Most frightening and/or depressing story: Migration pressure and right wing politics create a toxic feedback loop practically everywhere in the world.

Most hopeful story: I mused about ways to create an early warning system that things in the world or a given country are about to go seriously wrong: “an analysis of government budgets, financial markets, and some demographic/migration data to see where various governments’ priorities lie relative to what their priorities probably should be to successfully address long-term challenges, and their likely ability to bounce back from various types and magnitudes of shock. You could probably develop some kind of risk index at the national and global levels based on this.” Not all that hopeful, you say? Well, I say it fits the mood as we end a sour year.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: Did an AI named “Q Star” wake up and become super-intelligent this month?