Now that was suitably unsettling. The good news: I’ve started posting to one of my other blogs again, PretendingNotToPanic.com (including merch!) my blog about news that is significant, factual, and apolitical. The apolitical part put it on hiatus for several months. One of this month’s entries became more than a post to post. It chronicled something I thought was a few years away. Oops. Nope. Now. Kung Fu Robot.

Rats. Just noticed a typo. The title should be Kung Fu Robots. That ‘s’ that makes it plural is what inspired this post, even though last week’s post is similar. (Preparing For A Weird Year)

Politics is a worry, and many people are talking and marching. Voting would be even better.

Climate change should be changing the minds of at least some climate change deniers, but there were probably people on the Titanic who were doubting that the boat was sinking.

Social injustice is becoming easier to see, though many ignore that too.

Proudful ignorance is in fashion. Maybe intelligence and empathy will return.

But I’m reacting to the technological news. Maybe I see it more than some because I am an ex-engineer and a current investor. I have also been practicing an old style of martial arts since 1983. Kung Fu robots in a headline enticed me to click through. Eep.

Robotic cops have been part of the scifi discussion since before the movie RoboCop was made. (1987 – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/reviews/) Since then there have been clunky robotic sentinels that might have trouble maneuvering over a curb. Robot dogs? They’re now delivering military supplies in Ukraine and helping harvest food in some other video I watched. Sorry for not taking notes; I was just browsing at the time. But the harvesters weren’t a demo unit; they were doing work.

And then this video pops up where a phalanx of humanoid robots march, block, strike, and leap in unison. Unsettling. It may look impressive, technologically. What came to mind for me was realizing that some government could see that, see their budget, and see that they could afford crowd control: emotionless, methodical, persistent crowd control that didn’t care about social media and that was employed to maximize the utility of surveillance equipment.

For clarity, I have been following the Digital Singularity. Some confuse any technological advance as an element of that. Robots are a different thing. They are part of a Technological Singularity. A Digital Singularity can be avoided by returning to an Amish-style existence. A Technological Singularity can knock on your door.

Ah, but that’s just one video in some other country. Right? Well…

I am not worried about the epitome of any singularity as much as I am about the intermediate steps, particularly the intermediate steps that are ignored or laughed at. Here’s a laugh. 

Headline
“Man accidentally gains control of 7,000 robot vacuums
Sammy Azdoufal just wanted to steer his DJI Romo with a gaming controller.“
– Popular Science

Internal Excerpt
“But he soon discovered that the same credentials that allowed him to see and control his own device also provided access to live camera feeds, microphone audio, maps, and status data from nearly 7,000 other vacuums across 24 countries.“

He wasn’t part of some government conspiracy. He was just a guy who wanted to control his vacuum cleaner. Worrying about technology as if it only affects us when it becomes super-intelligent is like only worrying about a Hannibal Lecter. 

Pick an adolescent age. Who is worst left unguarded and unsupervised: toddlers, terrible twos, or teenagers? Who doesn’t realize how much damage they can create by doing something simple that they don’t understand is dangerous? How many immature old people live that way? Some even get elected. Technology may not know how dangerous it is.

Pardon me as I take a sip of tea. It’s calming – I hope.

Reminder to myself: Tomorrow is usually like yesterday – until it’s not.

I am not panicking. I am, however, becoming more aware of progress that is happening while many other significant distractions gather justifiable attention.

I wrote about “Preparing For A Weird Year”. I type this near the end of February, 2026, about 1/6th of the way through the year. It’s already been weird. The news stories about the robots and the vacuums may have histories that reach back further, but I only noticed them this week. To me, they seem sudden and significant. They are sudden and significant as stepping stones to more significant stories that are therefore more likely by this time next year.

I am not, however, selling everything and moving into the hills. (I’ll check my lottery tickets later, though, so…)

My stocks have had a tough time, though they’re generally up from last year. Those companies have had good news, so as long as the markets eventually notice that, my finances can be fine.

Politics will settle itself. Even now, power is assailing power, regardless of the actions of the seemingly powerless. Elections are coming, right?

Climate change continues to change. In my opinion, we’ve busted past various points of no return.

Social injustice continues to rise in significance, but I suspect we are years away from significant action, from Social Justice.

Digital and Technological Singularities potentially seem innocuous, except in retrospection. The internet? It’s always been there, right? Smartphones? Personal computers? Computers? Televisions? Radio? Household electricity, especially for heating and lighting? Indoor plumbing? Somewhere along a historian’s line each is given a date; but in reality, each was part of a process.

I estimate that we are in a process of a similar singularity. Singularities are disruptive. They are unpredictable. People who deny the changes can experience dramas and traumas. 

This time should be no different, and this time the change can be quicker, more significant, and even harder to predict. 

Pardon a random thought that I’ll pass along, but imagine if the technologies in those two news stories got crossed: a phalanx of humanoid sweepers literally cleaning up the place, and a bunch of severely limited but very observant vacuums. 

It already is an interesting year.