The Elections Were a National Declaration of Resistance & How Superintelligent AI Could Trigger Human Extinction
November 7, 2025
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: A common phrase of dismissal has more meaning than we might think.
Trump says he could send “Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines” into U.S. cities “if it was necessary”: This isn’t just about suppression of protests, it’s about ending democracy.
Trump Says His Bloody ICE Raids ‘Haven’t Gone Far Enough’: A quick analysis shows why everything Trump says about this is not just logically wrong but harmful to America.
An investigation into FEMA didn’t fit Trump’s narrative. His DHS ordered a new probe that did: Typically, when facts contradict Trump policy, the facts are altered.
Senior ICE Barbie Official Posts Totally False Information About Violent Arrest of Teen Girl: Still altering facts (also called lying).
Kareem’s Kvetching Korner: Is Reality TV Responsible for the Evil in Our Government?: This may be one reason our tolerance of evil behavior has allowed evil to flourish in politics.
Kareem the Science Guy: ‘Godfathers of AI’ Warn Superintelligence Could Trigger Human Extinction: Are we stomping on the gas pedal as we speed through the fog toward a cliff? Yup.
Video Break: Every time I watch this, my day brightens.
Magical Moments in Sports: A tennis point that will leave you gaping with wonder—and maybe jealousy.
Etta James Sings “At Last”: Etta James’s signature song of found love still goes straight to the heart.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
I don’t care.
Common phrase
This is not going to be a weepy appeal about why people should care. Instead, I want to explore what we really mean when we say, or even think, “I don’t care” because there’s a lot more going on than we might suspect.
I once saw a bumper sticker that read: I Don’t Care. Of course, my immediate reaction was, “If you don’t care, why have a bumper sticker whose sole purpose is to influence what people think about you?” If you truly didn’t care, you wouldn’t need to announce it. Almost always when people say, “I don’t care,” what they really mean is “I wish I didn’t care because then I wouldn’t feel this bad.”
The “I don’t care” line pops up when someone irritates or angers us. The deeper the annoyance, the louder we declare our indifference in order to hurt them. But the reality is that we aren’t built that way. We all care what people think—and we resent that we do.
Existentialist philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Jean-Paul Sartre famously said, “Hell is other people.” He wasn’t referring to the outrageous evil that people do to each other, but to the daily anxiety we experience worrying about what others think of us, how we’ve been wronged by others, or what others expect of us. Even the news, with awful people in power messing with our lives so they can enrich themselves, tightens our hearts. It is death by a thousand paper cuts, if each cut represented our interactions with other people.
Sure, there are many, many joyful interactions with friends, family, and even strangers that make us willing to endure the slings and arrows of human-caused angst. That’s why I am fascinated with the “I don’t care” phrase.
Whenever we say, “I don’t care,” our intention is to either insult someone who wants us to care about something that matters to them or to proclaim we are so in control of our thoughts and emotions that we can choose to shut down the roiling in our guts. Someone might say, “I don’t care about politics” or “I don’t care about art.” They believe they are saying something positive about themselves when they are actually revealing their own shortcomings. It’s okay not to be well versed on those things, but the need to announce it aloud is to say that these things aren’t important, which means you’re just declaring your own ignorance. For example, I don’t care to discuss opera because I am ignorant on the subject due to never enjoying it whenever I hear it. But I do care that it exists because I realize how much pleasure it gives millions of others. Not caring about something isn’t a strength but a failure to understand it. Every time I try hard to understand why I don’t care about something others do, I feel like the effort to care connects me more with people. Even if I’m not there yet, Puccini.
The tricky part is when you think “I don’t care” about things that are affecting the world. Whenever I have that thought, I try to do a deep dive into whether I really don’t care or I’m just so frustrated at my inability to affect any change that I WISH I didn’t care. Which leaves me with two choices. I can do my best to actually not care. Or I find a different tack to affect the change I seek.
The reason meditation is so popular is that we recognize the need to physically control our anxiety. I practiced yoga when I was in the NBA not just for the physical flexibility, but to achieve a calmer state of mind. Not caring is not a realistic option. It’s a path to isolation and loneliness. Caring is what gives value to life: otherwise life is like watching a sporting event with no interest in the outcome.