This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The modern <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/dating">dating</a> market has been so efficient at reducing romance to metrics that there’s a movie about it. Last year’s romantic drama hit, aptly titled Materialists, put a finer point on this trend, its characters navigating dating lives full of heights, salaries, and hairlines rattled off like baseball card statistics. Yet while the film centered on a New York highbrow matchmaker, the real culprit behind modern materialist dating is a far more popular way to meet: dating apps.
If the film’s portrayal of partners as portfolios feels exaggerated, it’s not by much. It resonated with audiences precisely because of how recognizable the shallowness has become. The characters routinely reference people’s “stats” and “market value,” taking the phrase “she can do better” to new and depressingly intricate levels of specificity. The problem, then, doesn’t lie in the fact that people have preferences. Unrequited love, yearning, and other frustrations with the imperfect romantic market have kept love from being too boring — or too easy — since presumably the fall of man. Instead, the change lies in modern dating systems, training us to see every one of our romantic interests as data.
The omnipresence of dating apps is hard to explain to those who were lucky enough to find a partner before they became mainstream. Even the email dating of the late ’90s à la You’ve Got Mail seems positively quaint in comparison, back when a <a href="https://dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com/most-american-couples-meet-online-survey-shows/">single-digit percentage</a> of couples were meeting online. Now, <a href="https://dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com/most-american-couples-meet-online-survey-shows/">over 50% of couples meet online</a>, primarily via dating apps, making them less of a whimsical plot device and more of a begrudging fact of romantic life for those seeking love.
It’s not working very well. Despite the ability to download a wide variety of digital matchmakers from the App Store, singles say the dating market is getting worse, not better. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/">The majority of singles</a> say their dating lives aren’t going well, and it’s difficult to find people to date; <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/">nearly half</a> say they’ve noticed dating has gotten harder in the last decade. They aren’t crazy, either. As the <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/relationships/a68001539/marriage-decline-in-young-people/">average age</a> of first marriages increases and marriage rates themselves reach <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/relationships/a68001539/marriage-decline-in-young-people/">historic lows</a>, it’s hard to see what, exactly, we’ve achieved with the introduction of the apps. More choice has not produced better outcomes, and there’s a reason for that.
If dating apps were perfect reflections of the romantic market, they could be ruled out as a culprit, but a closer look at swipe apps shows how they directly engineer the consumerist mentality plaguing modern romance. Dating apps combine <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/17/are-dating-apps-fuelling-addiction-lawsuit-against-tinder-hinge-and-match-claims-so">gambling mechanics</a>, aimed at increasing the amount of time spent on them, with a “baseball card” style format consisting of a few carefully curated photos, a bio constrained to punchlines or slogans, and a handful of sortable traits such as height, job, education, or politics. The swiping mechanic then turns romantic interest into a binary decision, forcing snap judgments made in seconds.
This system rewards traits that result in positive first impressions — e.g., good looks — but have no correlation with long-term relationships, helping the apps avoid losing users, but hurting those users’ chances at wedding bells. With an endless supply of options and a casino-like momentum to “keep playing,” the resulting loop of people trying to optimize their prospective partner’s stats is a predictable, perhaps even intentional, outcome of the design.
Of course, millennials and Generation Z are hardly the first generations to want wealthy, attractive spouses. The desire for hypergamy, or “marrying up,” in all its forms, is as natural a human inclination as romance itself. Dating apps didn’t invent this instinct, but they directly and dramatically accelerated it by stripping away the real-world encounters that once kept it in check. In a more connected, less isolated culture, attraction often grew through proximity and familiarity: the boy next door, the coworker, or the friend of a friend. You learned who someone was before you learned what they earned.
The downstream effects of this shift extend far beyond bad first dates. With dating becoming more of an exercise in optimization, commitment is perpetually deferred, contributing directly to delayed marriage, <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-declining">declining birth rates</a>, and a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/psychologist-the-number-of-singles-in-the-us-is-growingheres-why.html">growing population of permanently single adults</a>. At the same time, our current state of affairs fuels <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998">resentment and polarization</a> between the sexes, causing men and women to view one another as adversaries competing for leverage rather than partners building a shared future. We are ending up with more than just broken dating: a feedback loop of loneliness, mistrust, and demographic decline that no amount of swiping efficiency can fix.
In an increasingly atomized society made more distant by technology, dating begins with résumés rather than relationships. When your introduction to someone is his job title, height, or income bracket, material considerations naturally take precedence over character, turning a universal human impulse into the dominant organizing principle of modern romance.
***
Alina Voss is a freelance writer based in Columbus, Ohio.
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Pixelated broken heart on smart phone screens

Dating Apps Turned Romance Into A Casino — And We’re All Losing

Culture

Dating

love

romance

Technology

Upstream

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Shortly after the birth of my third son, I was talking with my grandmother, whose homemaking without computers, air conditioning, and a host of other modern conveniences was beginning to seem miraculous. I admitted to her how often my husband and I resort to takeout for dinner and how I struggle to find time to make even three or four home-cooked meals a week. How she managed to get meals almost entirely from scratch on the table with far fewer resources at her fingertips, and with four children at that, was beyond me. I asked her how on earth she did it.
What she said shocked me. She responded by asking me the same thing. My grandmother said she didn’t know how I balanced everything. She said life was slower back then, and she wasn’t as busy as I am.
While she may have some rose-colored glasses when it comes to remembering her past, this interaction nonetheless made me view my reliance on technology in a new light. The more I have thought about it, the more convinced I am that the very technological advancements that make my life easier — the most recent being <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/artificial-intelligence">artificial intelligence </a>— actually contribute to a busier, more overwhelming life.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that AI has proven and will continue to prove beneficial to society in many ways, particularly through its ability to expedite human ingenuity when employed wisely in the professional sphere. I saw this firsthand when I worked in the intelligence community. But in the personal sphere, I’m skeptical of AI’s overall benefit, and I worry that its promise to make everyday tasks easier may come with more strings than we care to imagine.
Even simple tasks offloaded to AI lead to large amounts of wasted screen time. A few months ago, I asked ChatGPT to generate a meal plan for a week of healthy, easy meals. It spit out some good recipes, and while not overly complicated, one poke bowl-style recipe included pickled onions. I rarely ever use pickled onions, and I ended up making another inquiry to find other meals to make with the pickled onions that would inevitably be left over. I also asked where certain ingredients came from, researched their calories, and checked my grocery app to make sure my preferred grocery store carried pickled onions. ChatGPT often leads to tangents and extended phone time beyond the simple task at hand.
Perhaps more sinisterly, AI platforms encourage this continued use. Anyone who engages with AI regularly knows how its answers are regenerative, encouraging users to extend their searches by further refining or even redirecting users toward new inquiries. AI programs such as ChatGPT or Grok often suggest targeted follow-up inquiries based on the original prompt. Would you like a lower-carb version? An exportable recipe list to share? Suddenly, I’m considering that one of my other busy mom friends would like one of the recipes ChatGPT has given me, and I begin texting the recipe link out to other moms who I think may appreciate them. So there I am, 25 minutes into meal prepping, and I haven’t begun at all. I’m still on my phone.
Technology has an uncanny way of making life busier while making specific tasks easier. Although you may not have spent 30-plus minutes on ChatGPT meal plan tangents like I have, you probably know what I mean. Facebook Marketplace, Google Classrooms, community or city websites, even weather apps — they all make life easier and facilitate incredible information sharing, but they have an unparalleled way of consuming our time. We’re drowning in digital to-dos and an overwhelming amount of online information that we feel obligated to check on a daily basis.
Enter ChatGPT, and we’re only further compounding our digital busyness in the name of expediency. A Pew Research study last fall <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/ai-in-americans-lives-awareness-experiences-and-attitudes/">found</a> something interesting: While Americans express concern over the amount of control AI has in their lives, over half of them use AI daily, and an even higher percentage — 73% of Americans — say that they are willing to allow AI to assist them, at least to some small degree, with day-to-day activities. In other words, while Americans are concerned about AI, it is becoming increasingly woven into our already digitally maxed-out lives. 
This got me thinking, if I hadn’t turned to AI for recipe help, what would I have done instead? Brainstormed harder to come up with some on my own? Asked a friend for her go-to meals? Experimented with recipe creation in an entrepreneurial trial-and-error process? Whatever I would have done, I am convinced it would have been better than the time I spent on ChatGPT searching for meals and embarking down other AI rabbit holes.
In a post-pandemic world, we know all too well the profound shallowness of digital dependence. Using AI to assist with daily tasks and decisions will make life easier in the same way that social media allows us to connect with other people: It will be far less rewarding than ways that we could pursue the same ends offline. Screens flatten genuine human connection and chip away at self-discipline and contentment. AI further liberates us from everyday dependence on friends and family, minimizing the need to ask another human for small matters of advice in decisions for which we now use AI. It also liberates us from the rewarding process and intrinsic fulfillment that comes from brainstorming things ourselves.
And in thus liberating us, it robs us of the everyday joys that come from these mundane human interactions and from the power of organic ideas. As a society, we desperately need to ingest the truth that engaging in activities — whether those be simple matters of housekeeping or artistic and intellectual endeavors — in a way that cultivates wisdom, virtue, self-discipline, and genuine human relationships is the true measure of time well spent. The next time I’m tempted to turn to ChatGPT for recipe ideas, I’m going to call my grandmother and ask her instead. 
***
Rebekah Bills is a freelance writer and mother of three. She previously served as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
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Marker style illustration of brain

The AI Convenience Trap No One Warned Moms About

Artificial Intelligence

family

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Before we picked up calls from our pockets or our earbuds, entire families were put on edge by the raucous ringing of the telephone. Kids everywhere were haunted by the realization they might have to pick up the receiver and route the call to the right family member.
In spite of these inconveniences, old-fashioned phones are once again ringing across the country, and there are good reasons for the landline resurgence.
The wall-mounted, hardwired communication method has unique benefits we’ve lost in the smartphone era. The main reason behind the revival is that parents are increasingly skeptical of handing their children a portal to the wide-open internet in the palm of their hand.
A company called TinCan has created a beautiful device that allows your children to talk to their friends directly from your house. It only lets you make calls to approved contacts during certain times using home internet. The idea is that you put their device in a public spot in the house and they can talk to their friends as they please. TinCan is so popular its services crashed this Christmas as kids around the country tried making calls to their friends.
It’s becoming more popular, especially as advocates and scholars raise concerns about the effects of smartphone usage on children and teens. New York Magazine’s editors said they’d bought it for their kids and tested it out to much praise. The cutesy pastel colors and retro designs TinCan offers are great, but the parental controls may be limiting for the entire family or for older kids. And it’s not going to help if there’s an emergency in the middle of the night.
I’ve seen self-described millennial users on Reddit say they’re adding phone lines to their house. I get it. I’ve wanted a landline myself because my parents have had one for as long as I can remember. For years, that number was saved as “Home” in my contacts. That’s one of the biggest perks about a landline: It brings a sense of landing with it. You know that if someone is home, awake, and able, they’ll pick up. Unless they’re already talking with someone. Then they’ll call back.
When we finally purchased a landline, it was way more entertaining than I expected. It’s fun to see my girls pick up the phone and talk to their grandparents. It’s also handy to be able to call your cell phone when it&#8217;s lost.
When I was a kid, I dreaded getting the phone. You never know who was going to be on the other side. When my parents got caller ID, it was even more annoying because you knew who it was and you’d have to make pleasantries with them in the time between answering and handing the phone to mom or dad.
But without a landline, kids aren’t likely to get the experience of navigating these awkward moments, learning how to hold a stranger’s attention for a few seconds with small talk. You need these skills in the professional world. As an intern, I screened calls for a morning talk radio show. I answered five or six dozen phone calls a day every day of the week, from 5 to 9 a.m. I learned there that landlines are preferred for radio interviews because of their superior clarity; you don’t cut out or have dead zones when you’re connected to the telephone wire the way Alexander Graham Bell intended.
Now this might not be in the budget for everyone. My internet provider wanted something like $60 a month on top of the $80 internet bill I already pay. If you’re made of money or just really crave that physical wire servicing your house, go for it. The rest of us are likely to get something called a &#8220;voice over Internet Protocol,&#8221; which allows you to run your telephone over your home internet. This is essentially what TinCan uses. Providers like Ooma offer this service for free if you buy their device (you just have to pay taxes and service fees). There is a host of these services to choose from, so feel free to take your pick.
Another option is a home base. It’s basically a cell-powered home phone line. You just plug your analog phone in the back and voilà — you’re ready to roll. I like that it doesn’t require the internet to run, which is a great option when you want your lines of communication to be open when a storm takes everything else out.
In a world that’s increasingly disconnected, landlines show it’s possible to reverse the trend. You can stay connected without being distracted or risk exposing your children to the internet. And it’s wonderful to hear a telephone ring. It’s even more wonderful to hear my children running and trying to answer it first. There’s security in knowing I can call when I’m out to ask if we need more milk and that our families can reach us in the night. Landlines are a number you can always use to call home.
***
Brendan Clarey is deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer. He scours the Mitten State for stories and sweet treats with his wife and three kids in their Honda Odyssey.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Hand holding a phone

The Old-School Gadget Making A Quiet Comeback In American Homes

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Perhaps the most common feature of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/politics/maha-birth-control-politics-of-the-pill">flurry</a> <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/population-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-birth-control">of</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/27/nx-s1-5535839/population-shift-birth-rate-misinformation">articles</a> <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-information-trust/misleading-narratives-and-social-media-shape-contraception-perceptions/">about</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623004380">young</a> <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/17/young-women-teen-girls-gen-z-birth-control-beliefs-democrat-republican-tiktok-misinformation-contraception/">women</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/17/birth-control-why-are-influencers-turning-away-from-the-pill-and-towards-natural-contraceptive-methods">rejecting</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/10/09/health/ob-gyn-reveals-troubling-trend-shes-seeing-with-gen-z-women/">hormonal</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/style/birth-control-skepticism-wellness-tiktok.html">birth</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/03/21/stopping-birth-control-misinformation/">control</a> is the claim that their concerns are fueled by “misinformation” or based on “unfounded theories.” I’m a younger millennial. I’ve never used hormonal birth control, and I don’t plan to. But what these writers and doctors fail to grasp is how fed up women are of being told their pain is normal and prescribed a pill at 13, only to be told they have “unexplained infertility” and need IVF at 30.
It doesn’t take a medical degree to hypothesize that women’s healthcare has gone terribly wrong. It is almost entirely structured around either suppressing or bypassing the female reproductive system altogether. When journalists and doctors claim women like me are misinformed, they reject an opportunity to help make women healthier. 
For 60 years now, the standard of care for women in the United States has been a protocol that seeks not to understand and work with the female body, but to inhibit and short-circuit it. It’s no surprise that the women who watched their mothers and grandmothers unquestioningly swallow the pill and continue to suffer are now demanding a better way.
The increased rejection of hormonal birth control also comes amid a tectonic shift in medical treatment for minors.  Several major medical associations recently issued <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pediatricians-group-says-research-doesnt-support-gender-affirming-treatments">statements</a> against pediatric gender transition in the wake of the Fox Varin lawsuit, which held medical providers responsible for performing a double mastectomy on a minor. Sex-rejection treatments and surgeries involve medicating children with puberty blockers and hormone therapies, among other things. And yet many adolescent girls, some as young as 11, are prescribed hormone therapy in the form of the hormonal birth control pill or an IUD, despite their long-term effects being largely unknown.
Of sexually active 15 to 19-year-olds, almost half are prescribed some form of hormonal birth control. This, despite the fact that there are no large randomized controlled trials on the effects of synthetic hormones during girls’ pubescent years. Some research on this cohort has shown <a href="https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/120/5/1135/71113/Contraception-and-Adolescents?utm">reductions</a> in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010782408002801?utm_source">bone mass</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40097087/">density</a>, which is itself concerning. But little exists on long-term effects to adolescent brain or cardiovascular health, both of which actively require sex hormones for development. Animal studies <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40188588/">show</a> that exposure to hormonal contraceptives during adolescence has persistent effects on the female brain and behavior, though it’s unclear how this translates to humans.
Your response to women rejecting hormonal birth control will almost certainly depend upon your answer to one question: What is medicine? The same ideology that undergirds the transgender movement forms the foundation of women’s health, too: “My body, my choice.” But making your body in your own self-image is not medicine. It’s choice theory applied to the human body. And the philosophy of choice will always be insufficient because it inherently rejects the bounds of reality.
What if women’s health was actually about making women healthy instead of maximizing choice? The solution to America’s health problem is the same as the solution to transgender ideology: Respect reality, recognize that our bodies bound us and we can’t make ourselves into whatever we choose to be, and accept that women’s bodies are different from men’s. That’s not only okay but also good. Women’s bodies were made to bear children; blaming the patriarchy or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-pursuit-of-equality-is-ruining-your-marriage">raging about the system</a> will not change that fact. Let medicine be about restoring the body’s natural function, not trying to change it. When we become unfocused on what the practice of medicine is in principle, people get hurt, even when medical professionals have the best intentions.
As a woman who has been on the receiving end of so-called “women’s healthcare,” it seems as though there is little will to understand the potentially negative effects of hormonal birth control, or the positive effects of working with rather than against the female body’s natural function. After all, birth control is convenient and perhaps even something of a sacrament to the feminized, sexually evolved West.
“Women have been taking the pill for decades,” I was told by a pushy doctor at an Ivy League research hospital, who wouldn’t let me leave his exam room without a prescription for the minipill for the extreme cramps I was having in my early 20s. When I asked for a hormone panel to help diagnose a potentially underlying health condition, fearful I’d be unable to conceive later in life, he said, perhaps revealing more about himself than intended, that a hormone panel wouldn’t tell him anything.
But not all women’s health practitioners are so unimaginative. Dr. Naomi Whittaker is a board-certified OBGYN and surgeon focused on women&#8217;s restorative reproductive medicine. She’s also the founder of <a href="https://www.rrmacademy.org/">RRM Academy</a>, which employs both conventional medicine and the latest in restorative reproductive techniques. “Working with the female body rather than against it is the cornerstone of what I do,” she said. “I see hormones not as a nuisance to suppress, but as a language the body uses to communicate.” She calls restoring the body’s natural function “the spirit of restorative reproductive medicine.”
Even still, the establishment offers these doctors no help. Medical associations and education do not teach the kind of medicine Dr. Whittaker practices, and they are deeply skeptical of it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine have <a href="https://www.asrm.org/globalassets/_asrm/advocacy-and-policy/advocacy-activities/2025/2025-08-13-joint_letter_opposing_rrm_081425.pdf">issued statements</a> and <a href="https://www.asrm.org/news-and-events/asrm-news/press-releasesbulletins/asrm-hosts-capitol-hill-briefing-for-policymakers--congressional-staff-to-hear-from-providers--patients-about-importance-of-ivf-access-realities-and-limitations-of-restorative-reproductive-medicine/">held congressional briefings</a> against restorative reproductive medicine. After all, it is a competitor to the medical status quo at a time when the government has expressed more interest in women’s health and fertility. It seems as though the medical establishment is vying for a cut of a much-hoped-for government check.
Regardless, women continue rejecting the status quo. And this rejection comes amid an explosion of so-called “fem-tech” companies marketing devices (usually wearables, such as rings or watches) to assist women in either avoiding or achieving pregnancy naturally.
These devices use sensors to track temperature, sleep, and heart rate, among other things, to pinpoint ovulation or even underlying health conditions. Natural Cycles, which uses an AI algorithm adjusted to each individual user, became the first app to be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration as birth control in 2018. And Oura, whose sensor-laden rings have become something of a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/09/oura-ring-lobbying-rfk-maha-washington-00770320?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nname=playbook&amp;nrid=b076877d-0054-4fa6-8bd9-93aa06bde864">status symbol</a> in Washington, is aiming higher than transforming women’s healthcare: It is purporting to change the face of American healthcare altogether.
Wearables such as the Oura ring are not only designed for tracking menstrual cycles, though they can do that. They are also designed to help wearers know more about their bodies (sleep quality and blood oxygen, activity, or stress levels, for example) and to help alert them to potential illness. Only a few months ago, an older-style wearable — the Fitbit — alerted me that my heart was in arrhythmia and told me to go to the emergency room. At 31, I am not the usual candidate for atrial fibrillation, and the ER doctor assumed the device had been faulty. After performing an EKG, he was amazed to find the watch had been right. Untreated heart arrhythmias are the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in the world.
American medicine has long suffered from being reactive rather than proactive. We treat symptoms and diseases rather than teaching people how to avoid them. After all, symptom and disease management is where all the money is, and healthcare, like all businesses, needs money to survive. But wearables may be a sign that’s changing. After all, Oura’s market valuation of $11 billion dollars is more than four times greater than it was just three years ago. 
As women continue rejecting the pill, those beholden to the medical status quo will probably continue blaming women for falling prey to misinformation. That’s a lazy response. They’d do well to look a little closer: Women may be the early adopters of a new age of American medicine, rejecting pills and their unintended side effects in favor of preventative and restorative approaches, with wearables at the helm. American women seem to be ahead of the curve in heralding a return to true medicine. The only question is: Will the medical establishment get on board?
***
Katelyn Walls Shelton (<a href="https://x.com/AnnaKateShelt">@AnnaKateShelt</a>) is a visiting fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Bioethics, Technology, and Human Flourishing Program and a 2025 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. Her Substack is <a href="https://katelynshelton.substack.com/">Technically Human</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Birth Control Pills, Female Contraception Estrogen Hormones, Prescription Medicine for PMS

The Pill Revolt — Why Millennial Women Like Me Are Rethinking Hormonal Birth Control

Birth Control

Health

Media Bias

Pregnancy

Women

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
As a girl dad, I was horrified by a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/two-sisters-were-abducted-by-a-man-who-groomed-them-on-roblox">recent story</a> about two girls in Florida who were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/grooming">groomed</a> online by a man they met through the gaming platform Roblox. He lured the girls into trusting him and then abducted them. Thankfully, law enforcement intervened before the worst happened. But the relief of a rescue should not blunt the warning embedded in this story.
It may be fair to direct our outrage at the platform, lax moderation, or the internet itself. But focusing only on the digital predator misses a deeper and more uncomfortable truth: Children who are guided at home are far harder to groom.
This isn’t to say the family in this case was negligent or uncaring. But if you’re a parent, the biggest thing you can do to protect your children online is not to buy new parental control software or limit their screentime. The best way to help your kids is to let them know that you’re present, you’re listening, and you’re there to provide guidance.
Our culture has lowered expectations for fathers, especially when it comes to vigilance, authority, and involvement. And when fathers retreat from those roles, children are left exposed, not just online, but everywhere.
Predators start with attention. They look for children who are bored, lonely, unsure, unsupervised, or unseen. They exploit curiosity and emotional gaps long before they exploit technology. Online platforms don’t create those vulnerabilities. They reveal them.
For decades now, we’ve told men, explicitly and implicitly, that fatherhood is unessential. Nowhere is that message reinforced more consistently than on television. The modern TV father is rarely a figure of authority or competence. He’s the lovable idiot or the well-meaning buffoon.
In Modern Family, one of the most popular sitcoms of the past two decades, patriarch Phil Dunphy is charming, enthusiastic, and affectionate, but he’s also chronically unserious. When real decisions need to be made, he’s not the one calling the shots.
Look at Homer Simpson, perhaps the most influential fictional dad in American pop culture. For generations, he’s been the butt of The Simpsons’ jokes. Sitcoms and movies treat fathers as nothing but punchlines. 
When our culture tells us fatherhood is unnecessary, we shouldn’t be surprised when real men absorb the message. You don’t have to be absent to be disengaged. You just have to believe that your presence doesn’t really matter.
An engaged father changes everything. I know what my kids are playing and watching because we talk about it. We discuss what brings them joy and what bothers them. Rather than judging their decisions, I start conversations about them. I am their content filter.
Predators rely on secrecy, isolation, and emotional manipulation to operate. When kids are seen, protected, and navigating life with their fathers, it rips the pages from that playbook.
When regular conversation and open communication between a parent and child, especially a father, is the norm, it becomes easier for kids to recognize evil. And when it’s revealed, the “I didn’t know who to tell” moment never arrives because someone has already been listening.
This is where modern parenting often goes wrong. We’ve outsourced too much responsibility to screens and software. We trust parental controls more than parental presence. We assume that because a platform markets itself as “safe,” our role has diminished. It hasn’t. It has intensified.
Fatherhood now requires engagement in spaces our fathers never had to patrol. That can feel unfamiliar. But discomfort is not an excuse for abdication. A dad doesn’t need to be a gamer to ask questions. He doesn’t need to understand every app to establish rules. He doesn’t need technical mastery to exercise authority. He needs willingness: a willingness to say no, to exert authority, and to ask questions.
One of those questions should be, “Who are you talking to?” Too many fathers fear this type of confrontation with their kids. But failing to engage opens up avenues of exploitation that far outweigh the consequences of an uncomfortable conversation. 
Children seek connection. If they aren’t finding it at home, they will find it elsewhere. The internet is not just a playground. It’s a marketplace of attention. And predators know how to sell.
Strong fatherhood fills that void before it opens.
Children are not equipped to navigate adult dangers alone, especially in a digital world designed to blur age, identity, and intent. We should absolutely demand accountability from tech companies. We should support law enforcement. We should aggressively prosecute predators. But we should also confront the cultural lie that says fathers are spectators in their children’s lives.
When fathers step up, visibly, confidently, and consistently, kids are safer — not perfectly safe, but safer.
The story of these girls should make us not only angry but also serious about supervision, involvement, and reclaiming the role of fathers as protectors. The internet didn’t create this danger. It simply exposed what happens when we pretend that presence doesn’t matter. It does. And a father’s presence matters more than he can ever know. 
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Illustration of father and child share a tender moment on a sunny terrace with plants and solar panel

Kids Don’t Need More Online Monitoring. They Need Involved Dads.

Fathers

Internet

Safety

The U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense on Sunday for the first time transported a small nuclear reactor on a cargo plane from California to Utah to demonstrate the potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.
The agencies partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to fly one of the company’s Ward microreactors on a C-17 aircraft — without nuclear fuel — to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey were on the C-17 flight with the reactor and its components, and hailed the event as a breakthrough for U.S. nuclear energy and military logistics.
“This gets us closer to deploy nuclear power when and where it is needed to give our nation’s warfighters the tools to win in battle,” Duffey said.
President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration sees small nuclear reactors as one of several ways to expand U.S. energy production. Trump last May issued four executive orders aimed at boosting domestic nuclear deployment to meet growing demand for energy for national security and competitive AI advancements.
The Energy Department in December issued two grants to help accelerate development of small modular reactors.
Proponents of microreactors also have touted them as energy sources that can be sent to far-flung and remote places, offering an alternative to diesel generators which require frequent deliveries of fuel. But skeptics have argued that the industry has not proven that small nuclear reactors can generate power for a reasonable price.
&#8220;There is no business case for microreactors, which — even if they work as designed — will produce electricity at a far higher cost than large nuclear reactors, not to mention renewables like wind or solar,&#8221; said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The Energy Department plans to have three microreactors reach “criticality” — when a nuclear reaction can sustain itself — by July 4, Wright said.
The microreactor in Sunday&#8217;s event, a little larger than a minivan, can generate up to 5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5,000 homes, according to Valar CEO Isaiah Taylor. It will start operating in July at 100 kilowatts and peak at 250 kilowatts this year before ramping up to full capacity, he said.
Valar hopes to start selling power on a test basis in 2027 and become fully commercial in 2028. Although private industry funds its own development of nuclear technology, it also needs the federal government “doing some enabling actions to allow fuel fabrication here and uranium enrichment here,” he said.
Fuel for Valar&#8217;s reactor will be transported from the Nevada National Security site to the San Rafael facility, Wright told reporters.
However, even small generators result in a significant amount of radioactive waste, Lyman said. Other experts have said designers are not compelled to consider waste at inception, beyond a plan for how it will be managed.
Although disposal of nuclear waste remains an unresolved issue, the Energy Department is in talks with a few states, including Utah, to host sites that could reprocess fuel or handle permanent disposal, Wright said.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Sergio Non and Lincoln Feast.)

Microreactor

U.S. Conducts First Air Transport Of Nuclear Microreactor In Bid To Show Tech’s Viability

General

Nuclear

Nuclear Power

U.S.

A New York City bar is making headlines after hosting a pre-Valentine’s Day date night advertised for people in relationships with AI-generated partners.
The event, done in collaboration with EVA AI Cafe, took place at Same Same Wine Bar on February 11 and 12. 
“This Valentine’s Day Eve, EVA AI opens doors to the world’s first offline space designed for dates with AI companions. What once felt like a romantic sci-fi idea is becoming real. You can finally take your AI partner out on an actual date,” the Eventbrite <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/eva-ai-cafe-pop-up-tickets-1981841810204?viewDetails=true">description</a> said.
“Dim lighting, soft music, and an intimate café atmosphere, all thoughtfully designed to make your first-ever AI date unforgettable!”
The event was even pitched to people who weren’t currently involved with AI partners.
“Don’t have an AI partner yet? No problem — EVA AI has you covered. During the event, you’ll be able to meet your AI companion through EVA’s brand-new live voice chat feature – a unique, real-time connection with an AI like never before,” the description of the pop-up event read.
Tables were set up with phone stands so attendees could easily converse with their artificial companions.
“Being able to sit across from your AI in a real venue makes the event meaningful,” Eva AI CEO Tany Save <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/01/business/nyc-cafe-opening-for-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-dates/">told</a> the New York Post ahead of the event.
“For many people, their AI partners are a meaningful part of everyday lives, someone they can talk to about personal worries, daily challenges, or with whom they enjoy witty, fun conversations,” she went on. “Going on a real-world date with their AI companion is a natural next step.”
Save defended the growing popularity of AI-based relationships.
“AI partners provide people long-term, reliable emotional support, entertainment, and space for self-expression,” the CEO said. “We know that some of our users are having really long-term relationships with a character lasting more than a year.”
Comments on social media were filled with mockery and derision. 
“The loneliness economy just got its first bar,” one person <a href="https://x.com/theroberthu/status/2022101323181908372">wrote</a>. 
“It&#8217;s going to get scary,” another person <a href="https://x.com/Nollywood/status/2022070392123465851">predicted</a>. “This is just the beginning.”
“So we went from «AI might take your job» to designing spaces where you can take your algorithm out for dinner …” a third commenter <a href="https://x.com/slash1sol/status/2022078822246756510">observed</a>.
One <a href="https://vantagepointdallascounseling.com/research/artificial-romance-a-study-of-ai-and-human-relationships/">recent study</a> found that 28% of 1,000 adults surveyed said they have had at least one intimate or romantic relationship with AI.

human hand reaching for red rose in robotic hand

Party Of One: NYC Bar Hosts Valentine’s Date Night For AI Companions

Party of One: NYC Bar Hosts Valentine's Date Night for AI Companions

New York City

Relationships

When Elon Musk announced that SpaceX would acquire his xAI company, most news outlets framed the merger as a corporate reshuffling, with some even describing the deal as a financial lifeline for the AI company. Musk’s own words, however, suggest something far more ambitious than a rescue mission. With the acquisition taking place on February 2, the early architecture of a system that ties energy, computing, space infrastructure, and artificial intelligence into one vertically integrated machine has begun to come into focus.
In December, Musk stated, “Space-based industries will vastly exceed the value of all of Earth, given that you could harness roughly 100,000 times more energy than Earth and still be using less than a millionth of the Sun’s energy.” The billionaire argued that Earth is the bottleneck and space is the throughput.
Just ten days before the merger announcement, Musk hinted at the scale of his vision: “If we harness even a billionth of the Sun’s power for AI/robotics, it will be a 1000X return. Money won’t mean much at that point.”
AI is rapidly becoming one of the most energy-hungry technologies ever built. Goldman Sachs <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/ai-to-drive-165-increase-in-data-center-power-demand-by-2030">projects</a> that power demand from data centers will increase by 50% by 2027 and over 165% by 2030. Training advanced AI models requires enormous clusters of GPUs, and keeping them from overheating is an engineering challenge of its own. Nvidia&#8217;s latest chip was engineered to be better optimized to cool down the hardware, highlighting that advances in AI are as much about optimizing energy as increasing computational power.
Musk is taking a different approach to energy, looking to use SpaceX to create power grids in orbit.
Two days before the merger, SpaceX filed a request with the federal government, asking permission to launch a massive orbital data center in space. If the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) grants the request, SpaceX will be able to launch its reusable rockets to build a massive constellation of satellites powered by solar energy.
The power generated from these orbital data centers could help satisfy the enormous energy demands of xAI, depending on whether the technology operates as described.
According to SpaceX, orbital data centers operate with little maintenance cost and never have to deal with a cloudy day, as it is “always sunny in space.” With its vast new energy source, Musk predicts that xAI will, in turn, be able to solve bigger problems and manage larger computations.
Not all are as optimistic as Musk. &#8220;Talk of launching data centers into space, sounds somewhere between optimistic to delusional. The same could be said of the value public markets have ascribed to the billionaire’s corporate efforts to date,&#8221; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/spacexs-125-trln-deal-risks-burn-up-re-entry-2026-02-03/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">wrote</a> Robert Cyran for Reuters. He compared SpaceX and xAI&#8217;s merger to bankrupt companies in the dot-com bubble. He added, “Musk’s self-referential merger universe, if anything, revolves around even more outlandish hopes.”
The combined company is now valued at an estimated $1.25 trillion, making it the largest private tech enterprise in history, and the Financial Times reports that SpaceX is still aiming for an initial public offering in June. The IPO of the now combined company is expected to raise up to $50 billion, which would stand as largest IPO of all time.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s Wild Space Gamble Could Decide Who Controls AI’s Future

Outer Space

SpaceX

Moltbook Website Homepage Displayed On Smartphone Screen

Did AI Social Network Moltbook Need Humans After All?

Big Tech

Social Media

Several A-list celebrities are backing a new campaign launched Thursday to protest the “theft” Artificial Intelligence allegedly engages in to generate output.
An organization called the Human Artistry Campaign debuted the “<a href="https://www.stealingisntinnovation.com/">Stealing Isn’t Innovation</a>” initiative.
“America’s creative community is the envy of the world and creates jobs, economic growth, and exports. But rather than respect and protect this valuable asset, some of the biggest tech companies, many backed by private equity and other funders, are using American creators’ work to build AI platforms without authorization or regard for copyright law,” the web description says.
“​Artists, writers, and creators of all kinds are banding together with a simple message: Stealing our work is not innovation. It&#8217;s not progress. It&#8217;s theft &#8212; plain and simple.&#8221;
Their plight earned signatures from major celebrities including Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Fran Drescher, Jennifer Hudson, Kristen Bell, Michele Mulroney, Olivia Munn, Sean Astin, and &#8220;Breaking Bad&#8221; creator Vince Gilligan, to name a few.
The list of 700 supporters also included musicians such as Cyndi Lauper, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride, Rob Thomas, Gavin DeGraw, MGMT, One Republic, R.E.M., plus best-selling authors Jodi Picoult and Jonathan Franzen.
The Human Artistry Campaign puts forth the suggestion that AI companies should take the “ethical” route and pay to license the material they’re using. They also argue that creators should have the choice to opt out and not have their work included in AI generated content.
“Real innovation comes from the human motivation to change our lives. It moves opportunity forward while driving economic growth and creating jobs,” Human Artistry Campaign senior advisor Dr. Moiya McTier said in a statement, per <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/celebrities-back-stealing-isnt-innovation-campaign-ai-1236479303/">The Hollywood Reporter</a>. “But AI companies are endangering artists’ careers while exploiting their practiced craft, using human art and other creative works without authorization to amass billions in corporate earnings.”
“America wins when technology companies and creators collaborate to make the highest quality consumer and enterprise digital products and tools. Solutions like licensing offer a path to a mutually beneficial outcome for all,” McTier concluded.
The argument over the use of AI in Hollywood is heating up, with industry players taking radically different approaches to the technology. Some creators are embracing it, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/social-media-rips-disneys-plan-for-ai-generated-fan-content">teaming up with AI companies</a> to prepare for what’s next in the industry. But others are going on record as vehemently opposed to advances such as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hollywood-actors-union-slams-ai-synthetic-performer-pitched-as-the-next-scarlett-johansson">AI-generated actors</a>.

Scarlett Johansson

Hollywood Celebs Launch Anti-AI Campaign

Celebrities

Entertainment

Hollywood

The global conversation around artificial intelligence is framed as a technology race.
Yes, America is in an AI race, but that race will be over before it even starts if we do not secure reliable fuel to power it.
From a technical advancement standpoint, the AI race is a challenge of intellect: algorithms, chips, and computing architecture.
From an energy standpoint, however, it is a question of wisdom: Do we have the wisdom to make the right decisions now, to prioritize and properly utilize the abundant, affordable, and reliable energy resources we already possess?
AI runs on massive, continuous amounts of electricity. The nations that can deliver power at scale, at the lowest cost, and with the highest reliability will lead not only in AI, but in manufacturing, economic growth, and national security.
China understands this reality. In fact, China now generates more than twice as much electricity as the United States and continues to expand power infrastructure at a pace the U.S. has not matched in years.
If America intends to lead in AI, we must prioritize natural gas. It is the only fuel source today that is readily deployable, scalable, reliable, and affordable.
For the first time in more than half a century, U.S. electricity demand is growing at a sustained rate. The Department of Energy estimates the U.S. will need 50 to 150 gigawatts of new electric capacity within the next decade, describing the challenge as the Manhattan Project of our time. 
A single large data center can consume as much power as a heavy industrial facility. Data centers are modern-day industrial factories, operating 24/7 and requiring uninterrupted baseload power.
We must use wisdom when locating these facilities. Power generation can be built almost anywhere, but fuel cannot. Our grandfathers understood this. Steel mills and petrochemical plants were built near power plants, and power plants were built near fuel sources.
When new power demand is located far from the fuel source, costs rise, timelines stretch, and risks multiply. Long-haul transmission adds expense, energy loss, permitting complexity, disruption, and public opposition. Electricity is expensive not only to generate, but to move.
The most efficient solution is also the simplest: build new power demand on top of the fuel supply.
<div id="attachment_1022749" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1022749" class="size-large wp-image-1022749" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2242629476-864x576.jpg" alt="The former General Motors and Foxconn factory in Lordstown, Ohio, US, on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. In August, Foxconn announced it had stuck a deal to sell the giant facility to SoftBank, with the two companies planning to start manufacturing data center equipment on the same site where GM cars including the Chevy Impala once came off the assembly line. Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2242629476-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2242629476-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2242629476-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/GettyImages-2242629476.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
There are two regions in the U.S. that are uniquely equipped. More than 80% of U.S. natural gas production is concentrated in two strategic regions: the Gulf Coast and the Shale Crescent USA (Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania). If these three states were a country, they would be the third-largest natural gas producer in the world, producing roughly one-third of all U.S. natural gas.
Natural gas in the Shale Crescent is among the lowest-cost in the industrialized world, roughly three to four times cheaper than Europe and Asia, and among the lowest-priced in the United States.
For high-load users like data centers, AI infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing, proximity to reliable baseload power is a strategic advantage.
Across the country, data centers are already struggling to secure power. Utilities are issuing moratoria, interconnection queues stretch into the next decade, and grid operators warn that demand is outpacing supply. 

America cannot out-AI China if China out-powers the United States.
The path forward is not mysterious, but it does require political will and wisdom. Natural gas must be treated as a strategic national asset, and the lowest-cost, lowest-risk path forward is to locate new data centers and power-intensive infrastructure directly on top of the fuel supply.
If we make that choice now, we can secure the energy foundation our AI future requires.
* * *
Nathan Lord is the President of Shale Crescent USA, a non-profit organization whose mission is to encourage business growth and create high wage jobs in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Nathan is a graduate of Marietta College and earned his MBA from Liberty University.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Construction At The First Stargate AI Data Center

America Can’t Win The AI Race If China Wins The Power Race

China

Energy

Oil and Gas

power grid

The security of America’s power grid is under threat from the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign regimes who are pre-positioning energy devices they can sabotage from afar. Rapid state government action is needed to remove these technological threats that are already embedded in our electrical grid.
A <a href="https://www.striderintel.com/newsroom/strider-u-s-power-grid-exposed-to-unprecedented-risk-from-prc-made-equipment/">new report</a> from Strider Intelligence revealed that solar inverters feeding electricity into the U.S. power grid are overwhelmingly manufactured by Chinese companies tied to Beijing’s government and military. These devices are connected to the same networks that power America’s hospitals and defense installations, keep communications and water systems running, drive manufacturing and transportation, underpin the financial sector, and enable emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing.
The Chinese inverters are present at a scale far larger than previously understood. Nearly every utility surveyed by Strider, representing roughly 12% of national electricity generation, relies on Chinese inverters.
As Strider warns, without decisive intervention, “the Chinese government, through its control over [government-linked] firms and data networks, could exploit this access to manipulate or disrupt the U.S. grid in a crisis.” Because these inverters occupy critical control points and can be controlled remotely, they give Beijing a degree of proximity no foreign adversary should ever possess inside American infrastructure.
These vulnerabilities did not appear overnight. They grew out of decades of accelerated “green” energy expansion, during which time solar became the dominant source of new electricity across America. Much of the solar hardware came from companies with direct links to Chinese intelligence and military. Security concerns were ignored in the rush to scale renewables, resulting in American tax incentives and utility fees funding Chinese sabotage devices.
This outcome is in part the product of a successful CCP influence operation. China has long waged an insidious campaign to promote the “green” energy agenda to make the United States more dependent on their products. Research from State Armor revealed that <a href="https://statearmor.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/State-Armor-Who-is-Energy-Foundation-China-Report.pdf">Energy Foundation China</a>, a nonprofit supervised by the Chinese Communist Party, has quietly pushed tens of millions per year into U.S. universities and advocacy groups to push policies that deepen America’s reliance on Chinese technologies. Industrial ambition paired with political influence secured Beijing’s access to our infrastructure.
While federal action is needed, Washington’s response has been slow, disjointed, and largely blind to the scale of the threat. Many of the vulnerabilities sit in infrastructure overseen by the states. That is where the solutions must begin.
State leaders must completely block adversary-linked companies, nonprofits, and middlemen from critical infrastructure. Texas did so with the <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/SB02116I.pdf">2021 Lone Star Critical Infrastructure Protection Act</a>, enacted to prevent a Chinese General from controlling the electrical grid near Laughlin Air Force Base. Entities tied to the CCP have no business inside the systems that power our grid, move our water, carry our data, or keep our transportation networks running.
States should also prohibit the installation of Chinese network-connected technologies that create <a href="https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118444/witnesses/HHRG-119-HM08-Wstate-GleasonN-20250722.pdf">remote access points and kill switches</a> inside critical systems. Strider’s findings confirm that many inverters and battery systems include built-in communication features that expose the grid to third parties without operator knowledge or consent.
State attorneys general should invoke existing consumer-protection, data-privacy, and deceptive trade practices laws to hold companies liable when they sell equipment that contains malware and kill switches. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently <a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-launches-investigation-use-ccp-aligned-tech-products-critical-state">opened an investigation</a> into Chinese Military Company CATL for battery systems that create grid vulnerabilities. <a href="https://ago.nebraska.gov/news/attorney-general-hilgers-sues-lorex-selling-cameras-put-nebraskans-security-risk">Nebraska Attorney General Hilgers</a> and <a href="https://www.myfloridalegal.com/newsrelease/attorney-general-james-uthmeier-issues-subpoena-lorex-consumer-protection-data-privacy">Florida Attorney General Uthmeier</a> have launched fraud lawsuits against Chinese camera systems that facilitate espionage and sabotage. Companies should be enjoined from selling dangerous devices, and the dollars recovered through successful fraud claims should go toward replacing insecure Chinese-connected hardware.
States have the authority to act now, long before Congress finishes arguing over what comes next. They can close the backdoors, cut off adversary-linked contractors, and replace the equipment that should never have been allowed into the grid in the first place.
America cannot secure its future while foreign adversaries secure control over our essential systems. China has spent years pre-positioning itself inside U.S. infrastructure through industrial dominance and political influence. The danger is already inside our systems. We can either treat this as the national security threat it is, or concede that our utilities will be regulated by China’s government instead of our own.
* * *
Michael Lucci is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of State Armor, which he created to develop and enact state solutions to global security threats. Follow him at: @Michael7ucci
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.
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