mbgerring

8 ms·

1.
by mbgerring 4d ago
> although I doubt something else would be widespread in in just one decade.
2.
by mbgerring 5d ago
I know this is off topic, but I feel compelled to point this out — the transition away from fossil fuels is happening extremely fast, in punctuated bursts, in broad daylight, and you still get comments like this. And meanwhile, many putat
3.
by mbgerring 5d ago
Not in my lifetime!
4.
by mbgerring 5d ago
This is the missing context for NIMBYism. The legal mechanisms used to stall construction in San Francisco were created because of an explicitly racist plan to demolish people’s homes to build freeways. The people building datacenters shoul
5.
by mbgerring 5d ago
Really, you can’t? When the President and his party have been saying out loud for decades that they want to destroy the EPA?
6.
by mbgerring 5d ago
IMO, capitalism is itself an unaligned artificial intelligence, with its own logic and goals orthogonal to human life. All “ex risk” paranoia is a projection of sublimated anxiety about capitalism.
7.
by mbgerring 6d ago
This lost me at “the economy is composed of tasks” There’s so many assumptions packed into that assertion that tell you the horizon of possibility considered here is uselessly shallow.
8.
by mbgerring 9d ago
I was laid off as a senior product manager in December of 2025. I’ve been looking for a new job in clean energy (which is supposedly “having a moment” due to data centers) since then. There is no “jobs boom”. There are certainly job opening
9.
by mbgerring 10d ago
Yes, I do use the recursive autocomplete trained on Stack Overflow, what does this have to do with “training machines to love”? Do I fully endorse everything the people holding guns to my head are forcing me to do to stay alive? Definitely
10.
by mbgerring 10d ago
AGI is a cult and its Jonestown moment is inevitable
11.
by mbgerring 14d ago
I’ve encountered this same inability to think or count when people claim that the lifecycle emissions of solar panels or batteries wipe out any potential emissions savings from use. It’s easy to confuse people with big numbers!
12.
by mbgerring 21d ago
If you’re one of the people wondering why there’s an enormous backlash to AI, here’s your answer: “this thing we’re building is going to he fucking terrible and ruin your life. Please give us all your money to build it.”
13.
by mbgerring 22d ago
Are you being serious? Are you actually not aware that Elon Musk ran the federal government department tasked with cancelling federal grants and firing government employees in 2025? How is it possible that you are not aware of this?
14.
by mbgerring 22d ago
He personally ran the department that eviscerated funding for basic scientific research in the United States
15.
by mbgerring 29d ago
lol, is it, because last time I checked we’re currently losing a war badly, and we’re out of munitions
16.
by mbgerring 1mo ago
I don’t think it’s a messaging problem or a trust problem. I think it’s that the world AI boosters want to create is one that most people don’t want to live in. “You will be fundamentally without agency or purpose, and people you don’t like
17.
by mbgerring 1mo ago
So is it just that these are people who haven’t personally experienced well-intentioned technology turning into a living nightmare? Watching the optimism and then collapse of Web 2.0 was a formative experience for me. I’m 38. Is this just n
18.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
The only path forward is to get LSD into the water supply at Davos and put on a really scary play about Rokko’s Basilisk for all the money people, or else Sam Altman won’t be able to afford to repair his infinity pool
19.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
My partner and I both just got new jobs after a long period of unemployment. Neither of our new employers offer subsidized health insurance. We both have chronic conditions for which we need regular access to medication. The financial cliff
20.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
> It does sound like the property management company that owned the building might have been trying to get existing tenants to leave so they could renovate the building. And that's probably ultimately a good thing. Innocent children
21.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
It makes me feel like a crazy person seeing that “the government should fund basic R&D that broadly benefits industry” is a concept that so many people find confusing, hard to grasp, or even offensive. The government should fund AI rese
22.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
If AI optimists are correct, and AI can increase productivity across the board, tax revenues go up. Not rocket science.
23.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
I started feeling that way around the time ICE illegally broke, entered and ransacked a low-income housing building in Chicago, terrorizing residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Once I realized that fear of reprisal was
24.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
The people who sincerely believe that humans should be turned into mulch for the Computer God are “well meaning”? Say more
25.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
I cannot imagine wanting the product of the entire intellectual output of humanity since recorded history to be an expensive, paywalled commercial product owned by 5 or so of the most insufferable, detestable people who ever lived. Why woul
26.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
“The market rewards intelligent allocation” is such a straightforwardly false statement that I can’t believe anyone still says this with a straight face. The last ten years of the US economy have just been scam after scam after scam, and pe
27.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
Not surprising, a bunch of used EV batteries often end up in my underground workshop. They’re great for making portable battery packs.
28.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
The battery supply chain is moving away from NMC because of the myriad problems with nickel and cobalt and has been for a long time.
29.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
Yes, decarbonization necessarily means higher electricity consumption. Electrifying transportation, home heating, cooking, industrial processes, etc will mean an explosion of electricity demand. This means generating a lot more electricit
30.
by mbgerring 2mo ago
I’m going to tell you, as a person whose path went from journalism to activism to engineering in climate tech and climate justice: persuasion isn’t going to get the goods. Changing the reality on the ground through R&D and deployment mo

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