An interesting speculation about the now-forgotten Iberian Peninsula power outage – and the never reported Bali island power outage – and the largely ignored English power outages. Perhaps a weakening magnetic field is exposing parts of the Earth to the solar wind, with impacts on power lines?
JOURNALISM LOST ☙ Sunday, May 4, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 
… Experts, who have no idea what caused the Spain, Portugal, France, or Bali blackouts, are one hundred percent sure these events are not connected in any way . And that’s the giveaway. These stories never speculate about or even mention the Earth’s weakening magnetic field, even if only to rule it out or call it a conspiracy theory. …
The fact that Earth’s magnetic field is both weakening and moving around isn’t fringe theory— it’s well documented by NASA and ESA, and published in Nature and Geophysical Research Letters . The South Atlantic Anomaly, polar drift, and magnetic excursions are all part of accepted geophysics. …
The uncontroversial truth is that, if the current magnetic field weakening trend continues —and especially if the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) continues expanding— the consequences could move from “inconvenient” to catastrophic , and not just for power grids. The SAA already forces satellites to temporarily shut down when passing over it to avoid damage. If it keeps growing (which it is), those shutdowns will spread, and GPS reliability, internet, and military communications will all degrade. …
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Well,I was having my own panic attack this AM over the Brits announcing that they are going to pursue the old idea of blocking out the sun 
—and now, THIS!
Then I thought: maybe doing away globe-wide with internet, instantaneous communications, and military communications might….not…..be so bad….and you also say it will disrupt the power grid, so, cold will kill a lot of people (bad) but OTOH maybe people will start forming local communities again, reliant on residents and whatever resources are available where they settle (potentially good, or at least not-so-bad…?)
So now I don’t know WHAT to panic about!
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Where are the guys on the street corner with front & back sandwich boards telling us “The End is Near”?
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Probably hanging out with that lazy, no-account SMOD.
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But I still don’t see SMOD. Lazy 87687$^%$&^^^&!
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RE: AI & Existential Risk
I got an update to my Android phone the other day. It was so frustrating what they shoved down my throat. There was this AI that prevented me from shitting off my phone. The old third button down brought up the damned AI on the screen and I could not shut off my phone.
I’m sorry, I used to be pretty techno savvy, creating web pages and hosting domains, creating devices for the government and writing procedures for testing those and other devices, but…
I got old.
I was ready to search for a new phone provider that had a simple flip phone that would not have AI on it.
I called my son.
I can remember giving him a TI-99/4A and the manual saying any questions don’t be afraid to ask. He didn’t ask but soon graduated to a IBM compatible and was selling share-ware programs he wrote online. Time passed. Now he works from home on the east coast for a company in California owned by a company in Japan, writing and debugging “stuff” for an online gaming company.
Well he stopped by and in about 15 minutes restored the single button off and the AI seemed to disappear.
AI may be good, but the ability to simply shut things off like the APPs on a phone should be mandatory, not just sending it out so big brother, in this case Google, takes control.
IMHO: AI is not the Existential Risk, but industry shoving it down our throats is.
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Since he stopped saving for retirement, I wonder if he would send me his money?
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