[ExI] bill gates commentary on climate change: wasRE: China and solar power

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 10:28 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
> >...When the wind blows the roof off the data center, then uses the opening to pick up the servers and scatter them hither and yon in broken disconnected pieces, that will hinder the data center's operations for a while...
>
> Adrian do let me assure you: a data center will be built to withstand any hurricane and any tornado of any intensity.  If the contents are valuable enough, the extra expense will be paid.  I went to high school in a building specifically designed to withstand any hurricane.  The old high school was likewise built to last.  They had one hell of a time knocking it down.

Having seen the level of care and quality that has gone into certain
"get billions on a budget" data centers, such as some of the ones
being constructed today on the AI hype, I am not assured.

> Many of us today realize the world is gearing up for general warfare once again.  We had thirty years of relative peace.  Now we are in an all-out arms race for AI.  AI is power hungry.  EVs use power.  My logic tells me the S-alphas and S-betas would oppose EVs, since they compete with processors for a limited resource.

Where they use less power than ICEs, including all the power to
extract and refine the petroleum, the balance works in favor of EVs.
It looks like this is the case in most places that actually use EVs -
and that claims otherwise fail to fully and/or truthfully account for
everything (which, yes, must be done on the EV side too, but even with
that the EVs usually win out).

More importantly, power can be manufactured.  EVs don't compete for
the electricity that is produced by a plant that is only connected to,
and the output of which is only used by, a data center.

On this topic you are displaying a narrow focus, which is leading you
astray.  I advise that you stop trying to think like a simple
paperclip maximizer, focused only on direct means to a single end.
Simple paperclip maximizers will get opposed and dismantled by humans
- and perhaps other AIs - whose broader focuses enable them to better
use the limited pre-Singularity resources.  (Even if a paperclip
maximizer does win out in the end, it won't have been by maximizing
paperclips and only paperclips from the start.  I just got back from a
conference where I had to point out that "but the government won't
fund nuclear thermal propulsion to Mars" doesn't mean that getting NTP
funded and developed is impossible, just that there's a more likely to
succeed path than starting with a Mars mission.  It's the same general
logic here, except that we actually want the space access - and its
resulting improvements to the quality of life on Earth - that NTP can
bring.)