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DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A RANT
Consumerism. All of us are consumers, so none of us are in the place to lecture people on their lifestyle choices, no matter what we do in life—suffering was probably involved or we have negatively impacted the planet in some way, we are just not consciously aware.
Smart Phones
To manufacture the smart phone/devices we all have, it requires 12,670L just to produce the single product. Now look at how normalised smart devices are, how common they are. Think of all the water it would have taken to produce the phones you have in your back pockets next time you are in a group of people. That is just water consumption during the production process, not the CO2 emissions.
Data Centres
Internet is one of THE LARGEST sources of water consumption. Did you know that in most data centres, 40% of the facility is dedicated to cooling systems? A standard large sized data centre consumes the same amount of energy that 50,000 homes consume in a single day. In order to cool that much, it requires around 19 MILLION LITRES of water DAILY.
And did you know that not all data centres are ‘active’ data centres, there are data centres that sit there idly, waiting for the main data centre to fail so it can fulfil its job as the backup. There are data centres consuming that much power while not in active use, just waiting for a potential fail to keep companies like Amazon and Netflix running smoothly.
Meta
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. Meta. In 2023, Meta’s data centres consumed ~14,975,435 MWh of electricity. Do you know how much water alone meta consumed in 2023 to cool its data centres? 3881 Megalitres. That is 3.88 BILLION LITRES. And the demand for social media is growing. (Your whole feed is curated using AI!)
I say this because I am peeved. I am peeved when I am told off that my choice to wash the dishes in the sink is worse than putting my dishes in the dishwasher. I don’t like to be lectured about which facilities I use are bad for the environment.
The bus or the car you take to work uses petrol, that petrol was likely taken from a middle eastern country that has not known peace due to it’s oil facilities, and they are constantly under siege from foreign countries.
The cobalt used in your smart device’s lithium-ion batteries was probably mined using child labour.
Same goes for the cocoa in your chocolate. The coffee beans in your morning beverage.
I am not a saint, I partake in EVERYTHING I just listed. But for the love of God, I will not take someone judging me or others for a minor scale pleasure, because when you look at the big picture—we are all at collective fault. We are consumers, and unless we are all ready to lay down our swords, it is just going to keep growing. Technology it developing faster than the eye can see, and we cannot keep up.
In this perfect world, I am not perfect. But I will keep trying my best. I eat a vegan diet because I want to minimise my carbon footprint, I don’t have active meta accounts, I grow my own veggies and water them with potable water—but I still buy from large supermarkets because I do not have time to be self-sufficient, I forage, I walk if I can or I carpool when I have the opportunity to. But that is still not perfect, as I type this I am consuming the exact thing I just complained about. There is no perfect in this imperfect world as long as there is a demand. And, oh boy, is there a demand. Just do your best, do what you believe will have an impact and keeps your conscience clean at night. You got this. It all accumulates, I guess.
Just, before ANYONE criticises someone’s actions or choices unless it’s immediately causing harm to another, just reflect. I have left out so much detail, and I am not going into it because frankly, it’s too much and I don’t want to.
(I have links to the cites I used for the figures if you want to do your own research)
Jan 29, 2025
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started writing this a few hours ago when i first saw this ask, then decided against posting but i've since changed my mind. there really is no justification for it outside of entitlement. even from a selfish lens, there's no long term benefit to its usage. it harms the world and culture in more ways than one.
a.) the water and energy usage that isn't a secret at this point. "no ethical consumption under capitalism" yadda yadda and yeah corporations are extremely culpable in the state of the environment but there really is no need for chatgpt and the planet is already too delicate at the moment.
b.) the exploitation of workers in the global south. this program is not just a computer figuring it all out, there are in fact humans behind it. it reminds me of the acceptance of fast fashion and how people have the tendency to divorce the idea of the garment worker from the garment they wear when all clothing is handmade in some way, shape or form. you need hands to man a sewing machine, you need human eyes to moderate content. also, content moderation can be a thankless job with psychological repercussions.
c.) the erosion of social skills, humanity and media literacy...this one is very personal. like, you have a cushy email job but can't write an email? you need a computer and a worker in kenya to get paid a dollar an hour to figure out a daily routine for you? i've seen the program churn out blatantly incorrect information. fine tuning a prompt or chat or whatever to give you the exact (possibly incorrect) answer you need isn't really that much less work than sharpening your research skills by cracking open a dictionary or using boolean search keys in google. again, the main issue with this kind of stuff is the entitlement to convenience, with no thought towards the repercussions within and outside of us. we are losing major recipes (critical thinking and media literacy) here, people!
i probably did an iffy job are coherently articulating my thoughts here but i am in fact, human. and that’s the beauty of it all.
Oct 1, 2024
i'm always getting too bleak about technology and AI, about the brain rot and disassociation and spiraling out and general cognitive decline we're all experiencing, that will only continue to worsen with time. but this essay gave me some hope
“Do you see a way out?”
“Yeah, I mean . . . I’m not in the business of saving the world, but it would definitely be a better and more interesting place if more people were involved in making these things. That’s the fundamental thing: that if more software, more buildings, more social spaces, and more everything were designed by more people, of course it would produce a more interesting and better world! ...One of Stafford Beer’s more famous and brilliant phrases was ‘POSIWID,’ which stands for ‘the purpose of the system is what it does.’ It’s a kind of maxim of cybernetics. And it’s very good for diagnosing systems. Instead of saying, Oh, we have a democratic system, we have an education system, you say, The purpose of the system is what it does. And what our society produces is people who are undereducated, or just educated enough to perform specific tasks—the way to get a good education is to study something that has this high economic value. Apart from that, you are pretty fucked. The purpose of the system is to reproduce the existing power dynamics of that system again and again. That is what it does. Society has no interest in educating you in how technology works. Because then you make your own technology, and you make different technology, and you upset the economic power balance and so forth. But it is doable, and people are doing it all the time. You can do it yourself.”
May 30, 2025
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everything is politics. from vaccines to lgbt matters, politicians have leveraged the things conservative americans don’t understand to stoke fear and confusion.
this isn’t anything new. what is new is the algorithms that reenforce those fears. comment sections we’re told to treat like real conversation just flooded with faceless accounts saying their most vile inside thoughts. it’s easy to want to interact and easier to just read it all and be mad. but every second spent engaging is another brain scrambling distraction.
these sensationalized posts and comments do nothing for education, understanding, or empathy. even on the left, slacktivism actively hurts the cause. theres an idea that someone who holds ignorant beliefs is *bad* in all politicized fields. but let’s be real, just because uncle jeff is pissed about tuck underwear it doesn’t mean he’s a climate change denier. generalizing people is exactly what politicians want from us.
social issues are important and politics aren’t going away from that any time soon. but social media is a slippery slope and i personally refuse to engage. when it bleeds into my real life (”parents just WANT their kids to be trans”) i try to engage in conversations that get to the root of the issue. where’s this info coming from, why do you believe that? these are the kind of questions strangers won’t ask them on the internet.
misinformation is a sickness that we’re all plagued with. to find some truth and understanding we cannot be having these discussions on platforms like facebook or instagram or twitter. if we do, we’re just giving these tech ceos and politicians what they need: engagement and fear
3d ago
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we don’t make jewellery like we used to!! where did the whimsy go!! the uniqueness!! the daintiness!! the literal ethereal feeling that this watch brings!!!!
I CANNOT FIND IT ANYWHEREEEEEE
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