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Further to this: Films For Action ^[channel] https://www.filmsforaction.org/about/

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Context: 'Gilded Age' ^[Wikipedia]

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Bibliography: Reich, R. (2023, October 12). 'From robber barons to Bezos: Is history repeating itself?' Nation of Change. https://www.nationofchange.org/2023/10/12/from-robber-barons-to-bezos-is-history-repeating-itself/ Reich, R. (2025a, October 16). 'From robber barons to Bezos: Is history repeating itself?' Films For Action. https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/from-robber-barons-to-bezos-is-history-repeating-itself-robert-reich/

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Synopsis: "By 2039, the US is set to have 650,000 fewer 18-year-olds than it does today. For universities, that demographic cliff poses an existential challenge. Fewer teenagers means fewer college applicants. Fewer applicants means fewer enrolled students. And fewer students means that some universities may not make enough money to keep their doors open. Katty Kay speaks to Nathan Grawe, Professor of Economics at Carleton College, about how difficult it will be for colleges to ride out this demographic drop, and what they will need to do to survive it" (Kay, K., 2026, February 20).

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Point: this is worth considering in relation fear and anxiety catalysing 'The Great Replacement' conspiracy theory https://newpractices.co.uk/PostTruth/#GHQAfk_5Ekk

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Bibliography: Kay, K. (2026, February 20). 'America is running out of teenagers'. BBC Reel. https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p0n1vxgk/watch

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Bibliography: Harvey, F. (2026, June 26). ‘Make people dream’: How to build an economy for the common good. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/26/make-people-dream-build-economy-common-good-mariana-mazzucato Mazzucato, M. (2026). 'The Common Good Economy: A New Compass'. Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books.

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Bibliography: France 24. (2026, June 12). "France accuses Israel’s BlackCore of meddling in elections around the world". France 24. https://www.france24.com/en/video/20260612-france-accuses-israel-s-blackcore-of-meddling-in-elections-around-the-world

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Context: John Scott-Railton on the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware ^[Wikipedia] https://telex.hu/direkt36/2021/07/19/pegasus-nso-hungary-viktor-orban-cyberweapon

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Bibliography: Szabolcs, P., & András, P. (2021, July 19). 'Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus, a powerful Israeli cyberweapon'. Telex.hu Zrt. https://telex.hu/direkt36/2021/07/19/pegasus-nso-hungary-viktor-orban-cyberweapon

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Quote: "And as states race for tech supremacy, or as some algorithms become as powerful as states, those hyper-personalised tools could become a new vector for conflict and control. Power itself is becoming more diffuse, more unpredictable. As control over these technologies is shifting from states to corporations and sometimes to individuals. And at the same time, the foundations of trust in our societies are eroding. Information, once a unifying force, is increasingly weaponized. Falsehood spreads faster than fact, dividing communities and distorting reality. We live in an age of hyper-connection yet profound isolation. The algorithms flatter our biases and fracture our public squares. And as trust collapses, so does our shared sense of truth. One of the greatest losses a society can suffer. The defining challenge of the 21st century is not simply who wields the most powerful technologies, but who guides them with the greatest wisdom. Our security, our prosperity, and our humanity depend on it. Our world is being remade and for the first time we are all at the heart of it" (Metreweli, B., 2025).

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Bibliography: Metreweli, B. (2025, 16 December 2025). 'New MI6 Chief Delivers First Major Address Amid Rising WWIII Fears'

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About: "When John Scott-Railton, a researcher at Citizen Lab, was contacted by someone claiming to be interested in his work, he was immediately suspicious. He decided to play along and found himself in a game of spy versus spy" (2020).

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Context: https://citizenlab.ca/person/john-scott-railton/

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Bibliography: 'I was the target of an international mercenary spy operation'. (2020, November 12). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.5799190 ^[channel]

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Transcript: "For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We join its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection. We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and we knew that international law applied with varied rigour, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. This fiction was useful, and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied — the WTO, the UN, the COP, the very architecture of collective problem solving — are under threat. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let’s be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable. And there’s another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism ^[Wikipedia] will become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetise their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They’ll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty, sovereignty that was once grounded in rules but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure" (Carney, M., 2026). https://www.youtube.com/embed/-9EFPdcSot0?start=181&end=380

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Bibliography: Carney, M. (2026, January 20). 'Greenland, Trump Tariff Threats' World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026. https://globalnews.ca/news/11620877/carney-davos-wef-speech-transcript/

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Source: Dan Partland (2020). 'Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump' ^{[Dailymotion] [imdb]}

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Concept: "alternative facts": https://www.youtube.com/embed/8FV9XQpc1G4?start=25&end=36 ^{[Dailymotion]}

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Concept: 'malignant narcissism' ^[Wikipedia]

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Point: "Three years ago, Ingka Group, the largest IKEA franchisee, deployed an AI chatbot called Billie across its customer service channels. Within two years the bot was resolving nearly half of all enquiries. The notable part was what came next. Rather than reduce headcount, Ingka reskilled 8,500 call-centre co-workers into remote interior design consultants and built a billion-euro service line in the process. That decision has been cited in HR and employer brand commentary ever since as the available counterpoint to the wave of AI-justified layoffs at other large employers. In March and May 2026, two announcements landed that complicate the picture. The case is worth restating in full" (Robbins, J., 2026, June 11).

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Related: As Rodney Greenfield (AUNZ AKQA ^[Wikipedia] executive AI and data director) explains: "The answer is HI + AI: human intelligence plus artificial intelligence. AI is useful as a sparring partner, a challenger and a way to interrogate evidence, but the more homogeneous AI-generated work becomes, the more valuable distinctive human taste, judgement and creative curation become. The next frontier is not letting AI flatten the work, but training it around codified stylistic decisions, brand behaviours and creative principles that protect distinctiveness" (AKQA New Zealand, 2026).

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Bibliography: Ferrazzi, K. (2026, January 26). 'How IKEA is protecting its values culture while embracing AI'. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithferrazzi/2026/01/26/how-ikea-is-protecting-its-values-culture-while-embracing-ai/ Robbins, J. (2026, June 11). "IKEA’s AI reskilling case, reassessed after 2026 layoffs". Employer Branding News. https://employerbranding.news/resources/what-ikeas-ai-reskilling-story-looks-like-now-it-has-made-layoffs-too/ AKQA New Zealand. (2026, July 20). "Rodney Greenfield: 'Human intelligence plus artificial intelligence' elevates creativity" | LBBOnline. LBBOnline; Little Black Book. ^{[trade magazine]} AKQA New Zealand. (2026a, July 14). "Luke ballantine: Convenience is the biggest AI trap" | LBBOnline. LBBOnline; Little Black Book. ^{[trade magazine]}

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About: "It’s been described by the NHS chief as a 'public health timebomb.' The number of cases of measles in England has almost quadrupled in the past year, leading the head of the health service to issue a warning about the growing number of parents refusing to vaccinate their children. An analysis by the charity Unicef found that among high-income countries, the UK had the third largest number of children who had missed their first dose of the measles vaccine. The Health Secretary said today he was 'particularly worried' anti-vaccine fake news was being spread online" (Stephenson, M., & Newman, C., 2019).

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Further to this: "More than 60 children have been infected by a measles outbreak in north London, it has been reported. Seven schools and a nursery in Enfield reported the cases, with some children treated in hospital, according to the Sunday Times. There are concerns the outbreak is linked to low levels of MMR vaccination in the capital. For every one infected person, measles can spread to up to 18 unvaccinated people." https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/14/more-than-60-children-infected-in-north-london-measles-outbreak

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Issue: "In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and 12 of his colleagues published a case series in the Lancet, which suggested that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may predispose to behavioral regression and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Despite the small sample size (n=12), the uncontrolled design, and the speculative nature of the conclusions, the paper received wide publicity, and MMR vaccination rates began to drop because parents were concerned about the risk of autism after vaccination. ... Appallingly, parents across the world did not vaccinate their children out of fear of the risk of autism, thereby exposing their children to the risks of disease and the well-documented complications related thereto. Measles outbreaks in the UK in 2008 and 2009 as well as pockets of measles in the USA and Canada were attributed to the nonvaccination of children. The Wakefield fraud is likely to go down as one of the most serious frauds in medical history." ^[Government]

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Transcript: "by 2004 we completed the study the largest-ever study of the question of measles vaccine autism and along with other studies internationally pretty conclusively showed there was no association between measles vaccine autism and this helped restore faith in the vaccine probably naively I think we believed that we might have tackled this concern and it was over but of course people's concerns about vaccines were always going to continue they're going to continue because of new ways of spreading concerns through social media or they're going to continue because of new vaccines or changes in the way they're used and that's understandable these are potent interventions which are highly effective and protect humans and of course is going to be concerned about side effects and we have to tackle those as a medical community " https://www.youtube.com/embed/6KVSXXvgR9E?start=59

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Related: NHS Greater Manchester: Childhood immunisations campaign March 2024 https://www.youtube.com/embed/c9Gz10YzNYk

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Bibliography: Nadeem Badshah. (2026, February 14). 'More than 60 children infected in north London measles outbreak'. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/14/more-than-60-children-infected-in-north-london-measles-outbreak Stephenson, M., & Newman, C. (2019, April 25). "Measles cases quadruple in UK – health secretary 'worried' about false vaccine information online". Channel 4 News. https://www.channel4.com/news/measles-cases-quadruple-in-uk-health-secretary-worried-about-false-vaccine-information-online

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Bibliography: Murphy, R. (2026). 'We need freedom from fear. Funding the Future'. https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/04/17/we-need-freedom-from-fear-2/ Standing, G. (2014). "The Precariat." Contexts 13(4): 10–12. ^{[academic source]} Standing, G. (2011). The precariat : the new dangerous class. Bloomsbury. ^{[site archive]}

Explanation: "Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often referred to as ‘forever chemicals’, present a complex and global challenge. ... There is growing evidence that their widespread use and past management have generated risks of harm to people and to the environment, including wildlife. Their persistence means that some PFAS will remain in our environment for hundreds of years. While there is scope to continue to improve our understanding across all PFAS, this growing concern over potential health risks and irreversible environmental contamination means that action should not be unnecessarily delayed" (Hardy, E., 2026).

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About: "PFAS chemicals are used in thousands of products aimed at making life easier. But the chemicals are now almost everywhere, including in human blood, and are being linked to severe health problems."

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Related: BBC News "What are forever chemicals, and how do they impact our health?": https://www.youtube.com/embed/nr3Vc6quuTE

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Issue: "'I'm worried about this because we've never seen in recent history a chemical that's accumulating in so many media at such a high rate,' said Hans Peter Arp from the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. 'It's accumulating in our tap water, the food we're eating, plants, trees, the sea, and all in the past few decades.' He added: 'We all have been experiencing rising TFA concentrations in our blood since the Montreal protocol [banned CFCs]. Future generations will have increasing concentrations in their blood until some kind of global action is taken. Accumulation [in the environment] is essentially irreversible and I'm afraid the impact on humans and the environment won't be recognised by scientists until it is too late.' Last month, the German chemical regulator informed the European Chemicals Agency that it wanted TFA classified as reprotoxic, meaning it can harm human reproductive function, fertility and foetal development. Denmark and Germany have set limits for TFA in drinking water but the UK has not. England's water companies have been asked to assess their drinking water sources for 47 types of PFAS but TFA is not on the list. Britain's Health and Safety Executive has identified TFA as 'a substance of concern, since there are indications that it might cause developmental toxicity' and the Environment Agency says it is planning a targeted programme to test for TFA in surface and groundwater. A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said it would continue to 'assess levels of PFAS occurring in the environment, their sources, potential risks and to inform policy and regulatory approaches" (Hosea, L., & Salvidge, R., 2024).

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Bibliography: Hardy, E. (2026). 'PFAS Plan: building a safer future together'. GOV.UK. ^[Government] Wang, Z., Buser, A. M., Cousins, I. T., Demattio, S., Drost, W., Johansson, O., Ohno, K., Patlewicz, G., Richard, A. M., Walker, G. W., White, G. S., & Leinala, E. (2021). "A New OECD Definition for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances". Environmental Science & Technology, 55(23), 15575–15578. ^{[academic source]} BBC News. (2025, December 1). What are forever chemicals, and how do they impact our health? | BBC News. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/embed/nr3Vc6quuTE Hosea, L., & Salvidge, R. (2024, May). "Rapidly rising levels of TFA 'forever chemical' alarm experts". The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/may/01/rapidly-rising-levels-of-tfa-forever-chemical-alarm-experts Thorpe, L. (2026). 'PFAS in beauty: what they are and how to avoid them'. Green People. https://www.greenpeople.co.uk/blogs/the-beauty-hub/pfas-in-beauty-what-they-are-and-how-to-avoid-them

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About: "Emily is eight years old and already losing her short-term memory and her ability to speak. She has juvenile Batten disease or CLN3. Some describe it as 'childhood dementia'. It's an incurable and degenerative neurological disorder that eventually leaves children bedridden and most children with the disease won't ever experience adulthood. 'When she says to me, 'Mum, when I grow up I'm going to be a teacher or a queen! I'm not going to tell her otherwise,' says Julia. 'I think she needs to have hope, she needs to have self-esteem, she needs to know that she can do things'" (Vinales, P., 2018).

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Bibliography: Vinales, P. (2018, July 24). 'Childhood Dementia: Meet two families living with Batten disease'. SBS News. ^[channel] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/childhood-dementia-meet-two-families-living-with-batten-disease/auz2soeqf