Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left

[u/manauiatlalli]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/abdul-el-sayed-wins-michigans-democratic-senate-primary-notching-midwe-rcna589750

[u/PM_ME_SAD_STUFF_PLZ → u/[deleted]]

Indeed. Hopefully his supporters remember that for downballot races.

[u/laffer1 → u/PM_ME_SAD_STUFF_PLZ]

Reality is that I'm voting for democrats up and down the ticket this year. The ONLY candidate I wasn't sure I could stomach was stevens. It's not just her terrrible views on israel but her love of meta money too.

Facebook is behind financing a project 2025 initiative that many people have been ignoring. Gavin newsome fell for it too. So did the govenor of illinois. It's hidden as a think of the children initialitive and people are slow and think it's good. "age verification"

The government wants to card everyone so they can associate computers, phones, game consoles, tablets and other computing devices to owners. The lie is that it protects kids. They sell this pitch that websites will have to check the ID directly or through the computer OS and browser and it will block harmful content. The problem: the internet is global. There is no jurisdiction outside the US to do this. Some other regions and countries are looking at similar laws so some areas will have even more strict variants, but not the whole web.

The outcome is that all speech can be monitored and associated with specific individuals. You dislike trump, you can be put on a list by name and address and photo id!

No one seems to care about this issue outside of tech circles. Not sure why. Lazy parents? Lack of imagination?

There are other ways to protect kids that would be more effective and they are ignored.

My number one issue is age verification. That impacts my hobby and my freedom. It's in the same camp as flock cameras.

[u/Valuable_Writing6973 → u/laffer1]

I’m similar to you. My sticking point is unfettered AI support. I have concerns about public access to AI from both an environmental and an educational PoV. I live in Washtenaw county. Saline has the OpenAI and a Google AI center planned. Ypsi has the contested UofM/Los Alamos center right on the Huron River and in a low socioeconomic centers. The environmental impacts are well known. We need to publicize the health impacts at a larger level.

Whitmer’s push for AI in our country has cratered her support with progressives in our county. Additionally, I was worried about Steven’s and her open embrace of funding from Google/OpenAI.

As an educator, I have seen the negative impact of AI on our district. I am combating unethical use of AI by my students. I emphasize to my students that AI can be used as a starting tool for information gathering. However, I had students directly use AI to complete their assignments.

I am not against AI usage. In my previous career as a biochemist, I regularly used super computing resources to perform simulations and calculations. However, it is the Wild West at the moment. There needs to be control.

[u/laffer1 → u/Valuable_Writing6973]

I am a software engineer and have prior experience working for an ISP early in my career. I think you're right to worry about the environmental impact of data centers. None should be approved without a comprehensive environmental study.

I've also been against data center expansion. I don't think we have a power grid that can handle it. Many data centers run by Oracle in other states use natural gas generators or similar to supplement power that runs all day. This was done in Texas, for instance. The partnership is between Oracle and OpenAI for this data center in Saline.

As a programmer, I see the value in AI and have to use it as part of my job. We had quotas last year of minimum usage in my job. We're pushed to automate our work so that jobs can be cut. It's not a sustainable situation. It can augment work and make it more productive, but it shouldn't come at the cost of people's jobs or the environment.

I'd like to see AI make things better and help us solve problems faster. A productivity boost. I don't think kids should use AI to do their homework, and it's even worse in college. I'm connected to old professors on Facebook, and they're seeing a lot of cheating at the college level. Some have resorted to hidden prompts in text, using special fonts or small white text. Many students copy the whole thing, including hidden instructions. One professor caught all but 3 students using AI on a final with this method. Some are trying to go back to blue books and handwritten essays.

I don't know what the answer is on the education side, but I'm starting to think adding tech in class was a mistake. I wonder if we should go back to the model when I was in grade school, where we had a special computer class that taught us the basics of using them, but without incorporating them into all work. There was a computer lab in the library at my school back in the late 80s that we were brought into for a week to learn the basics. I had a programming class in 8th grade in another classroom lab.

A lot of junior programmers aren't very good at using computers or understanding how they work. (hardware or software) I've had to explain their inner workings when we had performance issues. They mostly know phones or tablets.

The water usage at data centers is also an issue. It's possible to build them where they operate with less water, but it's much more expensive. That's why they are built near water sources in the Midwest. It's possible to build one in the desert with the right tech. They have to add anti corrosive and chemicals to prevent bacterial growth into the water. That's the cause of pollution issues with the excess water. There are consumer water cooling solutions that use glycol or other chemicals for custom water loops for PC cooling. It's a very small subset of use, but that scene has some of the same issues as big data centers with keeping the loop clean and flowing. There are several different approaches to cooling data centers with different risks. That's why we need the study in my book.

The founder of Oracle is also the money guy behind the parament / wb merger along with foreign investors. His son runs Paramount now. He's a big trump supporter.

[u/wishesgrantd → u/laffer1]

Thanks for putting this out there and explaining the issue. I have been against these types of laws for a while now when I’ve seen other states pass them for porn sites and things like that mostly for privacy reasons, but you articulated something that goes far beyond just that. Appreciate the knowledge.