Would you believe it was 1863 when 27-year old novelist  Samuel Butler,  in an essay on Darwin Among the Machines, expressed serious concern that highly advanced machines might pose existential risks to humanity? The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question . In 1920, a play,  R.U.R . ( Rossum's Universal Robots ), by Czech author Karel Čapek, coined the term  robot .  They began to replace human workers, leading to a violent revolt against their  Homo sapien  masters.  Fritz Lang's 1927 film,  Metropolis , had humanoid robots fighting the capitalist oligarchy.  Click on that link to watch the entire 2 hour 29 minute production.  Fine quality, silent, of course, but with good audio sounds.  Portions of the original were lost, and only in 2008 found....

Extinction means the end.   The  ultimate fate of our universe  depends on your scientific beliefs. If the universe goes through a repeated series of Big Bangs and Crunches by expanding and contracting, there might be no end. However, the prevailing sense today is that the universe will continue to expand and reach the Big Chill where everything approaches absolute zero, oh, maybe  100 trillion years from now . However, there are too many unknowns, like the effect of dark energy/matter, etc., to know for sure. A more sensible, but equally futile, analysis has to do with the 10 most likely ways for humanity to disappear.  Every few years, some one or organization makes such a prediction.  Here is new effort, a book published on 17July2025,  The Anti-Catastrophe League , by  Tom Ough .  #10 - Asteroids One of the biggest was a 9 mile wide monster that led to the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago. On 30June1908, mere 200 footer (...

So where are we on  China tariffs ? Trump has enacted new blanket tariffs of around 20% on top of existing 10% duties that went into place during Trump's first term. China has responded with up to 15% duties on US farm goods such as chicken and pork, which went into effect Monday, March 10. Said Trump yesterday:   Xi "and top people underneath him" will come to the U.S. in the "not too  distant future," Trump said. He did not provide more details about the potential meeting, including when it may be held and his hopes for a meeting with Xi.  He  last visited the U.S. in 2023, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) held a summit in San Francisco. What about TikTok?  Here is  what I said about TikTok in 2021 : TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service started in 2017 by Chinese company ByteDance.  The video performance tends to be short, from 15 seconds to three minutes.  After you watch this supposedly   top ten ...