Zach Laughlin

“In 1903, the biggest industry in the world was whaling. It disappeared almost overnight.” Jimmy Carr dropped this on the Joe Rogan podcast and it made me rethink how fast entire economies can vanish. Whaling collapsed in about 18 months once petrochemicals replaced whale oil. The same thing happened with horse manure in New York City — the streets were literally covered in it, brownstones had steps to stay above the filth, and laws couldn’t fix it. Then Henry Ford’s cars arrived, and within a few years the horses (and the problem) were basically gone. Carr’s point: the resources and industries we treat as permanent today can disappear shockingly fast when something better comes along. What “essential” industry or resource of today do you think could vanish in the next 20 years?

The Diocese of Duluth in Minnesota—where Father Mike Schmitz serves as a priest—has reported a record 145% increase in people joining the Catholic Church this year. Info: WDIO

Nearly 40% of Americans said that they have less than $500 in cash savings, per FOX 5

Fun Fact: The Amish population doubles every ~20 years. In 1920 there were only 5000 of them. Today they number around 400,000.

Non-practicing Protestants don't call themselves Protestant Why do non-practicing Catholics call themselves Catholic?

🚨RESEARCHERS JUST MATHEMATICALLY PROVED THAT AI LAYOFFS WILL DESTROY THE ECONOMY.. AND EVERY CEO ALREADY KNOWS IT.. BUT NONE OF THEM CAN STOP.. Two researchers from UPenn and Boston University just published a paper called "The AI Layoff Trap".. They proved something terrifying.. Every company replacing workers with AI is also firing its own customers.. Every laid-off employee is someone who used to spend money.. When enough people lose their jobs.. Nobody can afford to buy anything.. And the companies that fired everyone go bankrupt selling products to an economy with no purchasing power.. Every CEO can see this coming.. The math is obvious.. Fire workers.. Lose customers.. Lose revenue.. Collapse.. But here's the trap.. No company can afford to stop.. If you don't automate.. Your competitor will.. They cut costs.. Undercut your prices.. Steal your market share.. And you die anyway.. So every company automates.. Knowing it's collectively suicidal.. Because the alternative is dying alone while everyone else survives.. It's a Prisoner's Dilemma.. And the researchers proved it mathematically.. The numbers are already stacking up.. Block cut nearly half its 10,000 employees this year.. CEO Jack Dorsey said AI made those roles unnecessary and that "within the next year, the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion".. Salesforce replaced 4,000 customer support agents with AI.. Goldman Sachs deployed an AI coder that lets one senior engineer do the work of a five-person team.. Over 100,000 tech workers were laid off in 2025 alone.. AI was cited as the primary driver in more than half the cases.. 80% of US workers hold jobs with tasks susceptible to AI automation.. And here's what should scare policymakers.. The researchers tested every proposed solution.. Universal Basic Income.. Doesn't fix it.. It raises living standards but doesn't change a single company's incentive to automate.. Capital income taxes.. Don't fix it.. They change profit levels but not the per-task decision to replace a human.. Worker equity and profit sharing.. Narrows the gap but can't close it.. Collective bargaining.. Can't fix it.. Because automating is a dominant strategy.. No voluntary agreement between companies is self-enforcing.. Only one thing works.. A Pigouvian automation tax.. A per-task charge that forces every company to pay for the demand it destroys when it fires a worker.. The researchers call it a "Red Queen effect".. Better AI doesn't solve the problem.. It makes it worse.. Because every company sees a bigger market share gain from automating faster than rivals.. But at the end.. Everyone automates equally.. The gains cancel out.. And the only thing left is more destroyed demand.. The paper's conclusion is devastating.. This isn't a transfer from workers to company owners.. Both sides lose.. Workers lose their income.. Companies lose their customers.. It's a deadweight loss that harms everyone.. And no market force can break the cycle.. The AI layoff trap isn't a prediction.. It's already happening.. And the math says it won't stop on its own.

What the hell are we doing wrong gents?

Your Holiness, vast sums of money are being hoarded by older generations. This is preventing younger people from having any chance to succeed in life by being able to find work, get married, and have families. Please become a champion of its just redistribution from the old who have more than enough to these poor and demoralized younger people who need it to live with dignity and freedom from want. You have the moral voice to proclaim this most necessary policy, which will give hope to many millions who are in want for a future based on human dignity and freedom.

in case you don’t know, the driftless area is a region in illinois/wisconsin/iowa/minnesota that was never flattened by glaciers and thus is more similar to appalachia than the rest of the midwest. one of the most subtly beautiful parts of the country

If you want to marry, you should never think about it. You should become obsessed with some opposite thing, like being a rock climber, or a monk, or leading the liberation of East Turkistan. This will often cause a wife to appear, so as to foil the original plan you had!