Good article. Just shared it with some less tech-savvy friends.
Good article. Just shared it with some less tech-savvy friends.
Good article.
We need a version of the UK government’s National Risk Register, covering everything from the collapse of financial markets to “an attack on government” (but, unsurprisingly, that risk is described in terms of external threats). The register mostly predicts long-term consequences, with recovery taking months. That may end up being the case here.
I assume they mean on a state government level? I doubt this will happen, unless it’s already started. Plus, as they point out, such plans typically focus on external threats to the government. A huge internal threat like this is a long-standing blind spot. Hopefully in the future that prospect becomes a more prominent concern.
We need to dust off those “in the event of an emergency” disaster response procedures dealing with the failure of federal government—at individual organizations that may soon hit cash-flow problems and huge budget deficits without federal funding, at statehouses that will need to keep social programs running, and in groups doing the hard work of archiving and preserving data and knowledge.
This is a great point. DRPs (Disaster Recovery Plans) have been a pretty big focus on organizations I’ve worked at. However, the focus here is almost always on natural disasters that can cripple an organization’s IT and daily operations. So I don’t know how much those will help in this situation either.
We’re talking about short term credit lines potentially being crippled and regulatory organizations essentially shutting down. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
And Musk to block Starlink from Australia.
The pro for Musk taking a lot of the lime light with all this crazy shit: we see and hear less of Trump’s crap.
The con for Musk taking a lot of the lime light with all this crazy shit: we see and hear more of Musk as he does and says horrible shit.
Not true. I know several people in the UK who have Roku streaming devices.
I used them for a long time. But switched elsewhere due to their enshitification through ads and their TPS bullshit.
Oh, so it’s a conflict of interest on his part. Sounds about right.
ORBITAL BAGUETTE STRIKE!!
AI bots prescribing everyone leeches for wounds, bleach shots for infections, and flashlights up the ass for fun. It’s the future of American healthcare! What a time to be alive!
Sadly, I could see quite a few of these happening. But probably not in just 1 year.
Most of these are probably wrong. But it’s a ‘fun’ little game.
Large chunks of the federal government grind to a halt under Musk’s incompetent meddling and Trump’s leech off interest, and daily life for many Americans starts to get impacted in weird and unpleasant ways.
Food prices climb sharply through the year as more and more migrant workers are deported or abandon their jobs picking fruits and vegetables, and there’s nobody to replace them.
Texas’ power grid collapses again.
Trump and Musk have a big falling out over some stupid shit, but patch it up at their backers’ insistance.
The Democrats continue to flail around, unable to register with voters even with all the chaos and increasing dissatisfaction with the Trump administration.
Trade partnerships between Mexico and Canada strengthen.
Bird flu starts spreading human to human and we enter a new pandemic (not towards the end of the year through).
The war between Russia and Ukraine continues. Ukraine loses ground territorially, but also continues to have some spectacular guerilla warfare successes. North Korea’s troops there start doing a bit better on the battleground.
Technology stocks rebound after various AI-oriented companies retool to capitalize on DeepSeek.
Punitive US government actions targeting companies that offend Elon Musk begin, followed by a deluge of law suits to protest them.
The Project 2025 goon hires start their new jobs with the federal government and cause a ton of legal problems, not least because of their lack of impulse control, lack of training and ability, and discriminatory tendencies.
Some US federal government employees resist Musk’s stupid shenanigans but are crushed under his boot. They then launch many lawsuits against the government.
Major cross border wars begin breaking out in central Africa.
Hate crimes in the US and many European countries continue to increase.
The housing insurance market completely collapses in various parts of America.
An alliance of East Asian countries behind to form to attempt counter China’s regional dominance.
The genocide in Palestine continues while the world looks the other way, distracted by other crises and an unwillingness to intervene. Iran and Israel begin an economic and cyber war if attrition against each other, with Israel faring better.
The EU begins to politically collapse. Nordic nations begin to form a closer economic and military alliance.
The UK’s Labour government faces not crises of their own making and several ministers are replaced, which along with a small number of local election results going badly for the party puts more pressure of Keir Starmer.
Reddit admins do another heavy-handed crackdown on mods, this time in those who are blocking Twitter in their communities.
Bluesky usage continues to grow rapidly, to the point where it is a serious competitive to Trust by the end of the year. This also takes a lot of the steam out of Mastodon’s growth.
So basically:
Seems like the teamsters targeting Costco is like a school kid targeting the smart and super nice classmate who always helps them with their homework. Wish they’d go after the asshole companies a bit more.
Edit: But then those asshole companies don’t allow unions, so I guess they can’t do much there.
The Canadian dollar isn’t tied to the US dollar in any way, right?
Yup. He has a legion of frat bros who follow him like he’s the Messiah. I suspect Lebryk was nearing retirement anyway, and he understandably just thought “fuck this shit, I’m out!”, before Elon Xitler started spewing hateful memes to his cult about him.
Can’t blame him at all. I hope he has a long and peaceful retirement, because it sounds like he deserves it.
But this is just one example in a deluge of other departures that is going to really fuck up the daily operation of this country. If you ‘drain the swamp’ too hard it’ll turn into a hellish desert. And that’s exactly what Musk and others coming in want. They want to bless everything dry and reform it in their own stupid, shitty image.
The one thing standing between us and that complete shitshow are the federal employees who have the passion, stubbornness, and resources to quietly resist. Regardless of whether they succeed or fail, I cannot express my gratitude for them enough.
See my response to sometime else about this a bit further down, if you like.
But I disagree it’s a “bad take”. I just didn’t word it as clearly at I should have.
Yeah, that’s a fair point. And I don’t begrudge content creators getting money for their work in general. I was more talking about the fact that some (not necessarily the Atlantic though) hide everything behind paywalls, even when it’s of critical importance to some people’s well-being; or just pay-walling everything without any kind of “n articles are free per month” option. That gets old. Especially for those of us who have been around since web 1.0, when monetization was not the driving force behind information distribution online.
Looks like a very interesting article. But the fact that it’s behind a paywall sums up the other problem with the Internet in general: everything has become hyper-monetized and gated.
Put those donuts in a blender, pop the results in a bottle, and the baby will have a full belly. And probably diabetes by the age of 1. But I get the feeling that’s not too uncommon in Alabama.
Ah yes, because every single illegal immigrant takes handouts and leeches off society without giving anything back./s
Spoiler alert: most of them don’t take handouts, and instead contribute in other positive ways. Good example: Who do you think is going to work at our below minimum wage picking many of the crops that go into domestically-product foods that Americans eat? Because it sure as hell won’t be legal Americans.
And yet again from Corporate America: “Rules for thee but not for me!”