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While our polarized country faces an election, I wonder what matters most.
I dream of regulatory commissions wherein legislators respectfully get informed about a given conflict's history and the ecological and public health consequences of a new technology before they vote on anything.
I wonder where we can discuss anything respectfully in these times.
When the American psychologist Ram Das (aka Dr. Richard Alpert) went to India, his guru Neem Karoli Baba told him, "Love everybody." Later, when George W. Bush became president, Ram Das acknowledged that he struggled with the job of loving President Bush.
Today, both mainstream candidates have policies that unsettle me. Neither candidate promises to direct Israel to stop starving and killing Palestinians and Lebanese people. Neither speaks about the impacts of telecommunications on public health or wildlife. Neither seems aware that when we evaluate solar PVs, industrial wind turbines, battery storage systems, electric vehicles, A.I. and nuclear power from their cradles to their graves, they are not renewable or sustainable. They require enormous amounts of mining, water and energy-- and generate all manner of toxins and fire hazards.
When we focus on technology's impacts on our economy-- or politicians' impacts on our economy-- we neglect our dependence on healthy ecosystems. As long as we degrade nature, we cannot sustain our economy. We need leaders who can help us face this-- and create a society that respects nature's limits.
I admit that while I sincerely appreciate the candidates' unenviable work in running for the U.S. presidency, loving Kamala Harris or Donald Trump stretches me.
After the election, how/could we nourish peace between people who voted for different candidates?
If a candidate you don't respect wins, could you name one benefit to their winning?
Could you name two?
Pandora's Electronic Box
After Israel planted explosive devices into 5000 new pagers in Lebanon (killing 32 and injuring thousands), Dennis Kucinich (running to represent an Ohio district in Congress) named: "With assassination by pagers and electronic devices occurring in Lebanon, the weaponization of things electronic, the world has entered into a sphere of activity where there is no refuge, no safety, no security, and no privacy. We have journeyed from the Internet of Things to the destruction of all things and all people connected to the internet. Turning electronics into personal bombing devices will have major economic and social consequences. We have just witnessed the opening of Pandora's Electronic Box."
A.I.'s huge energy needs are set to grow. A single search query for a chatbot such as OpenAI's ChatGPT requires 10 times as much energy as a typical Google search, according to the International Energy Agency. The I.E.A. predicts that electricity consumption by A.I., cryptocurrency and data centers could double by 2026."
Colorectal cancer soaring in young adults; are smartphones in the mix? Epidemiologist De-Kun Li wants to know.
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