Notices by Mark Hurst (markhurst@mastodon.social)

"The time is coming when we’ll each have to declare our allegiance either to, or against, the Silicon Valley religion. This choice will be independent of whether we align ourselves with any traditional religion, or none at all: the question will simply be, do we put our faith in the ultimate authority of a machine god, built out of computer code and data centers, and owned by billionaire oligarchs?"

New from me:
https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/the-pope-and-the-machine-god/

AI is central to this illegal war.

New from me -
https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/ai-and-the-illegal-war/

@Gargron ahhh that did it, thanks - I missed it because I didn't know the double-check-mark icon meant "mark all as read". but now I know 👍

Mastodon question: any idea why my notifications are stuck at 40? I've viewed them, scrolled through them, etc. - have logged out and logged back in - yet the number will not change or disappear.

Now THAT's a headline.

"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"

#edtech #education

https://fortune.com/2026/02/21/laptops-tablets-schools-gen-z-less-cognitively-capable-parents-first-time-cellphone-bans-standardized-test-scores/

Big Tech is targeting vulnerable communities for its data centers. Residents incur a huge cost in water & power and airborne toxic chemicals. Town officials sign NDAs so citizens have no awareness of the threat.

New from me: data centers and their effects.
https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/dont-let-the-data-center-come-to-town/

New from me: Let’s call AI something else. (drawing on "The AI Con" by @emilymbender and @alexhanna )

https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/lets-call-ai-something-else/

@feld @tk the Tech Review article quotes people asking why they should pay higher rates.

"Between 2024 and 2028, the share of US electricity going to data centers may triple, from its current 4.4% to 12%."

Astounding that we prioritize electricity for AI over *every* *other* *possible* *use*. Housing, schools, and hospitals all have to make way for Big Tech data centers.

Important article by Tech Review:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/

@jochenwolters and that's a point that @aral has made (including at conferences where they're speaking)

@jochenwolters totally agree

This week on Techtonic I covered Sarah Wynn-Williams' Facebook memoir, called "Careless People." I recommend it.

Here's my review - hoping that this book will convince lawmakers to hold Zuckerberg to account for his actions:
https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/zuck-lied-under-oath-says-careless-people/

User experience is mostly irrelevant in our Big Tech economy. Facebook, Twitter, etc. can mistreat users without consequence.

Cory Doctorow - aka @pluralistic - puts it well today (https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/):

@buttondown and that's one reason I posted this column *on Buttondown* 👍
https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/our-nightmare-world-of-ai-slop/

For years now on https://techtonic.fm - my radio show and podcast from @WFMU - I have finished every show with a signoff, which includes these especially relevant two words:

Forget Facebook.

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both."

—Justice Louis Brandeis

NEW FROM ME: Elon Musk's space junk is a threat to us all. Starlink satellites will pollute the atmosphere, land in your backyard, and - a fresh new nightmare - could hit airliners at 35,000 feet.

Thanks to @sundogplanets for raising the alarm (and for joining me on https://techtonic.fm this week to discuss):

https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/musks-space-junk-is-a-threat-to-us-all/

New from me - my election thoughts.

A happy day for Big Tech: the guardrails are coming off.
https://buttondown.com/creativegood/archive/a-happy-day-for-big-tech/

@joeo10 thanks for trying, anyway... what happened around the flagging? were there reasons given?

“I guess it’s like Steve Jobs always said: ‘We’re going to build a bicycle for the mind . . . and then we’re going to crush the bicycle in a 2-ton press, just flatten it right in front of you, so you can feel our destructive power. Take that, bicycle lovers. You all suck.’”

A new outraged column from me –

“Apple made a terrible mistake: it told the truth”:
https://creativegood.com/blog/24/apple-tells-the-truth.html