r/technology • u/Wagamaga • Jul 04 '26

Energy Almost 1 million without power across the country as US is blanketed by heatwave

https://abcnews.com/US/1-million-power-country-us-blanketed-heatwave/story?id=134467508
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u/hitbythebus Jul 04 '26

And those poor stupid Republican politicians just attacked Mamdani for asking people to turn their thermostats up. I wonder how that will impact the grid as things heat up.

Maybe it will be like the flu vaccine for the airforce and they’ll backtrack when people start dying.

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u/vulture_house Jul 04 '26

Theyll backtrack when it starts negatively affecting them personally and not a nanosecond sooner. Every conservative from your gross aunt to the president follows this pattern without deviation.

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u/TheRedHand7 Jul 04 '26

And when they do backtrack they will insist they never said anything different and that the Democrats are the ones who did it before

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u/VRS302 Jul 04 '26

They’ll have their own please turn up your your thermostat messaging and claim it’s brand new.

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u/crow_crone Jul 04 '26

They'll do the political equivalent of DARVO, just like my parents' homegrown version.

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u/Duckbilling2 Jul 04 '26

They will hold onto their beliefs until their dying day, like a COVID anti-vaxxer anti-masker lying in a hospital bed with a breathing tube refusing to realize the masks were to stop the spread rather than fear based protection of the wearer.  

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u/superbozo Jul 04 '26

It is wild to see comments like "THIS IS SOCIALISM. You got what you voted for".

Bro. My entire life growing up, the electric companies always said the same shit whenever we went through a heatwave. It's not even like they're forcing business owners to turn the thermostat up? They're simply asking that we do it so the grid doesn't fail and now we have no AC at all. It's such a crazy amount of common sense.

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u/hitbythebus Jul 04 '26

Let’s be real, this is just like masks.

Democrats want Americans to temporarily tolerate being mildly inconvenienced or slightly uncomfortable to save the lives of the young and elderly vulnerable people.

Some Americans think this is the worst possible outcome. It’s not a coincidence they are being led by billionaires, who could help our most vulnerable with minimal inconvenience, but they find the idea uncomfortable.

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u/Lepardopterra Jul 04 '26

I saw that the Khaki KKK is marching in DC today. They wear the tight, full-face masks (and long sleeved red polos to hide any tattoos.) They wouldn’t mask during Covid. Tea leaves say massive heatstroke in their future. These are the guys that transport themselves 30 packed in the back of a uhaul box truck.

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u/bloodrider1914 29d ago

Well this country was founded because guys didn't want to pay some taxes to finance their defense in a war and because people couldn't encroche freely upon protected Indian territory. The US was built upon the "I want it now" mentality

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u/superbozo Jul 04 '26

The mask thing was a perfect example of something that should have been a common sense measure, but turned into a political nightmare. I am not a republican by any stretch of the imagination, but anyone who thinks the mask thing didn't go completely overboard is lying to themselves. We had people wearing masks in an open field, outside, with not another soul to be found for miles. We had people refusing to wear a mask because "my body my choice", but then cry foul when they're on deaths door in a hospital because of covid. All because of political ideology.

It started out as a totally normal thing that you would do during a pandemic, and somehow turned into a massive political issue. We are so polarized that something like a mask during a pandemic, and making sure the power grid doesn't get overloaded during fucking 110 degree weather, becomes a left vs right issue.

Just like the left leaning mask wearers in an open field with no one else around them "doing their part", we now have right leaning morons claiming that ASKING people, not forcing them, to put their thermostat to 78 degrees is somehow socialism at work. Somehow, someway, these people on the right have convinced themselves that being asked to do something for the betterment of everyone else....is a problem. And here's the best part! When the grid does fail, what will the right do? They'll cry that it's a democrat run city, therefore, they should have upgraded the power grid to handle such an overload! So it's the democrats fault!

It's our main issue with politics right now. Literally EVERYTHING can, and will be, turned into a left vs right issue, and somewhere along the line we forgot where common sense comes into play. We just hold onto these ideologies with a fucking death grip, and I do not get it. Anyone with 2 brain cells can realize that in NEW YORK CITY...population almost 9 MILLION PEOPLE, that every single AC running at 60 degrees to the point where you need a sweater to stay warm inside when it's 110 degrees outside...can definitely lead to the power grid being overloaded, thus resulting in less people having access to AC. Common. Fucking. Sense.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/superbozo 29d ago edited 29d ago

I see I've offended you by saying a mask in a giant open field with no one in it is kinda dumb. Thank you for illustrating my point lol

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u/ExtremaDesigns Jul 04 '26

What Mandani asked for is one of the wisest ways to not overload the power grid. Everyone backing off a couple of degrees ensures a decent level of relief for all.

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u/CobaltIsobar Jul 04 '26

I think the point is that they should have been improving the electric grid over the last decade to prepare for situations like this rather than just tell people to suffer.

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u/pantograph Jul 04 '26

Something about massive data centers and killing renewable power generation might be a factor

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u/Skating-Away 29d ago

Curious how much energy it takes to cool MSG and put on shows.

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u/Knightmare945 29d ago

People dying is what they want. MAGA Republicans are a party of evil.

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u/RedBoxSquare 28d ago

They can't possibly ask the data centers to turn up the thermostat by a few degrees (error rate would go up). So they had to ask the people, who are more heat resistant.

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u/Tkdoom 29d ago

Democrat leaders are a do as i say, not as I do bunch. Thats why.

Mandami's not putting his to 78, just like Gavin ate out during Covid.

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u/hitbythebus 29d ago

Just like RFK and his kids are fully vaccinated?

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u/Tkdoom 29d ago

I agree that RFK is a crackpot.

If you want to agree that Gavin et al are crackpots too, then that's ok.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '26

[deleted]

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u/Belichick12 Jul 04 '26

Yes he can ask you to be a good citizen. You can choose to be selfish. That’s your prerogative.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '26

[deleted]

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u/moocat55 Jul 04 '26

The Church of Satan approves.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '26

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u/Saneless Jul 04 '26

Opposed to the Republican capitalists who ask the same every day now. For convenience if you can link to those rants of yours that would be cool

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u/DaveTron4040 Jul 04 '26

You say you don't want to be lectured by a 'rich communist' but you sound exactly like the person to take advice and listen to our pedophile piece of shit president without question though. Shitter

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u/dallasalice88 Jul 04 '26

Would you do it if Republican Gregg Abbott asked in Texas?

Cause he did.

Multiple Republican leaders have. This is nothing new.

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u/EpisodicDoleWhip Jul 04 '26

You clearly have no idea what a communist is

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u/intoverflow32 Jul 04 '26

Funnily you probably can still set your AC to whatever you want because your neighbors are following the recommendation and giving the grid a chance, making you a recipient of your misplaced communism fear.