Podbit · The Journal.
In January, Google obtained a US court order to shut down 13 of IP Idea's business domains and dozens of its servers. Two months later, the DOJ struck against four major DDoS botnets including KimWolf, seizing domains and infrastructure — and thanked Ben's startup Synthient in the press release.
The US engagement in Iran didn't just struggle militarily — it broadcast America's vulnerability to every country in Asia watching to see if the US would actually show up to defend them. It's the Suez Canal moment for the American empire: the moment everyone realized the threat no longer holds.
The UK's political instability — six prime ministers in seven years — is not a personality problem, it's a balance sheet problem. The country is over-indebted and underproductive, and there is no politically palatable path out: you can't raise taxes, you can't cut benefits, and lenders are losing confidence.
The Senate has one week to pass $1 trillion in government funding, $100 billion in Pentagon spending, and confirm a Director of National Intelligence who already fumbled his confirmation hearings. The 60-vote threshold makes every bill dependent on Democratic cooperation — but Democrats have little appetite to fund a war in Iran that Congress never authorized, or an immigration crackdown they oppose.
In 12 years of Narendra Modi's government, not a single cabinet minister had ever resigned under public pressure — until now. A youth movement born from a single tweet about cockroaches forced the education minister out, marking a seismic shift in India's political culture.
Tens of thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — marched on Delhi in India's largest protest in over half a decade. Students carried copies of the Constitution and dressed as Gandhi to pre-empt BJP accusations of anti-nationalism. Less than three hours later, riot police without name tags attacked them with sticks, tear gas, and pellet guns — a weapon previously reserved for conflict-ridden Kashmir.
Under a decade of BJP rule, publicly criticising Modi became something Indians feared. Now India's Gen Z has leapfrogged criticism entirely — they're cracking jokes about him. Kira Huju says that shift is potentially more politically fatal for Modi than any opposition party.
The precautionary principle sounds sensible but leads to one outcome: you freeze the technology at whatever stage the government is most comfortable with. If applied to the internet in the 1990s, we'd all still be using Yahoo and AOL with no video, no audio, no commerce.
New AI-specific laws are almost entirely redundant. Non-consensual nudity is already illegal. Discriminatory lending is already illegal. Dangerous drugs are already illegal. Even AI practicing medicine without a license is already impossible under existing licensing law. The only thing new regulation does is give companies a way to kneecap competitors.
Before writing a single new AI law, governments should audit the 2 million laws already on the books and ask: do they apply to AI? This is what happened with EVs — engineers had to verify that car safety rules designed for combustion engines still made sense for batteries. Do the same for AI, and you'll know what's actually missing.
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