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2 yr. ago

  • I thought I found something earlier that alluded to it, but Lemmys on my phone and doing any real research is always annoying on it. I can try to find something. I know they do release very significant amounts of wastewater though. But whether that’s all back on public utilities or how it’s but back in the ground is unclear. I’ll see I can find anything specific.

  • But combine that with someone dumping thousands of gallons of wastewater into the ground basically across the street and weirder things are going to happen.

    EDIT: Yeah, I don't think they are dumping water into the ground. Scratch that out. These datacenters DO use lots of water, as in millions of gallons per day, the concern there is more about how the public utilities and incentives were structured. [Quote for millions comes from Kate Crawford's Atlas of AI book, but the link was the the first data I could source, which looks less than that.]

    I'm now thinking this article may be more about the person not liking the datacenter than it specifically affecting the well. Could construction cause some extra sediment to clog up the well intake? Seems likely.

  • In the south it’s also more common to either not have a garage at all or have a carport instead of an enclosed garage. It’s just easier to leave your car or vehicle (tractor) out anyway. Combine that with, I need to sell this or work on it at some point, you park it in your yard and will get around to it someday. Or maybe your cousin might need it one day so you’ll keep it. It’s a bit of an ingrained impoverished idea that you “might need it someday” attitude.

    I’m also staying with family that are regularly using tractors pushing 60? 70? Years. I’m not even sure how old they are, but it takes a bunch of parts and pieces to keep these things running. Luckily here though the scraps are either off in a barn or not directly in between the house and the street.

  • What were the products? Is this a delta 8 or other cannabinoid thing or a delta-9 by volume thing? I guess a blanket ban would eliminate CBD products and everything. Bummer. No surprise though. Kentucky leans very conservative and a bunch of counties are still dry (even though there’s huge bourbon producers there).

  • I'm enjoying thinking about it, but I just don't understand the constraints you are interested in, or assuming. If all human labor is replaced, then I'm already envisioning what is in essence an entirely different planet. Resources would be gone, politics are reorganized around supporting and building this AI takeover, and then re-aligned again once there is free time. I'm thinking of what is the cost of that --- are we spread out on multiple planets, and on earth no one works? Is it some dystopian earth with the humans left there having nothing to do? Is it a utopian future, where humans have all the free time in the world, and we had did figure out how to solve the resource problem. I'm not trying to deflect your question or not answer, I'm actually really trying to answer it and consider things but see an AI takeover completely tied up in a whole host of other issues. I'll read through the other comments and see what others are thinking. Thanks for the thought-game for this Sunday though :)

  • I think a lot of this is kinda what I’m getting at too — it’s such a far fetched question, that it almost doesn’t matter. We are making so many assumptions (since this is not something remotely feasible at the moment) that it’s all completely up on the air.

    I think maybe a different question might be: is there EVER a point where we are able to defend from an alien invasion. Which I’m not really sure what that answer would be. I think it’s not a technology question, but more of a political one since it would require a massive solidarity movement to unite.

  • Your question assumes a disconnect between labor and AI systems. AI is built on mounds of cheap labor already. It’s going to have to replace things like mines and miners and a TON of labor all the way up the chain (including data center upkeep). It we can do that and build this thing capable manufacturing the autonomous robots that replace human labor, then humans would be in a pretty good place technology wise to defend ourselves. We’re also talking like many many many years in the future when we could do this. We’re far more likely to run out of resources and be forced to be a multi planet species to seek out this dream.

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    Jump
  • It’s over already. It’s going to take decades to come back from this, if at all since the reputation is shaken at the core, and that is very difficult to rebuild.

    The funding cuts and uncertainty and stifling is speech is shocking, but this is already affecting young scientists. There are cuts to summer research stipends, grant pausing means no work for some researchers. It’s the future that will really hurt when we don’t have those scientists since they either didn’t pursue science or went to other countries.

    America has held a very central seat of science for quite some time, but that’s done. Europe is going to replace is—and already is. It’s a shame too since American higher Ed is structurally setup to be much more agile in how it pursues inquiry.

  • Oh this touches close to him. I got into pgfplots since it would generate plots in latex at compile time and keep fonts consistent, etc. plots looked amazing though.

    The worst was when a colleague couldn’t get a pdf to upload into a google doc, so he just made an ugly ass bar chart in excel for the final draft since that was easier. The only reason he could do that so quickly was because he could read the data so easily from the plot I made. Ugh. Still burns

  • Pointless?? Really? We should have just stuck with postscript? I’m pretty happy with pdf for almost anything as there’s a good chance it’ll render how whoever sent it to me was seeing it. What would you suggest/do different?

  • I teach undergrads, and every year basic computer skills get worse and worse. I guess it’s not entirely their fault, but things like just asking them to save a file to their computer is insanely difficult. Lots of universities are starting to get task forces to figure out how to teach (or where to teach rather) basic digital skills, it it’s all going to hit the workforce really soon en masse.

  • My heart goes out to those who suffer with poor editors where this is a problem. I do empathize with them. It’s important to love others and help. That’s the code for my life: love others. Except vim users. Straight to jail.

  • You can hold to an ethical code while breaking your moral code. This seems to be an example of that, and my frustration with ethics codes of many professional societies/organizations. You can be entirely ethical yet still spend your life crating efficient life ending tools.

  • I have a much longer response, but I’ll try to make a short one. I think there’s a lot more a college degree does (should?) offer/signal, but over the last 50 ish years, that has largely eroded away to just being a professional training program or a gatekeeper to a job. Higher ed in society he mostly turned to social efficiency as its guiding principle instead of several other curricular philosophies. Combine that with the increasing and intense research pressure and it’s the exact situation you describe. Neoliberalism has pushed away long term thinking and risk from corporations, so that burden of risk is taken now by universities (and young people in the form of graduate students) which can be subsidized by government grants. This funding scenario pushes professors to focus on grants and research and to not care about their teaching. It’s not good.