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Amy Nishimura's avatar

Love this article Mike. I'm an optimist too. The future years will be challenging but I progress doesn't come easy and we optimists keep digging for that "pony". I'm not a Reagan fan, but I believe it was he who said "the optimist kept digging into the pile of horse shit because he was sure there was a pony in there somewhere". Keep on digging!

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Linda L Kelley's avatar

Mike, I love that what you did after the election was to take some real R&R outside the US, clear your head, and let your thinking rise to a higher level, above the din of partisan battle and the daily news.

This beautiful piece is the result -- thank you so much for bringing much needed perspective and optimism. I've always loved how you've placed events in the broad sweep of history; this piece encourages us to think about the future and the conditions shaping it that are so much more powerful than whether Biden should have pardoned his son or not and the impact on you personally.

It's impossible to know how these forces, or our politics, will play out, but one thing for sure, our lives will be unrecognizable 10 years from now. We might as well be optimistic about it order to think clearly about the ethical choices we will face and creatively about how to survive and seize the day. I'm not a naturally optimistic person but I'm kind of resigned to it now, lol.

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Mike Madrid's avatar

Thank you Linda 🙏🏼

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LumberJeff's avatar

We will have an energy and resource problem with AI: It requires lots of electrons, and cooling. Governments need to be planning for a lot of green energy generation to fuel AI while also fueling electric vehicles. Much of the cooling requires water.

The scale is something I think only governments can provide.

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Gregg Slutsky's avatar

I'm only skeptical because of the youth vote.(18-25) back track 10-15 years and these morons grew up on internet conspiracies WWE wrestling, mma , post 2008 disaster , 2 wars , etc. The minds of young men especially, have been tuned to aggressive conflict. ( you're not macho enough without it). Joe Rogan, podcast non sense. Facts are very secondary to " feelings/ vibes"

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