The elected elite think they are so smart. The people who elect them think they are smart for doing that. Often, the otherwise disinterested political middle thinks it’s smart to elect them as well. The result is dumb people in office doing things to you they think are smart but are not.
A Colorado woman tried to lower her AC from 79 degrees, but her smart thermostat told her she wasn’t allowed.
The warning cited stress on the regional power grid and temporarily blocked her from lowering the temperature.
She participates in Xcel Energy’s voluntary program, which offers incentives for allowing the utility to adjust enrolled customers’ air conditioning during certain events.
I know everyone, and far too many people on the right, are worried about Data Centers and AI. The more popular meme is that these are a plot to deprive you of your privacy, as if they didn’t already do that. Yes, AI Data centers could be used for all manner of nefarious purposes, but what they really are is the next step in computing power. Tools, like guns, but not protected by an Amendment, which means you can, like in New Hampshire, limit what surveillance tools government can deploy and how they can be used.
We have a few Flock plate readers, but the law addresses databases and retention. You can regulate them as easily as you do a dog park and still benefit from the inevitability and necessity. Our enemies will have better ones, which will make ours incapable of protecting us from them – including their ability to deprive us of that privacy we were all worked up about.
Sermon over, for now.
Smart appliances are just a bad idea, because anything that can be hacked can and will be used against you. Thermostats are just the most obvious and the one thing you should stay the hell away from. But it isn’t always a message the uninformed or uninterested care about. They don’t see the risk.
Maybe this will help.
The same government that locked you down during COVID wants to be able to control how warm or cool it is in your home. They care about your needs or wants. They also think you use too much electricity and are a threat to the planet.
Still want that smart meter or thermostat?
