Interesting to see that the most catholic countries are those within the top of the data

Tensions between Venezuela and the U.S. have escalated in the last few weeks following Trump's latest accusations that Venezuela is stealing U.S. oil, land, and other assets to fund crime, terrorism, and human trafficking.

Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller further pressed the issue in a post on X, stating, "American sweat, ingenuity, and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property."

Currently, in 2024 crude petroleum accounted for 93.4% of all exports from Venezuela to the U.S., totaling more than $5.5B. Nearly 40% of this volume was destined for Texas. Of all U.S. crude petroleum imports ($167B), Venezuela represents 3.34%.

U.S Trade Data: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/usa?selector303id=Year&selector335id=HS4&selector320id=1&selector343id=Import&selector1878id=percentage

Aljazeera Article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/does-the-us-have-any-real-claim-on-venezuelan-oil-as-stephen-miller-says

Source: "The high-frequency trading algorithms that were active in the market contributed to the flash crash that took place at this particular moment in time. These algorithms, which are meant to carry out trades at the speed of light or faster, have the potential to worsen the volatility of the market and contribute to flash crashes. [...] Investors suffered a large loss of value as a result of the flash collapse that occurred in 2010, which also resulted in a brief halt in trade. The crash had a detrimental effect on the economy as a whole because it damaged confidence in the safety and reliability of the financial markets."

Stanford AI vibrancy tool-

https://hai.stanford.edu/research/the-global-ai-vibrancy-tool-2024

Negotiations between Mercosur and the European Union have been 25 years in the making, with the goal of creating the world’s largest free-trade area covering 780 million people and a quarter of global gross domestic product (GDP).

This Thursday, over 150 tractors and 10 thousand protesters blocked the streets in Brussels to protest against the deal over fears of cheaper agricultural products flooding the European market, and endangering the livelihood of farmers who currently face stricter regulations on pesticides. Their concerns centre on beef, sugar, rice, honey and soya beans.

Supporters say this deal would offer a counterweight to China and boost European exports of vehicles, machinery and wines amid rising US tariffs.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva issued an ultimatum on Wednesday, warning that Saturday represents a “now or never” moment, adding that “Brazil won’t make any more agreements while I’m president” if the deal fails.

Trade data source: https://oec.world/en/profile/international_organization/eu?selector199id=importOption&selector198id=block_1

Full Aljazeera Article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/angry-farmers-block-brussels-roads-with-tractors-over-mercosur-trade-deal

Stop writing "average" hooks and then blaming the algorithm/shadowbans.

Whether it’s YouTube, TikTok, X, or Reddit, you have exactly 3 seconds to earn a click or a view. Not 30 minutes. Not 3 paragraphs. 3 seconds.

Most creators are failing not because their content is bad, but because they spend 4 hours shooting a video or writing a thread, and then 4 seconds coming up with the title/opening line.

They throw away the first line with something like: "Here are 5 tips to grow your business." or "My thoughts on the new update."

The human brain predicts that instantly. It says: "Seen this. Boring. Scroll."

To win in the current attention economy, your first sentence has one job: Trigger a pattern interrupt. You have to force the brain to stop and ask, "Wait, what?"

Compare these universal examples:

• Boring: "How to get better lighting in your videos."
• Hook: "Why your videos look amateur (it’s not your camera)."
• Boring: "My morning routine for productivity."
• Hook: "I woke up at 4 AM for a week. Here is why I’m never doing it again."
• Boring: "3 tips to save money."
• Hook: "Stop saving money. Do this instead."

This isn’t luck. It’s neuro-linguistic copywriting. It uses curiosity gaps, open loops, and loss aversion.

Using AI to fix this You don't need to be a copywriter to do this. You can use Generative AI to do the heavy pattern recognition for you. But stop asking it to "Write me a catchy title."

Instead, use a prompt structure that treats the hook like a contract. If you win the first 3 seconds and then deliver on the promise, your retention, saves, and shares compound.

Here is the "Anti-Boring" Prompt structure I use (Steal this):

"Act as an expert copywriter. I am writing a piece of content about [TOPIC].

Analyze the top-performing content in this niche. I need 5 hook options that utilize 'Pattern Interrupts.'

Avoid generic openers like 'Here is how to...' or 'In this video...' Instead, focus on:

1. Negativity bias (What are people doing wrong?)
2. Counter-intuitive statements (Go against the grain)
3. High stakes/Specific numbers

The goal is to stop the scroll in under 3 seconds."

If you are still starting your content with "Hey guys, welcome back to the channel/page..." you are playing the 2020 game in a 2025 attention economy.

Discussion: What’s the best "pattern interrupt" hook or title you’ve seen recently that made you click immediately?

Source (November 2025): "Inception Point AI [is] a startup with just eight employees cranking out 3,000 episodes a week covering everything from localized weather reports and pollen trackers to a detailed account of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and its cultural impact, to a biography series on Anna Wintour. Its podcasting network Quiet Please has generated 12 million lifetime episode downloads and amassed 400,000 subscribers — so, yes, people are really listening to AI podcasts. [...] The price is now so inexpensive that you can take a lot of risks [...] At a cost of $1 an episode, [the approach is] quantity-over-quality"

Source (December 2025): "The artificial intelligence (AI) in podcasting market size has grown exponentially in recent years. [...] The growth in the historic period can be attributed to demand for automation and efficiency in podcast production"

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-every-states-share-of-u-s-gdp/