Discussion
“China has been openly accelerating the establishment of a World AI Cooperation Organization, a proposed international body it wants headquartered in Shanghai, and analysts expect Xi to use the keynote to give it definition.”
China also declares itself an “ecological civilisation”.
These ambitions are incompatible. But then China is as full of shit as the WEIRD Wild West 🤷♂️
https://thenextweb.com/news/xi-jinping-keynote-world-ai-conference-shanghai-2026
…The whole “clean energy” edifice literally relies upon China having emitted > 240 billion tonnes of CO2e across 4 decades to produce the infrastructure to make it: https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/116206086763933557
And the making of it requires fossil fuels.
That’s like digging a hole deeper to get out of a hole.
And that’s because we are deniers of the implications of global heating. We generally believe the science but not what it means for industrialism
…“clean energy” could be a vital methadone fix. In the sense that it’s a longer lasting high from the use of the same inputs.
So, a way for us to slow down and buy us time to learn to live differently under pressure of the accelerating climate changes we’ve already wrought.
But only if we actively and assertively address total demand. And we’re not doing that
…It seems to me the primary reason we’re not addressing demand (apart from venerating greed) is debt, which ‘mandates’ growth of the wrong things.
But we don’t know how to wind that down. We’re instead massively winding it up with delusions like AI.
“Morgan Stanley estimates that AI-related global debt issuance totaled $236 billion as of May 31 – 4 times as much as one year prior”
https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/07/16/investors-are-growing-wary-of-ai-related-debt/
So we have to hope that the crash, when it comes, is seen as the opportunity it will be
@urlyman
This article argues that there are 2 bubbles, a stock market one and a credit one.
It's the credit bubble that will ricochet through the global economy, the meltdown you mention.
…”People have lost their minds over a neat trick.”
“explicit climate denialism is well out of vogue in 2026. Most people profess belief in the consensus that society’s dependence on fossil fuels is warming the climate. This stops few of them from using a tech that’s directly increasing society’s thirst for oil. When people like me argue this tech is unfit for adoption on the basis of its energy requirements alone, AI users will simply ignore anything we have to say”
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