When Science Fiction Moved the Markets

A week ago, the markets had a bad day. The Dow dropped by about 800 points. In a blog post, Paul Krugman made the case that the cause was a science fiction story in the form of a fictional financial report from 2028. 

Last weekend Citrini Research released a report — on Substack! — titled The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis. The report, which rapidly went viral, laid out a scenario for economic and financial chaos caused by AI, written as if it were a retrospective published after the dire developments it projected. Although it’s always hard to know why financial markets move on any given day, the report may have played a role in Monday’s 800-point decline in the Dow. Science fiction moving markets? Why not?

There are two distinct questions about the huge reaction to a report that didn’t actually contain any news. It was just opinion, albeit cleverly presented. The first is whether the economic scenario the report laid out makes sense, to which the answer is no. The second is why investors are so on edge that such a report could elicit such an extreme reaction.

The report, which is really a rather dry science fiction story in disguise, makes the case that AI will completely disrupt the economy over the next few years. Not being a financial analyst, I can't comment on the accuracy of the report's predictions, but Krugman, a Nobel-prize-winning economist, doesn't think they make much sense. 

Still, the fact that the report might have contributed to a large and sudden (albeit temporary) market decline shows that there is widespread concern about the long-term effects of AI technology on the economy. 

It'll be interesting to see if the report makes it into any year's best science fiction anthologies next year.

Movie and TV Reviews - February 2026

Short reviews of movies and TV shows I watched in February. A bit shorter than usual because we watched a lot of winter Olympics.

Movies

• Predator: Badlands. The second half  of the movie was OK but by that point I had lost interest. Prey is still the best of the Predator flicks. (Disney+)
• Mars Express: We haven't watched much anime recently, but I saw a review of this on Gizmodo and it looked interesting, It was one of the best anime films I've ween, on a par with Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Highly recommended. (Amazon Prime rental)

TV Shows

• The Night Manager (season 2): Not as good as the first season, though it did pick up halfway through. It felt like a cookie-cutter thriller without the sublety of the first season. (Amazon Prime)
• Shetland (season 10): The series continues with a typically dark, complex plot set in the barren windswept Scottish islands. One of our favourite shows. (BritBox)
• Antinques Roadshow (season 27): Now that we've worked our way through all 28 seasons of Antiques Road Trip, we're back to the PBS stalwart. 
• Live at Massey Hall: A Celebration of Gordon Lightfoot. An omnibus concert recorded at Toronto's historic Massey Hall to celebrate the life of the late Gordon Lightfoot. I liked that they didn't perform just the hits but dug into his back catalog. Worth watching just for the performance of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". (CBC Gem)
• How to Get to Heaven from Belfast: My sister described this show as "quirky" and that it definittely is. It's also very complicated, occasinally dark, and often funny. You'll need closed captioning for this one. (Netflix)
• McDonald and Dodds (season 4). Another British police procedural that falls somewhere in the middle of the cozy to dark spectrum. I liked this season more than the previous ones. (BritBox)
• Grace (seasons 1-2): Another troubled detective British police  procedural that permiered in 2021 but we're just catching up to now. On the darker side as theyse things go with good writing and acting.
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: I don't remember much about the original Dunk and Egg stories on which this series is based but no matter, it's quite watchable and better than I expected. We binge watched the whole season in one evening (yay for short episodes). (Crave HBO)

Saturday Sounds - Grateful Dead - A Beginner's Guide: David Lemieux

This week's musical treat is an introduction to the music of the Grateful Dead assembled by David Lemieux, the Dead's archivist. He's picked five songs that offer a glimpse into the varied styles of the Grateful Dead: the powerhouse arena rock of Morning Dew, the out there psychedelic improvisation of Dark Star, the blues rock of Viola Lee Blues, the jazzy improvs of Eyes of the World featuring Branford Marsalis, and the delicate acoustic textures of Bird Song. 

It's a good starting point for those who aren't familiar with the Dead's music and I've enjoyed listening to all of these again. I don't think I could improve on it, though might do a post with my suggestions for a second chapter.

Featured Links - February 25, 2026

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The Ultra-Rich Are Different from You and Me. "Only the little people pay taxes, redux." We need to get back to the 1950s model of progressive taxation. 

11 steps to smarter Google account security. "Give yourself some added peace of mind by giving your Google account a thorough set of security reinforcements."

The state of dark mode. From the AskWoody newsletter, the state of dark mode in Windows 11 and some tips for enabling dark mode on some of the remaining features that don't yet support it. 

Some of the cracks had penetrated through': Chinese astronauts reveal new details about spacecraft that 'stranded' them in space last year. "Crew members of China's Shenzhou-20 mission recently detailed their reactions upon finding cracks in their spacecraft's viewport during the nation's first spaceflight emergency." 

'We almost did have a really terrible day.' NASA now says Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut flight was a 'Type A mishap'. "This was a really challenging event in our recent history."

Lake Erie’s Storm Surges Become More Extreme (gift link). "Officials are designing new ways to protect the shorelines from sudden flooding and longer storm seasons."

The Perfect Storm. "When warnings are everywhere, and still no one moves."

The US versus Canada 11

It's been a while since I wrote on of these posts, though I have been following the news about Canada's relationship with the US pretty closely. In the past couple of weeks, I've seen more discussion about the possibility of a US invasion of Canada, something which I've posted about before  this. It  seems that people, including members of our government, are taking the possiblity more seriously. So I'll start this post with a couple of articles about that. 

How a US Invasion of Canada Would Really Unfold—And How We Fight Back. "American aggression is no longer theoretical." This article looks at lessons learned from Uktaine's response to the Russian invasion and applies them to Canada. 

Preparing for the Worst. Charlie Angus offers some concrete suggestions for fighting back against the US, even before an invasion. 

Donald Trump wants to make an example out of Canada. How will we prepare? (gift link) This article is cited in Charlie Angus's post and is also worth reading (as are most of Andrew Coyne's opinion pieces in the Globe and Mail). 

Saturday Sounds - Joni Mitchell - April 24, 1983, Wembley Arena, London UK

This week's musical treat is a rare video of a Joni Mitchell concert from April 24, 1983 at London's Wembley Arena.  It was filmed and broadcast on the BBC 2 network. Joni is supported by a crackerjack band that included The band for this tour included Michael Landau (guitar), Russell Ferrante (keyboards), Larry Klein (bass), and Vinnie Colaiuta (drums).

The poster didn't include a setlist, but the full concert setlist is included on setlists.fm. The hour-long video includes some of my favourite songs: "Free Man in Paris", "A Case of You" and "Amelia".  It looks like the original 4:3 video has been stretched to 16:9 but the audio is just fine. Enjoy.

The Most Dangerous Politician In Canada

I was going to include this post by Emmett Macfarlane in a Featured Links post next week, but after reading through it a couple of times, I decided it deserved it's own post.

If you've been paying any attention to Canadian politics recently, you'll likely have seen mentions of a growing separatist movement in Alberta (and to a lesser extent in Saskatchewan and British Columbia). That's always been an undercurrent in Western Canadian politics, but its become more prominent since the rise of the UCP in Alberta and the second Trump administration in the US. But what Alberta's Premier Danielle Smith is now proposing is more dangerous than plain separatism. As Macfarlane states in his post, she is now the most dangerous politician in Canada. 

We like to denigrate comparisons to Trump as lazy because Trump is distinct in so many ways. He tells more lies than any other politician. He actively and nakedly seeks unlawful self-enrichment. He is on multiple counts a criminal. He is monumentally stupid. In short, any other politician will always have attributes that distinguishes them from Trump. Smith is no criminal. She’s not stupid. But once we see that Trump is as much a symptom as he is the cause of America’s anti-democratic rot, we should recognize the same holds for people like Danielle Smith. She is the most dangerous politician in Canada, launching an agenda not only of fear and greed, but one that seeks to undermine the country, its federal structure, and its spirit of tolerance and compassion. It is nothing short of evil, and it must be fought on all fronts.