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Trying to divine why certain people gravitate toward a particular political orientation can be a fool’s errand, with so many factors influencing ideology that it can make your head spin.However, one sociology researcher wanted to understand why Christian nationalists think the way they do, and the results of his work aren’t particularly flattering for right wing evangelicals.The study, published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, looked at cognitive factors while stripping out variables like demographics and education. It found that in the US, those who subscribe to the doctrine of Christian nationalism — characterized as a belief…
Recently unredacted legal documents and depositions in the New York Times‘ lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI revealed something extraordinary: executives knew full well of the destructive powers of AI when they rushed to launch products featuring the tech in the wake of the explosive success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.Internal Microsoft documents quoted by the newspaper’s lawyers warned of an ugly reality now playing out across the entire economy: “doom loops,” in which AI monetizes the work of human creatives while undermining the economic systems that funded their work in the first place.“Our AI content strategy has started a ‘doom loop’ that…
There are few actors who would seem a more unlikely candidate to undergo a typical Hollywood style body transformation — complete with a press blitz with articles explaining their 4,000 calories per day diets and videos detailing their strangely convoluted workouts — than comedian Pete Davidson, who looks like he just rolled out the bed half the time.Still, whatever you may think about the guy, at least he’s being candid about how he apparently put on fifteen pounds of muscle for his upcoming film “How to Rob a Bank”: by absolutely crushing black market peptides.“I got on all the peptides…
Actual footage of warfare is horrific enough. But now that AI slop floods every social media feed on the web, we get to experience the trauma and propaganda of war regurgitated from the bowels of generative AI, all in a cynical search for likes and follows.When generative AI was in its infancy back in 2024, we covered the rise of pandering ultra-patriotic slop on social media. Those posts were crude — an infamous example featured a disabled veteran sitting in a wheelchair, their prosthetic legs stuffed into a single massive combat boot.Then came the foot fetish content, which simultaneously sexualized…
The credit rating firm Egan-Jones hears all the serious talk about an AI murder spree apocalypse and raises a mundane, financial one.In a commentary bluntly titled “It’s Over,” the firm proclaimed that AI is about to obliterate the collective hyperstition and capitalist long con commonly known as “the economy.”“AI has advanced so far that the complete disruption of the economy is all but certain, and firms that sell expertise by the hour, senior talent included, are first in line,” its summary reads. “Expected compressed margins in professional services, lower returns to venture capital and short-term pressure on home prices as screen-based…
In 2026, anybody can cultivate a massive social media following doing anything their heart desires — and that’s not necessarily a good thing.For a case in point, look no further than a recent Reel from holistic health influencer Matt Roeske. First spotted by the publication Reality Check, the clip features Roeske promoting radioactive water as a long-forgotten panacea, supposedly shut down by the “Rothschild medical system.”In his video, Roeske appears holding a “Revigator,” an irradiated ceramic jug from the 1920s sold as a pseudoscientific miracle cure-all. In addition to carnotite — a bright-yellow rock known for its high uranium content —…
Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi operate in a regulatory vacuum that’s long garnered a reputation for allowing insider trading to run rampant — and that’s without getting into their role in encouraging problem gambling.The platforms, which effectively apply the approach of popular sports betting companies to allow the public to wager on practically anything, clearly give holders of confidential information a massive leg up.As such, bets on the platforms aren’t particularly indicative of the probability of an event actually happening as opposed to which side is more financially invested in either outcome. It’s a murky and ethically dubious web…
A completely innocent couple in Lexington, Kentucky was thrust into the middle of a violent police operation last weekend — after officers used data from Flock cameras to build an extremely tenuous lead while investigating a case of road rage.According to the local LEX18 News, Will Penn and Robin Pen were shocked when police surrounded their home at 4:00am last Saturday, guns drawn and floodlights blazing through their windows.If the couple thought the officer knocking on their door would clear things up, they were surely disappointed.“There was an incident tonight in which the vehicle we are trying to find is…
Brought together by Trump’s funding cuts, Julia Van Etten and her rag tag team of biologists pursued their research in a motel room. And it was out of this makeshift lab that they made an incredible discovery: two new microscopic organisms that may be crucial to tracing the origins of life, the New York Times reports.The organisms are an elusive single-celled microbe called Paulinella. Including the recent discovery, reported in a study in the Journal of Phycology, there are now just six known species of Paulinella in the world.Scientists believe that Paulinella could provide a window into a crucial event…
The American AI industry has a problem. In order to justify its explosive spending on AI infrastructure — data centers, essentially — firms like OpenAI and Google need to convert as many non-AI users into power users as they possibly can, ideally ones who are willing to pay monthly subscription fees for the privilege.Much of this frenzy is unfolding at the corporate level, as AI labs chase enormous contracts with various enterprises, often leading to massive overspending and pushback from employees. Fortunately for AI companies, there’s a ready-made and untapped audience waiting to be converted into life-long users: kids, particularly ones…