It is true, though, that train delays are not exactly new. Deutsche Bahn is not what it used to be, and these days even Italian trains run more on time than in Germany — and without Mussolini.
But today, January 11, is sunny and calm, and, despite the -10 degrees cold, it is not snowing. All trains were running on schedule.
As I walk into the lobby of the Berlin airport, I am saluted by a placard propagandizing the new biometrics and facial recognition system, which includes a picture of the ideal German citizen: a blue-haired, nose-pierced liberal woman. O brave new world, that has such people in it.
The system, which plans to substitute boarding passes, is for now voluntary, but it will certainly become mandatory soon.
Everything is going the same way. The airline I will be travelling with has recently disallowed printed boarding passes. Now you must use their app on your phone. Naturally, the app wasn’t working properly and it wouldn’t update with the correct flight information, so they had to give me a paper boarding pass at the counter anyway.
It’s interesting that they sell the digital world as much better and more practical than old-style paper, but, in practice, it tends to make things much more complicated. The German government, like most governments in the world, has migrated its citizens’ data to a digital system, and it works just as you’d expect — pages not loading, data breaches, increasing complaints, etc. “AI” will solve it, they promise it. Sure, sure.
Well, if one thing is clear about 2026, is that it will bring more and more “AI”. Unfortunately. The economic bubble of “AI stocks” such as Palantir and Nvidia may crash, but I don’t see signs of the “AI” operation ending. I have been trying to tell people that “AI” is not “intelligence” in any meaningful way, but simply a system of control and automation, but to no avail.
As Bruce Charlton, one of the few voices ranting against “AI”, says: what “AI” promises to do, according to its own propaganda, is to replace humans in several important activities: working, thinking, creating, and relationships. Even if it worked (and it doesn’t), how is any of this supposed to be good?
The work replacement thing is pretty much done. I used to have a side gig as a translator, but most of it dried up now. The work that remains is basically to correct or revise “machine translation”. This actually sometimes takes a longer time than simply doing the translation from scratch, and is much more boring. But it allows for translators to be paid much less, as now it is no longer “translation” but “revision”.
Thinking and creating is on its way out, too. Students don’t write essays anymore, they just use ChatGPT. Some will ask, so what? Isn’t it the same as using calculators instead of doing mental math? Well, sort of. Math usually has exact answers, so it doesn’t matter all that much. But writing is about thinking. If you can’t write, you can’t think.
As for creating, that is the saddest part, at least for me: it shows that most people have little interest in actually creating anything original or interesting or even personal, and are happy to outsource the task to a machine. As long as they get their views pumped by the algorithm, it’s all fine.
As for replacing relationships — well, that is also well on its way, but maybe that subject should merit its own text.
What else will 2026 bring? In geopolitics, the Venezuela precedent indicates that Trump will take over Greenland soon. There is no reason not to. What can the Europeans do anyway? The only possible option would be to ally with Russia and China, and I don’t see that happening. In fact, it is possible that a deal has already been made — Russia gets eastern Ukraine, China takes Taiwan, and the U.S. takes Greenland.
Europe get nothing.
Except maybe more refugees. The whole continent increasingly resembles a huge refugee colony annexed to a historical theme park.
What do I mean by “theme park”? Well, I recently visited the Strasbourg Cathedral, a wonderful Gothic masterpiece of European art and architecture. Beautiful church, but as I visited there were almost no locals and no one praying, just tourists taking pictures. There is something paradoxical about all these people visiting these ancient cathedrals and taking pictures, all over Europe. On the one hand, they understand, even if just instinctively, that there is something grandiose, even transcendental about these buildings and their art. On the other hand, what is the point of a cathedral and an art that is by now completely divorced from its original purpose of praying, attending Mass, praising God and being part of a community of believers? Or do they think it was all built just so that future visitors could post their pictures on social media?
But then again, it goes beyond religion, as even modern religious art is pretty bad. In the same cathedral of Strasbourg, most of the stained glass windows are wonderful originals from the 12th century, but a few windows are modern creations. Needless to say, the new ones are awful. We seem to have lost the ability to create even beautiful religious art.
It’s not a question of technique or style, it’s just… I don’t really know the reason.
But compare this medieval painting from 1270 found in an Italian village…
…to this contemporary one (note, both are in the same church, side by side):
I mean, I suppose technically it is not completely bad, but… I don’t know, “Space Jesus”? Or is that supposed to be Superman?
Oh well.
