AI Robot Pets Can Be Adorable and Emotionally Responsive. They Also Raise Questions About Attachment and Mental Health
A discussion of AI companions consider some, but perhaps not enough, of the downsides.
Read more...Author Archives: Yves Smith
Payday Loan Apps Cost New Yorkers $500 Million Plus, New Study Estimates
A new study estimates the cost of payday loans in New York as the state debates tightening rules on these fintechs beyond existing usury laws
Read more...House Speaker Johnson Threatens to Defund Federal Courts
The Trump war against the judiciary reaches a new fevered pitch, with Speaker Johnson threatening Federal court funding.
Read more...Ukraine Rare Earths Deal Is Nonsense To Mining Experts
Professionals try to put a stake in the heart of the Trump rare earths deal palaver.
Read more...Russia-US Negotiations: Trump Criticism Follows the Bad Sign of the Lack of a Joint Statement After Last Round and the Iran Angle
Having barely started, the US-Russia negotiaions are already going a bit pear shaped.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Crypto’s Role in Trump’s Economic Masterplan (With Special Emphasis on Stablecoins)
Might there be more method in Trump’s crypto and dollar madness than most assume?
Read more...Extreme Heat, Hospital Crowding, and the Hidden Health Costs of Climate Change
A study confirms that extreme heat events stress hospitals so much that they produce non-heat excess deaths.
Read more...Trump’s Desire to ‘Un-Unite’ Russia and China Is Unlikely to Work – In Fact, It Could Well Backfire
The oh-so-clever US intends to drive a wedge between China and Russia, after having been mean to Russia and still mean to China.
Read more...Links 3/25/2025
The Dark Enlightenment: The Tech Oligarch Ideology Driving DOGE’s Destruction
How DOGE isn’t just tearing down institutions but also laying the groundwork for an experimental new kind of authoritarian rule.
Read more...Putin’s Senior Aide Patrushev Shared Some Updates About the Arctic & Baltic Fronts
Even with a settlement in Ukraine and geopolitical thawing in the Arctic, the UK, Baltics and other refusniks can still cause trouble.
Read more...The Colorado Psychedelic Mushroom Experiment Has Arrived
Colorado joins Oregon in green-lighting the very much supervised use of psychecelic mushrooms.
Read more...Satyajit Das: DOGE – The Accelerant in American Decline
Republicans find DOGE’s actions are not universally popular. US courts have begun disallowing cancellation of contracts and terminations
Read more...When Will Courts Start Using Contempt Power To Stop Trump Administration Procedural and Constitutional Abuses?
I hate to put on my cynic’s hat, but I see a weird childlike faith in daddy figures behind the hope the the good daddy, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, will stop the mad bad dad Donald Trump. The other archetypal story line at work is the hero’s journey, with Roberts as the hero, […]
Read more...
