Before he died, in 1925, Waldorf schools-founder Rudolf Steiner predicted that because of electrification (i.e. accessing light without knowing how to wire electricity), people would eventually no longer need to think. Now, a Georgetown computer science professor explains how AI challenges our cognitive abilities. Unfortunately, while the tech industry asks us to trust AI and rely on it more, it moves toward less human oversight. (To break your digital trance, the professor suggests keeping your phone out of easy reach.)
In Africa, human workers who train AI"are fighting back.
Because readers don't know whether a person or an AI wrote the copy, trust in writers is plummeting.
Last week, a California jury found that Meta and YouTube's addictive design features led to a user's mental health distress. Similar lawsuits now hinge on the central question: Is social media addictive?
Regarding debates on banning smartphones for children, see neurobiologist Dr. Keren Grafen's "Effects of a digitalised childhood on the cognitive and emotional maturation of the brain" and Peter Hensinger's "Effects of mobile phone electromagnetic fields on brain metabolism."
THE FCC: WHY IS IT AGAINST FREE SPEECH and LANDLINES?
Donald Trump's Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, has publicly threatened news broadcasters: Report the Iran war the way the administration wants, or lose your license to operate. With this unconstitutional abuse of government power, Intercept Voices calls for impeaching FCC Chair Brendan Carr. While Intercept Voices recognizes that this is a longshot, it can help show that this conduct is beyond the pale and build momentum for change at the FCC. Here's the petition.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders notes that news media are increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. The Ellison family alone-- allies of Trump-- will soon control TikTok, CBS, CNN, HBO, Discovery Channel, BET, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, DC Studios, Fandango, Miramax, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, Pluto TV, Showtime, TBS, The CW, TNT, and Warner Bros. Sanders calls this "oligarchy." Ellison is a personal confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu; he supports Netanyahu's genocidal war in Gaza. Would his media platforms allow criticism of Israel? Can democracy survive when a handful of billionaires control the media and social media platforms?
On Thursday, March 26, the FCC approved its order on landlines. In this video, The End of Landlines: What We're Losing, Plain Meaning explains why. Beware: during power outages, only landlines are reliable. Further, people disabled by exposure to electromagnetic radiation (see the note below) can use only landlines safely. To CONTINUE essential landline telephone service, tell your Congressional representatives to protect the public and require landline services. File a complaint with the FCC. Ask your city/county officials to oppose landline shutdowns and protect emergency communication systems.
POWER, DATA CENTERS, SOLAR PVs, BESS"AND WATER: THEY'RE RELATED!
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume reports we might expect A Million Miles of Transmission Lines. Currently (no pun intended) the US has 200,000-240,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. In order to decarbonize or electrify the nation's energy supply, the most commonly mentioned estimate is to double this amount by 2035. However, according to an oft-cited Princeton study, reaching "net-zero" will require two to five times as much by 2050. This translates to one million or more new miles of lines. Transmission lines are not benign structures. They have on-site and off-site environmental impacts. So do transformers, substations and other infrastructure, including roads.
Santa Fe County's CLEAN ENERGY COALITION (CEC) features a video from More Perfect Union showing the compensation that top executives from TXNM Energy, PNM's parent company, will receive if Blackstone buys PNM.
In the event of a battery energy storage system (BESS) fire (at the AES Rancho Viejo/Eldorado facility), CEC questions how much water would be needed, and for how long? While the County requires AES to provide 60,000 gallons of water in tanks for "a couple of hours," videos of recent BESS fires in Boulder City, Nevada and at the Salt River Project in Peoria, AZ show that this would be insufficient. CEC questions how many containers would go up in thermal runaway at AES' BESS facility if firefighters do not arrive in eight minutes like they did in Boulder City. The videos show that 60,000 gallons at delivery of 1200 gallons/minute last 50 minutes. At 1500 gallons/minute, they last 40 minutes. Has a liability-carrying professional engineer certified that 60,000 gallons of water are sufficient for extinguishing a potential fire at the AES BESS?? If not, why not?
Check out this startling image of solar PVs in Hjolderup, Denmark-- and why people now say yes to fields of wheat, no to fields of iron.
EMR SYNDROME
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