Post #3691283

2026-06-20 13:00 UTC

*Tinfoil hat on* I doubt it's a coincidence that the last 10, 15 years things like cryptocurrencies, "metaverse", "AI" are becoming popular, just as "lines" in the computing industry flatten: as the computer has been perfected, an _economy of waste_ is created to sustain appetite for growth. Computers (phones, tablets &c are computers) have become longer term investments; even if you have abundant money, the latest devices aren't necessarily upgrades that bring anything new to the table. We've _done_ computing, we finished it back in 2010s mostly. That's a plateau in demand for new devices, or it would be, w/o the saviour of computing wastage industry. Cryptocurrency wastes storage and processors, "AI" wastes memory and processors, "metaverse", ads, cloud etc waste networking bandwidth. So we use much more computing resources than we need. Computing wastage also inflates the income of fossil fuel industry. Its useless activities and the infrastructure to support all that is powered--where it's not pure speculation and is actually built out--frequently by dirty electricity. I think that explains a lot about govt & corpo interest esp in "AI" right now. It's a growth driver. It's a line mover upper. It's a conduit of money to an otherwise stagnating tech and dirty energy sector. *Tinfoil hat off*

Replies (4)

@drahardja@sfba.social 2026-07-09 06:52

@librarysquirrel@sunny.garden The fact that AI companies boast about how much energy they waste—they constantly talk about how many gigawatts their data centers will consume—should be gigantic red flag. No legitimate business would boast about how much fuel they need to consume to deliver their products.

Open ##3691282
@RantingCanuck@mstdn.ca 2026-07-09 15:30

@librarysquirrel@sunny.garden I fully agree with this. Look at my current computers: A desktop built in 2017 with a Ryzen 1600 and 64gb of DDR4 (although I do have a video card from 2020) ... runs everything without issues including blender and CAD. Running Linux means I don't have to worry about Windows artificial obsolescence. A dell workstation from 2013 running Proxmox and slowly allowing me to transition away from tech company services A Macbok Air from 2015 that Apple stopped providing software supports for. I bought it for $50 and put Linux on it (then bought 2 more for my partner and our kid). Runs amazing. Both the Dell and Macbook were bought used for pennies on the dollar compared to what they cost new. I have no need for a new computer and will probably not need a new one until hardware eventually fails (and even then I can probably buy used parts cheap). 20 years ago I remember needing a new computer every few years because my existing ones just couldn't keep up.

Open ##3697183
@davidgerard@circumstances.run 2026-07-09 06:40

@librarysquirrel@sunny.garden i can't find the link right now, but this has been theorised previously waste is clearly OpenAI's moat, for instance

Open ##3716253
@mzedp@plasmatrap.com 2026-07-09 06:54

@librarysquirrel@sunny.garden This comic must be around 15 or 20 years old.

Open ##3716575