Weekly Roundup – Top Articles & Commentary (Week 41, 2025)

  

   

Here are links to some selected articles of interest and our posts from this week.

• Bill Maher drops some truth bombs on the many ignorant Hamas supporters. Must see this !

• Where are the Protests Demanding Hamas Accept Peace
  
• The Price of Tolerating the Intolerant
  
• Here is an AI generated video of the reaction of Britons to the Pro-Palestinian demonstrations and against their Labour government. Humorous, but poignant.

• Humaoid Robots:The Last Industrial Revolution
  
• Could Lithium Be The Key To Reversing Alzheimers
  

We welcome all feedback, so please feel free to submit your comments or communicate with me via email at grappysb@gmail.com or @grappysb on X.

Where are the protests demanding Hamas accept peace

In his recent video, “The Extraordinary Silence… And What It Tells Us,” commentator Konstantin Kisin examines what he sees as a revealing quiet from many of the loudest critics of Israel’s war in Gaza. After nearly two years of strident activism the silence that followed President Trump’s proposed Gaza peace plan speaks volumes — not just about the conflict, but about truth, hypocrisy, and moral posturing in public life.

Now, with the second anniversary of October 7th approaching, Kisin turns his attention to the reaction — or rather, the lack of reaction — to Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan for Gaza.

A Plan That Should Please Everyone — But Doesn’t

The Trump plan, delivers almost every demand made by those calling for peace:

• An immediate end to the war

• Israeli withdrawal

• The release of over 2,000 Palestinian detainees in exchange for 20 Israeli hostages

• Humanitarian aid and the reopening of the Rafah crossing

• A non-Israeli, non-Hamas administration of Gaza

• An economic development package

• Commitments against displacement, annexation, and occupation

• U.S.-mediated talks for a “peaceful and prosperous coexistence”

In other words — everything that peace campaigners have been chanting for. And yet, those same campaigners have gone strangely quiet.

The Silence That Speaks

Kisin singles out several high-profile commentators — Crystal Ball, Candace Owens, Owen Jones, and Jeremy Corbyn — for either ignoring or rejecting the plan. Ball, he notes, spent twenty minutes on air insinuating that Hamas shouldn’t take the deal. Owens hasn’t mentioned it at all, preferring to focus on conspiratorial content. Jones and Corbyn, meanwhile, dismissed it as “colonial” and unacceptable.

The result, Kisin argues, is extraordinary silence — a void where there should be celebration. If this really were about stopping genocide, why is there no pressure on Hamas to accept a deal that would stop it immediately?

What the Silence Reveals

This is the moment when rhetoric and reality diverge completely. Hamas, has every right to reject terms it considers unfavourable — just as Ukraine might reject peace on Russia’s terms. But its rejection (or the West’s indifference to that rejection) exposes the true nature of the conflict.

“Far from being genocide,” Kisin says, “it’s a war — a war Hamas started and is losing badly.”

There is a sharp distinction between real genocides — in Rwanda, the Armenian Genocide, or the Holocaust — and wars, however brutal, fought between armed belligerents. The misuse of the word genocide, is not accidental. It’s what Kisin calls a “slide of mouth” — a distortion of meaning that turns aggressors into victims and facts into feelings.

The “genocide” label, has been weaponised to evoke moral outrage and to frame Israel as criminal, regardless of the evidence. But the failure of activists to embrace peace reveals they don’t actually believe their own rhetoric. They know it’s a war — but prefer the emotional power of pretending it’s something else.

Kisin’s Broader Message

Beyond the specifics of Gaza, Kisin’s argument is really about truth and moral integrity in public debate; silence can be more revealing than speech. When those who claim to champion peace fall quiet in the face of an actual peace offer, the mask slips. What’s exposed is not moral conviction, but performative outrage — a market for clicks, likes, and ideological identity.

The suffering of Palestinian civilians, he warns, is being used as content — a source of online engagement rather than genuine empathy.

A Mirror for the West

Kisin’s final message is a challenge to the rest of us. What do we really value — truth or tribal comfort? Are we willing to test our moral positions against reality, or do we prefer to keep signalling virtue while turning away from inconvenient facts?

The extraordinary silence, in other words, tells us more than the noise ever did.

Here is Kisin's YouTube video, well worth a view.

The Rise of AI: What Happens When Machines Take Our Jobs?

We are standing on the precipice of one of the most profound transformations in human history. AI is not some distant dream or science fiction. It is here — already transforming industries, reshaping workforces, and setting the stage for a future we’re not ready for. And we’re not prepared for the upheaval it will bring.

From accountants to doctors, solicitors to actors, AI is on the verge of replacing a vast array of jobs that have been the backbone of our society for centuries. Think about it: the AI revolution will take hold first in fields that rely heavily on administrative work. We’re talking about accounting, customer service, and even legal services, where complex algorithms can do in seconds what once took a team of highly-trained professionals days to accomplish.

The change will come gradually, but once AI starts running the back-end processes — crunching numbers, drafting legal documents, analysing medical records — we will reach a tipping point. AI systems will begin to learn from their own interactions and improve. That’s when we will see alternative models of work evolve, models that we cannot even fully imagine today. Jobs that today we think of as “human-centric” will likely fade away, replaced by models where humans interact less with data and more with — well, each other.

But herein lies the biggest problem. With millions of jobs lost to machines, what will we do with the displaced workforce? This is where AI’s potential runs up against the walls of societal structure. A complete economic shift, like the one we’re facing, will require us to rethink how we distribute work and wealth.

The concept of a reduced working week might become essential — a way to share out the remaining work among a dwindling number of employed people. Or maybe a universal basic income (UBI) will be the answer, providing all citizens with a basic living wage, regardless of employment status. It’s a bold idea, but with the rise of AI, it’s one that we might need sooner than we think.

But what about AI actors? This is already happening in films, where studios are beginning to use AI to replace human talent. Imagine a world where famous actors no longer need to appear in films, where their “virtual selves” are generated by AI, performing roles they’ve never actually acted in. We’ve seen glimpses of this with deepfake technology, and Hollywood is already exploring the possibility of AI-generated performances. The ethical and economic implications of this are staggering. Will actors be replaced by algorithms? Will the unique artistry of human performance become obsolete? Or will AI provide a new platform for human creativity, just in a different form?

The ramifications are vast and uncertain. We know this wave of change is coming, but we can’t predict how it will hit. Will it crash into our existing systems with the force of a tidal wave, or will it be a slow, inevitable tide that we try to navigate as best we can?

One thing is for sure: the world as we know it is about to change forever. The questions now are: how will we adapt? And more importantly, how will we ensure that this change benefits all parts of society — not just the few who are quick to adapt, but everyone? Because if we fail to address the social and economic challenges of this AI revolution, we risk creating a society where inequality isn’t just growing — it’s baked into the system itself.

Are we ready for the AI wave? Probably not. But we better start getting ready — fast.

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Would you like me to suggest some strong, provocative titles for this blog post (to match the urgency of the message) and also craft a punchy X post to drive traffic?

https://interestingengineering.com/culture/ai-actor-tilly-norwood-hollywood-backlash

Iron Beam: Israel’s Game-Changing Laser Defence

For years, Israel has lived under the shadow of rockets, drones, and missiles launched by enemies who refuse to accept its right to exist. The Iron Dome has provided remarkable protection, intercepting incoming threats with missiles of its own. But even Iron Dome has its limits — not least the enormous cost per interception.

Now comes the Iron Beam. After years of development, Israel has successfully tested its new laser defence system, and it will be deployed extensively by the end of the year. As one recent video put it, “Israel’s $2 Laser Weapon Just Changed Everything.”

And it really does.

Unlike traditional missile interceptors, which cost tens of thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of dollars per shot, Iron Beam fires a laser beam at the speed of light — at a cost of roughly $2 per firing. The economics are staggering. Terror groups that fire crude rockets costing a few hundred dollars suddenly face a system that can swat them out of the sky for pocket change.

Equally significant: lasers don’t run out of ammunition in the traditional sense. As long as there is power, the system can keep firing, intercepting rockets, drones, and mortars with precision. This levels the playing field against adversaries who have often sought to overwhelm defences with sheer volume.

The symbolism is also profound. For decades, Israel has been portrayed as besieged, forever vulnerable to rockets raining down. Iron Beam flips that script. It signals that technology, ingenuity, and determination can change the terms of the conflict. The old image of “David versus Goliath” has been updated — David has a laser.

Of course, challenges remain. Weather can affect laser performance, and no defence system is perfect. But the strategic implications are enormous. By dramatically reducing the cost and increasing the capacity of missile defence, Iron Beam strengthens Israel’s deterrence, protects civilians, and makes the terrorists’ “strategy of rockets” increasingly futile.

And here’s the kicker: what starts in Israel rarely stays in Israel. This technology will be studied, copied, and deployed worldwide. From airports to critical infrastructure, from the Taiwan Strait to Eastern Europe, the future of defence just got a little brighter — literally.

Once again, the tiny democracy in the Middle East has shown that it can outthink, out-engineer, and outlast the forces arrayed against it. Iron Dome was revolutionary. Iron Beam may be nothing less than transformational.

Here is a link one of the many YouTube videos covering this innovation.

https://youtu.be/69eJZUtHE1I?si=2uuV5-73EhXDyBC-

Why Democracies Should Stop Bankrolling the UN Circus

Donald Trump’s recent address to the United Nations struck a chord because he said aloud what so many already know: the UN has become an institution that fails at its stated purpose while excelling at undermining the very democracies that fund it.

Let’s state the obvious. The UN has not stopped wars. It has not even seriously tried. From Ukraine to Gaza, Syria to Sudan, the UN has been a spectator — issuing statements, passing resolutions, wringing its hands — but never preventing or ending conflict. If anything, its empty posturing has given tyrants a shield of legitimacy while leaving victims to their fate.

Worse still, the UN has inverted the moral compass of democracies. Its grand stage routinely elevates dictators, despots, and terror-sympathisers, giving them a microphone to denounce free nations while their own citizens languish in oppression. The very body that claims to stand for human rights has become a platform for those who trample them.

Consider the UN’s sprawling agencies:

• The WHO, once a public health authority, now trying to dictate policy to sovereign nations under the guise of pandemic “preparedness.”

• The Human Rights Council (UNHRC), stacked with members whose own records on rights are abysmal, sometimes even chairing the body — a grotesque parody of justice.

• UNRWA, the agency supposedly tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees, exposed as employing staff with ties to Hamas and even aiding in terrorism.

• The UN’s open borders agenda, pushing migration policies that erode the ability of nations to control their own frontiers.

• Climate Change advocacy, repackaged as “wealth redistribution” from democracies to “developing nations.” Developing? China, the world’s second-largest economy, military giant, and technological powerhouse, is still classified as “developing” so it can collect concessions.

And then there is Israel. No country has been subjected to more disproportionate condemnation than the Middle East’s only democracy. Resolution after resolution targets Israel, while regimes in Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia, and China — genuine human rights abusers and aggressors — are spared anything like the same scrutiny. The bias is blatant, the hypocrisy staggering.

The UN’s failures are not accidents. They flow from its design: a body where numbers matter more than principles, and where blocs of authoritarian states dictate outcomes. The result is predictable: democracies are lectured, terrorists are appeased, sovereignty is eroded, and freedom is diminished.

The conclusion is unavoidable. Democratic nations need to ask themselves why they continue to bankroll and legitimise an organisation that has so plainly lost its way. Membership should not be unconditional. Participation should not be a blank cheque. If the UN cannot reform — and it shows no interest in doing so — then democracies must band together, assert control over its excesses, and, if necessary, walk away.

The UN was meant to prevent the scourge of war and promote peace. Instead, it has become a theatre of hypocrisy, a megaphone for tyrants, and a drain on the resources of the very nations it undermines. Trump was right. The time for illusions is over.