A World at War
(Copyright 09-11-2024) by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) Global conflict is on the rise. In 2023, the world experienced the highest number of state-based conflicts since 1946, while the past three years (2021-2023) were identified as the most violent in the last three-plus decades, dating back to 1989. While the number of countries involved in […]
The Final Frontier?
(Copyright 2024) by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) On September 8, 1966, the National Broadcasting Company aired the first episode of Star Trek, opening with the now iconic phrase: “Space, the final frontier,” promising to take viewers “where no man has gone before.” Indeed, for the next three television seasons, the show sought to exploit the […]
Death by Debt
(Copyright 2024) by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) On December 29, 2023, the U.S. government’s “total public debt outstanding” (the national debt) surpassed the $34 trillion mark for the first time, according to a report released by the Treasury Department on January 2, the first business day of 2024. This enormous figure represents the […]
Where Have All the Babies Gone?
(Copyright 2023) by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) As the world hurtles deeper into the twenty-first century, demographers are increasingly concerned about a dangerous trend and its inevitable impact on our global society. Demography, the statistical study of human populations, reveals that the developed world is aging while producing too few babies. This short-sighted tendency is […]
A Matter of Trust
(Copyright 2023) by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) Of late, “artificial intelligence” (AI) is dominating the news. With the recent rollout of ChatGPT (one of the most potent and advanced forms of AI), anyone with a computing device and an Internet connection can directly interface and “converse” with the chatbot—much as with another human—and […]
American Education: A System Destroyed
(Copyright 2023) by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) Once upon a time, before World War II, American schools, from elementary through university, were the world’s envy. Year after year, the American education system, including public and private institutions, topped most, if not all, global rankings. Little wonder the post-war American economy, fed by well-educated […]
Universal Basic Income
by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) Regardless of one’s perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic historically upended the global community. Of the many burdens the world has suffered in its wake, some of the greatest have been economic. In the United States, many businesses—large, medium, and small—were forced to shut down or dramatically scale back their operations for […]
A Drop to Drink
by Joseph B. Baity (Charlotte, North Carolina) Water is growing markedly more precious with the extended and expanding droughts of the American West. Some sub-regions count 2021 as the twenty-first consecutive year of too little rain. Currently, 95 percent of the West—the most extensive area ever on record—is officially in drought, with 65 percent rated […]