...from acquiring tech is futile and counterproductive.
Chinese engineers and scientists are smart, numerous and good at finding workarounds.
We should abandon the old cold war ideas and work on cooperation.

The tech was 100% accurate
The results were carefully reviewed by an honest reviewer before action was taken
The rules were fair

Sadly, none of these are true

Lately, it seems that all news has been increasingly bad

It's hard to imagine what a good idea would be.
If government is in control, they will cripple or ban its use for anybody who disagrees with the government while developing it into weapons to use against the population.
If monopolists control it, they will enshittify it like they've done to every other piece of tech.
Open source and wide availability would be the best, but the least likely.
There are no good options. It's hard to even figure out which option sucks least.

Car dealers are evil and unnecessary. Their only purpose is to make the car buying experience unpleasant and more expensive than it needs to be.
All we need is test drive facilities, direct sales, and independent repair shops.

...cancer.
I knew this was coming, but falsely believed an optimistic fantasy that somehow AI labs could avoid it.
I have lost my optimism.
The game is over, the bad guys won, just like they always have for all of history.

I have talents and handicaps
When I took my first programming class, I learned faster and deeper than any of the other students.
Evidently, I have a strong talent for code.
I can't touch type. I tried to learn and failed. I also failed to learn to play the piano.
If I was forced to use vi, I would have failed as a software engineer.
But, with an IDE, I have done very well over a 40+ year career.

"Browser-based" and "European digital sovereignty."
The cloud is a trap that takes away sovereignty.
The only way to ensure sovereignty and control is with software running locally with NO cloud dependency.

Glass artists work hard to make amazing glass art.
The best have evolved the artform in exciting new directions.
Some of the art is functional, meaning it can be used to smoke cannabis.
FB and IG ban these artists for "illegal drug paraphernalia"
They even ban artists who make marbles and pendants that use designs similar to those used in pipes.
This is unfair. They are highly talented and hard working and don't deserve to be treated like that.

...it might be a bit useful
I expect it will be just more slop to avoid.
I would actually like good personalized advertising and recommendations, but only if they were good.

...a worse outcome, but I'm sure that Trump and his cronies will come up with one

Everybody else to pause so they can dominate

After WWII, the thought was that increasing trade and cooperation would reduce conflict.
It did for a while, then governments started using trade as a weapon.

Blaming drug dealers for addiction.
The root cause of the harm attributed to social media is the weaknesses in human nature.
The social media companies didn't create the weaknesses, they exploited them.
Advertisers and politicians have been doing this for years.
People are far too easy to manipulate.

I sometimes watch AI generated videos and find them amusing. I don't hate AI videos, I just want honesty.
Someone who honestly uses a tool should be honest about it.
Someone who hides their tool use is probably up to no good.