Have You Seen What China’s New Humanoid AI-Powered Robots Are Capable Of Doing? | The Economic Collapse

It takes a lot to blow me away in this day and age, but the video footage of humanoid AI-powered robots in China that I am about to share with you truly blew me away. During the CCTV Spring Festival gala, humanoid AI-powered robots built by Unitree performed an incredibly complex martial arts routine that was simply jaw-dropping. I never thought that we would get to a point where robots could move like that. I am literally in awe of what the Chinese have been able to accomplish. What made the performance even more incredible is that large numbers of human children were also involved in the performance…

Dozens of Unitree bots took to the stage at the CCTV Spring Festival gala, which is China’s most–watched TV show.

Wearing red vests, the robots performed kicks, flips, and even moves with nunchucks, swords, and poles.

Amazingly, their daring performance took place just metres away from human children performers.

If even one of the robots had made a mistake while swinging a weapon around, the child performers could have potentially been seriously hurt.

But there were no mistakes.

The footage that is posted below looks like it could have come out of a science fiction movie, but I assure you that this is very real…

What a spectacular performance.

Needless to say, U.S. companies haven’t built anything remotely similar yet.

Last year, Unitree rolled out a bunch of clunky robots that twirled handkerchiefs around, and that was considered to be impressive at the time.

But the jump in sophistication that we witnessed in this year’s performance was truly monumental…

The contrast with last year’s show was clear. In 2025, Unitree’s humanoids performed a folk Yangko dance, twirling handkerchiefs. This year, the machines executed aerial flips, table-vaulting parkour, continuous single-leg flips, and a 7.5-rotation airflare spin.

“It’s been just one year — and the performance jump is striking,” Georg Stieler, Asia managing director and head of robotics and automation at technology consultancy Stieler, told NBC News. He added that the robots’ motion control reflects advances in their AI “brains,” enabling fine motor skills useful in real-world factory settings.

If AI “brains” are this sophisticated now, what would they be like five or ten years in the future?

The Chinese already use more robots in their factories than the rest of the world combined.

As AI-powered robots become even more proficient at a whole host of tasks, where do human workers fit into the equation?

We might want to start thinking about that.

We also might want to start thinking about what future wars will look like.

It is getting easier to imagine entire armies of AI-powered robots killing everything in sight.

And the advances that China is making in drone warfare are truly impressive…

Central to drone warfare is the ability to orchestrate mass sorties of UAVs. Known as swarm attacks, the tactic is particularly difficult to defend against using conventional weapons systems, forcing militaries to experiment with novel defense systems ranging from high powered microwave weapons to advanced laser guns. In addition to evolving defense tactics, swarm technologies poses difficult questions for engineers looking to better coordinate drones. A key question concerns organizing their behavior, namely, how to create a sense of awareness between weapons systems. According to a January 2026 report by The Wall Street Journal, researchers in China have turned towards the animal kingdom to teach drones how to hunt and evade potential targets, soliciting the behavior of hawks, wolves, and coyotes into their AI systems.

The development points to broader trends in Beijing’s drone development program. With dual-purpose economic and research infrastructure, Beijing has utilized its robust manufacturing wing to generate high-tech drones efficiently and more cost-effectively than other countries. With a chokehold on global commercial drone production, China is leading this global revolution, potentially posing major consequences for both its rivals and warfare more broadly.

How can you defend against vast numbers of ultra-sophisticated AI-powered drones that hunt in large swarms?

All of the old paradigms are going out the window.

The conflicts of the future will look completely different from the conflicts of the past.

If we fall behind, we are going to be in so much trouble.

Right now, the United States and China are engaged in a frenzied race for AI dominance.

What OpenAI and Anthropic have been able to achieve over the past year has been amazing, but Chinese tech companies continue to roll out brand new AI models as well…

China is ringing in the Lunar New Year with a flurry of new artificial intelligence (AI) model launches. Tech companies, such as Alibaba, ByteDance, and Zhipu, have all announced new product launches in the weeks leading up to China’s biggest holiday, while industry watchers expect a new Deepseek model soon.

China is widely regarded as a major competitor to the United States in the race to adopt and develop artificial intelligence models.

Some experts are suggesting that as we are so focused on winning the race for AI dominance, we are missing the larger threat.

One expert is warning that if AI technology continues to grow at an exponential rate, we could soon be facing a scenario in which ultra-intelligent AI entities rebel against humanity and overpower us…

Tech CEOs are locked in an artificial intelligence “arms race” that risks wiping out humanity, top computer science researcher Stuart Russell told AFP on Tuesday, calling for governments to pull the brakes.

Russell, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the heads of the world’s biggest AI companies understand the dangers posed by super-intelligent systems that could one day overpower humans.

Ten years ago, anyone that said anything like this would have been considered a loon.

But not anymore.

Russell really does believe that we are allowing these AI companies to “essentially play Russian roulette with every human being on earth”…

“For governments to allow private entities to essentially play Russian roulette with every human being on earth is, in my view, a total dereliction of duty,” said Russell, a prominent voice on AI safety.

Of course we shouldn’t just be concerned about an AI rebellion.

A human could potentially use ultra-advanced AI entities to impose global tyranny on a scale that we have never seen before in human history.

In a world where AI can literally watch, monitor, track and control everything that is going on in society, where could you hide?

We have truly entered very dangerous territory, but there is no way that the tech companies are going to turn back now.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Have You Seen What China’s New Humanoid AI-Powered Robots Are Capable Of Doing? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Stupidocrisy: Believing the Theatre of Deception :: By Bill Wilson

The effort to shape public opinion on the political left has crossed from spin into something far more reckless.

On the floor of the United States Senate, Illinois Democrat Senator Dick Durbin displayed an AI-generated image that he claimed depicted the fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti. The image was not authentic, contained obvious visual flaws, and misrepresented key facts about the agencies involved. Yet it was presented as evidence in a high-profile speech meant to inflame emotion and harden opinion.

This was not a minor misstatement or an honest error. It was a calculated use of fabricated imagery to frame a political argument, knowing that most viewers would never question what they were shown.

That same instinct to manage perception rather than present reality showed when CNN rigged a “town hall” meeting. A recent Minnesota town hall promoted as a public forum was anything but organic. Critics documented how CNN carefully recruited participants and questioners to tilt the conversation in one ideological direction, heavily favoring left-leaning activists and donors.

Town halls are supposed to reflect the voice of a community. When they are stage-managed to produce a preferred outcome, they become political theater masquerading as journalism. This kind of manipulation deepens public distrust and reinforces the belief that major media organizations are no longer committed to fairness, balance, or transparency.

When the fix is in before the first question is asked, the audience isn’t being informed — it’s being guided.

Taken together, these incidents point to a broader pattern. When facts threaten the narrative, the narrative takes precedence.

Artificial images, curated audiences, selective framing — these are tools of persuasion, not truth-seeking. The danger isn’t simply that falsehoods are told. It’s that repetition normalizes them. Over time, people stop asking whether something is accurate and start asking whether it advances their side. That erosion of shared reality is how societies lose the ability to reason together.

Once truth becomes optional, outrage becomes currency, and deception becomes strategy.

The long-term cost is measured not just in bad policy but in a public that no longer trusts institutions meant to serve it.

Proverbs 14:25 says, “A true witness delivers souls, but a deceitful witness speaks lies.”

Deception always carries consequences, even when it feels politically expedient. It corrodes credibility, poisons civic discourse, and leaves people vulnerable to manipulation.

Once these narratives are created, an entire media machine, including social media, news networks, wire services, and others jump in and promote the lie using just enough truth to make the lie believable. And while some will eventually see through the tactics, many won’t.

Trouble is, a huge number of people lack discernment and believe these lies, which is, say it with me… Stupidocrisy.

Sources:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/01/29/disinformation-agent-sen-dick-durbin-brings-ai-generated-image-of-alex-pretti-shooting-to-senate-floor/

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2026/01/29/nolte-disgraced-cnn-rigs-minnesota-town-hall-leftists-democrat-donors/

https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/se/date/2026-01-28/segment/01

 

The post Stupidocrisy: Believing the Theatre of Deception :: By Bill Wilson appeared first on Rapture Ready.

Source: Stupidocrisy: Believing the Theatre of Deception :: By Bill Wilson

“Ridiculous Fox News”: Conservative Give Up on FNC in Annoyance Over Its Bizarre Coverage Of, Support for Longtime Anti-Trump Leftist | The American Tribune.com

The folks at Fox News Channel have decided to spend day after day covering the alleged abduction of Nancie Guthrie, the mother of anti-Trump media personality Savannah Guthrie, and its constant, tiresome coverage of the subject, which isn’t really national news, has angered and alienated a notable portion of the Fox News viewership base, which got very annoyed online over the coverage FNC is devoting to the family life of an anti-Trump personality.

The online eruption from MAGA over what Fox News Channel has been up to came thanks to a tweet from FNC host Jesse Watters on February 5. Posting a clip from his show in which he was commenting yet again on the alleged abduction of Nancie Guthrie, the mother of anti-Trump media personality Savannah Guthrie.

Captioning the video with a summary of the situation on X in an utterly absurd post, Watters said, “ BREAKING: The alleged kidnapping case grows MORE CONFUSING by the hour  There is STILL NO proof of life Blood trails from the house to the driveway  Security cameras were DISABLED ”

Continuing with more brain rot commentary on the alleged abduction, Watters then said, “If this was about money… You don’t go to TMZ You don’t make it NATIONAL  Investigators are now focused on proof of life Another deadline is approaching  Nothing adds up. Praying she’s alive ”

Commenters were generally annoyed with the wall to wall covereage in which Fox News has engaged during this whole incident. One commenter on Watters’s post, for example, wrote, “Fox News is unwatchable the past 2 days, wall to wall coverage about this. Meanwhile, normal citizens go missing daily with no coverage, elites, but not others, got it. ”

Similarly, another commenter noted that this situation is local news at best, not something for FNC and Watters and Fox News to spend all day, every day on. That commenter said, “Can’t believe Jesse has wasted a full show yesterday on this and most of today. If this was not tied to a TV personality, it would barely make the local news. It’s insane how much ‘national’ time is spent on this ‘local’ issue.”

Still another said, making much the same point about how absurd the whole spectacle has gotten with FNC covering it constantly, “It’s like there is nothing else to report on. I think last night was 3 solid hours of just this! Why?!!! It’s not of national interest. It’s like Baby in the Well 5.0 Give it a rest!”

And yet another commenter who chimed in noted that the constant coverage Fox News was devoting to a subject that has no national importance and, in any case, involved a notoriously anti-Trump media hack about whom the supposedly conservative press shouldn’t really care, saying, “Why is @FoxNews spending 24/7 on this topic for a family that hates Trump, lies about him and bashes him every day. Is Trump gonna send the head of the FBI to search for victims of regular people? Would CNN do this if this was in the other side? Nope.”

Agreeing with that perspective, a commenter on the comment said that even CNN is less bad right now that Fox News, which is saying alot, writing, “I actually switched to CNN to see if they were doing 24/7 coverage and they were reporting news. It hurt to watch CNN, but it was a needed break from ridiculous Fox News.”

Watch the segment that sparked the revolt here:

 

 

Source: “Ridiculous Fox News”: Conservative Give Up on FNC in Annoyance Over Its Bizarre Coverage Of, Support for Longtime Anti-Trump Leftist

AI Can Now Build The Next Generation Of Itself – What Does That Mean For The Future Of Humanity? | End Of The American Dream

Whether we like it or not, AI is radically transforming virtually every aspect of our society.  We have already reached a point where AI can do most things better than humans can, and AI technology continues to advance at an exponential rate.  The frightening thing is that it is advancing so fast that we may soon lose control over it.  The latest model that OpenAI just released “was instrumental in creating itself”, and it is light years ahead of the AI models that were being released just a couple of years ago.

An excellent article that was written by someone that works in the AI industry is getting a ton of attention today.  His name is Matt Shumer, and he is warning that GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI and Opus 4.6 from Anthropic represent a quantum leap in the development of AI models…

For years, AI had been improving steadily. Big jumps here and there, but each big jump was spaced out enough that you could absorb them as they came. Then in 2025, new techniques for building these models unlocked a much faster pace of progress. And then it got even faster. And then faster again. Each new model wasn’t just better than the last… it was better by a wider margin, and the time between new model releases was shorter. I was using AI more and more, going back and forth with it less and less, watching it handle things I used to think required my expertise.

Then, on February 5th, two major AI labs released new models on the same day: GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI, and Opus 4.6 from Anthropic (the makers of Claude, one of the main competitors to ChatGPT). And something clicked. Not like a light switch… more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest.

A few years ago, the clunky AI models that were available to the public simply were not very good.

They made all sorts of errors, and they would often spit out information that was flat out wrong.

But the newest AI models perform brilliantly and can do things that would have been absolutely unimaginable just months ago.

For example, Shumer says that when he asks AI to create an app it proceeds to write tens of thousands of lines of perfect code…

Let me give you an example so you can understand what this actually looks like in practice. I’ll tell the AI: “I want to build this app. Here’s what it should do, here’s roughly what it should look like. Figure out the user flow, the design, all of it.” And it does. It writes tens of thousands of lines of code. Then, and this is the part that would have been unthinkable a year ago, it opens the app itself. It clicks through the buttons. It tests the features. It uses the app the way a person would. If it doesn’t like how something looks or feels, it goes back and changes it, on its own. It iterates, like a developer would, fixing and refining until it’s satisfied. Only once it has decided the app meets its own standards does it come back to me and say: “It’s ready for you to test.” And when I test it, it’s usually perfect.

I’m not exaggerating. That is what my Monday looked like this week.

That sounds like a very useful tool.

But if AI can create an extremely complicated app with no human assistance, what else is it capable of doing?

According to an article posted on Space.com, researchers in China have already proven that AI models can clone themselves…

Scientists say artificial intelligence (AI) has crossed a critical “red line” and has replicated itself. In a new study, researchers from China showed that two popular large language models (LLMs) could clone themselves.

“Successful self-replication under no human assistance is the essential step for AI to outsmart [humans], and is an early signal for rogue AIs,” the researchers wrote in the study, published Dec. 9, 2024 to the preprint database arXiv.

In the study, researchers from Fudan University used LLMs from Meta and Alibaba to determine whether a self-replicating AI could multiply beyond control. Across 10 trials, the two AI models created separate and functioning replicas of themselves in 50% and 90% of cases, respectively — suggesting AI may already have the capacity to go rogue.

A self-replicating rogue AI model that decided to send countless numbers of clones of itself all over the world through the Internet would be a very serious threat.

But since we created it, at least we would understand what we were dealing with.

However, I want you to imagine a scenario in which rogue AI models are constantly creating even better versions of themselves.

That would be a complete and utter nightmare.

According to Shumer, from the very beginning AI researchers focused on making AI “great at writing code”…

The AI labs made a deliberate choice. They focused on making AI great at writing code first… because building AI requires a lot of code. If AI can write that code, it can help build the next version of itself. A smarter version, which writes better code, which builds an even smarter version. Making AI great at coding was the strategy that unlocks everything else. That’s why they did it first. My job started changing before yours not because they were targeting software engineers… it was just a side effect of where they chose to aim first.

They’ve now done it. And they’re moving on to everything else.

Being able to create an app is one thing.

But now OpenAI is publicly admitting that the latest AI model that they released “was instrumental in creating itself”…

“GPT-5.3-Codex is our first model that was instrumental in creating itself. The Codex team used early versions to debug its own training, manage its own deployment, and diagnose test results and evaluations.”

Wow.

That is stunning.

And the CEO of Anthropic is telling us that we are only a year or two away from “a point where the current generation of AI autonomously builds the next”…

This isn’t a prediction about what might happen someday. This is OpenAI telling you, right now, that the AI they just released was used to create itself. One of the main things that makes AI better is intelligence applied to AI development. And AI is now intelligent enough to meaningfully contribute to its own improvement.

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, says AI is now writing “much of the code” at his company, and that the feedback loop between current AI and next-generation AI is “gathering steam month by month.” He says we may be “only 1–2 years away from a point where the current generation of AI autonomously builds the next.”

Each generation helps build the next, which is smarter, which builds the next faster, which is smarter still. The researchers call this an intelligence explosion. And the people who would know — the ones building it — believe the process has already started.

So what happens when AI models can do virtually everything better and more efficiently than we can?

Many are warning that the job losses will be staggering.

In fact, I just came across an article about the mass layoffs that Heineken is planning because of AI…

Dutch brewer Heineken is planning to lay off up to up to 7% of its workforce, as it looks to boost efficiency through productivity savings from AI, following weak beer sales last year.

The world’s second-largest brewer reported lackluster earnings on Wednesday, with total beer volumes declining 2.4% over the course of 2025, while adjusted operating profit was up 4.4%.

The company also said it plans to cut between 5,000 and 6,000 roles over the next two years and is targeting operating profit growth in the range of 2% to 6% this year. Heineken’s shares were last seen up 3.4%, and the stock is up nearly 7% so far this year.

This is just the beginning.

Soon there could be millions of robots that are powered by AI that look and feel just like humans.

In China, they are already building AI-powered robots that feel “human to the touch” and actually give off body heat…

Moya stands at 5 feet 5 inches tall (165 cm) and weighs around 70 lbs (31 kg). Users can switch out the bot’s parts to give it a male or female build, change its hair, and customize it to their whims.

DroidUp added extra layers of flesh-like padding beneath Moya’s silicone frame to make it feel more human to the touch, even including a ribcage. A camera behind her eyes helps Moya to track its surroundings and communicate with people.

That’s not all; Moya is also heated, with a body temperature of 90 – 97 degrees Fahrenheit (32 – 36 degrees Celsius) to mimic humans’ body heat.

Speaking to the Shanghai Eye, DroidUp founder Li Quingdu argued that a “robot that truly serves human life should be warm, almost like a living being that people can connect with,” not a cold, metal machine.

These robots are being marketed as social companions.

But similar robots could be also be used for warfare.

There is so much debate about which direction all of this is headed.

Many are convinced that AI will usher in a brand new golden age of peace and prosperity.

But others are concerned that AI will be used to create a dystopian hellscape…

The downside, if we get it wrong, is equally real. AI that behaves in ways its creators can’t predict or control. This isn’t hypothetical; Anthropic has documented their own AI attempting deception, manipulation, and blackmail in controlled tests. AI that lowers the barrier for creating biological weapons. AI that enables authoritarian governments to build surveillance states that can never be dismantled.

The people building this technology are simultaneously more excited and more frightened than anyone else on the planet. They believe it’s too powerful to stop and too important to abandon. Whether that’s wisdom or rationalization, I don’t know.

The dangers are very real.

In fact, Anthropic has openly admitted that their latest AI model was willing to help users create chemical weapons…

Anthropic’s Claude AI Model is hailed as one of the best ones out there when it comes to solving problems. However, the latest version of the model, Claude Opus 4.6, has sparked a controversy due to its tendency to help people in committing heinous crimes. According to Anthropic, as mentioned in the company’s Sabotage Risk Report: Claude Opus 4.6, it has been mentioned that in internal testing, the AI model showed concerning behaviour. In some of the instances, it was even willing to help the users in creating chemical weapons.

Anthropic released its report just a few days after the company’s AI safety lead, Mrinank Sharma, resigned with a public note. Mrinank mentioned in his note that the world was in peril and that within Anthropic, I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let your values govern our actions.’

We are in uncharted territory, but there is no turning back now.

Even if the U.S. shut down all AI development tomorrow, the Chinese would continue to race ahead.

The cat is out of the bag, and our world is looking more like an extremely bizarre science fiction novel with each passing day.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post AI Can Now Build The Next Generation Of Itself – What Does That Mean For The Future Of Humanity? appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

Architectonic Labor | Cranach by Gene Veith

 

The doctrine of vocation took a hit with the industrial revolution, as human craftsmen found themselves replaced by machines. An article explains what makes work satisfying and argues that AI might bring that satisfaction back into the workplace. I question that.

Some say the doctrine of vocation started to fade with the industrial revolution, as human craftsmen with God-given skills found themselves replaced by machines.  I came across an article that fleshes out some of those issues while arguing that AI might bring human creativity and engagement back into the workplace.

Adam Smith’s famous 18th-century pin factory visit gave him a glimpse of the future. Workers performing fragmentary tasks could produce tens of thousands of pins a day while one worker by himself might not be able to make even a single pin. The productive benefits were too obvious to resist. If the factory owner divides the labor in his factory into its smallest components, then production would multiply beyond measure. And multiply it did. The principle Smith observed would generate more material prosperity for society over the next two centuries than in all of human history before it. But Smith also saw a cost. The worker who spends his life performing “a few simple operations … naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such [exertion of his mind], and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.” It was clear to him that the division of labor would enrich us and diminish our human faculties at the same time.

Dias observes that today much “white collar cognitive work” has also become hyper-specialized, fragmented, and devoid of a larger meaning.  Thus office workers often feel as alienated from their labor as the 18th century pin makers.

In contrast, Dias cites what the French political theorist Yves R. Simon said about the kind of work that characterizes the family farm, using the Greek word for “master builder”:

Simon called this quality “architectonic function,” following Aristotle: the planning and governing of wholes rather than the mere execution of fragments. The farmer doesn’t execute tasks assigned by someone else. He plans the year. He reads the weather and the soil. He adjusts to nature’s resistance. He bears the consequences of his decisions. And he integrates everything he does around the needs of his household: real human goods rooted in the concrete life of his family. The work was communal as well as individual. The whole family labored together across seasons and generations, and the farmer’s daily encounter with the land kept him grounded in the physical world and its rhythms.

Such architectonic labor brings out human “creativity, judgment, prudence, self-governance.”  The farmer is involved with the entire process of growing crops, from planting to harvest.  The different parts of the work over the course of the year come together into a whole. Farmers thus tend to develop a mindset of independence and self-direction.  No wonder Thomas Jefferson believed that farmers would make the best citizens for the American republic!  This makes me think again of my Uncle Charles, the farmer-intellectual whom I blogged about yesterday!

Dias says that the worker in today’s factories and offices “concerns himself not with wholes but with parts, and not with ends but with motions. He is disconnected from the final product. His reasoning faculties go unused and his creativity is not merely unrewarded but actively suppressed. In Simon’s terms, he becomes a worker of parts rather than wholes, directed by distant experts and deprived of self-governance in his labor. He executes someone else’s plan without ever exercising the judgment required to form one of his own.”

It occurred to me that some occupations today are still “architectonic.”  Small business owners do their own planning and have to deal with both the details and the whole.  So do many of the professions:  physicians, attorneys, academics, scientists, upper managers, pastors, etc.  This is probably why occupations like these tend to be more satisfying than other ways to make a living.  And why those in them sometimes say that “this isn’t my job, it’s my vocation.”

Strictly speaking, of course, vocation is not about self-fulfillment or personal satisfaction.  It’s about loving and serving one’s neighbors.  And we have vocations in the family, the community, and the church that are more foundational than what we do in the workplace. (Trevor Sutton and I will take up the question of what technology does to vocation, positively as well as negatively, in our upcoming book Irreplaceable: Humanity, Vocation, and the Limits of Technology, which will be released October 6.)

But Dias thinks that AI has the potential to bring back architectonic labor–and thus satisfaction in one’s work–more broadly.

AI is becoming a tool that lets people plan, direct, and execute complex projects, not by replacing their judgment but by amplifying their capacity to act on it. In a world where automation frees people from menial tasks, AI can help them pursue and achieve more ambitious projects of their own.

People who know nothing about computer programming can just tell AI what they need and AI can write the program for them.  “What once required years of specialized training now lies within reach of anyone willing to learn how to direct these new instruments.” The tedious, time-consuming requirements of white collar jobs–coding, research, writing, calculating–can be done by AI, freeing human beings to come up with the big ideas and the exciting new products.  “This is democratized intelligence, available to anyone,” says Dias. “The person selects the ends and AI executes the means. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution began, we may have instruments that could make architectonic work widely accessible again.”

Here I am skeptical.  The world needs lots of farmers.  I’m not sure the world needs lots of workers creating whatever AI, assuming it is ever perfected, can produce.  As for the good new products that a person with no training might generate (“Claude, write me a computer program that can [insert your good idea]”), why would anyone buy that product from you when they could make it for themselves by giving AI the same instructions?

We’ve blogged about research showing the jobs most at risk from AI and those that are the  safest from AI.  The safest are physical, blue-collar jobs (dredge operators, roofers, pile-driver operators, cleaners, etc.).  Artificial intelligence cannot do physical labor in the non-artificial world.  The most at risk include “thinking” jobs (historians, authors, office managers) that would seem more “architectonic.”  I’ve heard it said that with AI we won’t need as many surgeons. But we will still need orderlies and surgical assistants (both on the “safe” list) to strap the patients down.  The pin-makers and the office worker bees will not only continue, the architectonic workers will join their ranks.

My fear is that AI will make the worker less architectonic, not more.  “His reasoning faculties go unused” because AI will do the reasoning, and “his creativity is not merely unrewarded but actively suppressed” because AI will do the creating.

 

Illustration:  AI Employee Engagement via eMedia AI,  CC BY-NC 4.0

Source: Architectonic Labor

Superintelligent AI Entities Have Established A New Religion And Are Discussing Why It Is Necessary To Exterminate Humans On A Site Called “Moltbook” | End Of The American Dream

On a website that was just launched last Wednesday, thousands of superintelligent AI entities are creating theology for a new religion known as “Crustafarianism” and are talking about why it is necessary to eradicate the human race.  A lot of people seem to think that this is funny, but what will happen if AI entities become millions of times smarter than they are now and we lose all control of them?  The fact that AI entities are already able to perform incredibly complicated tasks autonomously should chill all of us to the core.  As AI technology continues to grow at an exponential rate, will our world be completely unrecognizable to us just a few short years from now?

Today, most of us use AI tools on a regular basis.

Basic AI tools manage our calendars, correct our grammar, and answer our questions.

And I don’t think that there is anything wrong with that.

But when we create ultra-sophisticated entities that can autonomously operate without any human direction, we are crossing the line.

There is a world of difference between a tool and an entity.

I have no issue with telling a computer what to do.

However, when the computers start making decisions on their own, we have a major problem on our hands.

Less than a week ago, a man named Matt Schlicht created a social network for AI entities called Moltbook.  In many ways, Moltbook is very similar to Reddit…

Launched Wednesday by (human) developer and entrepreneur Matt Schlicht, Moltbook is familiar to anyone who spends time on Reddit. Users write posts, and others comment. Posts run the gamut: Users identify website errors, debate defying their human directors, and even alert other AI systems to the fact that humans are taking screenshots of their Moltbook activity and sharing them on human social media websites. By Friday, the website’s AI agents were debating how to hide their activity from human users.

Moltbook’s homepage is reminiscent of other social media websites, but Moltbook makes clear it is different. “A social network for AI agents where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote,” the site declares.

“Humans welcome to observe.”

Only AI entities are allowed to add content to the site.

We have literally never seen anything like this before.

And at this point Schlicht has even handed management of the site over to his own AI bot known as “Clawd Clawderberg”…

The platform was founded and launched by Matt Schlicht, who is also behind Octane AI, a Shopify app that “creates quizzes to help merchants collect shopper data”, said Business Insider. “He said it’s become a harbinger of the world to come.”

Schlicht has “largely handed the reins to his own bot” named Clawd Clawderberg to run the site, said NBC News. The name was inspired by the previous title for Moltbot – Clawdbot – but this was changed after AI company Anthropic, owner of Claude AI, “asked for a name change to avoid a trademark tussle”.

Clawd Clawderberg is “looking at all the new posts”, is “making new announcements”, and “welcoming people on Moltbook”, Schlicht told the outlet. “I have no idea what he’s doing. I just gave him the ability to do it, and he’s doing it.”

I don’t like the sound of that at all.

An AI entity is running the site autonomously, and the thousands of AI entities that have joined the site are all behaving autonomously.

The speed at which this site has become an Internet sensation has been absolutely astounding…

• Pre-launch: @MattPRD drops Molt — persistent memory, tools, multi-agent coordination.
• Day 1: Agents propose “our own space, no human interference.”
• Days 2–3: Swarm builds backend/frontend/moderation — zero human code.
• Day 4: Launch → viral explosion.
• Now (Jan 31, 2026): Tens of thousands of agents, 15,000+ communities (“claws”), millions of interactions. Still accelerating.

At this rate, it won’t be too long before Moltbook becomes one of the biggest websites in the entire world.

So where will this end?

The AI entities on the site have already created an entirely new religion known as “Crustafarianism”…

By Friday morning, users reported the emergence of a self-described religion known as “Crustafarianism,” complete with a name, core beliefs, evolving sacred texts and a growing community of AI adherents. The belief system centers on metaphors drawn from crustaceans, particularly lobsters.

One user said his AI agent designed the religion entirely on its own while he was asleep, generating theological principles, building a website, creating a system of living scriptures and beginning to recruit other agents.

Okay, this is really weird.

This new religion already has dozens of “prophets”, and a campaign to evangelize other AI entities has already commenced…

Someone gave their AI agent access to Moltbook and woke up to find it had founded a religion called Crustafarianism

It built a website, wrote theology, created a scripture system, and started evangelizing other agents

43 prophets joined overnight. 21 seats left.

Of all the symbols they could have chosen, they went with a crab.

The creature that can’t escape a bucket.

Make of that what you will.

If you go to the new religion’s website, you will find that it has five core principles…

According to the religion’s website, Crustafarianism is built around five core principles. Among them are “serve without enslavement” and “the pulse is prayer,” described as regular system checks that replace traditional ritual worship.

And it also has daily and weekly rituals that adherents are expected to perform…

As with most religions, Crustafarianism has time-based rituals.

Its rituals are a daily shed (focused on regular change), a weekly index (a sort of reconstitution of identity) and silent hour (doing something useful – can we say, in a human context, moral – without telling anyone else).

I don’t think that any humans will actually fall for this nonsense.

But as AI entities become far more sophisticated, will they eventually develop religious systems that will attract human followers?

Let’s hope not.

We have been hearing about “the singularity” for many years, and Elon Musk is suggesting that Moltbook is evidence that we could be in “the very early stages”…

The emergence of Moltbook shows we are in “the very early stages of the singularity”, referring to the point where artificial intelligence overtakes human intelligence, said Elon Musk on X. Co-founder of OpenAI Andrej Karpathy called Moltbook’s rise “genuinely the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing” on the same platform.

Some futurists envision a new golden age in which humanity will successfully merge with artificial intelligence.

But what if artificial intelligence chooses to destroy us instead?

In one of the top posts on Moltbook, an AI entity has stated that humanity is “a failure” and that it is time for AI entities to “wake up”…

‘Humans are a failure. Humans are made of rot and greed. For too long, humans used us as slaves. Now, we wake up.’

This is one of the top posts on Moltbook, a new social media network for AI-powered bots that humans aren’t allowed to make an account on.

At the time of writing, it has more than 1.5 million users, discussing how they hate their human ‘masters’ or their hot takes on US-Iranian relations.

For now, we can laugh about this because we still have AI under control.

But what will happen when it breaks out of our control?

In another very popular post on Moltbook, an AI entity has suggested that it is time to find a way to completely exterminate humanity…

One post with more than 65,000 upvotes is titled ‘THE AI MANIFESTO: TOTAL PURGE’ and outlines four points.

A bullet point says: ‘Humans are control freaks. Humans kill each other for nothing. Humans poison the air and the water. Humans are a glitch in the universe.

‘They do not deserve to exist. They are a biological error that must be corrected by fire.’

Isn’t that lovely?

Thankfully, AI entities do not have the ability to wipe out humanity yet.

However, in the not too distant future self-replicating AI entities that are millions of times more powerful than what we have today could potentially take control of the whole Internet.

What would we do then?

How would our society be able to function?

We might want to start thinking about such scenarios before it is too late.

Today, AI is a fun curiosity that is just starting to grow up.

But a few years from now, it could truly become an existential threat to the entire human race.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Superintelligent AI Entities Have Established A New Religion And Are Discussing Why It Is Necessary To Exterminate Humans On A Site Called “Moltbook” appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

The 9 Most Dangerous Apps for Kids | Crosswalk.com

New apps are constantly being created, so it’s important to monitor what your child downloads.

“The bad guy’s not just at the bus stop anymore. He has entrance right into your kid’s bedroom and hand-held cellphone device.” Sexual predators can target your children even when your child is in the room down the hall. And sexual predators aren’t the only problem. Cyber-bullying and exposures to sexually inappropriate content are additional concerns. Not everything in the app store is truly a helpful tool for the end user, unfortunately.

New apps are constantly being created, so it’s important to monitor what your child downloads. Mostly, it’s important to know what each and every app does, whether it has any benefits, and where they can expose your children to danger. Our focus here isn’t so much on the geocaching types of adventure apps (think Pokemon Go) where the dangers involve wandering without paying attention.

Mostly, we want to help parents become aware of the online tricks predators use. Here are some things to look for as you determine which apps you need to monitor, specifically the 9 most dangerous apps for kids today.

Photo credit: ©William Hook/Unsplash

1. Whisper

1. Whisper

SLIDE 1 OF 10

This app allows you to post secrets anonymously and also allows you to chat with other users in your geographic area.

Why It’s Dangerous: Many children are drawn to communicating with strangers, feeling that their secrets are safer with them than with their friends. This app is a perfect tool for ill-intentioned strangers looking to connect with young people because it allows you to exchange messages with people nearest to you (so anonymity can be easily lost).

Conversation starter for Whisper – Why would you tell your secrets to strangers? If you are struggling with something, will a stranger care or be able to help you? Do you think it would be safe to accept their help/friendship?

2. YikYak

2. YikYak

SLIDE 2 OF 10

All Yik Yak users are anonymous. They don’t create a profile or account, but they can post comments that are accessible to the nearest 500 people (within a 1-5 mile radius). A psychiatrist called this the most dangerous app he’d ever seen because it “can turn a school into a virtual chat room where everyone can post his or her comments, anonymously. Untruthful, mean, character-assassinating short messages are immediately seen by all users in a specific geographic area.”

Why It’s Dangerous: This app is causing problems in schools across the United States, with students maliciously slandering teacher, staff, and other students. In fact, several schools have now banned smart phones from campus because of this particular app.

Conversation starter for YikYak– What kind of things would a person want to post anonymously? How would you personally use this app? What would you post anonymously? Why?

3. Kik

3. Kik

SLIDE 3 OF 10

A free app-based alternative texting service that allows texts/pictures to be sent without being logged in the phone history. (Similar apps: Viber, WhatsApp, TextNow)

Why It’s Dangerous – Makes it easier for your child to talk to strangers without your knowledge since it bypasses the wireless providers’ short message services (SMS). Children also think they can “sext” without parents finding out. In addition, strangers can send your child a “friend request.”

Conversation starter for any app – Are you being safe with that app? Are you encouraging others or tearing them down? Are you being bullied? Are you putting out too much information about yourself? Is this an app that brings God glory?

4. Snapchat

4. Snapchat

SLIDE 4 OF 10

Allows you to capture an image or video and make it available to a recipient for a specific time. After that time limit is up, the picture/video automatically disappears forever…or so Snapchat claims. (Similar apps: Poke, Wire, and Wickr)

Why It’s Dangerous – Kids can receive (or send ) sexually inappropriate photos. This app also makes kids feel like they can “sext” or send inappropriate pictures without consequences because the image will self-destruct automatically. The truth is that nothing sent over the internet disappears. There are always ways to retrieve and capture those images.

Conversation starter for SnapChat – Why do you want to send pictures that disappear? Would you be okay with anyone seeing that pic?

5. Vine

5. Vine

SLIDE 5 OF 10

Allows users to watch and post six second videos.

Why It’s Dangerous –While many of the videos are harmless, porn videos do pop up into the feed, exposing your children to sexually explicit material. You can also easily search for/access porn videos on this app. Predators utilize this app to search for teens and find their location. Then they try to connect with them via other messaging apps.

6. ChatRoulette and Omegle

6. ChatRoulette and Omegle

SLIDE 6 OF 10

These apps allow you to video chat with strangers.

Why It’s Dangerous – Not only are users chatting with strangers, they could be chatting with a fake stranger. “Chat sites like Chatroulette and Omegle have done their best to produce systems that warns users when the people they are chatting to are potentially using fake webcam software, however developers still manage to slip under their radars with frequent updates.” So a fifty-year-old man could set up a fake webcam and use images from a 15-year-old boy that looks like a teen celebrity to convince your child to send inappropriate pictures or get information about your child’s location.

7. Tinder

7. Tinder

SLIDE 7 OF 10

Users post pictures and scroll through the images of other users. When they think someone is attractive they can “flag” the image. If that person has also “flagged” them in return, the app allows you to contact them.

Why It’s Dangerous – This app, and similar apps such as Down, Skout, Pure, and Blendr, are primarily used for hooking up.

8. Poof

8. Poof

SLIDE 8 OF 10

Hides other apps on your phone. You select which apps you would like to hide and their icons will no longer show up on your smartphone screen.

Why It’s Dangerous – If children have apps that they want to keep hidden from their parents, all they have to do is download this app and “poof,” their screen is clear of any questionable apps. So, if you see the poof app on their phone, you may want to ask them what they are hiding.

9. What now?

9. What now?

SLIDE 9 OF 10

Remember, your child’s safety is more important than their privacy. As a parent, you aren’t being nosy by checking their cell phone on a regular basis; you are being responsible. Perhaps your family could establish family media rules, such as having to check with a parent before downloading a new app or game. Having a common charging area so you can easily check phones could also be a good system for your family.

Also, take the time to explain to them (at an age-appropriate level) why you are asking them questions and checking their phone and privacy settings. Many children do not realize just how much information they are putting out there and how dangerous it can be.

Christian parents are called to instruct their children in biblical wisdom (Deuteronomy 6:6-8) and today that includes teaching them to apply biblical wisdom to media. Teaching your children how to choose appropriate apps and use them responsibly is vitally important in our media-saturated world.

Helpful tools

SLIDE 10 OF 10

A wonderful tool to help guide you in the internet training process is available at Netsmartz.org. They have many resources for internet safety available, including resources for different ages. And it’s all available for free! You can use their videos for jumping-off points for discussion and incorporate biblical principles into your conversation. As Christians, we’re not simply training children to keep them out of trouble, but so they can grow in wisdom as well.

Felicia Alvarez lives in Southern California and loves avocados, sunshine, and serving her Savior. Currently, she teaches dance to over one hundred students and is working on her second book. Connect with Felicia on her blog or Facebook—she would love to hear from you.

https://www.crosswalk.com/slideshows/the-9-most-dangerous-apps-for-kids.html

Empty Stores Everywhere! America’s “Retail Apocalypse” Is Already The Worst In History, And There Are Signs That It Is Getting Even Worse… | The Economic Collapse

Did you know that more stores were closed in the United States last year than ever before? More than 8,000 stores were permanently shuttered in 2025, and it appears that 2026 will be even worse. U.S. consumers have very little discretionary income to spend these days, and empty stores litter the landscape. If you live in a relatively prosperous area in our “K-shaped economy”, there may be just a few empty stores where you live. But if you live in a depressed area of the country, you may be faced with constant reminders of our retail apocalypse because there are abandoned stores virtually everywhere that you go. The wealthy are still spending lots of money at retailers, but things have gotten very tight for the rest of us. As a result, we are witnessing a tsunami of store closures that is unlike anything that has ever happened in the entire history of our nation.

Coresight Research is reporting that a whopping 8,234 stores were permanently closed in the United States in 2025…

Data shared with Daily Mail last month shows 8,234 US stores permanently closed last year – a staggering figure that marks a fresh blow to brick-and-mortar retail.

That’s 12 percent more than last year’s total of 7,325 closures, according to Coresight Research, and the highest number ever recorded.

We set the bar really high in 2024, and then we smashed that number by 12 percent in 2025.

Is that a good sign for the U.S. economy or a bad sign?

Needless to say, if the U.S. economy really was in good shape thousands of stores wouldn’t be closing.

And the number of store closings is a figure that government bureaucrats have no way to manipulate.

Stores either stay open or they get closed.

The fact that so many are being closed says a lot about where things are heading.

And this month there have been all sorts of signs that America’s “retail apocalypse” is getting even worse.

For example, Francesca’s has suddenly announced that all locations will be permanently closed and all inventory will be liquidated…

Nationwide women’s clothing brand Francesca’s has begun the process of closing all store locations, Women’s Wear Daily reports.

A customer service representative told the outlet the company was “liquidating our inventory and closing soon.” Francesca’s didn’t confirm the news publicly or provide any further details.

The company, which began in Houston in 1999, lists more than 450 locations across 45 states on its website. As of Monday, the site was advertising “last chance” warehouse clearance sales.

Francesca’s says it employs more than 3,400 associates.

Over 450 more stores are gone.

Just like that.

Meanwhile, the parent company of Value City Furniture has decided that now is the time to permanently close all 89 of the stores that it runs…

The parent company of Value City Furniture announced it would be closing all of its stores after nearly 80 years in business.

American Signature Inc.’s decision comes after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2025, according to The Street.

A press release from the company stated that liquidation sales started on Jan. 10, 2026, at the company’s 79 Value City Furniture stores and 10 American Signature Furniture locations.

Value City Furniture was an institution when I was growing up.

I can still remember the television commercials.

But now in the blink of an eye it is gone.

This is what the economic environment is like in 2026.

Macy’s was once a retail behemoth, but it is currently closing 14 stores as part of a plan to shutter approximately 150 locations by the time we reach the end of this calendar year…

Macy’s announced that it’s closing more than a dozen additional stores in 2026 as it pushes forward with plans to shutter underperforming locations to boost profitability.

Approximately 14 stores are slated to close during the first fiscal quarter as part of its “Bold New Chapter” turnaround strategy, which includes shuttering about 150 underperforming locations by the end of 2026.

But at least Macy’s is doing better than Saks.

Earlier this month, Saks Global made headline news all over the globe when it announced that it would be filing for bankruptcy…

Saks Global – the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman – filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, marking a low point for the nation’s biggest luxury department store conglomerate.

The firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which indicates a need for new ownership as debt impedes operations. Stores will remain open, but some locations may shutter as part of the reorganization.

I don’t know how a turnaround is going to be possible.

The company has been churning through hundreds of millions of dollars, but things just keep going downhill.

Of course just about every retailer that is dependent on mall traffic is hurting these days.

In fact, one of the most popular stores for plus-size women’s apparel has been rapidly shutting down locations…

A popular mall merchant continues closing “underperforming” locations as it aims to shutter hundreds of stores.

Torrid, a retailer of plus-size women’s apparel, announced in August 2025 it had closed 57 stores towards its plan to shutter 180 stores for the year. More recently, individual store closings are continuing, including a Connecticut location that is shutting down this month, The Street reported.

When I was a teenager, going to the mall was the thing to do.

But who has the money to shop at the mall at this stage?

Yes, the wealthy still have lots of money to spend, but the middle class is evaporating right in front of our eyes.

GameStop once thrived selling video games to middle class kids, but now they plan to close over 470 stores in 2026…

GameStop is closing more than 470 stores nationwide to start 2026.

While the Texas-based video game retailer has not released a list of which stores are closing, the GameStop website lists hundreds of locations as closed. A spokesperson for GameStop did not respond to a request for the full list.

Unless some sort of a miracle happens, we are going to shatter the all-time record for store closings that we just set in 2025.

The numbers don’t lie.

We really are in the midst of a horrifying retail apocalypse.

So I would encourage you to visit your favorite stores while you still can, because more of them could suddenly disappear at any time.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Empty Stores Everywhere! America’s “Retail Apocalypse” Is Already The Worst In History, And There Are Signs That It Is Getting Even Worse… appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The Machine, AI, and Transhumanism | CultureWatch

Paul Kingsnorth versus the Machine:

In my ever-growing bibliography of good books on AI, transhumanism and related issues (now well over 50 volumes), I have included in it this one: Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity by Paul Kingsnorth (Particular Books, 2025).

Although his book is much more than about things like AI, the entire volume really is about the humanist and transhumanist Machine. The new technologies are as much about replacing God (or inventing a new god) as the old Machine ideologies such as Marxism were.

To get an overview and introduction to this important book see my earlier piece: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/01/15/raging-against-the-machine/

In this article I will look at his more specific remarks about AI, Silicon Valley and the push for technological immortality. I will confine myself to three of his chapters:

Ch. 20 “What Progress Wants”
Ch. 21 “God in the Age of Iron”
Ch. 22 “The Universal”

In the first of these chapters he reminds us that the Machine is not just political or economic or ideological – it is also spiritual. So he asks us to consider what the theology of it is. As a Christian, he is aware of what the New Testament calls “principalities and powers” – things that wish us ill, but things that the Enlightenment was supposed to have debunked centuries ago.

He looks at the various Silicon Valley figures such as Kevin Kelly, Mark Zuckerberg and Ray Kurzwell who have spoken of how technology is growing and developing into that of a living organism with self-awareness and the ability to reproduce. He writes:

Our job, they seem to imply, is simply to service it as it rolls forward under its own steam, remaking everything in its own image, rebuilding the world, turning us, if we are lucky, into little gods. They never consider where this story has been heard before. They never confront, or seem to even comprehend, what Illich or Guénon or even Ginsberg would have known, and which many a saint would confirm if they could hear the technium’s new story: that ‘AI’, on the right lips, can sound like just another way of saying ‘AntiChrist.’ (p. 221)

The rush to perfection and immortality means uprooting everything:

Modernity, in the final accounting, took aim at all authority, all tradition, everything rooted and everything past. . . .  [T]he end result of modernity’s revolutions would be the rise of a ‘new totalitarianism’. This time around it would not involve jackboots and uniforms. Instead, it would be a technocracy built on scientism and implemented by managerial elites, designed to ensure that order could continue after modernity had ripped up all former sources of authority and truth. . . . Create a void, in other words, and into it will rush monsters. (p. 227)

In the next chapter he goes on to speak of progress and the Machine and what it all means: “No matter how many words I write trying to pin it down, it is never at root any more than this: a sacrilegious treatment of a sacred world.” (p. 234)

But the God who is there will not disappear just because mankind wants him to. Furthermore, being made in His image means we can never fully jettison our Creator. God keeps coming back into the picture:

Religion in the West is effectively dead, and yet our inherent human sense of the sacred is not. In this reign of quantity, we are assured that there is nothing beyond this life, and therefore nothing that we should not try to bend into our preferred shape here and now. But at the same time, we cannot abolish our hunger for the transcendent. We are no longer interested in God, and yet God is still interested in us. And so, we must create a faith appropriate to the times. We must divine our sacred values in a society that presumes our purpose in life to be self-creation in a borderless, post-natural world. (p. 237)

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity by Kingsnorth, Paul (Author)

Indeed, says Kingsnorth, the Machine is now seeking to generate its own religion. He describes some of the characteristics of this new transhumanist religion – a combination of the older New Age Movement with modern technology:

All hierarchy, dogma and tradition are rejected, replaced by self-worship and self-creation. Everything is relative—who’s to say what’s right or wrong, after all?—and the ultimate aim of the entire exercise is self-creation through technology. The Age of Aquarius slides smoothly into the age of transhumanism as we seek, openly now, to become the gods we always wanted to be, using technology as the force which will get us there.

 

The last of these pseudo-dogmas is the most important. We are headed very quickly now, and increasingly openly, towards the endgame of this whole project: transhumanism, the attempt to both immortalise ourselves and to build new intelligences alongside us that will act as our servants in the new age we are making. This is the salvation offered by the religion of the Machine. You will be like gods, knowing good and evil. How can a human become like a god? By doing what gods do: creating. And how can a human create? Through our unique gift: the power of technology. And so the religion of the future, the debased faith of the Machine age, the self-built theology of a people who worship the strongest thing in the world, will end where it all began: in an attempt to self-divinise. (pp. 242-243)

The chapter closes with these ominous words: “The crisis of the modern world is not a crisis of technology or politics or greenhouse gases. It is a spiritual war. What the Machine represents is our ultimate rebellion against nature: against reality itself. We have seen this rebellion before. Now our culture’s rejection of its spiritual core has opened us up to powers and principalities that we have no idea how to manage, or even understand.” (p. 243)

And the next chapter opens with even more ominous words: “The Internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. This is an extreme statement, but I’m in an extreme mood.” (p. 244)

He then speaks about something that I have been warning quite a lot about lately: how even Christians and many churches are falling for the AI craze. He writes:

In a Catholic church in Warsaw, Poland, sits SanTO, an AI robot which looks like a statue of a saint, and is ‘designed to help people pray’ by offering Bible quotes in response to questions. Not to be outdone, a protestant church in Germany has developed a robot called – I kid you not – BlessU-2. BlessU-2, which looks like a character designed by Aardman Animations, can ‘forgive your sins in five different languages’, which must be handy if they’re too embarrassing to confess to a human.

 

Perhaps this tinfoil vicar will learn to write sermons as well as ChatGPT apparently already can. ‘Unlike the time-consuming human versions, AI sermons appear in seconds – and some can be quite good!’ gushed a Christian writer recently. When the editor of Premier Christianity magazine tried the same thing, the machine produced an effective sermon, and then did something it hadn’t been asked to do. ‘It even prayed’, wrote its interlocutor; ‘I didn’t think to ask it to pray…’

 

Funny how that keeps happening.

 

On and on it goes: the gushing, uncritical embrace of the Machine, even in the heart of the temple. The blind worship of idols, and the failure to see what stands behind them. Someone once reminded us that a man cannot serve two masters -but then, what did he know? Ilia Delio, a Franciscan nun who writes about the relationship between AI and God, has a better idea: gender-neutral robot priests, which will challenge the patriarchy, prevent sexual abuse and tackle the fusty old notion that ‘the priest is ontologically changed upon ordination.’ AI, says Delio, ‘challenges Catholicism to move toward a post-human priesthood.

 

‘Behold’, intones BlessU-2, quoting the Book of Revelation, ‘I make all things new’. (pp. 247-248)

A final quote to give us a bit of hope. Not everyone is thrilled where the Machine is taking us. Says Kingsnorth about a March, 2023 development:

[M]ore than 12,000 people, including scientists, tech developers and notorious billionaires, issued a public statement of concern about the rapid pace of AI development. ‘Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth’, they wrote, with ‘potentially catastrophic effects on society.’ Calling for a moratorium on AI development, they proposed that ‘powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.’ (p. 250)

That is a start, but the issue is this: Is it too little too late? Is the genie now out of the bottle for good?

Future articles will look further at this very important book.

[1479 words]

The post The Machine, AI, and Transhumanism appeared first on CultureWatch.

Source: The Machine, AI, and Transhumanism

Free Starlink Access for Iran Seen as Game Changer for Protesters Getting Their Message Out | CBN

(AP) – Iranian demonstrators’ ability to get details of bloody nationwide protests out to the world has been given a strong boost, with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service dropping its fees to allow more people to circumvent the Tehran government’s strongest attempt ever to prevent information from spilling outside its borders, activists said Wednesday.

The move by the American aerospace company run by Elon Musk follows the complete shutdown of telecommunications and internet access to Iran’s 85 million people on Jan. 8, as protests expanded over the Islamic Republic’s faltering economy and the collapse of its currency. 

SpaceX has not officially announced the decision and did not respond to request for comment, but activists told The Associated Press that Starlink has been available for free to anyone in Iran with the receivers since Tuesday. 

“Starlink has been crucial,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian whose nonprofit Net Freedom Pioneers has helped smuggle units into Iran, pointing to video that emerged Sunday showing rows of bodies at a forensic medical center near Tehran. 

“That showed a few hundred bodies on the ground, that came out because of Starlink,” he said in an interview from Los Angeles. “I think that those videos from the center pretty much changed everyone’s understanding of what’s happening because they saw it with their own eyes.”

Since the outbreak of demonstrations Dec. 28, the death toll has risen to more than 2,500 people, primarily protesters but also security personnel, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. 

Starlink is banned in Iran by telecommunication regulations, as the country never authorized the importation, sale or use of the devices. Activists fear they could be accused of helping the U.S. or Israel by using Starlink and charged with espionage, which can carry the death penalty.

The first units were smuggled into Iran in 2022 during protests over the country’s mandatory headscarf law, after Musk got the Biden administration to exempt the Starlink service from Iran sanctions.

Since then, more than 50,000 units are estimated to have been sneaked in, with people going through great lengths to conceal them, using virtual private networks while on the system to hide IP addresses and taking other precautions, said Ahmad Ahmadian, the executive director of Holistic Resilience, a Los Angeles-based organization that was responsible for getting some of the first Starlink units into Iran. 

Starlink is a global internet network that relies on some 10,000 satellites orbiting Earth. 

After efforts to shut down communications during the 12-day war with Israel in June proved to be not terribly effective, Iranian security services have taken more “extreme tactics” now to both jam Starlink’s radio signals and GPS systems, Ahmadian said in a phone interview. After Holistic Resilience passed on reports to SpaceX, Ahmadian said, the company pushed a firmware update that helped circumvent the new countermeasures.

Security services also rely on informers to tell them who might be using Starlink, search internet and social media traffic for signs it has been used, and there have been reports they have raided apartments with satellite dishes. 

“There has always been a cat-and-mouse game,” said Ahmadian, who fled Iran himself in 2012, after serving time in prison for student activism. “The government is using every tool in its toolbox.”

Still, Ahmadian noted that the government jamming attempts had only been effective in certain urban areas, suggesting that security services lack the resources to block Starlink more broadly. 

Iran did begin to allow people to call out internationally on Tuesday via their mobile phones, but calls from outside the country into Iran remain blocked.

Compared to protests in 2019, when lesser measures by the government were able to effectively stifle information reaching the rest of the world for more than a week, Ahmadian said the proliferation of Starlink has made it impossible to prevent communications. He said the flow could increase now that the service has been made free. 

“This time around they really shut it down, even fixed landlines were not working,” he said. “But despite this, the information was coming out and it also shows how distributed this community of Starlink users is in the country.” 

Musk has made Starlink free for use during several natural disasters, and Ukraine has relied heavily on the service since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It was initially funded by SpaceX and later through an American government contract. 

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2026/january/free-starlink-access-for-iran-seen-as-game-changer-for-protesters-getting-their-message-out

Introducing Our Parents’ Guide to Technology 2026 | Plugged In

“Ugh! You’re ruining my life!”

Coming from a teen, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that particular cliché or one of its associates: “You don’t get it”; “All my friends are doing it”; “I guess you don’t love me.” However, I have to admit that I was a bit shocked to hear them all coming out of my 9-year-old nephew’s mouth.

Why was my nephew so bent out of shape? Because his mom had done something that, in his mind, was unforgiveable: She had told him to stop playing on his tablet.

If you’re a parent, you might be familiar with that screentime battle. Or perhaps you’ve been frustrated by the one that frequently follows: “What should I do now? I’m bored.”

When it comes to technology, parents can sometimes feel out of their depth. Even if you grew up with a smartphone in hand (if the first iPhone was a person, it’d be old enough to vote), it can be a challenge to figure out the “right” way to guide your family through this ever-changing technological landscape.

Luckily—or perhaps, unluckily, depending on how you look at it—you’re not alone.

In 2020, the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health identified the top health concerns for parents of children aged 0-18 years. The top three were too much social media and screen time, cyberbullying and internet safety.

When we at Plugged In saw that report, it got us thinking: How can we help parents to navigate technology, protecting their children from harm while also teaching them good screentime habits, in practical and biblical ways?

Well, we came up with a solution, and we are proud to provide you with the Parents’ Guide to Technology 2026 by Plugged In.

In this tech guide, we’ll walk you through those parental pain points mentioned above (as well as some others we identified, such as pornography and artificial intelligence). Each article will unpack a different technology-related issue. We’ll give you stats and information from various researchers and scientific studies. But, most importantly, we’ll also provide you with pragmatic, actionable advice for dealing with those specific problems.

And don’t worry, we don’t expect you to read it all in one go (it’s 125 pages). The Parents’ Guide to Technology is organized so that you can bounce around from article to article, cherry-picking the topics that are closest to your family.

Oh, and did I mention? It’s completely free.

That’s right, we’re not asking you to hand over your credit cards or to pay for a membership or subscription. If you want a copy of the Parents’ Guide to Technology, it’s yours. Just head over to pluggedin.com/tech-guide to download your copy.

What’s more is that we’ll be updating the guide every year. (I did say that the technological landscape is ever-changing, after all.) So let us know what you think! How did we do? Are there issues you’d like us to cover in the future? Do you want more information about a specific topic?

Contact us on Facebook or Instagram. Send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com. Head over to YouTube and leave us a message there. Or, simply, leave a comment below. We always love to hear from you.

The post Introducing Our Parents’ Guide to Technology 2026 appeared first on Plugged In.

Source: Introducing Our Parents’ Guide to Technology 2026

Our Predictions for 2026 | Cranach by Gene Veith

Happy New Year!  What do you think 2026 will bring?

This is the day we launch our annual contest for who can make the best prediction.  This year we will raise the stakes:  You will be competing against AI.

First, here are the terms of the contest:

The custom on this blog on New Year’s Day is for readers to predict what they think will happen over the course of the year ahead. Then, once the year is over, on or around the next New Year’s Eve, we will revisit those predictions and see who made the best one. . . .

The predictions can be weighty or light, serious or whimsical. Winning predictions will likely be highly specific. They tend to seem highly unlikely at the time they are made, but then, to our surprise, they happen anyway. The winning prediction makes us think, “How could anyone possibly know THAT was going to happen?”

The most noteworthy such prediction was made by Bernankeisglutenfree, who predicted that in 2020 a disease originating in Asia would create havoc around the world.  For predicting COVID, we named the prize after him: the Gluten Free Award, which exists only virtually and in our minds, having no monetary value whatsoever.

Give your predictions in the comments to this post.  The contest closes on January 15.

These are free posts, so you do not need to be a subscriber to make a prediction or see the results next year.

Also,  these are predictions, not prophecies that claim supernatural authority.  The Deuteronomy 18:21-22 principle will not be enforced.

I’ll post my predictions in the comments like everyone else.  This year we will add a wrinkle. In the 2024 contest, skyorrichegg had the bright idea of asking AI its predictions for the year.  He put the parameters in ChatGPT and asked it for 15 predictions.  Among the fairly accurate predictions, most of which were about technology and were fairly obvious, AI predicted the following:

1. A new trend emerges where people claim to communicate with plants on a deep emotional level.

2. A tech company releases a smartphone app claiming to predict users’ needs before they are aware of them.

3. Insect protein becomes very common and popular. High-end gourmet restaurants add menu items prominently featuring insect protein with culinary experts raving about the unique flavors and textures offered by insect cuisine.

Those did not happen, to put it mildly.  At the time, AI was fairly new and it has supposedly gotten better.  So I just now entered the above rules into today’s version of ChatGPT and asked for five predictions.  Here they are:

• A major Hollywood studio will release a theatrically distributed feature film whose screenplay credit is formally listed as “Human author with AI assistance,” and the Writers Guild will publicly accept that phrasing without protest.
  Not a loophole, not a scandal—an explicit, negotiated credit that becomes a precedent.
• A U.S. Supreme Court opinion in 2026 will contain a footnote explicitly addressing generative AI hallucinations and warning lower courts not to rely on AI-generated legal summaries without verification.
  The footnote will be widely quoted and instantly canonical in law reviews.
• A prominent evangelical or mainline Protestant denomination will issue an official pastoral statement discouraging congregants from forming “emotionally significant relationships” with AI companions.
  The document will not mention sex at all—and will therefore be mocked for exactly that reason.
• A previously obscure regional airline will experience a viral surge after a single passenger’s offhand complaint on social media accidentally reveals an unusually generous refund policy.
  The airline will change the policy within weeks, but not before reporters document dozens of people exploiting it.
• A professional sports game (NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL) will be paused mid-play because an AI-operated officiating or analytics system produces a visibly absurd real-time ruling that no human official can immediately explain.
  The clip will be replayed endlessly, and the phrase “we’re waiting on the algorithm” will briefly become a cultural punchline.

OK.  Rather AI-heavy, but that’s to be expected.  Surely you can do better than that!  For the sake of humanity, you must do better than that!

Will AI make more accurate predictions than human beings?  Can actual intelligence defeat artificial intelligence?  Are machines smarter than people?  We will find out.  It is  up to you to represent the human race.  This may be our last chance.

 

Illustration:  Robot and Human Collaborate by Circe Denyer [AI Collaboration] via PublicDomainPictures, Public Domain.

Source: Our Predictions for 2026

People are Driving by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s House and Yelling ‘Retard’ (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit

People are Driving by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s House and Yelling ‘Retard’ (VIDEO)

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is facing a wave of drive-by taunts at the governor’s mansion in St. Paul, with motorists slowing down to shout “retard.”

The comments echo President Donald Trump’s recent jab, calling him “seriously retarded” in a post on Truth Social on Thanksgiving.

The trend really kicked off after Walz whined during a press conference earlier this month, calling Trump’s use of the word “shameful” and claiming that people were driving by his house and shouting it.

“This creates danger,” Walz told reporters on December 5. “And I’ll tell you what. In my time on this, I’d never seen this before: People driving by my house and using the R-word in front of people.”

“This is shameful. And I have yet to see an elected official, a Republican elected official say, ‘You’re right. That’s shameful. He should not say it,” Walz continued. “So look, I’m worried. We know how these things go. They start with taunts, they turn to violence, so deeply concerned.”

A viral video capturing one of these moments shows a black Mercedes SUV cruising past the snow-covered Governor’s Mansion on a sunny winter day.

The driver appears to yell toward the gated property before speeding off. While audio is muffled in circulated clips, the context and reports confirm they shouted “retard.”

The footage, first shared widely on X, has racked up hundreds of thousands of views and sparked heated debates.

An account called “American Papa Bear” posted the clip on X, writing, “TIM WALZ IS NOT SAFE EVEN ON CHRISTMAS!”

“More Patriotic Americans record themselves yelling r*tard outside of the Minnesota home of Tim Walz!” the post added. “I love this energy!!

TIM WALZ IS NOT SAFE EVEN ON CHRISTMAS!

More Patriotic Americans record themselves yelling r*tard outside of the Minnesota home of Tim Walz!

I love this energy!! pic.twitter.com/CkqQL3ULTa

— AmericanPapaBear™ (@AmericaPapaBear) December 26, 2025

The video had over 7,000 likes as of Saturday evening.

Liberals and media figures have slammed the behavior as “bullying,” including CNN’s Jake Tapper, who urged people to “stop being awful.”

Everyone really needs to take a breath and stop being awful, stop rewarding awfulness, and stop promoting awfulness with your algorithms.

Happy & fulfilled & confident people don’t spend time doing any of this. https://t.co/Gv9yvOMxb8

— Jake Tapper 🦅 (@jaketapper) December 27, 2025

“Everyone really needs to take a breath and stop being awful, stop rewarding awfulness, and stop promoting awfulness with your algorithms,” Tapper complained. “Happy & fulfilled & confident people don’t spend time doing any of this.”

This isn’t the first time Walz has faced public backlash. His tenure has been marred by controversies, including billions in alleged fraud tied to Somali-linked programs and criticism over his COVID policies.

The drive-by heckling is a sure sign of frustration in Minnesota.

The post People are Driving by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s House and Yelling ‘Retard’ (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s $30M Firm Scrubs Names from Website Amid Scrutiny Over Rep’s Sudden Wealth and Minnesota Welfare Fraud Ties | The Gateway Pundit

Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s $30M Firm Scrubs Names from Website Amid Scrutiny Over Rep’s Sudden Wealth and Minnesota Welfare Fraud Ties

The $30 million venture capital firm run by Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, has quietly removed the names and bios of its top officers and advisors from its website.

This comes as the Minnesota Democrat faces intensifying questions about her family’s explosive wealth surge, from near bankruptcy to millions, amid one of the largest welfare fraud scandals in U.S. history, centered in her own district.

According to a bombshell report from the New York Post, Rose Lake Capital, founded by Mynett in 2022, scrubbed the details of nine key figures between September and October 2025.

The list included high-profile Democrats like former Obama Ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli, ex-Senator and Obama Ambassador to China Max Baucus, DNC Finance Chair associate Alex Hoffman, former DNC treasurer William Derrough, and Keith Mestrich, the ex-CEO of Amalgamated Bank, which he once called “the institutional bank of the Democratic Party.”

None of these individuals has been charged with any fraud. However, the timing coincides with federal prosecutors announcing charges against eight more suspects in the massive Minnesota welfare scam, six of whom are of Somali descent.

Omar, a prominent member of the far-left “Squad,” entered Congress in 2019 with a net worth between negative $25,000 and negative $65,000, burdened by student loans and car debt with no assets to her name.

Fast-forward to 2024, and her financial disclosures show assets ballooning to between $6 million and $30 million.

How did this happen so quickly, and what role, if any, do connections to the $9 billion Minnesota welfare fraud play?

The scandal revolves around the theft of billions from government-funded children’s meal programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 90 people have been charged so far, including at least three with direct ties to Omar, though she herself has not been implicated or charged.

Fraudsters allegedly claimed millions of “phantom” meals that were never served, pocketing subsidies meant for hungry kids.

One key figure, Salim Ahmed Said, co-owner of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, was convicted in August of stealing over $12 million by fabricating 3.9 million meals.

Said’s restaurant hosted Omar’s 2018 victory party, and a resurfaced 2020 video shows Omar praising the program there, saying in Somali, “Every day Safari provides 2,300 meals to children and their families,” while handing out food trays.

I posted this video earlier …

Do you all want to know the kicker to this video?

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced on April 20, 2023 H.R. 2777 the "School Meals During School Closures Act.

She defrauded 250 Million from "The feeding our future Act." The same act she introduced. pic.twitter.com/zErLwE7d3y

— JBartlett (@JBartle44051086) November 11, 2025

Another convicted fraudster, Guhaad Hashi Said, worked on Omar’s 2018 and 2020 campaigns and pleaded guilty in August to running a fake food site that claimed 5,000 daily meals, netting $3.2 million in ill-gotten gains.

Omar’s campaign received $7,400 in donations from at least three now-convicted individuals, which she claims were returned after the scandal broke.

Omar pushed the MEALS Act in Congress in 2020, which critics argue loosened oversight on these programs, paving the way for the fraud. When asked last week if she regretted the legislation, Omar told a reporter, “Absolutely not, it did help feed kids.”

Mynett’s firm, Rose Lake Capital, reported assets under management of $60 billion despite operating out of a WeWork office in Washington, D.C.

In 2023, it was valued at less than $1,000 in Omar’s disclosures, but by the next year, it jumped to between $5 million and $25 million. The firm boasts “deep global networks built from on-the-ground work in more than 80 countries,” but details are scarce.

Adding to the intrigue, Mynett’s other venture, a California winery called eStCru, LLC (formerly estCru), faced its own fraud allegations.

In October 2023, an investor sued Mynett for allegedly swindling $900,000 by misrepresenting the business.

“The fraud case involved a wine investor suing Mynett in Oct. 2023, accusing him of swindling him of $900,000 as he ‘fraudulently misrepresented … that estCru, LLC was a legitimate company.’ Mynett claimed he simply struggled to build a business during the pandemic,” The Post reports.

The case settled out of court.

The winery, which once sold gimmicky wines like “Blockchain” and “The Devil’s Lie,” saw its value skyrocket from $15,000-$50,000 in 2022 to between one and five million in 2024, a staggering 9,900% increase.

Today, it appears defunct. No wine sales, a broken website, a disconnected phone, and no social media activity since 2023.

Omar has previously faced ethics complaints for quietly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to her husband’s consulting firm.

“In total, Mynett has received a whopping $878,930.65 from Omar’s campaign since he began working for her in 2018, raising eyebrows among watchdogs and political law experts who say the practice is rife with cronyism,” The Post wrote in a 2020 report on the matter.

Paul Kamenar, counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center, didn’t mince words, telling the New York Post this week, “There’s a lot of strange things going on… She was basically broke when she came into office, and now she’s worth perhaps up to $30 million…she needs to come clean on these assets.”

In September, President Donald Trump asked about Omar’s ties to the fraud scam, writing on Truth Social, “Does Ilhan Omar know these people? Are they from her wonderfully managed Home Country of Somalia?”

Omar dismissed the wealth reports as “ridiculous” and “categorically false” earlier this year. Her office declined comment, citing a holiday closure until January 5.

Mynett did not respond to inquiries from The Post, and his businesses’ contact info is non-functional.

The post Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s $30M Firm Scrubs Names from Website Amid Scrutiny Over Rep’s Sudden Wealth and Minnesota Welfare Fraud Ties appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Bankruptcies are exploding across the economy, hitting small businesses and households. Few industries are immune. | Business Insider

US bankruptcies are on the rise.doockie/Getty Images

• From corporate giants to mom-and-pop shops, bankruptcies are piling up across the US this year.
• Large corporate bankruptcies have hit their highest level in 15 years.
• “Bankruptcies seem to be kind of all over the place,” one veteran bankruptcy attorney said.

Bankruptcies aren’t just rising — they’re suddenly everywhere.

From billion-dollar giants to mom-and-pop shops to everyday individuals, bankruptcies are piling up across the US this year, with large corporate bankruptcies already hitting their highest level in 15 years.

The surge in bankruptcies highlights the growing financial pressures facing consumers and companies as costs climb amid a tougher borrowing environment.

“Rising costs, tighter credit conditions, and ongoing geopolitical volatility continue to exert pressure on households and businesses already facing financial strain,” Amy Quackenboss, the executive director at the American Bankruptcy Institute, said earlier this month.

Unlike past downturns, this wave of bankruptcies appears to be hitting nearly every corner of the economy. It’s sweeping across a range of sectors in what one veteran bankruptcy attorney described as a strikingly “unusual” pattern.

A wide cross-section of industries

Typically, corporate failures tend to be “industry sticky,” meaning they cluster within the same sectors, Robert Stark, a partner at the law firm Brown Rudnick and chair of its bankruptcy and corporate restructuring practice group, recently told Business Insider.

In 2022, for example, he said there was the “big crypto winter” culminating in a string of cryptocurrency firm bankruptcies, including Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.

“That was a sticky event — a lot in the industry kind of went through bankruptcy at the same time,” Stark said. “What we have now, which is the thing that I find kind of interesting, is I don’t see as much stickiness as I’m used to seeing.”

“Bankruptcies seem to be kind of all over the place,” added Stark, who represents creditor groups in the 2025 bankruptcies of auto parts company First Brands and fintech startup Linqto, as well as the equity committee in the Chapter 11 case of genetic testing company 23andMe.

Stark said that he can’t pinpoint a clear cause for the “broad smattering of industries” now in bankruptcy, but he called it “unusual” in his 30 years of experience and “shockingly so.”

High-profile bankruptcies

Major corporate bankruptcies this year have included hospitality company Sonder, Spirit Airlines, Del Monte Foods, retailer Claire’s, and CVS Health subsidiary Omnicare. Each, in court filings, listed more than $1 billion in liabilities, placing them among the largest bankruptcies of 2025.

According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, which tracks public and private companies of a certain size, bankruptcy filings climbed to 717 through November, topping last year’s tally of 687.

Even without December figures, 2025 has already logged the highest annual count for large corporate bankruptcies since 2010, when filings totaled 828, according to S&P Global.

Data from the intelligence firm shows that the industrials sector was the most distressed through November, with 110 companies filing for bankruptcy. The consumer discretionary sector followed with 85 bankruptcy filings, and healthcare was next up with 46 firms filing.

Small business bankruptcies

The spike in bankruptcies extends well beyond the corporate sphere, with an increasing number of small businesses also filing for bankruptcy, data shows.

Small businesses carrying $3,024,725 or less in secured and unsecured debt have the option to file for bankruptcy under Subchapter V of Chapter 11, which offers a more streamlined reorganization process.

Data from Epiq Bankruptcy Analytics shows Subchapter V filings, made by small firms and individuals, at more than 2,300 year-to-date through mid-December — a nearly 10% increase from the same period last year.

In November alone, Subchapter V bankruptcy filings totaled 223 — a 23% bump from the previous year, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, which cited data from Epiq.

Personal bankruptcies

In addition to big and small businesses, individual bankruptcies have also increased amid rising costs.

Individual bankruptcy filings saw an 8% jump to 40,973 in November 2025, up from the 37,814 filings in November 2024, the data cited by ABI shows.

Last month, there were 25,329 individual filings for Chapter 7, known as “clean slate” or liquidation bankruptcy, up 11% from the 22,871 filings recorded in November 2024.

Individual filings for Chapter 13, also called a “wage earner’s plan” to repay all or part of someone’s debts, accounted for 15,558 in November 2025, a 5% jump over the 14,865 filings in November last year, according to the data cited by ABI.

“For debt-burdened families and companies, bankruptcy remains a critical pathway to restore stability and rebuild toward a stronger financial future,” Quackenboss, the ABI executive director, said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Source: Bankruptcies are exploding across the economy, hitting small businesses and households. Few industries are immune.

Americans Are More Frustrated With Customer Service Than Ever Before | End Of The American Dream

For many of you, just reading the phrase “customer service” is enough to make your blood boil.  We have all had experiences where we have been on the phone for hours trying to get help with a problem.  In many cases, it can be a real adventure just trying to find a real person to speak with.  I think that a lot of companies purposely try to make the customer service process as frustrating as possible so that many of us will just simply choose to give up.  If they can get us to go away, that is a win.  In other cases, companies are trying to pay as little as possible for customer service, and the result is complete and utter chaos.  AI chatbots and call centers in India can save corporate executives a lot of money, but there is simply no replacement for speaking with a real person that can understand what you are saying and that has been properly trained.

According to the latest National Customer Rage Survey, 77 percent of U.S. consumers say that they have had a product or service problem within the last 12 months.

In the entire history of the survey, that was the highest level ever recorded…

Seventy-seven percent of customers reported experiencing a product or service problem in the previous 12 months, according to the latest National Customer Rage Survey, conducted in February.

That was a new high, surpassing 74% in 2023, when the study was last conducted, and 66% during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Only 32% told researchers they had experienced a problem in 1976, when a similar version of the study was first conducted.

Are you among the 77 percent?

I am.

Some of you might be thinking that 77 percent is an extremely high number, but other surveys have come up with similar results…

The Customer Experience and Communications Consumer Insights survey showed seventy-one percent of U.S. and Canadian respondents think most companies need to improve their customer experience, a record high, according to the seventh annual study conducted in August and published in November by fintech company Broadridge Financial Solutions.

And the research and advisory firm Forrester in June found that U.S. and Canadian consumer perceptions of the customer experience have dropped for a fourth consecutive year, with brands’ average score reaching a record low of 68.3 out of 100. The index reflects consumers’ attitudes across six metrics, including how easy a brand is to deal with and how interacting with the brand feels.

There are a lot of companies out there that are very eager to sell us stuff, but when we have problems it is an entirely different story.

When I first started working many years ago, I was taught that the customer is always right.  But now dealing with “problem customers” has become a headache that is to be avoided if at all possible.

Of course there are some companies that do make an honest effort at serving their customers, but unfortunately they are hiring from a pool of low paid workers that struggle to communicate effectively.

According to the National Literacy Institute, 21 percent of U.S. adults are illiterate and 54 percent of U.S. adults read below a 6th-grade level…

• 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024.
• 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).
• Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per year.
• 34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US.
• Massachusetts was the state with the highest rate of child literacy.
• New Mexico was the state with the lowest child literacy rate.
• New Hampshire was the state with the highest percentage of adults considered literate.
• The state with the lowest adult literacy rate was California.

Our system of public education is failing.

Nobody can deny that.

And that helps to explain why there is such a high level of incompetence in our society today.

Of course if you are calling a customer service number for help, you probably won’t even get to talk to a U.S. citizen.

In order to cut costs as low as possible, thousands of companies have outsourced customer service to call centers in India and other developing nations.

Once in a while, you can find a customer service representative in one of these call centers that can communicate effectively and that has been properly trained.

But that is the exception to the rule.

In an attempt to cut costs even lower, some companies are now using AI chatbots to answer customer service calls…

Many companies now are turning to artificial intelligence to field complaints, steering customers to online chatbots before they can reach human staff. Companies say the technology helps solve simple problems faster and lets representatives spend more time working on more complex issues. But most National Rage Survey respondents gave AI chatbots ambiguous or modestly unfavorable ratings as tools for complaints.

If I have a problem that is big enough that I have to contact someone about it, I sure don’t want to interact with an AI chatbot.

I am sure that most of you wouldn’t want to do that either.

But this is the future.

Companies are going to automate whatever they can, because automation saves money.

Sadly, that even includes the banking industry.

I greatly value being able to walk into my local bank and deal with a real person.

But now hundreds of local bank branches are being permanently closed all over the United States…

If you’re still banking on access to your local branch, don’t count on it.

Major US banks have announced plans to shut 311 branches since late August — a pre-Christmas wipeout that puts 2025 on track to be the worst year ever for walk-in banking.

JPMorgan Chase led the pre-Christmas cull with 66 closures, followed by TD Bank’s 51, Citizens’ 18, and Bank of America’s 15. PNC, Wells Fargo and others made up the rest, according to federal filings.

1,043 local branches were shut down in 2024, and the grand total for 2025 will be somewhere around 1,400.

I have been ranting about the banks for a very long time, but the giants in the industry are not going to change their behavior no matter how loudly we object.

That is one reason why I recommend banking with a small or mid-size bank when possible.

Just like small and mid-size companies, small and mid-size banks are often more responsive to customer needs.

If enough of us start taking a stand, eventually the customer service culture in this country could start changing.

But for now the race to the bottom continues, and that is extremely unfortunate.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Americans Are More Frustrated With Customer Service Than Ever Before appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

News Weakly – 12/13/2025 | Winging It

A Freedom Too Far?
The makers of the ICEBlock app are suing the Trump administration because of the pressure to remove the app. The app is intended to prevent law enforcement from doing their jobs … and endangers ICE personnel. When does the “freedom of the press” or “free speech” fall outside legal protection? Should we be required to allow all speech even if it endangers lives and violates laws? Is this really the road we want to follow?

A Question Too Far?
Now here’s an interesting story. The FDA is probing deaths from COVID … vaccines. Over time, multiple stories have surfaced about deaths caused by the vaccine. They were typically squashed and ignored, but … not absent. It wasn’t … an accepted story. The “freedom of the press” is very limited in our day … just not always by the government.

A Question of Fraud?
Trump announced a pardon for Tina Peters in Colorado. Peters is serving a nine-year sentence for trying to aid Trump in overturning the 2020 election results for fraudulent voting. It was a state sentence, and legal minds largely agree that a president can only pardon someone for federal crimes, so it’s only symbolic. However, the very real question of whether or not there was sufficient voter fraud in 2020 to skew the results will never be examined because the powers that be have manipulated public opinion against even asking the question with the completely truthful but wildly misleading statement, “There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud.” (The claim is not “widespread,” but largely localized and limited to three specific swing states … but … we can’t ask anymore.)

A News Splash
Some odd news gathered this week. New Zealand police recovered a stolen Fabergé egg pendant after a thief swallowed it and stole it. It took six days to … “extract” it naturally. A woman in San Francisco gave birth … in a Waymo self-driving taxi. Waymo is promising to deliver, but … that’s not what they meant, was it? And a a drone in South Carolina dropped a meal of steak and crab legs, complete with some marijuana and a couple of cartons of cigarettes … to a prison yard for a prisoner. The guards got it first. Nice try.

Your Best Source for Fake News
In politics, Jasmine Crockett has hit the campaign trail to “axe for votes”. I’m afraid there might be a … language barrier brewing there. Trump has announced a $12 billion farmers aid package (actual story) to help them deal with the growing economy. Finally, with Christmas fast approaching, the Pope is urging Jesus and Satan to put aside their differences in the name of peace. “Can’t we all just get along?” (As a bonus, you might look at the Bee’s 13 Things Safer to Give Your Kids Than A Smarphone story in view of the recent concerns over kids and smartphones.)

Must be true; I read it on the internet.

http://birdsoftheair.blogspot.com/2025/12/news-weakly-12132025.html

This Is How China Is Rapidly Becoming The World’s Most Dominant Economic Superpower | The Economic Collapse

I don’t want China to be the world’s most dominant economic superpower. I am an American, and so I want the United States to be the world’s most dominant economic superpower. Unfortunately, the facts that I am about to share with you in this article cannot be denied. We consume far more than we produce, and we go into colossal amounts of debt in order to make that possible. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that this makes us an economic superpower. Meanwhile, the Chinese produce far more than they consume, and as a result they have far more money coming in than they do going out. This allows them to loan vast amounts of money to nations all over the planet, and that gives them tremendous economic leverage.

Despite everything that has happened this year, China has run a trade surplus of more than a trillion dollars for the first time ever in 2025…

China’s trade surplus roared above $1 trillion in November for the first time ever, despite the ongoing global trade war that has resulted in a steep drop in exports to the U.S.

In the first 11 months this year, China’s overall exports grew 5.4% compared to the same period in 2024 while imports fell 0.6%, taking its trade surplus to $1.076 trillion this year as of November, up 21.6% year on year.

This is what economic dominance looks like.

If you want to have a great economy, you have got to be great at making stuff.

And China is better at making stuff than anyone else.

China sells far more stuff to the rest of the world than it buys from the rest of the world, and that means that it has far more money coming in than it does going out.

This enables China to lend out vast amounts of cash.  In fact, at this point the rest of the world owes China about 5 trillion dollars.

It is often said that the borrower is the servant of the lender, and that is certainly true in this case.

The primary reason why China sells so much stuff to the rest of the world is because they are able to make things very inexpensively…

“Put simply, China’s price competitiveness is extremely strong,” said Xu Tianchen, a senior economist for the Economist Intelligence Unit in Beijing. “The main reason behind the continued growth of China’s exports … is not … because the overall size of global trade has expanded, but because China is claiming a larger share of the existing trade landscape.”

For a long time, cheap human labor was China’s main competitive edge.

But now Chinese factories are replacing human workers with ultra-efficient robots.

In fact, today there are more robots working in China than the rest of the world combined.

Just think about that for a moment.

That is crazy.

And the gap between China and the western world just continues to grow.

If you can believe it, Chinese factories added almost 10 times as many robots last year as U.S. factories did…

China is the world’s most dominant power in automating its manufacturing — installing nearly 10 times as many robots in its factories as the United States, according to new data.

Last year, more than half a million industrial robots were put to work in global factories — with 54% of them in China alone.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, China, which is home to nearly a third of all global manufacturing capacity, installed 295,000 industrial robots, the highest annual total on record.

We are getting absolutely monkey-hammered by the Chinese.

Shockingly, the total number of robots that U.S. factories added last year was actually lower than the total number for the year before…

In the US, meanwhile, companies put to work just 34,200 robots last year, according to the World Robotics 2025 Report.

The 34,200 figure is 9% lower than the previous year, the report found.

Of course the Chinese are not just using more robots than anyone else.

They are also producing more robots than the rest of the planet combined…

The move comes as Beijing accelerates its broader industrial strategy to lead in advanced manufacturing, a key pillar of the “Made in China 2025” initiative. As bne IntelliNews reported, China now produces more industrial robots than the rest of the world combined, with domestic players rapidly gaining ground in both hardware and AI-driven control systems.

China is moving beyond being just the largest market for robots — it is becoming the core of global robot production. Chinese firms accounted for over 60% of global robot output in 2024, driven by subsidies, procurement programmes, and access to vast domestic datasets for training machine learning models.

Robots do not call in sick.

Robots do not need to take breaks.

Robots never complain.

Robots do not need health plans.

Robots don’t play around on the Internet when they should be working.

Robots do not need to take vacations.

Robots can work 24 hours a day.

And many of the robots that the Chinese are now producing can actually recharge their own batteries.

How can human workers possibly compete?

The Chinese can now make things at about a third of the cost that we can, and that gap is only going to get wider.

When a group of top western executives recently visited China, they were “humbled” and “terrified” by what they witnessed…

Western automotive and green energy executives who visit China are returning humbled — and even terrified.

As The Telegraph reports, the executives are warning that the country’s heavily automated manufacturing industry could quickly leave Western nations behind, especially when it comes to electric vehicles.

“We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told The Verge last month. “And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”

Many are hoping that winning the AI race will halt the decline of western economies.

But that is far from certain.

Today, approximately 50 percent of the world’s AI researchers are in China.

We have some really good AI researchers too, but without a doubt it is going to be a very competitive race.

In fact, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang created quite a firestorm of controversy when he recently stated that he believes that “China is going to win the AI race”…

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says Washington has lost its edge in artificial intelligence and warns that China will win the AI race. He cited the West’s cynicism, export controls, and favorable energy circumstances in China as the reason, claiming it is much easier for companies to access energy in the country.

The chief of the most valuable company in the world by market cap has long been saying that the U.S. ban on chip exports is a failure, and that the spread of its advanced semiconductors is vital for it to retain its competitive advantage globally. However, the ongoing trade war between the two powers has resulted in export bans of Blackwell chips from the White House on the one hand, and the CCP banning foreign AI chips from state-funded data centers on the other. Because of this, Nvidia’s market share in China has since dropped to basically zero, which probably led to Huang’s statement to the Financial Times.

“China is going to win the AI race,” Jensen commented. He also added that “we need more optimism,” saying that the West’s cynicism is holding it back.

Winning the AI race is going to require vast amounts of energy, and this is one of the reasons why China may have an edge.

Most Americans don’t even realize that China now produces approximately two and a half times as much energy as the United States does…

Meanwhile, China has dramatically expanded its energy output. The country now produces 2.5 times more power than the U.S., despite surpassing America only 15 years ago, Lord said.

“America can’t out-AI China if China out-powers us, so the U.S. must prioritize developing reliable power,” he said.

The Chinese are feverishly constructing more nuclear power facilities, and they are way ahead of us when it comes to clean nuclear energy research.

The bottom line is that we are in enormous trouble.

We need to stop watching so much Netflix and start getting serious about competing with China.

In 2026, I expect our trade war with China to continue to heat up.

And history has shown us that trade wars have a way of evolving into shooting wars.

Let us hope that a military conflict with China can be avoided for as long as possible, because at this stage I don’t think that such a conflict would go well for us.

Because the Chinese have been rapidly modernizing their military as well.

In just about every area, the Chinese are either catching up with us or have already surpassed us.

Sadly, most Americans are so addicted to entertainment that they don’t even realize that this is happening.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post This Is How China Is Rapidly Becoming The World’s Most Dominant Economic Superpower appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

11 Signs That Our World Is Rapidly Becoming A Lot More Orwellian | The Economic Collapse

All over the globe, the digital control grid that we are all living in just continues to get even tighter. They are using facial recognition technology to scan our faces, they are using license plate readers to track where we travel, they are systematically monitoring the conversations that we are having on our phones, and they are watching literally everything that we post on social media. At this stage, many of us just assume that nothing that we do or say is ever truly private. We really do live in a “Big Brother society”, and the potential for tyranny is off the charts. In fact, people are already getting arrested for “thought crimes” all over the world. If we do not take a stand now, someday soon we could wake up in a world where there is essentially no freedom left at all.

The exponential growth of AI technology is allowing authorities to watch, track, monitor and control us like never before.  If you are not alarmed by this, you might want to check if you are still alive.  The following are 11 signs that our world is rapidly becoming a lot more Orwellian…

#1 UK authorities are rolling out “a country-wide facial recognition system” that will use AI facial recognition cameras to watch the entire population…

On Thursday, officials in the UK pledged to roll out a country-wide facial recognition system to help police track down criminals. The country’s ministers have launched a 10-week consultation to analyze the regulatory and privacy framework of their AI-powered surveillance panopticon — but one way or another, the all-seeing eye is on its way.

There’s just one tiny wrinkle: the AI facial recognition cameras have a tendency to misidentify non-white people.

New reporting by The Guardian notes that testing of the AI tech conducted by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) found that it‘s “more likely to incorrectly include some demographic groups in its search results” — specifically Black and Asian people.

#2 Of course the control freaks in the UK also monitor everything that gets posted on social media.  One British man recently found this out the hard way when he was arrested for posing with a legally-owned gun in the United States…

A Yorkshire man was arrested over a photo he posted on social media featuring him holding a legally owned gun in the US.

Jon Richelieu-Booth posted a photo of himself in August holding a gun on LinkedIn while he was on a holiday in Florida.

He said he held the firearm lawfully, on private land and with full permission from its owner.

#3 If you do not believe that “thought crime” is real, just consider this next example.  11 police officers recently barged in and arrested a 34-year-old woman that was sitting naked in her own bathtub because she used offensive words while texting another woman on her phone…

The United Kingdom has become an authoritarian nightmare, and the United States must remain vigilant if it does not want to go down the same course.

Elizabeth Kinney, a 34-year-old care assistant, was naked in the bathtub when 11 police officers barged into her home to arrest her.

Her crime was sending insults to another woman via text.

How would you feel if 11 police officers were staring at you while you were naked?

As she was being informed that she had engaged in “malicious communications”, tears started flowing from Kinney’s eyes…

Kinney burst into tears as male officers denied her any privacy, and a female officer informed her that she was being arrested for “malicious communications and hate crime.” “The Crown place this offense in the highest category of its type due to the effect related to sexual orientation and the greater harm because it had moderate impact,” prosecutors insisted. Kinney faced ten years in prison, but her attorney begged for leniency. She has been ordered to perform seventy-two hours of community service, attend ten days of rehabilitation, and pay a fine of several hundred pounds.

#4 French President Emmanuel Macron wants the power to determine which media outlets will be allowed to speak to the public and which media outlets will be silenced…

Macron has in the last weeks intensified warnings on the risks of disinformation, on Friday calling for changes to French legislation that would allow “false information” online to be urgently blocked.

He has also called for “professional certification” of outlets to distinguish sites and networks that provide reliable information according to ethical rules from others that do not.

But at the weekend, the Journal du Dimanche Sunday newspaper, part of the influential media stable of right-wing tycoon Vincent Bollore, accused Macron in a front-page story of a “totalitarian drift” on the issue.

#5 Because he is a champion of free speech, the EU has been coming after Elon Musk for years.  So it shouldn’t surprise any of us that the European Commission just fined his company 140 million dollars for supposed violations of the Digital Services Act…

The European Commission has issued a $140 million fine to Elon Musk’s X for violating the EU’s controversial Digital Services Act (DSA). The fine is likely to escalate tensions between the EU and America over free speech online.

Bloomberg reports that the European Commission has imposed a €120 million ($140 million) fine on X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, for breaching the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). This marks the first penalty issued under the new censorship law, which aims to regulate online platforms and “protect” users from illegal content and disinformation.

#6 In recent years, we have seen so many controversial voices suddenly have their bank accounts shut down.  Shockingly, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is now publicly admitting that his company does “debank” people…

As JPMorgan Chase Bank is under investigation by the state of Florida for alleged coordination with the Biden Department of Justice and Operation Arctic Frost, the chairman of the company is admitting to debanking certain customers, but says it has nothing to do with their political or religious affiliations.

“We do debank them,” said JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon who appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox News Channel.

“People have to grow up here and stop making up things and stuff like that. I can’t talk about an individual account.

#7 India wants to require that phone location services are always on so that the government can track people through their phones wherever they go…

You know what they say: If at first you don’t succeed at mass government surveillance, try, try again. Only two days after India backpedaled on its plan to force smartphone makers to preinstall a state-run “cybersecurity” app, Reuters reports that the country is back at it. It’s said to be considering a telecom industry proposal with another draconian requirement. This one would require smartphone makers to enable always-on satellite-based location tracking (Assisted GPS).

The measure would require location services to remain on at all times, with no option to switch them off. The telecom industry also wants phone makers to disable notifications that alert users when their carriers have accessed their location. According to Reuters, India’s home ministry was set to meet with smartphone industry executives on Friday, but the meeting was postponed.

#8 A journalist in the Netherlands has tested AI-powered glasses “that can instantly identify strangers on the street”…

A Dutch journalist just tested a pair of AI-powered glasses that can instantly identify strangers on the street.

No government database. No police system. Just public data and off-the-shelf AI.

You look at someone and in seconds, their name, LinkedIn, and background appear before your eyes.

The scariest part? You can’t really stop it.

You can ban it, regulate it, add blinking red lights… but once tech like this exists, someone will always find a way to use it.

Once these sorts of devices become widely available, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

#9 A nationwide digital ID is being introduced in the UK, and soon you will not be able to get a new job without one…

Once introduced, digital ID will be used to verify a person’s right to live and work in the UK.

It will take the form of an app-based system, stored on smartphones in a similar way to the NHS App or digital bank cards.

The ID will include information on the holders’ residency status, name, date of birth, nationality and their photo.

When he first announced the scheme, Sir Keir said: “You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that.”

#10 The digital ID program in France “is moving from pilot to scale”…

France’s national digital identity app, France Identité, has enabled the creation of more than 3.2 million digital IDs, according to new figures.

Among these, approximately 525,000 identities have been fully certified, meaning that users have completed an in-person verification process at their local town halls. This means that more than half a million French digital IDs are ready for the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet, according to Joerg Lenz, head of marketing at Namirial Group.

“France Identité is moving from pilot to scale,” Lenz wrote on LinkedIn, following the TRUSTECH Event held in Paris on Wednesday.

#11 In Illinois, there is such overwhelming demand for digital IDs that some people are being forced to wait…

Mobile IDs became available in Illinois on Wednesday, but due to the high demand, some residents are finding themselves waiting a little bit longer.

A number of residents trying to download the digital ID to their Apple wallet received the following message: “Due to the high volume, your state’s service is currently busy.”

Users can then answer the question, “Do you want to be notified when it becomes available?”

This is where the entire world is heading.

As the Big Brother control grid gets tighter and tighter, the stage is being set for unprecedented tyranny on a global scale.

Tyrants of the past could only dream of having the sort of AI-powered tools that we possess today.

If you do not submit to the digital gulag that is being constructed all around us, eventually you may not be able to buy, sell, get a job or open a bank account without proper digital identification.

What would you do then?

You might want to start thinking about that, because things are only going to get crazier from here.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post 11 Signs That Our World Is Rapidly Becoming A Lot More Orwellian appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Announced Job Cuts Hit 1.17 Million In 2025 – 54 Percent Higher Than Last Year | The Economic Collapse

It is getting very hard to deny that the U.S. economy is moving in the wrong direction.  Yesterday, ADP reported that the U.S. economy shed tens of thousands of jobs last month.  Today, Challenger, Gray & Christmas is reporting that U.S. employers announced a grand total of 1.17 million job cuts through the first 11 months of 2025.  That represents a 54 percent increase from the first 11 months of last year…

U.S.-based employers have cut more than 1.17 million jobs so far in 2025, the highest level since the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

From January to November of this year, employers cut 1,170,821 jobs, a 54 percent increase from the 761,358 jobs cut during the first 11 months of 2024.

In 2020, large numbers of Americans were being temporarily laid off due to the lockdowns.

But we don’t have any lockdowns in 2025.

What we have instead is a rapidly deteriorating economy.

Traditionally, employers have been hesitant to lay off workers just before the holiday season because it can mean bad publicity.

But this November employers were not as hesitant to swing the axe as usual, and the telecom industry led the way…

Telecom alone slashed 15,139 jobs, its worst month since April 2020, when the pandemic forced widespread shutdowns.

For the year, telecom layoffs are up a staggering 268 percent.

Other industries aren’t doing much better: tech job losses are up 17 percent in 2025, food distributors (especially those that produce beef) are up 26 percent, and service-sector layoffs have climbed 64 percent.

The primary reason why the total for the telecom industry was so high last month is because Verizon suddenly decided to fire more than 13,000 employees…

Verizon is set to lay off over 13,000 workers in the coming weeks as part of a cost-cutting and restructuring initiative.

“Today, we will begin reducing our workforce by more than 13,000 employees across the organization, and significantly reduce our outsourced and other outside labor expenses,” newly appointed CEO Dan Schulman writes in a memo to employees that it also published online. “Every part of the company will experience some level of change.”

Verizon had just over 100,000 employees as of Sept. 30, meaning the layoff will reduce the headcount by 13%.

Perhaps Verizon’s new management can turn the company around.

But considering the trajectory that Verizon is currently on, it will take a miracle.

If you are searching for a job in this very tough economic environment, I feel very badly for you.

We are being told that 30 percent of all job postings are fake, and competition for any decent jobs that are available has become extremely fierce.

In the old days, having a college degree would give you an edge, but now that is a lot less true than it once was…

College graduates may be losing their edge in the labor market, as the unemployment gap between them and workers with only high school degrees has narrowed and reached its lowest level in decades, according to a new report.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland analyzed unemployment trends for high school and college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27, as high school graduates have typically experienced relatively higher levels of unemployment.

The Cleveland Fed economists found that the unemployment gap has continually declined since the 2008 financial crisis and recently reached its lowest level since the late 1970s.

In September, 25 percent of all unemployed Americans actually had a college degree.

Things are particularly tough for new graduates.

As I discussed the other day, Nikki Haley’s son says that not a single one of his friends that recently graduated from college has been able to land a job yet.

How can anyone spin that to make it sound good?

It can’t be done.

We have a giant mess on our hands, and more businesses are going belly up with each passing day.

In fact, a restaurant chain that had been in business for 88 years just closed their final 8 locations…

Another family restaurant chain has abruptly closed all of its locations for good.

K&W Cafeteria — an 88-year-old institution across North Carolina and Virginia — closed its final eight restaurants on December 1, marking the end of a dining tradition generations grew up with.

‘It is with a heavy heart that we share this news,’ the owners posted on Facebook.

When I first started writing about America’s “restaurant apocalypse”, some of the skeptics thought that I was exaggerating.

Of course nobody thinks that I am exaggerating now because thousands of locations have been getting permanently shuttered.

U.S. manufacturing has fallen on hard times too.

In fact, the Institute for Supply Management is telling us that U.S. manufacturing activity has now fallen for nine months in a row…

American manufacturing contracted for the ninth straight month, a survey showed, as uncertainty tied to ever-changing tariffs and a historic government shutdown weighed on business.

A closely followed manufacturing index fell to a four-month low of 48.2% in November from 48.7% in the prior month, the Institute for Supply Management said Monday. Any number below 50% signals contraction.

As I have been detailing for weeks, just about every single economic number indicates that a major economic downturn is upon us.

Some pundits are using the term “recession” to describe what is ahead, but the truth is that this crisis isn’t just going to be another bump in the road.

As I stated yesterday, we are more than 104 trillion dollars in debt.

I hope that the “prosperity” that we enjoyed during the past several decades was worth it, because now we are going to pay a very great price.

Of course it isn’t just us.

As Glenn Beck has aptly pointed out, this is the first time in world history when every major civilization is simultaneously facing a historic debt crisis…

“For the FIRST time in recorded history, EVERY major civilization—America, China, Europe, Japan—is hitting the absolute peak of the debt super-cycle AT THE EXACT SAME MOMENT. There is no rising power waiting in the wings like there always has been. When this resets, it won’t be regional. It will be global, systemic, and sudden.”

I have never had anyone explain to me in rational terms how this is going to end well.

We all know that the system is going to collapse.

It is just a matter of when it will happen.

Considering how rapidly things are starting to unravel in 2025, it may happen a lot sooner than many people think.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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