Well, that would strongly reduce future harm...but no the harm they've already done.

That's not clear. The problems are real, but some of them already have solutions, and perhaps the others will eventually have solutions also. Also all of the alternatives have their own problems.

The folks working on sodium based batteries have made tremendous progress recently, but there's no proof that analogous advances aren't possible for lithium. At any particular time, you weigh your options, and decide based on the choices available, but that doesn't tell you what the choices will be next week. For that matter, lab results often don't scale commercially. So take this article with a few grains of salt.

Actually lithium should make more powerful and lighter batteries. That's been known for nearly a century. The details come when it turns to practical design.

I forget the details, but I seem to recall that lithium should be half again as powerful per unit weight as sodium. (That might be an underestimate.) But this doesn't include things like flammability, growth of metallic extrusions, etc. Dealing with the details can easily be enough to change that balance.

Ah, you want things to fall apart more quickly.

It's always been a tradeoff, and those in power have always wanted to grab more control. That's what inspired, e.g, the Magna Carta.

Well, I always thought Algol68 should have had more penetration. People said it was too complicated, but they hadn't seen modern C++.

It's not that exotic. Lightning can jam radio networks, and some places it's not uncommon.

You're assuming it didn't quickly dry out. I've made bread that could sit around that long. But you wouldn't want to eat it without soaking it first (probably in soup).

Wireless has failure modes that wired communications don't. They probably can't avoid some of the failure modes, like jamming. And there are places where wireless just doesn't reach...which aren't the same as the places where wired can't reach. I used to live in a ... large gully or small canyon. Wired had no problem, but it was essentially radio dead.

The question is more "Will we be leading in anything by 2035?".

That we stopped leading by the end of the 21st century would just be normal. Leading countries don't remain leading forever. I'm not sure Britain managed to be the leading country for 150 years. In the 1800's it was contesting with France for the title, and by around 1950 the US was the acknowledged leader. So 1950-2100 would be about the same span of time.

The US probably is leading this week. But China has been making several recent announcements, and possibly when those get in the field (well, observable, they're claimed to already be in use) that will change.
OTOH...

Speculating about a rapidly changing field is always problematic.

IIUC (I'm no specialist in the field!!):

No, but one of the possible meanings of "dark matter" is "black holes created during the big bang". It's tricky to make it work, and it requires some adjustment in how stable black holes are, but it's possible. The problem is that it would require that they evaporate more quickly and quietly than theory says that they should.

Note that these would be relatively small black holes. Possibly the larger ones became the nuclei around which the first generation of stars collected.

Too bad they couldn't both lose. OTOH, Musk is as big a liar as Altman, so neither of their testimonies should be believed. Which make it hard to come to a just decision.

"drone"? What year are you talking about?

They weren't peaceful, but they were introverted. Now, as a matter of survival, they're doing their best to try to drag down everyone else.

So, yes, Damn Trump for provoking this.

That design assumed a dispersed network. The networks have gotten increasingly concentrated. If there's only one connection, you can't route around it.

OTOH, SpaceX might reap large increases in business, because they would be the only route that wasn't broken. (I don't think Iran has orbital capability.)