Futurist at the movies microreview: "Embers," which came out 10 years ago today. Special kudos to production designer Chelsea Oliver, who hung old surgical masks on bushes as a sign of a past pandemic. She sure got that right.

Neighborhood vigilante fighting invasive species -- "Wanted: spoted lantern fly. Dead not alive."

The Trump state visit to the UK reminds me of the "Twilight Zone" episode where the all-powerful kid must be appeased at all costs. #TrumpUKVisit -- www.imdb.com/title/tt0734...

India / Pakistan -- "While both sides insist that deterrence between the two is stable and there is no intention to deploy nuclear weapons, the risks of inadvertent use in a fast-moving, volatile conflict are high." www.crisisgroup.org/asia-pacific...

China's four initiatives to reshape the global system -- scsp222.substack.com/p/xis-four-g...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Never Let Me Go," which came out 15 years ago today. Despite being about an alternate past, it was the overall best futurist movie of 2010.

Aside for my island hobby -- I've found a new US island superlative: Prow Knob in Alsek Lake, AK, became the tallest lake island in the US when it broke free of Alsek Glacier this summer. It rises 975 ft above the lake's surface, surpassing 851-foot-tall Wild Horse Island, in Flathead Lake, Montana.

Gilman in Foreign Policy mag -- "The central geopolitical fact of the effort to decarbonize is that China has positioned itself to dominate this emergent post-carbon system under the sign of what must be recognized as green authoritarianism." archive.is/j59oK

The military is aware of the reputational damage the Trump administration is inflicting on it. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "A Trip to Mars." The 1918 Danish film was one of the first sci-fi movies, and depicted enlightened, pacifist, vegetarian aliens.

Signs of a solar boom in Africa. (Among other benefits, having electricity begins to protect people from climate change.) substack.com/@exponential...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Algol," a German science fiction film which came out 125 years ago today. It is one of the earliest sci-fi movies in general, and thus also one of the first depictions of hyper-advanced aliens.

A telescope on the Moon could "photograph a planet within theTRAPPIST-1 system, about 40 light-years away, with the same detail we can look at Mars. 'We will be able to see the forests, the mountaintops, the glistening of the light off the oceans.'” www.nationalgeographic.com/science/grap...

Two paths to delaying decline: be poor, or be desirable to immigrants. #future #demography www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-when-...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Minor Premise," which came out 5 years ago today.

"Leading public health experts wondered aloud on Thursday whether the C.D.C. could recover — and what might happen should a pandemic or other health crisis arise." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/h...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Z for Zachariah," which came out 10 years ago today.

A next step could be for the USG to take preferred shares in the companies it is investing in (to prioritize taxpayers' claims on the companies' assets, to protect taxpayers' money), and also to use its power to restrict executive compensation.

"Each year that Xi fails to identify and groom a successor will increase the possibility of more chaotic paths for the party and for China, such as the elevation of a weak successor who falls victim to a power struggle." archive.is/yDzAT#select...

Fishing for laws with which to damage one's opponents is a classic sh!thole country move.

These odd government stakes Trump is imposing on companies could be an opening to an innovative sovereign wealth fund or even groundwork for a universal basic income -- www.nbcnews.com/business/bus...

Saw a landscaper's truck full of Hispanic men drive by in DC, flying a little American flag on their hood, perhaps as a protective talisman.

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

I was not very worried by Jan. 6th, because it was the amateur version of much worse possibilities. All the security theater in DC worries me more, because it functions as a rehearsal for a professional version for the 2028 election.

Somehow Trump's pivot to Asia involves pushing China and India closer, undermining decades of work by previous administrations -- www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/b...

Thought-to-speech implants are getting good enough that they need trigger safe words, or risk blurting out the user's private inner dialogue -- www.npr.org/2025/08/15/n...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "The Time Machine" (1960), which came out 65 years ago today.

With AI, "Whether or not the future turns out well for humanity may depend on whether we can persuade some of the richest people in history to notice something their paychecks depend on their not noticing: that their jobs might be really, really bad for the world." link.vox.com/view/63cff24...

Midterms may go well for the Democrats. "The bad news is that this very success will likely cripple them going forward as they stare into the abyss of the 2028 election and the ongoing realignment of US politics." www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-fools-...

A step toward a dangerous situation: selective, extraterritorial enforcement of state laws with federal resources, for political purposes.

The Trump administration is bring back the only DC monument to a Confederate. General Pike's pedestal was quite a sight after he was pulled down in 2020.

"If the next administration inherits data no one believes in, the path to rebuilding credibility will be long, winding, and uncertain." qz.com/trump-bureau...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Source Code"

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Virtuosity," which came out 30 years ago today. While nanotech hasn't really made enough progress to bring this future closer, AI is now able to take on the personality of serial killers.

This @OurWorldInData.org demographic chart is the most morbid I've ever seen.

Taiwan is depicting a Chinese attack in a mainstream TV show for the first time -- www.economist.com/culture/2025...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "The Final Countdown," which came out 45 years ago today. It is the finest -- and only? -- time-traveling aircraft carrier movie.

"According to a recent poll, 44 to 46 percent of Canadians would like their country to join the EU." foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/31/e...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"

"In the end, Trump’s tariff threats may well achieve the opposite of their intended effect. Rather than forcing Brazil into submission, they have galvanized national resistance, undermined pro-US voices, and exposed the risks of overreliance on an erratic partner." foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/30/b...

"If the U.S. is no longer the world’s technoscientific superpower, it will almost certainly suffer for the change." archive.is/Qp5Hz#select...

"Not since the Red Scare has American science been so beholden to political ideology.... Three-fourths of American scientists who responded to a recent poll by the journal Nature said they are considering leaving the country." www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Global dissatisfaction with democracy has risen substantially over the last decade -- www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

"Six ways AI could cause the next big war, and why it probably won’t." www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Stealth," which came out 20 years ago today.

"Not only does China already dominate global manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, E.V.s and many other clean energy industries, but with each passing month it is widening its technological lead." #energy #future www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"Given AI systems’ proven capacity to deceive and dissemble, current systems may be unable to determine whether an AI agent is operating on its own or at the behest of an adversary." www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/r...

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Waterworld," which came out 30 years ago today. Sea level rise due to climate change has amounted to about 4 inches since the movie was made, so we aren’t really on track for this scenario.

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Cosmos," a 2019 SETI film.

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Ant-Man," which came out 10 years ago.