TheESP – Ep. #512 – Never Lend Things to a Babylonian

Welcome to the new year! Obviously we start with some reflections on 2025 and we also give a shout-out to Haley Stevens and her article about Wikipedia in the Skeptic UK. In TWISH we learn that the practice of New Year’s resolutions is ancient although each resolution seldom lasts longer than a week or two. Then we look into the news for this week: INTERNATIONAL: Five lessons from fact checking in 2025 ITALY: Lega only party refusing to agree not to use deepfake to attack political opponents SWEDEN: Fact check: How Sweden uses imported trash to produce electricity and heat homes INTERNATIONAL: Review of Autism Therapies finds they don’t hold up UK: Robin Ince quits The Infinite Monkey Cage UK: Use of AI for emotional support alarmingly widespread The EU Chat Control 2.0 regulation is meant to prevent the spread of child abuse material but gets the Really Wrong Award for being ineffective and because it would have very serious effects on integrity. It’s a well meaning by bad idea. Enjoy! https://theesp.eu/podcast_archive/theesp-ep-512.html Segments: 0:00:27 Intro 0:00:51 Greetings 0:22:32 TWISH 0:27:56 News 0:59:16 Really Wrong 1:02:39 Quote 1:05:02 Outro 1:06:25 Outtakes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.