u/north_canadian_ice

Example of what I am referring to from Benjamin Ryan:

https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/2057516045531750506

Breaking Points often talks about data centers & how much they are negatively impacting communities across the country.

Erin Brockovich is an environmentalist who forced accountability on PG&E for contaminating groundwater in Hinkley, California. In 2000, a movie was made about her heroics.

On X today, I came across this post about how [Erin Brockovich is helping communities stop new data centers.](https://x.com/JamesHu27192912/status/2057382156008083615) She has setup a website where anyone can self report data center issues:

[AI Data Centers & Our Communities An initiative by Erin](https://brockovichdatacenter.com/)

Of course, corporate media is not going to cover this. So I will link to her Substack where you can read more about her efforts:

[The New Pollution Is Data, And It's Coming to a Town Near You\(https://www.thebrockovichreport.com/p/the-new-pollution-is-data-and-its)

I am a huge proponent of AI, I think it is as important as the birth of the internet. But I strongly oppose how overhyped AI is by business leaders.

There are plenty of business leaders who have waxed poetically about how fields like software engineering have been solved. They talk about AGI being right around the corner, massive unemployment rates, etc.

They offer no solutions (like universal social programs) to help people. Their only advice is that you need to work exponentially harder because of some vague notion that we need to "beat China on AI".

The same business leaders who offshored many jobs to China are now telling us we need to sacrifice millions of jobs to "beat China". Heads if you win, tails if you lose for business leaders.

There is now enormous pushback to AI, because business leaders have made it clear that they want to use AI to eliminate good paying jobs forever. Hence why business leaders are starting to talk out of both sides of their mouth.

Why are they overhyping AI by claiming it will automate most jobs? Why do they claim that LLMs are human intelligence? Because they want expectations to rise exponentially forever.

AI can be a productivity booster, but business leaders make it seem as if AI makes you 100x more productive. This is purposeful, they want to normalize the idea that all of us need to be 100x more productive.

And any problems created by their overreliance on AI will be blamed on us not "utilizing AI" properly.

Bjarne Stroustrup is one of the most brilliant engineers of all time.

Author of C++, a programming language that to this day powers many modern games, operating systems, etc. C++ helped make it possible to build large scale software without sacrificing performance.

You would think that the mainstream media would be interested in Mr. Stroustrup's thoughts on AI. Here is a video from @haider1 where Bjarne Stroustrup elaborates upon the limitations of current AI:

https://x.com/haider1/status/2056487493084799059

If he was interested, I think Mr. Stroustrup would make an excellent guest.

Breaking Points has talked often about the climate crisis & the horrible consequences of the Iran War.

If the Strait of Hormuz continues to be blocked, agriculture production is going to plummet. Worse, a Super El Niño is forming this year.

An El Niño refers to the central & eastern Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature heating up. This energy in the Pacific Ocean alters global weather, leading to severe weather events (droughts, flooding, etc.)

This years El Niño is forecasted to be the strongest since 1877.[ Here is a chart from NOAA shared by Leon Simons](https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/2054124091179696546) illustrating how strong this El Niño is going to be.

On a side note: Leon Simons is a brilliant scientist who I hope Breaking Points brings on at some point. He has talked for years about runaway climate change. The oceans are heating up dramatically in the 2020s, especially in the Atlantic.

Simons has pointed out repeatedly to deaf ears how 2020 shipping regulations preventing sulfur pollution has unfortunately led to a dramatic increase in Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures. [You can read more about this here.](https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889)

The 2023 El Niño led to a dramatic rise in global temperature, setting a new floor. This El Niño is going to be even more dramatic. The lack of sulfur in the Atlantic has allowed the oceans to absorb far more heat. The feedback loops are accelerating.

The Iran War & the climate crisis are converging at the worst possible time. We desperately need leaders to seek peace, to make agriculture a top priority & to finally move forward on replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power, solar & wind.