On display outside right now, a mighty battle rages between Mother Nature and man/machine.

From nowhere rises a greyish-purple cloud, the size of the entire sky: an endless reservoir of snow, blown onto streets, sidewalks, and roofs by a relentless wind.

Pitted against this force are humans with shovels, tractors with snow blades, plow trucks — all working day and night to sweep the streets clear, carving tracks through the snow and pushing it onto sidewalks like a giant cross-country ski trail. There, shovels and smaller trucks gather the masses into clusters of dirty white mounds.

Those mounds — nay, mountains — are soon made pristine again by falling snow, like glaciers blown south from Svalbard by the wind.

Some schools are closed.

Trains are cancelled.

Parked cars turn into igloos.

And it’s like something out of a fairy tale.

estaba pensando si al final realmente había ahorrado o si por el contrario ir a Kodiak por unas botas / no lo sé pero qué aventura

Le masque tombe définitivement dans la Silicon Valley et, sans surprise, c’est Amazon qui mène la charge vers une déshumanisation encore plus poussée du travail de bureau.

Le temps où les géants de la technologie prétendaient se soucier du bien-être, du potentiel ou des “super-pouvoirs” de leurs salariés semble bel et bien révolue. Une nouvelle directive interne, révélée récemment, expose la nouvelle philosophie glaciale du géant du e-commerce. Vous n'êtes plus défini par qui vous êtes ou ce que vous pourriez devenir, mais uniquement par ce que vous avez produit au cours des douze derniers mois. La question posée aux employés est d'une brutalité transactionnelle:

« Qu'avez-vous fait l'année dernière ? »

Ce changement radical prend place dans le cadre du processus d'évaluation annuel de l'entreprise, ironiquement baptisé “Forte”. Auparavant, ce moment était l'occasion pour les employés de réfléchir à leurs compétences, leurs zones d'intérêt et leur contribution globale dans un cadre relativement bienveillant. On leur demandait quelles étaient leurs forces, leurs “super-pouvoirs”, cherchant à comprendre l'humain derrière l'écran. C'est terminé. Désormais, Amazon exige de ses troupes qu'elles soumettent une liste de trois à cinq réalisations spécifiques. Il ne s'agit plus de discuter de développement personnel, mais de justifier son salaire, dollar par dollar, action par action.

Les directives internes sont claires et ne laissent aucune place à l'ambiguïté. Les employés doivent fournir des exemples concrets, des projets livrés, des initiatives bouclées ou des améliorations de processus quantifiables. Le message sous-jacent est terrifiant pour quiconque connaît la réalité du travail en entreprise. Si vos réalisations sont difficilement quantifiables ou si votre rôle est de faciliter celui des autres, vous êtes en danger. Bien que la direction invite de manière hypocrite à mentionner les prises de risques n'ayant pas abouti, personne n'est dupe. Dans un climat où la sécurité de l'emploi s'effrite, avouer un échec, même innovant, revient à tendre le bâton pour se faire battre.

Cette nouvelle exigence démontre un changement sinistre de cap sous la direction du PDG Andy Jassy. Depuis sa prise de fonction, il s'efforce d'imposer une discipline de fer, cherchant à transformer une culture d'entreprise autrefois axée sur la croissance débridée en une machine obsédée par l'efficacité opérationnelle. Après avoir forcé un retour au bureau contesté, supprimé des couches de management et révisé le modèle de rémunération, il s'attaque maintenant à l'âme même de l'évaluation. Le système “Forte” est un moteur clé de la rémunération des employés et détermine la note de valeur globale. En la réduisant à une liste de courses de tâches accomplies, Amazon nie la complexité du travail intellectuel et collaboratif.

Il est difficile de ne pas voir dans cette manœuvre l'influence toxique qui contamine tout le secteur technologique. Amazon ne fait que s'aligner sur la violence managériale popularisée par Elon Musk chez Twitter, qui exigeait de savoir ce que ses ingénieurs avaient codé chaque semaine, ou sur l'année de l'efficacité de Mark Zuckerberg chez Meta. La fin du maternage tant vantée par les investisseurs ressemble surtout à un retour au taylorisme, appliqué cette fois aux travailleurs en col blanc. On ne cherche plus à bâtir des carrières, mais à extraire le maximum de valeur à court terme avant de jeter l'éponge.

Le risque principal de cette approche comptable est la destruction de la cohésion d'équipe. Si chaque employé doit prouver ses 3 à 5 réalisations individuelles pour espérer une augmentation ou simplement garder son poste, pourquoi aiderait-il un collègue ? La collaboration devient un obstacle à la performance individuelle. Amazon est en train de créer une arène où chacun lutte pour sa propre survie, armé de sa liste de réalisations, au détriment de l'innovation collective. C'est une vision du travail triste, aride et finalement contre-productive, où l'humain est réduit à une simple ligne de coût qu'il faut justifier année après année.

Rating: Soft Recommend

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The God of the Woods is about an inspector trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of a wealthy teenage girl while at a sleep-away camp in Upstate New York, Camp Emerson. The teenage girl, Barbara Van Laar, is the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the land upon which Camp Emerson sits. The strained relationship between Barbara and her parents, along with the family's troubled past in those very woods, leads investigator Judyta Luptack on a journey to not only find Barbara, but unlock the mystery haunting the Van Laar family.

The past plays a significant role in this story. A majority of the story is told through flashbacks with a number of different characters, each providing pieces to the larger puzzle of the central mystery. The book was 450 pages on my e-reader, which is quite long for a mystery book in my opinion. Often with a mystery I find there is a lot of clue-finding and theory crafting that takes up a bulk of the plot. In The God of the Woods, I found the meat of the story was less about the mystery and more about the Van Laar family and those unfortunate enough to be caught in their orbit.

The characters divulged so little about themselves in the present (Upstate New York, 1975), that it felt like the only way to learn about them and their motivations was through their eyes months, years, or even decades earlier. Between the length of the story and the numerous flashbacks, I often felt myself losing momentum and putting the book down after the fourth or fifth flashback. The characters themselves were mostly interesting and complex in their own way. But boy oh boy were some of them insufferable. In my opinion, the weakest link in this story was the character Alice Van Laar. Alice's helplessness and lack of even a sliver of a backbone was utterly infuriating. It didn't help that she is so central to the core mystery as the mother of missing teenager Barbara.

Overall I did enjoy my time with The God of the Woods. Aside from Alice, the large cast of characters were all unique and interesting. They felt like they belonged in that world and when the story stayed in a single time frame long enough, I was immersed and engaged. I enjoyed Liz Moore's writing style and how each character had their own voice, each making a distinct impression as we learned how they ended up at Camp Emerson on that fateful day.

If you are looking for a slow burn, heavily character driven mystery novel, this book might be right for you.

Somewhere in the vast data centres that power Meta's advertising empire, an algorithm is learning to paint grandmothers. Not because anyone asked for this, but because the relentless optimisation logic of Advantage Plus, Meta's AI-powered advertising suite, has concluded that elderly women sell menswear. In October 2025, Business Insider documented a cascade of bizarre AI-generated advertisements flooding timelines: shoes attached to grotesquely contorted legs, knives floating against surreal backdrops, and that now-infamous “AI granny” appearing in True Classic's menswear campaigns. Advertisers were bewildered; users were disturbed; and the machines, utterly indifferent to human aesthetics, continued their relentless experimentation.

This spectacle illuminates something profound about the current state of digital advertising: the systems designed to extract maximum value from our attention have become so sophisticated that they are now generating content that humans never created, approved, or even imagined. The question is no longer whether we can resist these systems, but whether resistance itself has become just another data point to be optimised against.

For years, privacy advocates have championed a particular form of digital resistance: obfuscation. The logic is seductively simple. If advertising networks derive their power from profiling users, then corrupting those profiles should undermine the entire apparatus. Feed the machines garbage, and perhaps they will choke on it. Tools like AdNauseam, developed by Helen Nissenbaum and Daniel Howe, embody this philosophy by automatically clicking on every advertisement the browser encounters, drowning genuine interests in a flood of false positives. It is data pollution as protest, noise as a weapon against surveillance.

But here is the uncomfortable question that haunts this strategy: in a world where AI can generate thousands of ad variants overnight, where device fingerprinting operates invisibly at the hardware level, and where retail media networks are constructing entirely new surveillance architectures beyond the reach of browser extensions, does clicking pollution represent genuine resistance or merely a temporary friction that accelerates the industry's innovation toward more invasive methods?

The Economics of Noise

To understand why data pollution matters, one must first appreciate the staggering economics it aims to disrupt. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC, internet advertising revenue in the United States reached $258.6 billion in 2024, representing a 14.9% increase year-over-year. Globally, the digital advertising ecosystem generates approximately $600 billion annually, with roughly 42% flowing to Alphabet, 23% to Meta, and 9% to Amazon. For Meta, digital advertising comprises over 95% of worldwide revenue. These are not merely technology companies; they are surveillance enterprises that happen to offer social networking and search as loss leaders for data extraction.

The fundamental business model, which Harvard Business School professor emerita Shoshana Zuboff has termed “surveillance capitalism,” operates on a simple premise: human behaviour can be predicted, and predictions can be sold. In Zuboff's analysis, these companies claim “private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data,” which is then “computed and packaged as prediction products and sold into behavioural futures markets.” The more granular the data, the more valuable the predictions. Every click, scroll, pause, and purchase feeds algorithmic models that bid for your attention in real-time auctions happening billions of times per second.

The precision of this targeting commands substantial premiums. Behavioural targeting can increase click-through rates by 670% compared to untargeted advertising. Advertisers routinely pay two to three times more for behaviourally targeted impressions than for contextual alternatives. This premium depends entirely on the reliability of user profiles; if the data feeding those profiles becomes unreliable, the entire pricing structure becomes suspect.

This is the machine that obfuscation seeks to sabotage. If every user's profile is corrupted with random noise, the targeting becomes meaningless and the predictions worthless. Advertisers paying premium prices for precision would find themselves buying static.

In their 2015 book “Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest,” Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum articulated the philosophical case: when opting out is impossible and transparency is illusory, deliberately adding ambiguous or misleading information becomes a legitimate form of resistance. Unlike privacy tools that merely hide behaviour, obfuscation makes all behaviour visible but uninterpretable. It is the digital equivalent of a crowd all wearing identical masks.

The concept has deeper roots than many users realise. Before AdNauseam, Nissenbaum and Howe released TrackMeNot in 2006, a browser extension that masked users' search queries by periodically sending unrelated queries to search engines. The tool created a random profile of interests that obfuscated the user's real intentions, making any information the search engine held essentially useless for advertisers. TrackMeNot represented the first generation of this approach: defensive noise designed to corrupt surveillance at its source.

AdNauseam, the browser extension that evolved from this philosophy, does more than block advertisements. It clicks on every ad it hides, sending false positive signals rippling through the advertising ecosystem. The tool is built on uBlock Origin's ad-blocking foundation but adds a layer of active subversion. As the project's documentation states, it aims to “pollute the data gathered by trackers and render their efforts to profile less effective and less profitable.”

In January 2021, MIT Technology Review conducted an experiment in collaboration with Nissenbaum to test whether AdNauseam actually works. Using test accounts on Google Ads and Google AdSense platforms, researchers confirmed that AdNauseam's automatic clicks accumulated genuine expenses for advertiser accounts and generated real revenue for publisher accounts. The experiment deployed both human testers and automated browsers using Selenium, a tool that simulates human browsing behaviour. One automated browser clicked on more than 900 Google ads over seven days. The researchers ultimately received a cheque from Google for $100, proof that the clicks were being counted as legitimate. For now, at least, data pollution has a measurable economic effect.

When the Machine Fights Back

But Google's response to AdNauseam reveals how quickly platform power can neutralise individual resistance. On 1 January 2017, Google banned AdNauseam from the Chrome Web Store, claiming the extension violated the platform's single-purpose policy by simultaneously blocking and hiding advertisements. The stated reason was transparently pretextual; other extensions performing identical functions remained available. AdNauseam had approximately 60,000 users at the time of its removal, making it the first desktop ad-blocking extension banned from Chrome.

When Fast Company questioned the ban, Google denied that AdNauseam's click-simulation functionality triggered the removal. But the AdNauseam team was not fooled. “We can certainly understand why Google would prefer users not to install AdNauseam,” they wrote, “as it directly opposes their core business model.” Google subsequently marked the extension as malware to prevent manual installation, effectively locking users out of a tool designed to resist the very company controlling their browser.

A Google spokesperson confirmed to Fast Company that the company's single-purpose policy was the official reason for the removal, not the automatic clicking. Yet this explanation strained credulity: AdNauseam's purpose, protecting users from surveillance advertising, was singular and clear. The research community at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy noted the contradiction, pointing out that Google's stated policy would equally apply to numerous extensions that remained in the store.

This incident illuminates a fundamental asymmetry in the resistance equation. Users depend on platforms to access the tools that challenge those same platforms. Chrome commands approximately 65% of global browser market share, meaning that any extension Google disapproves of is effectively unavailable to the majority of internet users. The resistance runs on infrastructure controlled by the adversary.

Yet AdNauseam continues to function on Firefox, Brave, and other browsers. The MIT Technology Review experiment demonstrated that even in 2021, Google's fraud detection systems were not catching all automated clicks. A Google spokesperson responded that “we detect and filter the vast majority of this automated fake activity” and that drawing conclusions from a small-scale experiment was “not representative of Google's advanced invalid traffic detection methods.” The question is whether this represents a sustainable strategy or merely a temporary exploit that platform companies will eventually close.

The Fingerprint Problem

Even if click pollution were universally adopted, the advertising industry has already developed tracking technologies that operate beneath the layer obfuscation tools can reach. Device fingerprinting, which identifies users based on the unique characteristics of their hardware and software configuration, represents a fundamentally different surveillance architecture than cookies or click behaviour.

Unlike cookies, which can be blocked or deleted, fingerprinting collects information that browsers cannot help revealing: screen resolution, installed fonts, GPU characteristics, time zone settings, language preferences, and dozens of other attributes. According to research from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, these data points can be combined to create identifiers unique to approximately one in 286,777 users. The fingerprint cannot be cleared. It operates silently in the background. And when implemented server-side, it stitches together user sessions across browsers, networks, and private browsing modes.

In February 2025, Google made a decision that alarmed privacy advocates worldwide: it updated its advertising policies to explicitly permit device fingerprinting for advertising purposes. The company that in 2019 had decried fingerprinting as “wrong” was now integrating it into its ecosystem, combining device data with location and demographics to enhance ad targeting. The UK Information Commissioner's Office labelled the move “irresponsible” and harmful to consumers, warning that users would have no meaningful way to opt out.

This shift represents a categorical escalation. Cookie-based tracking, for all its invasiveness, operated through a mechanism users could theoretically control. Fingerprinting extracts identifying information from the very act of connecting to the internet. There is no consent banner because there is no consent to give. Browser extensions cannot block what they cannot see. The very attributes that make your browser functional (its resolution, fonts, and rendering capabilities) become the signature that identifies you across the web.

Apple has taken the hardest line against fingerprinting, declaring it “never allowed” in Safari and aggressively neutralising high-entropy attributes. But Apple's crackdown has produced an unintended consequence: it has made fingerprinting even more valuable on non-Safari platforms. When one door closes, the surveillance economy simply routes through another. Safari represents only about 18% of global browser usage; the remaining 82% operates on platforms where fingerprinting faces fewer restrictions.

The Rise of the Walled Gardens

The cookie versus fingerprinting debate, however consequential, may ultimately prove to be a sideshow. The more fundamental transformation in surveillance advertising is the retreat into walled gardens: closed ecosystems where platform companies control every layer of the data stack and where browser-based resistance tools simply cannot reach.

Consider the structure of Meta's advertising business. Facebook controls not just the social network but Instagram, WhatsApp, and the entire underlying technology stack that enables the buying, targeting, and serving of advertisements. Data collected on one property informs targeting on another. The advertising auction, the user profiles, and the delivery mechanisms all operate within a single corporate entity. There is no third-party data exchange for privacy tools to intercept because there is no third party.

The same logic applies to Google's ecosystem, which spans Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Play, the Chrome browser, and the Android operating system. Alphabet can construct user profiles from search queries, email content, video watching behaviour, app installations, and location data harvested from mobile devices. The integrated nature of this surveillance makes traditional ad-blocking conceptually irrelevant; the tracking happens upstream of the browser, in backend systems that users never directly access. By 2022, seven out of every ten dollars in online advertising spending flowed to Google, Facebook, or Amazon, leaving all other publishers to compete for the remaining 29%.

But the most significant development in walled-garden surveillance is the explosive growth of retail media networks. According to industry research, global retail media advertising spending exceeded $150 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $179.5 billion by the end of 2025, outpacing traditional digital channels like display advertising and even paid search. This represents annual growth exceeding 30%, the most significant shift in digital advertising since the rise of social media. Amazon dominates this space with $56 billion in global advertising revenue, representing approximately 77% of the US retail media market.

Retail media represents a fundamentally different surveillance architecture. The data comes not from browsing behaviour or social media engagement but from actual purchases. Amazon knows what you bought, how often you buy it, what products you compared before purchasing, and which price points trigger conversion. This is first-party data of the most intimate kind: direct evidence of consumer behaviour rather than probabilistic inference from clicks and impressions.

Walmart Connect, the retailer's advertising division, generated $4.4 billion in global revenue in fiscal year 2025, growing 27% year-over-year. After acquiring Vizio, the television manufacturer, Walmart added another layer of surveillance: viewing behaviour from millions of smart televisions feeding directly into its advertising targeting systems. The integration of purchase data, browsing behaviour, and now television consumption creates a profile that no browser extension can corrupt because it exists entirely outside the browser.

According to industry research, 75% of advertisers planned to increase retail media investments in 2025, often by reallocating budgets from other channels. The money is following the data, and the data increasingly lives in ecosystems that privacy tools cannot touch.

The Server-Side Shift

For those surveillance operations that still operate through the browser, the advertising industry has developed another countermeasure: server-side tracking. Traditional web analytics and advertising tags execute in the user's browser, where they can be intercepted by extensions like uBlock Origin or AdNauseam. Server-side implementations move this logic to infrastructure controlled by the publisher, bypassing browser-based protections entirely.

The technical mechanism is straightforward. Instead of a user's browser communicating directly with Google Analytics or Facebook's pixel, the communication flows through a server operated by the website owner. This server then forwards the data to advertising platforms, but from the browser's perspective, it appears to be first-party communication with the site itself. Ad blockers, which rely on recognising and blocking known tracking domains, cannot distinguish legitimate site functionality from surveillance infrastructure masquerading as it.

Marketing technology publications have noted the irony: privacy-protective browser features and extensions may ultimately drive the industry toward less transparent tracking methods. As one analyst observed, “ad blockers and tracking prevention mechanisms may ultimately lead to the opposite of what they intended: less transparency about tracking and more stuff done behind the curtain. If stuff is happening server-side, ad blockers have no chance to block reliably across sites.”

Server-side tagging is already mainstream. Google Tag Manager offers dedicated server-side containers, and Adobe Experience Platform provides equivalent functionality for enterprise clients. These solutions help advertisers bypass Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention, circumvent ad blockers, and maintain tracking continuity across sessions that would otherwise be broken by privacy tools.

The critical point is that server-side tracking does not solve privacy concerns; it merely moves them beyond users' reach. The same data collection occurs, governed by the same inadequate consent frameworks, but now invisible to the tools users might deploy to resist it.

The Scale of Resistance and Its Limits

Despite the formidable countermeasures arrayed against them, ad-blocking tools have achieved remarkable adoption. As of 2024, over 763 million people actively use ad blockers worldwide, with estimates suggesting that 42.7% of internet users employ some form of ad-blocking software. The Asia-Pacific region leads adoption at 58%, followed by Europe at 39% and North America at 36%. Millennials and Gen Z are the most prolific blockers, with 63% of users aged 18-34 employing ad-blocking software.

These numbers represent genuine economic pressure. Publishers dependent on advertising revenue have implemented detection scripts, subscription appeals, and content gates to recover lost income. The Interactive Advertising Bureau has campaigned against “ad block software” while simultaneously acknowledging that intrusive advertising practices drove users to adopt such tools.

But the distinction between blocking and pollution matters enormously. Most ad blockers simply remove advertisements from the user experience without actively corrupting the underlying data. They represent a withdrawal from the attention economy rather than an attack on it. Users who block ads are often written off by advertisers as lost causes; their data profiles remain intact, merely unprofitable to access.

AdNauseam and similar obfuscation tools aim for something more radical: making user data actively unreliable. If even a modest percentage of users poisoned their profiles with random clicks, the argument goes, the entire precision-targeting edifice would become suspect. Advertisers paying premium CPMs for behavioural targeting would demand discounts. The economic model of surveillance advertising would begin to unravel.

The problem with this theory is scale. With approximately 60,000 users at the time of its Chrome ban, AdNauseam represented a rounding error in the global advertising ecosystem. Even if adoption increased by an order of magnitude, the fraction of corrupted profiles would remain negligible against the billions of users being tracked. Statistical techniques can filter outliers. Machine learning models can detect anomalous clicking patterns. The fraud-detection infrastructure that advertising platforms have built to combat click fraud could likely be adapted to identify and exclude obfuscation tool users.

The Arms Race Dynamic

This brings us to the central paradox of obfuscation as resistance: every successful attack prompts a more sophisticated countermeasure. Click pollution worked in 2021, according to MIT Technology Review's testing. But Google's fraud-detection systems process billions of clicks daily, constantly refining their models to distinguish genuine engagement from artificial signals. The same machine learning capabilities that enable hyper-targeted advertising can be deployed to identify patterns characteristic of automated clicking.

The historical record bears this out. When the first generation of pop-up blockers emerged in the early 2000s, advertisers responded with pop-unders, interstitials, and eventually the programmatic advertising ecosystem that now dominates the web. When users installed the first ad blockers, publishers developed anti-adblock detection and deployed subscription walls. Each countermeasure generated a counter-countermeasure in an escalating spiral that has only expanded the sophistication and invasiveness of advertising technology.

Moreover, the industry's response to browser-based resistance has been to build surveillance architectures that browsers cannot access. Fingerprinting, server-side tracking, retail media networks, and walled-garden ecosystems all represent evolutionary adaptations to the selection pressure of privacy tools. Each successful resistance technique accelerates the development of surveillance methods beyond its reach.

This dynamic resembles nothing so much as an immune response. The surveillance advertising organism is subjected to a pathogen (obfuscation tools), develops antibodies (fingerprinting, server-side tracking), and emerges more resistant than before. Users who deploy these tools may protect themselves temporarily while inadvertently driving the industry toward methods that are harder to resist.

Helen Nissenbaum, in conference presentations on obfuscation, has acknowledged this limitation. The strategy is not meant to overthrow surveillance capitalism single-handedly; it is designed to impose costs, create friction, and buy time for more fundamental reforms. Obfuscation is a tactic for the weak, deployed by those without the power to opt out entirely or the leverage to demand systemic change.

The First-Party Future

If browser-based obfuscation is increasingly circumvented, what happens when users can no longer meaningfully resist? The trajectory is already visible: first-party data collection operating entirely outside the advertising infrastructure that users can circumvent.

Consider the mechanics of a modern retail transaction. A customer uses a loyalty card, pays with a credit card linked to their identity, receives a digital receipt, and perhaps rates the experience through an app. None of this data flows through advertising networks subject to browser extensions. The retailer now possesses a complete record of purchasing behaviour tied to verified identity, infinitely more valuable than the probabilistic profiles assembled from cookie trails.

According to IAB's State of Data 2024 report, nearly 90% of marketers report shifting their personalisation tactics and budget allocation toward first-party and zero-party data in anticipation of privacy changes. Publishers, too, are recognising the value of data they collect directly: in the first quarter of 2025, 71% of publishers identified first-party data as a key source of positive advertising results, up from 64% the previous year. A study by Google and Bain & Company found that companies effectively leveraging first-party data generate 2.9 times more revenue than those that do not.

The irony is acute. Privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, combined with browser-based privacy protections, have accelerated the consolidation of surveillance power in the hands of companies that own direct customer relationships. Third-party data brokers, for all their invasiveness, operated in a fragmented ecosystem where power was distributed. The first-party future concentrates that power among a handful of retailers, platforms, and media conglomerates with the scale to amass their own data troves.

When given a choice while surfing in Chrome, 70% of users deny the use of third-party cookies. But this choice means nothing when the data collection happens through logged-in sessions, purchase behaviour, loyalty programmes, and smart devices. The consent frameworks that govern cookie deployment do not apply to first-party data collection, which companies can conduct under far more permissive legal regimes.

Structural Failures and Individual Limits

This analysis suggests a sobering assessment: technical resistance to surveillance advertising, while not futile, is fundamentally limited. Tools like AdNauseam represent a form of individual protest with genuine symbolic value but limited systemic impact. They impose costs at the margin, complicate the surveillance apparatus, and express dissent in a language the machines can register. What they cannot do is dismantle an economic model that commands hundreds of billions of dollars and has reshaped itself around every obstacle users have erected.

The fundamental problem is structural. Advertising networks monetise user attention regardless of consent because attention itself can be captured through countless mechanisms beyond any individual's control. A user might block cookies, poison click data, and deploy a VPN, only to be tracked through their television, their car, their doorbell camera, and their loyalty card. The surveillance apparatus is not a single system to be defeated but an ecology of interlocking systems, each feeding on different data streams.

Shoshana Zuboff's critique of surveillance capitalism emphasises this point. The issue is not that specific technologies are invasive but that an entire economic logic has emerged which treats human experience as raw material for extraction. Technical countermeasures address the tools of surveillance while leaving the incentives intact. As long as attention remains monetisable and data remains valuable, corporations will continue innovating around whatever defences users deploy.

This does not mean technical resistance is worthless. AdNauseam and similar tools serve an educative function, making visible the invisible machinery of surveillance. They provide users with a sense of agency in an otherwise disempowering environment. They impose real costs on an industry that has externalised the costs of its invasiveness onto users. And they demonstrate that consent was never meaningfully given, that users would resist if only the architecture allowed it.

But as a strategy for systemic change, clicking pollution is ultimately a holding action. The battle for digital privacy will not be won in browser extensions but in legislatures, regulatory agencies, and the broader cultural conversation about what kind of digital economy we wish to inhabit.

Regulatory Pressure and Industry Adaptation

The regulatory landscape has shifted substantially, though perhaps not quickly enough to match industry innovation. The California Consumer Privacy Act, amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, saw enforcement begin in February 2024 under the newly established California Privacy Protection Agency. European data protection authorities issued over EUR 2.92 billion in GDPR fines in 2024, with significant penalties targeting advertising technology implementations.

Yet the enforcement actions reveal the limitations of the current regulatory approach. Fines, even substantial ones, are absorbed as a cost of doing business by companies generating tens of billions in quarterly revenue. Meta's record EUR 1.2 billion fine for violating international data transfer guidelines represented less than a single quarter's profit. The regulatory focus on consent frameworks and cookie notices has produced an ecosystem of dark patterns and manufactured consent that satisfies the letter of the law while defeating its purpose.

More fundamentally, privacy regulation has struggled to keep pace with the shift away from cookies toward first-party data and fingerprinting. The consent-based model assumes a discrete moment when data collection begins, a banner to click, a preference to express. Server-side tracking, device fingerprinting, and retail media surveillance operate continuously and invisibly, outside the consent frameworks regulators have constructed.

The regulatory situation in Europe offers somewhat more protection, with the Digital Services Act fully applicable since February 2024 imposing fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue for violations. Over 20 US states have now enacted comprehensive privacy laws, creating a patchwork of compliance obligations that complicates life for advertisers without fundamentally challenging the surveillance business model.

The Protest Value of Polluted Data

Where does this leave the individual user, armed with browser extensions and righteous indignation, facing an ecosystem designed to capture their attention by any means necessary?

Perhaps the most honest answer is that data pollution is more valuable as symbolic protest than practical defence. It is a gesture of refusal, a way of saying “not with my consent” even when consent was never requested. It corrupts the illusion that surveillance is invisible and accepted, that users are content to be tracked because they do not actively object. Every polluted click is a vote against the current arrangement, a small act of sabotage in an economy that depends on our passivity.

But symbolic protest has never been sufficient to dismantle entrenched economic systems. The tobacco industry was not reformed by individuals refusing to smoke; it was regulated into submission through decades of litigation, legislation, and public health campaigning. The financial industry was not chastened by consumers closing bank accounts; it was constrained (however inadequately) by laws enacted after crises made reform unavoidable. Surveillance advertising will not be dismantled by clever browser extensions, no matter how widely adopted.

What technical resistance can do is create space for political action. By demonstrating that users would resist if given the tools, obfuscation makes the case for regulation that would give them more effective options. By imposing costs on advertisers, it creates industry constituencies for privacy-protective alternatives that might reduce those costs. By making surveillance visible and resistable, even partially, it contributes to a cultural shift in which extractive data practices become stigmatised rather than normalised.

The question posed at the outset of this article, whether clicking pollution represents genuine resistance or temporary friction, may therefore be answerable only in retrospect. If the current moment crystallises into structural reform, the obfuscation tools deployed today will be remembered as early salvos in a successful campaign. If the surveillance apparatus adapts and entrenches, they will be remembered as quaint artefacts of a time when resistance still seemed possible.

For now, the machines continue learning. Somewhere in Meta's data centres, an algorithm is analysing the patterns of users who deploy obfuscation tools, learning to identify their fingerprints in the noise. The advertising industry did not build a $600 billion empire by accepting defeat gracefully. Whatever resistance users devise, the response is already under development.

The grandmothers, meanwhile, continue to sell menswear. Nobody asked for this, but the algorithm determined it was optimal. In the strange and unsettling landscape of AI-generated advertising, that may be the only logic that matters.

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References and Sources

1. Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC, “Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2024,” IAB, 2025. Available at: https://www.iab.com/insights/internet-advertising-revenue-report-full-year-2024/

2. Zuboff, Shoshana, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power,” PublicAffairs, 2019.

3. Brunton, Finn and Nissenbaum, Helen, “Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest,” MIT Press, 2015. Available at: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262529860/obfuscation/

4. AdNauseam Project, “Fight back against advertising surveillance,” GitHub, 2024. Available at: https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam

5. MIT Technology Review, “This tool confuses Google's ad network to protect your privacy,” January 2021. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/06/1015784/adsense-google-surveillance-adnauseam-obfuscation/

6. Bleeping Computer, “Google Bans AdNauseam from Chrome, the Ad Blocker That Clicks on All Ads,” January 2017. Available at: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-bans-adnauseam-from-chrome-the-ad-blocker-that-clicks-on-all-ads/

7. Fast Company, “How Google Blocked A Guerrilla Fighter In The Ad War,” January 2017. Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/3068920/google-adnauseam-ad-blocking-war

8. Princeton CITP Blog, “AdNauseam, Google, and the Myth of the 'Acceptable Ad',” January 2017. Available at: https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2017/01/24/adnauseam-google-and-the-myth-of-the-acceptable-ad/

9. Malwarebytes, “Google now allows digital fingerprinting of its users,” February 2025. Available at: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/02/google-now-allows-digital-fingerprinting-of-its-users

10. Transcend Digital, “The Rise of Fingerprinting in Marketing: Tracking Without Cookies in 2025,” 2025. Available at: https://transcenddigital.com/blog/fingerprinting-marketing-tracking-without-cookies-2025/

11. Electronic Frontier Foundation, research on browser fingerprinting uniqueness. Available at: https://www.eff.org

12. Statista, “Ad blockers users worldwide 2024,” 2024. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1469153/ad-blocking-users-worldwide/

13. Drive Marketing, “Meta's AI Ads Are Going Rogue: What Marketers Need to Know,” December 2025. Available at: https://drivemarketing.ca/en/blog/2025-12/meta-s-ai-ads-are-going-rogue-what-marketers-need-to-know/

14. Marpipe, “Meta Advantage+ in 2025: The Pros, Cons, and What Marketers Need to Know,” 2025. Available at: https://www.marpipe.com/blog/meta-advantage-plus-pros-cons

15. Kevel, “Walled Gardens: The Definitive 2024 Guide,” 2024. Available at: https://www.kevel.com/blog/what-are-walled-gardens

16. Experian Marketing, “Walled Gardens in 2024,” 2024. Available at: https://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/walled-gardens-in-2024/

17. Blue Wheel Media, “Trends & Networks Shaping Retail Media in 2025,” 2025. Available at: https://www.bluewheelmedia.com/blog/trends-networks-shaping-retail-media-in-2025

18. Improvado, “Retail Media Networks 2025: Maximize ROI & Advertising,” 2025. Available at: https://improvado.io/blog/top-retail-media-networks

19. MarTech, “Why server-side tracking is making a comeback in the privacy-first era,” 2024. Available at: https://martech.org/why-server-side-tracking-is-making-a-comeback-in-the-privacy-first-era/

20. IAB, “State of Data 2024: How the Digital Ad Industry is Adapting to the Privacy-By-Design Ecosystem,” 2024. Available at: https://www.iab.com/insights/2024-state-of-data-report/

21. Decentriq, “Do we still need to prepare for a cookieless future or not?” 2025. Available at: https://www.decentriq.com/article/should-you-be-preparing-for-a-cookieless-world

22. Jentis, “Google keeps Third-Party Cookies alive: What it really means,” 2025. Available at: https://www.jentis.com/blog/google-will-not-deprecate-third-party-cookies

23. Harvard Gazette, “Harvard professor says surveillance capitalism is undermining democracy,” March 2019. Available at: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-professor-says-surveillance-capitalism-is-undermining-democracy/

24. Wikipedia, “AdNauseam,” 2024. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdNauseam

25. Wikipedia, “Helen Nissenbaum,” 2024. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Nissenbaum

26. CPPA, “California Privacy Protection Agency Announcements,” 2024. Available at: https://cppa.ca.gov/announcements/

27. Cropink, “Ad Blockers Usage Statistics [2025]: Who's Blocking Ads & Why?” 2025. Available at: https://cropink.com/ad-blockers-usage-statistics

28. Piwik PRO, “Server-side tracking and server-side tagging: The complete guide,” 2024. Available at: https://piwik.pro/blog/server-side-tracking-first-party-collector/

29. WARC, “Retail media's meteoric growth to cool down in '25,” Marketing Dive, 2024. Available at: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/retail-media-network-2024-spending-forecasts-walmart-amazon/718203/

30. Alpha Sense, “Retail Media: Key Trends and Outlook for 2025,” 2025. Available at: https://www.alpha-sense.com/blog/trends/retail-media/

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

In Summary: * This has been a quietly satisfying Thursday. Actually, this has been a quietly satisfying week so far. Many little problems that I saw here in the Roscoe-verse when the week started have resolved themselves in positive ways. For that I am truly thankful.

Prayers, etc.: I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 220.90 lbs. * bp= 136/83 (65)

Exercise: * kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:00 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 06:50 – biscuit & jam, hash browns, sausage, scrambled eggs, pancakes * 08:45 – 1 banana * 10:30 – fried chicken * 12:00 – beef chop suey, egg drop soup, steamed rice * 14:50 – garden salad

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 05:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 06:00 – bank accounts activity monitored * 06:30 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap * 12:00 to 13:00 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 13:15 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 15:00 – listening to “The Jack Riccardi Show” on local news talk radio * 17:00 – now listening to “The Joe Pags Show” on local news talk radio * 18:00 – tuning to a Bloomington, Indiana radio station ahead of tonight's women's college basketball game between the IU Hoosiers and the Nebraska Cornhuskers for the best pregame coverage followed by the radio call of the game. After the game ends, I'll be listening to relaxing music and finishing my night prayers before heading to bed.

Chess: * 16:05 – moved in all pending CC games

Surrender happens long before submersion.

The sea is a woman. Always changing, yet endlessly familiar.

Her beauty resists understanding— felt first in the body, then too late in the mind.

She holds a thousand lives against her skin, feeds them, cradles them, devours them without apology.

The storms of her heart are not threats.

They are truths.

Her pull is undeniable— salt on the tongue, pressure in the chest, the ache to go deeper even as breath shortens.

If you are caught in her power, do not struggle.

She does not want resistance.

She asks surrender— limbs slack, eyes closed, will dissolving into rhythm.

Let her take you. Let her fill your mouth, your lungs, your name.

This is not drowning.

This is being claimed.

Total consumption.

---

#poetry #wyst #madrid

GO HOOSIERS!

Tonight before bed I'll be listening to B97 – The Home for IU Women's Basketball for pregame coverage then for the radio call of tonight's game, Indiana Hoosiers vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers.

And the adventure continues.

Wöchentliche, regelmässige Reviews haben einen seltsamen Ruf. Viele wissen, dass sie sinnvoll wären, nur bleiben sie oft abstrakt: zu offen, zu zeitaufwendig oder zu nahe an der Selbstkritik. Man blättert durch Kalender und To-do-Listen, macht sich ein paar Notizen – und schliesst das Ganze ohne klare Konsequenz wieder ab. Genau an diesem Punkt wird Struktur entscheidend. Eine der schlichtesten und zugleich brauchbarsten Formen dafür ist die Methode Plus–Minus–Next.

In meinem letzten Beitrag habe ich beschrieben, wie mir ein Lehrjournal geholfen hat, meine Unterrichtspraxis regelmässig zu reflektieren. Darin erwähnte ich auch einen wöchentlichen Rückblick, ohne diesen näher zu erläutern. Dieser Text schliesst genau dort an – allerdings bewusst allgemeiner. Plus–Minus–Next ist kein Instrument nur für Lehrpersonen. Es eignet sich für wöchentliche Reviews jeder Art: beruflich, privat oder in allen Lebenslagen.

Die Methode Plus–Minus–Next

Plus–Minus–Next ist eine einfache dreiteilige Reflexionsstruktur. Sie stammt von Anne-Laure Le Cunff und wurde über ihr Projekt Ness Labs und später ihr Buch Tiny Experiments bekannt. Der Kern ist schnell erklärt:

• Plus: Was ist in der vergangenen Woche gut gelaufen? Was hat funktioniert, Energie gegeben oder unerwartet gut gepasst?
• Minus: Was ist nicht gut gelaufen? Wo gab es Reibung, Frust, Leerlauf oder unnötige Komplexität?
• Next: Was folgt daraus konkret für die nächste Woche?

Eine leere Tabelle für Plus–Minus–Next (Quelle: nesslabs.com)

Entscheidend ist die Reihenfolge. Zuerst wird gesammelt, ohne sofort zu reagieren. Erst danach wird eine Konsequenz gezogen. Plus–Minus–Next ist kein Tagebuch und keine Gefühlsanalyse. Es ist ein kompaktes Auswertungsraster. Die Methode lebt von Begrenzung. Stichworte genügen. Drei bis sieben Punkte pro Spalte sind meist mehr als ausreichend. Wer hier anfängt, lange zu erzählen, verfehlt den Zweck. Es geht nicht um Vollständigkeit, sondern um Muster.

Warum diese Struktur wirkt

„Drei Spalten: Plus für alles, was gut lief; Minus für das, was nicht gut lief; Next für das, was man beim nächsten Mal anpassen möchte.“ – Anne-Laure Le Cunff (Quelle)

Psychologisch betrachtet verbindet Plus–Minus–Next mehrere hilfreiche Mechanismen, ohne sie theoretisch aufzublasen.

Erstens zwingt die Trennung von Beobachtung und Entscheidung zu einer kurzen Distanz. Plus und Minus sind Bestandsaufnahmen. Next ist die Übersetzung in Handlung. Diese Trennung reduziert die Gefahr, dass aus Reflexion sofort Selbstkritik oder Aktionismus wird.

Zweitens verschiebt die Methode den Fokus von Bewertung zu Anpassung. Ein Minus ist kein persönliches Defizit, sondern ein Hinweis darauf, dass etwas im System nicht optimal gepasst hat: Zeit, Kontext, Erwartungen oder Energie. Genau hier setzt Next an. Nicht mit grossen Zielen, sondern mit kleinen Korrekturen.

Drittens fördert Plus–Minus–Next metakognitives Denken. Du beobachtest nicht nur, was passiert ist, sondern lernst, wie Du Deine eigene Woche gestaltest. Das ist eine Voraussetzung für Selbststeuerung, unabhängig davon, ob man produktiver, ruhiger oder fokussierter werden will.

Plus–Minus–Next im wöchentlichen Review

Als Instrument für ein Weekly Review ist Plus–Minus–Next besonders geeignet, weil es einen klaren Anfang und ein klares Ende hat. Ein möglicher Ablauf sieht so aus:

1. Zuerst verschaffst Du Dir kurz Überblick. Kalender, Aufgabenliste, Notizen der Woche. Nicht im Detail, sondern nur, um das Gedächtnis zu aktivieren. Danach füllst Du die drei Spalten aus.
2. Im Plus landen beobachtbare Dinge: erledigte Aufgaben, gelungene Gespräche, gute Entscheidungen, auch Pausen, die tatsächlich erholt haben.
3. Im Minus ebenfalls Beobachtungen, keine Urteile. „Zwei Abende mit unnötiger Arbeit“ ist hilfreicher als „schlechte Selbstdisziplin“. Der Unterschied ist nicht kosmetisch, sondern funktional.
4. Der wichtigste Teil ist Next. Hier wird entschieden, was sich ändern soll. Nicht alles, was im Minus steht, braucht eine Reaktion. Und nicht jedes Plus muss verstärkt werden. Next ist eine Auswahl.

Für wöchentliche Reviews hat sich meiner Meinung nach bewährt, die Next-Spalte am Schluss weiter zu verdichten: maximal drei Punkte, die tatsächlich in die kommende Woche übernommen werden. Alles andere bleibt bewusst liegen.

Was Next leisten soll – und was nicht

Next ist kein zusätzlicher Aufgabenstapel. Es ist auch keine Zielplanung. Next beantwortet eine engere Frage: Was mache ich nächste Woche leicht anders als diese Woche?

Gute Next-Punkte sind konkret, klein und überprüfbar. Sie beziehen sich auf Verhalten, nicht auf Eigenschaften. Statt „besser fokussieren“ eher „vormittags Mails erst ab 10 Uhr öffnen“. Statt „mehr Bewegung“ eher „zweimal nach dem Mittagessen zehn Minuten gehen“.

Ein ausgefülltes Beispiel (Quelle: nesslabs.com)

Wichtig ist auch, was Next nicht leisten muss. Es muss nicht alle Probleme lösen. Es muss nicht dauerhaft sein. Im Sinn kleiner Experimente darf ein Next-Punkt auch bewusst vorläufig sein. Eine Woche reicht oft, um zu sehen, ob eine Anpassung funktioniert oder nicht.

Typische Missverständnisse

Ein häufiges Missverständnis ist, Plus–Minus–Next als Leistungsbilanz zu lesen. Dann wird Plus zur Rechtfertigung und Minus zur Abrechnung. In dieser Logik verliert die Methode ihre Stärke. Sie ist kein Bewertungssystem, sondern ein Lerninstrument. Ein zweites Missverständnis betrifft die Grösse der Schritte. Wer Next mit ambitionierten Vorsätzen füllt, erzeugt Druck statt Klarheit. Die Methode funktioniert besser, wenn sie kleinteilig bleibt:

„So entstehen Wachstumszyklen: Egal wie das Experiment verlaufen ist, man lernt daraus und kann die Erkenntnisse direkt in die nächste Runde übertragen.“ – Anne-Laure Le Cunff (Quelle)

Schliesslich wird Plus oft unterschätzt. Viele füllen Minus mühelos, tun sich aber mit Plus schwer. Dabei ist gerade diese Spalte wichtig, um funktionierende Elemente bewusst wahrzunehmen und nicht nur auf Defizite zu reagieren.

Fazit

Plus–Minus–Next ist keine neue Produktivitätsmethode im modischen Sinn. Gerade das ist ihre Stärke. Sie ist einfach, begrenzt und anschlussfähig. Als Struktur für wöchentliche Reviews hilft sie, Erfahrungen zu ordnen, ohne sich in Details zu verlieren, und aus Rückblicken konkrete Anpassungen abzuleiten.

Ich halte sie für besonders geeignet für Menschen, die reflektieren wollen, ohne daraus ein Projekt zu machen. Nicht als Ersatz für andere Methoden, sondern als ruhiges Grundgerüst. Woche für Woche. Ohne Anspruch auf Perfektion, aber mit einem klaren Blick auf das, was war – und auf das, was als Nächstes sinnvoll ist.

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💬 Kommentieren (nur für write.as-Accounts)

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Bildquelle Albert Anker (1831–1910): Schreibender Knabe mit Schwesterchen II, Privatsammlung, Public Domain.

Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet.

Themen #ProductivityPorn | #Coaching

We sat in the corner of the restaurant so we wouldn't be too visible.

Darjeeling, 2006. An LTC trip – the government-mandated leave travel allowance my father got once every 3-4 years. The only time we went anywhere. The only time we ate at restaurants.

The waiter came over. “How many people?”

I didn't understand the question. My father said “6.”

We got a laminated menu with stains from previous customers. All of us – my parents, my sisters, me – just stared at it. Nobody knew what to order.

My father ordered the safest thing possible: One sabji. One dal. Rice. Roti. Salad.

No starter. No soup. No desserts.

Those things didn't exist in our universe.

We recreated home in a restaurant because we didn't know how to do anything else.

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The Pattern

At home, we didn't have the concept of variety.

Every meal was one dal OR one sabji. Not both. One dish.

Breakfast was parantha with tea. Or biscuits. Almost every single day.

Some special days we had non-veg – festivals, birthdays, occasions.

We never went out.

Clothes? We bought them only for occasions. Somebody's wedding. A festival.

We didn't have “day clothes” and “night clothes.” We had summer clothes and winter clothes. That's it.

There was no concept of buying clothes for home. You wore something outside until you couldn't anymore, then it became home clothes.

Travel? That Darjeeling trip. Maybe one or two others. Every 3-4 years if we were lucky.

I didn't have a favorite food. I didn't have a favorite color. I didn't have a favorite place.

Not because I was easy-going or low-maintenance.

Because I never learned to have preferences.

You're just grateful when there's food on the table. You don't develop opinions about what KIND of food.

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The Whiplash

2015. My first paycheck from Amazon.

I stared at the number.

I didn't know what to do with it.

What do people even buy? What do people order? Where do people go?

I was that kid from the Darjeeling corner table, now holding a menu with no stains and no idea what I actually wanted.

So I learned. Aggressively.

I tried everything. Went everywhere. Said yes to everything.

Travel. Food. Clothes. Experiences.

If I saw it, I tried it. If someone suggested it, I did it.

By 2021, I had zero savings.

Zero.

Not because I was reckless. Because I was making up for every corner table. Every stained menu. Every LTC trip I never took.

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Learning to Choose

My girlfriend has known me for 19 years.

She knew the corner table kid. She saw the first Amazon paycheck. She watched me try everything, go everywhere, say yes to everything.

And when I hit zero in 2021, she didn't judge.

I panicked. Started reading about personal finance. Got serious about saving.

I was earning well, so rebuilding wasn't difficult. But I swung to the other extreme – suddenly afraid to spend on anything.

That's when she helped me understand something I'd never learned:

It's okay to enjoy things. Slowly. Without shame.

It's okay to say “I like this” instead of “I'm grateful for anything.”

It's okay to have a favorite restaurant. A preferred seat. An opinion.

One day in 2025, we were shopping and I kept looking at this watch. $1,500.

I liked it. I really liked it.

But I wasn't going to buy it.

“Just buy it,” she said.

“It's too expensive.”

“You like it. You can afford it. Buy it.”

I bought it. And it felt strange – buying something just because I wanted it. Not because I needed it. Not because someone was getting married. Just because I liked it.

We went to Dubai recently.

We went to this amazing Indian restaurant in Dubai Mall.

We ordered so many things. Tried dishes we'd never had.

And here's the part that would have been impossible before:

We left 2-3 dishes because we didn't like them.

Small portions, but still – we LEFT food.

Growing up, if I put something on my plate, I finished it. Regardless of how it tasted.

Not because of values or environment. Because I was grateful to have anything on my plate at all.

But in Dubai, I had permission to not like something.

Permission to waste a little.

Permission to have an opinion.

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The Transformation

My wardrobe now:

I have clothes specifically for airports.

I have clothes for long-distance travel, sorted by weather AND location.

Beach clothes. Multiple swimming costumes.

Socks of different shapes, sizes, and textures.

Undergarments specifically for slightly transparent shorts so they don't look bad.

Three different watches – one for running, one for everyday, one for parties.

And right now? I have 2-3 pairs of clothes sitting in my almirah that I haven't even worn yet. Bought them a month ago. Just sitting there.

The kid who had “summer or winter” now has granular categories for everything.

From one dal, one sabji to eating at so many different restaurants I've lost count.

From occasion-based clothes to unworn outfits in my closet.

From LTC trips every 3-4 years to visiting so many places in India I cannot count. To traveling to multiple countries across the world.

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Both Things Can Be True

I feel grateful for everything.

Grateful for my parents who gave us those LTC trips even when money was tight.

Grateful for my sisters who sat with me at that corner table.

Grateful for my girlfriend who showed me I could have preferences without losing gratitude.

Because here's what I figured out:

The corner table taught me gratitude.

But gratitude without preferences isn't humility.

It's just never learning what you actually want.

When I look at those 3 watches, those texture-sorted socks, those unworn clothes – I don't feel guilty.

I feel happy. Proud. Free.

Free to choose. Free to have opinions. Free to leave food I don't like.

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If I could talk to that anxious kid in the Darjeeling restaurant, staring at the stained menu, sitting in the corner hoping nobody notices us...

I'd tell him: One day you'll leave food you don't like, and you won't feel bad about it.

Inspiration can come from unexpected sources, the trick is to be observant.

I got this idea, for example, to recreate this sandwich with kalles type caviar, egg, red onion and dill, which my wife and I ate in a previous chapter of our lives; when we were young and the world seemed so promising; a couple free of overburdening responsibilities and mortgages. We even had this blue metallic Peugeot 107: a small type of trusty car with which we could make trips whenever we wanted to, to wherever we wanted. And we were so beautiful back then!

Anyway I smelt my own fart, and immediately this aforementioned thought struck me: the idea to recreate this sandwich, because the other things, alas, are lost forever.

However, I wouldn’t trade then for now, even though I’m not as happy, because I love my life still some days, and the wisdoms I have gathered throughout the years have been expensive.

By Publius (of the 21st Century)

Less than two months after its November 2025 publication, the theoretical framework of the U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS-25) has become operational reality. Nicolás Maduro was extracted from Venezuela and flown to New York. Stephen Miller announced on CNN that the United States intends to acquire Greenland from Denmark—a NATO ally—because “nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.” A Russian oil tanker was seized in the mid-Atlantic. The Panama Canal's sovereignty has been publicly questioned by the sitting U.S. president.

These are not isolated provocations. They are the “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” in action—a comprehensive reorientation of American grand strategy that explicitly prioritizes hemispheric dominance while signaling strategic withdrawal from Europe. What Washington's strategists, however, have failed to grasp is that this pivot carries a profound unintended consequence: it is catalyzing the emergence of exactly what American foreign policy has sought to prevent for eighty years—a unified, militarily powerful, and geopolitically autonomous Europe.

The Corollary's Core Logic

The NSS-25 resurrects the Monroe Doctrine but transforms it from defensive shield to offensive economic sphere. Where James Monroe in 1823 warned European powers against colonization in the Western Hemisphere, the Trump Corollary demands control of “strategically vital assets,” the expulsion of foreign competitors, and “sole-source contracts” for U.S. firms across Latin America. Where Theodore Roosevelt's 1904 corollary justified police power to prevent European interference, Trump's version authorizes “lethal force” against cartels and criminal networks, potentially without host-nation consent.

The hemispheric pivot is paired with strategic retrenchment from Europe. The NSS describes European nations as “increasingly incapable,” threatened by “civilizational erasure,” and perhaps unable to field militaries strong enough to serve as reliable allies. It demands NATO members spend five percent of GDP on defense—the so-called “Hague Commitment”—while simultaneously signaling that American security guarantees are transactional, not treaty-bound. It seeks détente with Russia to “reestablish strategic stability,” explicitly overriding European threat perceptions. The message is clear: Europe must pay for American protection or provide for its own defense.

This represents a fundamental break with the post-1945 order. For seventy-five years, American strategy rested on two pillars: maintaining military primacy in Europe to prevent the emergence of a hostile Eurasian hegemon, and embedding that primacy within institutional frameworks—NATO, the Marshall Plan, transatlantic economic integration—that made American leadership appear benign rather than imperial. The Trump Corollary dismantles both pillars. It treats allies as burden rather than asset and replaces institutional legitimacy with naked coercion.

The Arithmetic of Miscalculation

The strategy's most consequential error lies in its assessment of relative power. The NSS treats Russia—population 145 million, GDP approximately $2 trillion—as a peer power requiring accommodation. It treats the European Union—population 450 million, GDP exceeding $19 trillion—as a collection of declining dependencies requiring rescue or abandonment.

This is not strategy. It is innumeracy.

Europe's contemporary military weakness is not evidence of civilizational exhaustion. It is the equilibrium outcome of a security architecture designed and maintained by the United States for three-quarters of a century. Since 1949, the American nuclear and conventional guarantee suppressed incentives for European strategic rearmament. This was intentional. It provided Washington with unrivaled influence over European political, military, and industrial development while ensuring that no single European state could emerge as a competitor.

Yet this influence was never absolute. Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command in 1966 precisely to preserve French strategic autonomy, developed an independent nuclear deterrent, and pursued policies explicitly designed to counterbalance American hegemony. Britain, while maintaining the “special relationship,” retained sovereign control over its nuclear arsenal and never extended itself toward complete dependency on Washington. These examples demonstrate that European strategic restraint was a choice within the American security framework, not evidence of inherent incapacity.

Europe's demilitarization, in other words, was an American policy success—not a European failure. The NSS reads this induced restraint as proof of intrinsic European incapacity. But once the external constraint is removed, underlying structural conditions—large populations, advanced technological bases, dense industrial networks, and the world's second-largest internal market—create latent capacity for rapid remilitarization.

The historical precedent is Germany after Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles limited the Reichswehr to 100,000 men and prohibited tanks, aircraft, and heavy artillery. Within fifteen years of Hitler's repudiation of these constraints, Germany fielded the most formidable military machine in Europe. The lesson: wealthy industrial powers with advanced technical capacity can militarize far faster than Washington's strategists apparently believe.

Germany's contemporary challenge is not technical incapacity but psychological paralysis. Decades of relying on the “peace dividend” to fund an expansive welfare state while pursuing global trade advantages under American security protection have created a political culture allergic to hard power. The problem is not that Germany might become too aggressive if rearmed—it is that Germany refuses to accept the responsibilities that come with sovereignty. But existential threat has a clarifying effect on political culture. A Germany facing Russian armored divisions without American protection will discover capabilities it claimed not to possess.

What European Rearmament Would Mean

If Europe actually met the NSS's five percent GDP defense spending demand—clearly intended as a “poison pill” to justify American disengagement—the result would transform global order. Five percent of $19 trillion equals $950 billion annually. For context, current U.S. defense spending approximates $850 billion, which the administration intends to extend to $1.5 trillion in 2026. China officially spends roughly $300 billion. Russia spends approximately $80 billion.

A Europe spending nearly $1 trillion on defense would possess military capability rivaling the United States and vastly exceeding Russia and China combined. This is not burden-sharing. This is the creation of a peer competitor.

Moreover, a Europe organizing its own defense industrial base to avoid “sole-source” dependency on unreliable American suppliers will inevitably develop command structures independent of NATO. Initiatives such as Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the European Defence Fund, and the European Rapid Deployment Capacity—all previously hampered by political fragmentation and American ambivalence—would receive urgent priority. The logic of collective defense without the United States requires unified command, integrated procurement, and harmonized operational doctrine.

France's force de frappe—currently protecting only France—would need to extend deterrence coverage to Germany, Poland, Italy, and other European states. This means political integration of nuclear command, something Paris has historically resisted but which American abandonment would necessitate. Britain, despite Brexit, would face strong incentives to reconnect strategically with Europe, especially if Washington signals disinterest in transatlantic security. A Europe integrating British naval and intelligence capabilities with French nuclear deterrence and German industrial capacity would emerge not as a fragmented collection of dependencies, but as a coherent and formidable geopolitical actor.

The Nuclear Question: Germany's Latent Capability

The conventional assumption is that Germany would seek coverage under an expanded French nuclear umbrella. But this overlooks a more disruptive possibility: German nuclear rearmament.

Germany possesses advanced nuclear technology expertise despite shuttering its civilian nuclear facilities. It ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1975, but treaty commitments are functions of strategic context. If the United States abrogates its security guarantee—as the Trump Corollary effectively does—Germany faces an existential choice: permanent subordination to French nuclear decision-making, or development of sovereign deterrence.

The historical fear of German nuclear weapons rested on concerns about German aggression and unreliability. But contemporary Germany's problem is not excessive ambition—it is pathological risk-aversion and unwillingness to accept the responsibilities of power. A Germany that developed nuclear weapons under joint command with Poland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Britain would not represent a threat of unilateral German adventurism. It would represent the federalization of European deterrence under collective control.

This is not idle speculation. Germany's technical capacity to develop nuclear weapons is not in question—only political will. With American abandonment catalyzing existential threat perception, that political will could materialize rapidly. A Central European nuclear consortium integrating German technical capacity, Polish frontline commitment, French operational expertise, and British strategic culture would create a deterrent architecture far more credible than extension of the force de frappe alone.

The precedent is already being set elsewhere. In December 2025, Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi publicly questioned whether the country's three non-nuclear principles—no possession, no production, and no introduction of nuclear weapons onto Japanese soil—could still stand in the face of serious threats. Like her predecessor, she invoked the concept of space-based nuclear weapons as a potential way to circumvent Japan's constitutional prohibition against nuclear arms on land or sea, a commitment rooted in its 1945 unconditional surrender.

The proposal, though quickly walked back after Chinese condemnation, demonstrated that even the most constrained U.S. allies are reconsidering nuclear taboos when American guarantees appear unreliable. If Japan—constitutionally pacifist, historically traumatized by nuclear weapons, and geographically separated from European conflicts—can publicly discuss nuclear options, why would Germany not do the same when facing Russian tanks on NATO's eastern frontier?

The Trump Corollary provides precisely the strategic justification needed to overcome domestic German opposition to rearmament. If Washington treats NATO as transactional rather than treaty-bound, if it demands five percent defense spending while signaling unreliability, and if it pursues détente with Russia over European objections, then German political elites can credibly argue that the postwar settlement has ended. The Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in a world where American extended deterrence was credible. That world no longer exists.

Ukraine: Europe's Indispensable Military Asset

Any serious discussion of European strategic autonomy must begin with a counterintuitive reality: Ukraine now possesses the largest, most combat-experienced, Western-style military force on the European continent. While battered by three years of high-intensity warfare, the Ukrainian military has not merely survived—it has evolved into precisely the kind of force Europe will need if it must defend itself without American support.

Three years ago, Ukrainian soldiers traveled to Western Europe for training. Today, that experience curve has inverted. The Ukrainians now possess capabilities no other European military can match:

First, operational experience in hybrid warfare. Ukrainian forces have defended against combined Russian conventional assaults, irregular warfare, cyber operations, information warfare, and infrastructure sabotage simultaneously. No NATO military—not German, not French, not British—has faced anything remotely comparable since 1945. This experience is not theoretical. It is institutional knowledge embedded in Ukrainian command structures, tactical doctrine, and operational planning.

Second, proven capability against peer conventional forces. Ukrainian forces have systematically defeated Russian tanks, artillery, aircraft, and massed infantry assaults—the very threat European militaries would face if Russian forces push westward. They have done so despite facing numerical disadvantages in equipment, manpower, and ammunition. Western European militaries have not fought a peer conventional conflict in decades. Ukrainians do it daily.

Third, advanced autonomous drone warfare. Ukraine has pioneered AI-integrated drone systems—both aerial and maritime—that represent the future of asymmetric warfare. As documented by C.J. Chivers in “The Dawn of the A.I. Drone” (The New York Times, December 31, 2025), Ukrainian forces deploy thousands of AI-coordinated drones that neutralize targets worth millions using systems costing thousands. These capabilities can be scaled rapidly using 3D printing, commercial electronics, and open-source software. Ukrainian drone manufacturers now produce capabilities that exceed what Western defense contractors can deliver at a fraction of the cost and timeline.

This technological and tactical sophistication did not exist in 2022. It was developed under combat conditions through necessity and innovation. Europe cannot replicate this experience through exercises or procurement programs. It can only acquire it by integrating Ukraine into European defense structures immediately and completely.

The Integration Imperative

A European security architecture that excludes Ukraine is strategically incoherent. Ukraine possesses what Europe desperately needs: combat-proven forces, operational doctrine tested against Russian military systems, and technological innovations that provide asymmetric advantages. Conversely, Europe possesses what Ukraine needs: industrial scale, economic depth, and nuclear deterrence.

The conventional model assumes Ukraine would be a dependent security consumer requiring European protection. The reality is reversed. In conventional warfare capability, Ukraine is the provider and Western Europe is the dependent. A Poland-Baltic-Ukraine defense axis, integrating Ukrainian battlefield experience with Polish commitment and German industrial capacity, would create a credible eastern European deterrent without requiring consensus from risk-averse Western European capitals.

This is not charity toward Ukraine. It is strategic necessity for Europe. If Russia reconstitutes its military over the next five to seven years and faces a Europe that has failed to integrate Ukrainian capabilities, Moscow will have learned from Ukrainian resistance while Europe will have squandered its most valuable military asset.

The Nuclear Dimension: Righting a Historic Betrayal

Ukraine's integration into European defense structures must include the nuclear dimension—not merely as recipient of extended deterrence but as participant in command structures. This is not merely strategic logic; it is an obligation.

In 1994, Ukraine possessed the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal—approximately 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads inherited from the Soviet Union. Under the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine surrendered these weapons in exchange for security assurances from the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Those assurances guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and again in 2022 with full-scale invasion. The United States and United Kingdom, while providing military aid, have not honored the spirit of the agreement—demonstrated most clearly by the Trump Corollary's pursuit of détente with Moscow over Ukrainian objections. Ukraine was told that surrendering nuclear weapons would guarantee its security. That guarantee proved worthless.

A Central European nuclear consortium integrating Germany, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Britain, and Ukraine would not merely strengthen European deterrence—it would rectify one of the most consequential broken promises in modern international relations. Ukrainian participation in nuclear command structures would ensure that any future Russian nuclear coercion against Europe would be met with credible deterrence that includes the one European state that has actually fought Russia and understands its strategic calculus intimately.

The objection that Ukraine is “too unstable” or “too corrupt” for nuclear participation reflects outdated assessments. Ukraine in 2026 is not Ukraine in 2014. Three years of existential warfare have clarified Ukrainian strategic culture, professionalized its military institutions, and eliminated the ambiguity about Russian threat that paralyzed European decision-making. If Germany—with its psychological allergies to hard power—can be trusted with nuclear weapons under collective control, then Ukraine—which has demonstrated willingness to fight and die for European security—certainly can.

The Federalist Logic of European Integration

In Federalist No. 7 and No. 8, Alexander Hamilton warned that a loose confederation of sovereign states would succumb to foreign intrigue and internal dissension. He argued that only a strong, consolidated union could deter external powers and prevent separate states from becoming clients of competing empires. James Madison developed this in Federalist No. 41 and No. 42: foreign powers will use trade, diplomatic recognition, and military support selectively to reward some states and punish others, thereby deepening intra-confederal divisions.

The 2025 NSS recreates precisely these conditions in Europe. By demanding five percent defense spending while threatening to withdraw security guarantees, by seeking bilateral deals with individual European capitals rather than treating the EU as a negotiating partner, and by signaling that American commitments are transactional rather than treaty-bound, Washington exposes the vulnerability that drove the thirteen American colonies to federate in 1787.

The Federalists argued that “safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct.” The colonies united not from mutual affection but from recognition that Britain or Spain would pick them off individually. The 2025 NSS provides Europe with dual external unifiers: Russian threat from the east, American abandonment from the west. If Europe follows the Federalist prescription, it will centralize foreign policy, replacing unanimity rules with majority voting to prevent external exploitation of single veto-wielding states. It will federalize debt and defense, creating a common treasury to fund continental military-industrial capacity explicitly to avoid sole-source dependency on American arms.

Recent Events as Proof of Concept

The Greenland crisis provides the clearest demonstration that this dynamic is already underway. Miller's CNN statement—”the United States is the power of NATO”—reduces alliance to hierarchy. His question—”by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?“—delegitimizes a NATO ally's territorial sovereignty. The Danish Prime Minister's response that U.S. annexation would “effectively end NATO” understates the case. NATO is already over. It simply has not yet been officially dissolved.

European responses to the Greenland announcement have been telling. Eastern European states—Poland, the Baltics—remain largely silent, unwilling to alienate Washington while Russian forces sit on their borders. But Western European capitals are beginning to speak openly about what was previously taboo: strategic autonomy from the United States. French President Macron has renewed calls for European defense integration. German defense minister Pistorius has advocated accelerated procurement timelines. Even traditionally Atlanticist voices in Britain are questioning whether Five Eyes intelligence sharing is worth subordination to an erratic American administration.

The Maduro extraction demonstrates operational capability—the United States can and will conduct military operations in the hemisphere without consultation. The Russian tanker seizure in the mid-Atlantic shows willingness to escalate economically. Threats regarding the Panama Canal indicate that no previous settlement, however long-standing, is considered permanent. Collectively, these actions signal that the United States views the Western Hemisphere as exclusive domain and European interests as secondary considerations.

The Realignment Risk

The NSS assumes a spurned Europe has nowhere else to go. This is the “America First” fallacy: the belief that the United States remains the indispensable node in global networks. If Washington adopts protectionist postures—tariffs, sole-source demands, weaponized dollar access—Europe will rationally seek survival elsewhere.

One can expect accelerating European economic engagement with the Global South. To secure energy and critical minerals without American interference, a strategically autonomous Europe will court Africa with trade terms that undercut American exclusivity demands. To maintain export economies, Europe may refuse American pressure to decouple from China, opting instead for a “middle path” preserving access to the Chinese market while managing security risks. Even India—currently a key U.S. partner in containing China—may find a rearmed, non-aligned Europe a more compatible partner than an erratic, isolationist America.

The result would be a multi-aligned Europe no longer structurally tied to the United States. Such a Europe would maintain economic ties with China, energy partnerships with Africa and the Middle East, and strategic coordination with India, Japan, and other middle powers. American influence would no longer be institutional or automatic. It would have to be earned in competition with other global actors.

Moreover, a Europe that feels strategically betrayed may adopt industrial policies designed to protect technological sovereignty from American extraterritorial controls. This includes reducing reliance on the dollar, creating alternative payment systems, and designing export regimes immune to American sanctions pressure. Over time, these developments would erode the structural foundations of the transatlantic relationship that have defined global order since 1945.

The Trump Corollary, in effect, presents America's allies with a menu of strategic options they previously lacked political justification to pursue: German nuclear weapons development under multilateral control, Japanese space-based deterrence, European monetary independence, and comprehensive realignment toward the Global South and China. These are not outcomes Washington desires—but they are outcomes Washington's own strategy makes rational for threatened allies. When a guarantor becomes unreliable, clients develop alternatives. The NSS assumes this development can be controlled through economic coercion and military threats. It cannot.

Doctrinal Incoherence

The Trump Corollary belongs to no recognizable tradition of American grand strategy. Classical realism, as articulated by Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz, stresses prudent limits and balance-of-power logic; the Corollary pursues maximalist exclusion that invites balancing behavior. Liberal internationalism, developed by G. John Ikenberry and Robert Keohane, depends on institutions, norms, and mutual legitimacy; the Corollary rejects multilateralism and undermines alliance cohesion. Neo-isolationism, advocated by Barry Posen and Stephen Walt, counsels restraint and avoidance of unnecessary entanglements; the Corollary dramatically expands military commitments in the Western Hemisphere while abandoning commitments elsewhere.

The Corollary is a hybrid whose internal contradictions undermine strategic coherence. It combines the worst elements of overreach and abandonment: aggressive intervention in the Americas paired with strategic withdrawal from Europe, economic coercion toward allies paired with accommodation of adversaries. This incoherence creates practical difficulties for implementation and generates confusion among both allies and adversaries about American intentions and redlines.

The Ultimate Irony

The 2025 National Security Strategy attempts to reshape global order through reassertion of American hemispheric dominance and strategic retrenchment from Europe. Yet by devaluing allies, imposing coercive economic conditions, and pursuing détente with Russia at Europe's expense, it risks producing outcomes directly contrary to American long-term interests.

The authors of the Federalist Papers would likely view the Trump Corollary not as strategic realism but as profound miscalculation. By removing the security guarantee that kept Europe dependent and militarily restrained, and simultaneously applying economic coercion, the United States is eliminating obstacles to European federation. The NSS assumes Europe will revert to a collection of weak nineteenth-century nation-states. It fails to account for the Hamiltonian alternative: that faced with partition by external powers, Europe will do exactly what American states did in 1787—form a more perfect union to secure liberty and power.

In attempting to unburden itself of European security commitments, the United States may inadvertently create its most formidable competitor. This is the ultimate irony: a strategy intended to restore American primacy instead accelerates multipolarity. By destroying the transatlantic dependence that ensured American primacy for nearly a century, Washington is not “making America great.” It is making Europe a superpower.

The blowback will not be the submission Washington expects, but the awakening of a dormant giant.

References

Chivers, C.J. (2025, December 31, updated January 5, 2026). The dawn of the A.I. drone. The New York Times.

Farrell, H., & Newman, A. L. (2019). Weaponized interdependence: How global economic networks shape state coercion. International Security, 44(1), 42–79.

Hamilton, A., Madison, J., & Jay, J. (2008). The Federalist Papers (L. Goldman, Ed.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1788)

Ikenberry, G. J. (2011). Liberal Leviathan: The origins, crisis, and transformation of the American world order. Princeton University Press.

Keohane, R. O. (1984). After hegemony: Cooperation and discord in the world political economy. Princeton University Press.

Mearsheimer, J. J. (2001). The tragedy of great power politics. W. W. Norton.

Morgenthau, H. J. (1948). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace. Knopf.

National Security Strategy of the United States of America. (2025). The White House.

Posen, B. R. (2014). Restraint: A new foundation for U.S. grand strategy. Cornell University Press.

Retter, L., Frinking, E., Hoorens, S., Lynch, A., Nederveen, F., & Aalberse, P. (2021). European strategic autonomy in defence: Transatlantic visions and implications for NATO. RAND Corporation.

Walt, S. M. (2018). The hell of good intentions: America's foreign policy elite and the decline of U.S. primacy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Waltz, K. N. (1979). Theory of international politics. Addison-Wesley.

midwinter wood the white sun cut again and again by black hatching

nothing moving

only there—

a displacement of snow

a squirrel gliding

grey over grey alder to alder through widening ice

Have you ever heard a horn that doesn’t just warn—but announces?

That low, brazen BWAAAAA—the kind that rattles windows and tells you something big is moving through the intersection whether you’re ready or not.

That’s the Pizza Index.

It doesn’t knock politely.

It doesn’t ring the doorbell.

It leans on the horn.

Somewhere near the nerve centers of power—Pentagon corridors, government buildings that never really sleep—a Domino’s owner noticed something strange. Not prophecy. Not poetry. Receipts.

Right before the world lurched—before presidents were hauled away, before regimes cracked like ice under boots—pizza orders spiked. Boxes stacked. Phones rang. Cheese pulled long and greasy into the small hours of the night.

Why?

Because when men stop going home, when suits sleep on carpet and decisions are made at 3:17 a.m., nobody cooks.

They order pizza.

And it’s happening again.

The ovens are hot.

The delivery lights are flashing.

The horn is blaring.

Now listen—there are voices out there calling this the apocalypse on horseback, dust clouds and hooves already pounding. But slow down. That’s not how this story goes. We don’t ride until the Bridegroom returns—after the wedding feast. And that feast doesn’t last seven days.

It lasts seven years.

The Church is not appointed to wrath. Never was. Noah didn’t drown with the world—he was sealed in. Lot wasn’t burned with Sodom—the angels said, “We can’t do anything until you leave.”

God removes His own before the fire falls.

That hasn’t changed.

Hell was built for the Devil and his angels—but it waits for anyone who rejects the only exit ramp off the road we’re all born on. Every human starts on that highway. Wide lanes. No toll booths. Straight toward destruction.

Jesus didn’t come to repaint the road.

He came to change it.

A narrow gate.

A hard turn.

Life everlasting.

So when I hear the Pizza Index screaming again, I wonder.

I wonder about Mystery Babylon.

I wonder about governments shifting like tectonic plates.

I wonder why oil meant for empires changed hands in the dark waters of the world.

I wonder why people who never saw a drop of that oil are saying, “Let them take it—we were starving anyway.”

And I wonder why the ovens are glowing again.

Am I trying to scare you?

No.

I’m trying to wake you up.

This could be the Church’s finest hour.

This could be revival with its sleeves rolled up.

This could be pews filled, altars soaked, lights burning late for reasons that have nothing to do with pizza.

Even the prophets who miss the details still feel the pressure change in the room. They hear the same horn. The atmosphere is heavy. Something is moving.

Nations are watching America.

America is watching itself.

And heaven is watching the Church.

So here’s the question—from a tiny pulpit in a tiny town, with a voice that doesn’t carry far but still dares to ask:

How does God see us right now?

Are you praying?

Because when the horn sounded—when the ovens flared and the night shifts stretched on—were you on your knees or scrolling your phone?

Romans says it plain:

Do not be conformed to this world.

The world is panicking.

But be transformed—renew your mind—so you can know the will of God.

And His will is good.

Acceptable.

Perfect.

Pray that will.

Over presidents you love or hate.

Over America.

Over China, Russia, Venezuela.

Over tyrants, cartels, and kings.

Over enemies and allies alike.

Because history will be written.

Wars will decide chapters.

But God will judge the Church’s response.

Jesus didn’t say if you pray.

He said when.

When you fast.

When you give.

When you pray.

It’s expected.

So the horn is still blaring.

The pizzas are still coming.

The night is still burning.

And the question remains—echoing louder than any siren:

Are you praying?

Yesterday's post about 'online worship' was not intended to simply be a rant—though I admittedly want us to keep that in mind—nor does it allow us to become smug because 'we worship in person.'

On the contrary, those of us blessed enough to be able-bodied have the additional privilege (and bear the additional burden) of bringing the fellowship of the body of Christ to those who are unable to participate in the corporate life of the church. We must take Jesus' words from Matthew 25.31ff. and St. James' words very seriously, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble...” (James 1.27). We should add to the list of those we must visit the infirm, the sick, the home bound, etc.

We tend to think 'online worship' gets everyone 'off the hook' by allowing folks to 'worship' from their couch and allowing us to forget them. On the contrary, given the fantasy of 'online worship,' we must encourage those able to join us to actually do so and visit those unable to join us to encourage them in their faith during their time of solitude and isolation.

I confess, I am as guilty as most of neglecting the latter.

#culture #quotes #theology

Police officers attacked and injured at the U.S. Capitol on 6 Jan. 2021, L-R: Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, and Daniel Hodges. All four officers testified to the House Jan. 6 select committee. (A. Kotok)

New photos from an event commemorating the fifth anniversary of the 6 Jan. 2021 insurrection on Capitol Hill are now available in a TechNewsLit gallery on Smugmug. The Jim Acosta Show, a Substack and YouTube media operation, organized and produced the event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on 6 Jan 2026.

The event featured two panels moderated by Acosta, a former CNN correspondent and anchor that left the network after a demotion following complaints about his coverage from the first-term Trump White House. The first panel had former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R—IL) who served on the House Jan. 6 select committee, along with four U.S. Capitol and D.C. police officers assaulted by the mob on Jan. 6, 2021. (shown above).

Of the four officers, Michael Fanone made the most searing impression. Fanone was a U.S. Capitol Police officer on 6 Jan. 2021, and was tased, beaten, and chemically sprayed by the mob suffering a heart attack and traumatic brain injuries as a result. He and the other three officers on the panel later testified about their experiences before the House Jan. 6 select committee.

Close-up of Michael Fanone’s arms and hands. (A. Kotok)

Heavily tattooed, Fanone made little eye contact with the audience as he spoke, I was sitting in the front row, a few feet from the panel, and did not recall seeing Fanone smile once during the event. All of the former officers called for renewed criminal prosecution of Donald Trump and others involved with the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In the second panel, four commentators — of which, three were former Republican officials — talked about the legacy of 6 Jan. 2021 and actions to fix the damage done by Trump and MAGA since then. That panel had:

• Glenn Kirschner, a U.S. Army veteran, former U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., and a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
• Olivia Troye, former national security adviser to vice-president Michael Pence, and earlier served with the National Counterterrorism Center and other intelligence agencies.
• Miles Taylor, a lifelong Republican who became chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term.
• Tara Setmayer, co-founder and CEO of The Seneca Project, a women's politicial advocacy organization.

Acosta also connected with historian and essayist Heather Cox Richardson for a brief remote interview, and read a statement from academy-award winning actor Robert De Niro.

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