Author: Tom Engelhardt

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Decline. It’s a word that hasn’t been much in the American vocabulary, though, as retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, historian, and TomDispatch regular William Astore suggests today, it certainly should have been. In fact, you could argue that we’re read more

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Uh-oh, my city’s sinking. I’m not kidding! According to a new study, New York City, my hometown, is all too literally going down, thanks to those vertiginous towers, including read more

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Let me just express my concern about the war in Ukraine by wondering what “victory” might actually mean for the Ukrainians. Let’s assume for a moment that the coming, much-publicized Ukrainian counteroffensive will indeed punch serious holes in the lines of a battered and demoralized Russian military and that Ukrainian forces won’t just bloodily win back significant read more

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The invaluable Costs of War Project has long reported that close to a million people, read more

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In January 2005, I began my introduction to the first piece Karen Greenberg ever wrote for TomDispatch this way: “Pick a week, any week, and you can now be guaranteed that yet more gruesome news will seep out about the global torture regime the Bush read more

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Let me offer a small prediction: between this moment when I’m writing the introduction to Priti Gulati and Stan Cox’s new piece and the moment, a few days from now, when it’s actually posted at TomDispatch, the question isn’t whether there will be another mass shooting in America, but read more

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How strange! Once upon a time, the men who wrote the Constitution were only worried about how young a president could be. They set a bottom age limit of 35 but never considered a top limit of any sort. How things have changed! read more

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In truth, we may be on a planet we hardly recognize. Recently, in case you missed it (and how could you have, given the coverage?), Prince Charles became King Charles III, ruler of… well, once upon a time, at the height of the British empire, or even perhaps in 1952 when read more

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In some sense, the most recent events in the Middle East, described vividly today by TomDispatch regular Juan Cole, creator of the must-read Informed read more

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Whose Planet Are We On? What Happens When LTAI (Less Than Artificial Intelligence) Gives Way to AI? By Tom Engelhardt

After almost 79 years on this beleaguered planet, let me say one thing: this can’t end well. Really, it can’t. And no, I’m not talking about the most obvious issues ranging from the war in Ukraine to the climate disaster. What I have in mind is that latest, greatest human invention: artificial intelligence.

It doesn’t seem that complicated to me. As a once-upon-a-time read more