[rendall]

This media frenzy has the same structure as the crypto panic from a year or two ago:

Step 1: New tech emerges and grows fast.

Step 2: Media fixates on energy use or resource costs, often with shaky math or cherry-picked comparisons.

Step 3: Worst-case assumptions are broadcast as certainty.

Step 4: Tech becomes politicized and moralized. Energy use framed as inherently unethical rather than context-dependent.

Gizmodo calling Altman’s numbers “lies” fits this pattern. Maybe he’s lowballing. But framing it like environmental villainy rather than corporate spin or PR vagueness turns it into another purity test. Same thing happened with Bitcoin, and later it turned out the real story was more nuanced (e.g., surplus energy, shift to PoS, geographic concentration, etc.).

It’s another round of the same playbook.

[hansmayer]

Not sure if you see the irony in using "crypto" as a parallel here....

[rendall]

Not at all. I don't love crypto, but I don't have to. I'm talking about the moral panic and virtue signaling these new technologies inspire.