this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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Okay not just AI but in general most business uses should be lowest on the electricity priority list
Before telling people to raise their AC to relieve pressure on the power grid, AI data centers should be shut down, most offices should be closed and powered down, etc.
The very last electric appliances to be turned off should be residential AC units. Basically everything else should go before those.
I don't think a mostly for-comfort utility should be the last to shut down. There is a lot of significantly more important shit, like hospitals, water treatment plants and pumping stations, coolers and freezers which are storing food, public transit, etc.
After all, our species has survived without AC for hundreds of thousands of years, but surviving without running water or safe food is much more difficult.
Even some datacenters can be more important, e.g. those predicting the weather or handling communications.
And if AC is necessary for survival in a place, then maybe we shouldn't fuckin' settle there (or at least shouldn't cover the entire place with asphalt and concrete). What happens during a real blackout? Does everyone just die?
Other things our species survived without for hundreds of thousands of years include water purification, cancer treatment, obstetrics, antibiotics, sterile medical instruments, and agriculture.
No, actually this one is okay. The main reason we need so much AC is our buildings are poorly insulated and not designed for heat management. They have old Arabic buildings from before writing that have complicated design features for heat abatement and people didn't even stay in side as much as we do now.
Capitlaism won't let us have nice insulation. Like, good insulation is my number one pet peeve in home design. Everything else you can work around but there really is no replacing quality insulation.
Sorry if it's unrelated, I understand the meme but what's the background of it?
It's an image from a study of Allied bombers during World War 2. The red dots are places where the plane was shot, yet still managed to return home. A knee-jerk reaction would be to add armor to these places, but the real solution was to add armor to the places where the suvivors hadn't been shot (cockpit, engines, tail), resulting in more planes surviving their bombing runs.
Oooh thank you. I thought the background was about a plane crash and where survivors would need to be to survive
Survivorship bias
My point is that way more humans can survive a couple weeks without AC than a couple weeks without water or food.
I can survive years without AI though
Oh yeah, AI in its current form can fuck right off.
Yeah ok but most households probably don't absolutely need an AC, there's definitely people that would be put at risk if they didn't have one but on average in the west I don't think it's the case.
In large parts of the US itβs absolutely the case, and even in Europe every time they have a heatwave (which is every summer now) a ton of old people die
at-risk people die without A/C when it's 100F and 95% humidity.
People settled there because A/C became available. You can't just shut off the A/C and cackle while the elderly and infirm die of heat stroke.
people do pretty much every time it happens due to hurricanes in Texas, yes.
I don't disagree with your broader point, but even hellish places like Phoenix predate A/C.
Humidity is the difference.
Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Honolulu, Singapore all predate A/C.
And people still die when they lose A/C in Texas. I don't know what to tell you, that is the reality of what happens.
Again, I don't disagree with your broader point, I'm just pointing out that "People settled there because A/C became available" is factually inaccurate.
Houston would not exist in its current form without A/C, same with most of Louisiana and some of Florida. A/C is part of what caused the population boom in these regions.
the american southwest would be much less settled without it. it's not that nobody went it's that way more people did after.
Yeah, but like, don't. Or at least cover your house with solar. If you need a literal life support system and are dependent on a centralized power grid for that with no backup, you will die.
I agree that in places like that AC should be among the critical systems which are the last to shut down, but it's also important to note that the vast majority of inhabited places on earth are not like that (yet).
Sorry gramma, a lemmitor said you shouldn't have been born in the armpit of america, so you're going to have to either die when power shuts down or drop everything and move.
That's not my opinion, that's a sad fact of life. If you can't move, get a backup electricity supply. Blackouts happen.
bootstraps liberalism strikes again
hrrhrrm can we please retain civility and refocus our attention on the 3 vs 5 tits debate at hand
Nah, it's colonial settlers living in a place where they shouldn't, and then capitalists plastering everything with heat-absorbing asphalt because it's more profitable to force people into car-centric hellholes. If you are unfortunate enough to live in a place like that, prepare a backup power source, because it's not feasible to build a power grid which never has blackouts.
Of course, it would be nice to have a government that would provide everyone in such regions with backup electricity sources, but that ain't happening with capitalists in power, and recommending that grandma should lead a communist uprising is not that helpful
How am I supposed to prepare a backup generator
I rent an apartment because it's what I can afford
You just need to take a firm grip on your bootstraps and lift, clearly
"it's not that thing you said, it's just that you need to pick yourself up by your bootstraps"
Nothing says good socialist political instincts quite like leaving a bunch of bunch of working class people to die of heatstroke because they had the audacity to be born in the southeastern US and then whitewashing that by calling them settlers despite a third of them being descended from slaves.
It is interesting watching someone from outside leftist spaces try to co-opt leftist language. They use the words right, but they don't realise that the meaning behind the words is what is important.
You must be lost. This is hexbear where we shit in the toilet, not on our big balls. We believe in the power of love, but not the power of being a smarmy wpos.
I bet you don't even eat beanis.
Pretty sure this entire line which began and summarizes your whole comment is literally 100% opinions, and they're your opinions.
What's climate change
The human species has lived through an era when the average temperature on Earth was about the same as it is now. It's true that (very) soon it won't be the case (it looks like the climate is truly fucked and we'll get the hottest year since humans evolved in a decade or so, and then shoot right past that and into real hell on earth territory).
that mostly is doing a lot of heavy lifting
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/how-school-hvac-systems-affect-learning
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/as-the-temperature-climbs-test-scores-drop-in-schools-without-air-conditioning/2018/05
https://www.nber.org/digest/aug18/hotter-school-days-less-learning-unless-theres-ac
Yeah, I also wanted to mention that AC in critical workplaces, schools and kindergartens should also be given priority over residential AC, but the comment was already too long.
Obviously Iβm oversimplifying to an extent. There are obviously essential services that should be prioritized over residential areas, but my point is that most business uses should be lower priority than residential.
Also AC saves lives. Every time thereβs a big blackout during a heatwave people die. Especially the elderly.
I agree that we shouldnβt have people living in those places, Texas and Florida should be permanently evacuated. But currently people do live there and Iβd rather they not die.