mayor has yet to administer even basic first aid. The ‘chief spending officers’ he tasked with trimming spending haven’t yet made suggestions, and the phrase ‘hiring freeze’ hasn’t been uttered. Instead, he’s sending property owners to the hospital with a 9.5% property tax hike.” (02/18/26)
“From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we’ve collected experts’ tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group — even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful.” (02/19/26)
“Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, has an unrivaled free source of publicity. President Trump, who is also TMTG’s largest shareholder, posts extensively on the Truth Social platform, sometimes dozens of times in a single day. He is essentially leveraging the full weight of the presidency, the world’s most powerful office, to drive awareness of TMTG’s offerings. Yet, by all objective metrics, TMTG is failing. The stock price, which trades under the ticker symbol DJT, peaked at nearly $62 in March 2024, shortly after the company went public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). On February 17, DJT stock closed below $10 per share, an all-time low. (It rallied modestly on Wednesday, closing at $10.48.) What happened?” (02/19/26)
“By 2020, China accounted for almost 30 per cent of global manufacturing output vs America’s 17 per cent. As useful as America’s immense power over the global financial system is, the relative decline of its industrial strength compared with its primary geopolitical competitor is a major source of weakness. … Trump brought this to the fore of American politics. His 2016 election campaign tapped into the social dysfunction wrought by the decline of manufacturing, while his attitude and rhetoric toward China was driven by a sense of loss of national power. Policy, however, was light. … the industrial revival didn’t really get going until the election of Joe Biden. While the Biden administration kept, and expanded, tariffs on China, it was its explicit turn to industrial policy that changed the trajectory. … Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs have likely already led to shedding of US manufacturing jobs.” (02/19/26)
“year into President Trump’s second term, inflation may have eased, falling from 3 percent year-over-year in January 2025 to 2.7 percent in December, but the cost of living remains elevated for many households. This affordability challenge is the result of fiscal excess and politicized policymaking that have raised costs while undermining confidence in the U.S. economy.” (02/19/26)
“After some delays, the United States is dispatching a second aircraft-carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, from the Caribbean to the Middle East to join the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and threaten Iran. This is the third Atlantic crossing for the Ford’s crew since it set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, in June 2025, and the second time its deployment has been extended, first to redeploy from the Middle East to the Caribbean, and now to redeploy back to the Middle East. There is a grave danger that the US government is preparing to exploit the genuine sympathy of people all over the world for the Iranian civilians massacred during protests in December and January as a pretext for an illegal military assault on Iran.” (02/19/26)
“The SAVE Act would make it harder for married women in particular to vote, and that is just one part of the MAGA right’s misogynist project.” (02/19/26)
