I write about AI and Geopolitics
Who Are the Invisible Dead? The Demographics of Incarceration and the People Behind the Uncounted Deaths A Companion Investigation to “The Invisible Dead” Bill Friend • February 13, 2026 Introduction In a companion investigation, “The Invisible Dead: Why the World Cannot—or Will Not—Count Its Prison Deaths,” we documented the global failure to track mortality behind … Read more
Why the World Cannot—or Will Not—Count Its Prison Deaths Bill Friend • February 12, 2026 Introduction Every year, thousands of people die behind bars around the world, yet the true number remains unknown. This is not because the question is unanswerable in principle, but because the incentives and infrastructure needed to count—and publish—are weak, fragmented, … Read more
Why We Struggle with Change, Why It Isn’t a Moral Failing, and Why the Empathy Gap May Be the Real Crisis Bill Friend February 10, 2026 “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms Introduction It is a widely observed phenomenon that people … Read more
Imagine if humanity received notice that a superior extraterrestrial intelligence was arriving in five years. We would unite immediately. We would pool resources. We would prepare.
But because we are building that intelligence ourselves, we are doing the opposite: fragmentation, secrecy, and zero-sum competition.
In ‘The Silicon Fulcrum,’ I argue that we are racing on a knife’s edge, dependent on a single island for the hardware that will power the most transformative event in human history. The window to fix this is closing.
The modern technological landscape presents a paradox: we possess the advanced artificial intelligence necessary to process and analyze massive data dumps almost instantly, yet few major players are willing to publicly deploy these tools on one of the most discussed document archives in recent history—the Epstein files. The hesitation is not due to a lack … Read more