“AI data centers are just one of many things contributing to CO₂ emisions.”

A useful perspective is to reverse how we frame the causative logic here; the fossil fuel industry is contributing to the AI data centre madness. There’s a lot of evidence of fossil fuel executives and lobbyists pushing for AI because it helps to justify their existence in a world where renewable energy isn’t just cleaner, it’s cheaper.

What this means is that we have two problems to solve when it comes to CO2 emissions:

• Humanity’s apparent level of dependence on fossil fuels, when accounting for deliberately wasteful endeavours like mega data centres. and
• Humanity’s actual level of dependence on fossil fuels. This is higher than it should be and requires some changes to society to improve, but it’s not nearly as high as it might seem at a glance.

These are both problems we need to solve, but the method is different for esch

“He had a way to connect people that I just can’t, but I’ll try anyway.”

Yeah, I feel you. I lost my best friend to COVID back in 2021. He was a charismatic whirlwind of a man, who seemed to exude an aura of safety and welcomingness. I’m a pretty loud person myself, so I would’ve never seen myself in the “sidekick” niche, but alongside a big personality such as him, it was a role I was happy to fill.

When he died, I had a moment of going “well damn. I thought I was going to be the inevitably doomed sidekick to his hero story. Does this mean I need to try ‘be the hero’? How the hell do I do that?”. The world needs energy like his now more than ever, so it feels like it’s my duty to learn from him and help fill the niche that he left behind. It’s a tricky job though, because I’ll never be able to be like him. I have made some progress in learning how to emulate the impact he had on the world but in a “me” way. If nothing else, trying to do this helps me feel closer to him, and helps me to grieve his absence.

It sounds like you’re facing a similar challenge. I wish you luck on that quest, and again, I’m sorry for your loss

“would be”, “was” — am I to take this to mean that your brother is no longer with us? If so, I am sorry for your loss.

If I have intuited this correctly, then I hope that some day, you can be the “truck guy” for other people. The truck is optional honestly — just as long you carry with you the spirit of helpfulness and trust in reciprocal community support.