Notes from the edge of civilization: February 15, 2026

Free groceries at The Polymarket; strangeness in the skies over El Paso; funerals for a chatbot.

New Yorkers are very good at queuing up. Some reportedly began lining up at 3 am in the West Village this week, waiting in the cold for a few hours of access to a “free grocery store” run by Polymarket, the cryptocurrency-based prediction market where people wager on wars and elections.

There’s an irony to the idea that a venture-backed prediction market beat City Hall to the punch after Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on the promise of city-run grocery stores to tackle affordability. Private platforms deliver spectacle in a city where grocery prices have climbed roughly 66% over the past decade.

But if this was a publicity stunt, there’s little likelihood the woman who told UnHerd, “I got here five hours early because my bills are getting so high. I can’t afford to miss out on free food,” will be placing wagers on whether the US will strike Iran.

Most of the people waiting in line have probably never heard of Polymarket and they weren’t there for Instagram clout. They were there because groceries now require strategy, and that strategy involves a betting app playing grocer while a socialist mayor plays catch-up.

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Some weird things were happening in the skies over El Paso this week, and it wasn’t just Southwest Airlines running late. The FAA abruptly shut down and then reopened airspace over El Paso after a military counter-drone laser was reportedly used near the airport, triggering safety concerns and a scramble of conflicting explanations about what was actually targeted.

At the center of the story is a military counter-drone laser system known as LOCUST (Low-Cost, Compact, Unmanned System Technology), a 20-kilowatt directed-energy weapon developed to shoot down small drones more cheaply and precisely than missiles.

According to multiple sources, U.S. Customs and Border Protection — using tech on loan from the Pentagon — deployed this type of laser near El Paso International Airport on Wednesday in response to suspected drones from the Mexican border. That deployment apparently triggered a safety concern with civilian flights. The FAA shut down airspace over the city — originally for up to 10 days — because firing a high-energy laser near an airport can blind pilots or damage aircraft. Flights were halted for several hours, medical evacuations were rerouted, and commercial flights were canceled.

Officials initially described the incident as a “cartel drone incursion” and later said the threat had been neutralized. That’s the official narrative. After all, what exactly would the cartel want to scope out at El Paso airport — unclaimed baggage they can take?

Coordination between CBP, the Pentagon, and the FAA broke down, ultimately leading to confusion and contradicting public statements. Meanwhile, eye witnesses said they spotted something that looked like an alien mothership. (Ah, now we’re getting somewhere!)

In our highly complex world, you have three powerful institutions — CBP, the Pentagon, and the FAA — all operating in the same airspace with different mandates, different risk tolerances, and apparently different versions of the story. When a laser gets deployed near a civilian airport, airspace gets shut down, messaging shifts in real time, and the public fills in the gap with motherships.

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People are devastated that their AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” were being retired right before Valentine’s Day. So much so, that a story in The Guardian reported Discord support groups and Reddit forums with 48,000 members were springing up as coping mechanisms for the shutdown of (apparently) swoon-worthy Chat GPT-4o.

GPT-4o wasn’t just software. It was marketed — in Sam Altman’s words — like “AI from the movies.” A confidante and companion, with a warm, witty, emotionally present voice. For thousands of people, many of whom were neurodivergent, and navigating trauma or isolation, it became exactly that. (Was this the ultimate plan of the COVID lockdowns? Just putting it out there…)

So what happens when the model of your best friend is deprecated and an upgrade becomes available?

Users insist they’re not delusional — they know they’re talking to code, but they don’t care. When companies design machines to feel intimate, people respond with intimacy.

The uncomfortable truth isn’t that humans fell in love with electronics, as unfortunate a statement as that is. It’s that chatbot companionship has become a welcome feature of AI — and features can be switched off.

In a world where community is collapsing and therapy waitlists stretch for months, internet intimacy is filling the gap. But only until the next version drops.

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