My grandmother used to say “if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all.” She was a smart lady, and she lived to be very old. Now, she’s gone, along with 99% of her generation. I knew when those wise old folks, who watched a world burn, were gone, that we would have trouble. I think I’m right. Which is why I took the longest hiatus from this website since I started it seven years ago. I didn’t have anything good to say in December, and I still don’t.

But I do have things to say. It’s up to you to judge if they are good or not.

First, I have experienced a great deal of personal turmoil lately. That’s no one’s problem but mine. The turmoil is a direct result of recent developments in the news; my more alert readers can make of that what they will. Bad news is not hard to find. This has put me off my game.

Second, I’ve always looked for solutions to difficult problems. Right now, I have a problem, and I’ve found a partial solution. I’m not going to say anything more about that. It’s my cross to bear, and if it works out, it should be a lot of fun. Broadening my scope, I’m not sure how we dig ourselves out of our current mess. Leadership matters, and we suffer from the lack thereof.

Third, as I alluded to, we are led by people who do not have anyone’s best interests in mind. I’d thought to write an article called “Hyper Intelligent Idiots,” but I decided against it. No one cares, anyway. Three hundred and sixty million people are asleep at the switch, all of us are to blame. This includes me; I am part of the problem. I will show you an image, however. Observe.

This robot, called Figure 02, is made by Figure AI. Alas, I’ve been talking about this since I started writing, and I’ve addressed this specifically in my sci-fi. “This” is the replacement of humans on a mass scale. It won’t happen tomorrow, but it will happen. There is too much money involved, invested by too many intelligent idiots.

What do I mean by an “intelligent idiot?”

A friend remarked that boardrooms are full of them. They are people who are good at exactly one thing, and they pursue that thing regardless of cost. They have zero common sense, and frequently no empathy, either.

These people, whose number includes the wealthiest among us, will bring a Terminator to the store near you. Far fetched? It isn’t. Just two weeks ago, the first robotic combined arms assault in history was launched on the Eastern Front; the Ukraine War has supercharged these bloody-minded developments. By the way, the attack was a success. I’m pretty sure from the beginnings of this website, and certainly in my first book, I’ve spoken of this.

It was a matter of time. Now, it is upon us.

So, fourth, I’ve concluded that our fates are in the hands of insanely wealthy, and possibly unstable, people who think we are all collateral damage waiting to happen; billions of loose ends that need to be tied off. What tool is better for this than the rapidly evolving progeny of Figure 02, who would be just as good on the battlefield as in an assembly plant?

An assembly plant? But what about the workers?

Laughs bitterly. Exactly. You’ve been had. There’s a reason the ultra rich have been buying islands with bigass bunkers or are looking at off world options. Think about it. There’s no reason for me to lay out every last detail of how we have succumbed to the greatest con in history, a trap laid by people who don’t even bother to lie anymore about their motivations.

In conclusion, I’ll talk about a subject endlessly tossed around in the gun mags of my youth. It was the constant rehashing of the folly of Army Ordnance in the 1950s, when they developed the M-14, and the Soviets fielded the Kalashnikov series. In short, when the rifleman’s rifle, the M-14, met the AK series in battle, the AK came out on top. Why, and what does this have to do with this piece?

The AK-47 was the direct result of Soviet battle experience in World War Two, where they discovered that the vast majority of firefights happened within a couple of hundred meters. They also found that a rifle had to work all of the time, including the worst times, and that it had to spit out a lot of lead, quickly. Accuracy and ergonomics were tertiary concerns, at best.

Strangely enough, US Army Ordnance, drawing from experience in the same war, decided that the prewar cult of the rifleman and superb accuracy and ergonomics trumped other considerations. The Army went forward with the M-14, and forced NATO to adopt the new round as standard, the 7.62 NATO, or .308 Winchester. At the time, the US Army could still dictate what NATO did, so several promising allied projects were scrapped, and the European armies adopted, grudgingly, the 7.62 as standard.

We are in the midst of another such folly. Instead of seeing the plain evidence before our eyes of failure on multiple levels, we press ahead with technologies and social patterns that assure disaster.

Some people think it’s a great thing to burn it all down. Of course, they think they personally will not be licked by the flame. I care to differ. Many think it’s a great idea to hand every last little thing over to the jet set. What? The people who run Homeowner’s Associations, and run the country club? Expect little mercy on that front. Others have the idea that having any government in our lives is poisonous. If you know your history, look up what a lack of government has been like, historically. The 17th century Scottish lowlands were a great example. That was a place where life was very, very cheap. Houses looked like forts because they had to be. Terror is a tyranny of a particularly cruel sort. It is frequently disguised as freedom. Finally, people just want to hand everything over to a strong ruler, to give up on thinking for themselves. To accept authority, legitimate or not.

This is the path to perdition, readers. I’ve been talking about this stuff for years, and now it is upon us. I won’t belabor the point.

I’ve got better things to do.