Claude AI advises Europeans to install air conditioning, sparking debate over climate adaptation and economic productivity

@elonmusk 👀👀👀👀👀👀

Here my notes on LKY's memoir...with an emphasis on how he spent ~10% of the country's GDP in 1981 to build Changi Airport.

Says one of the country's "best investments" for recruiting talent and tourist. Now, frequently ranked among world's best airport:https://www.readtrung.com/p/lee-kuan-yew-and-the-making-of-changi

I grew up in Massachusetts. Summers are humid, brutal with many mosquitos. Open the windows, you get bit. We had no AC, my best friend did. It was the ultimate luxury - this was the 1970s. I still remember getting hit in the face by the wall of cool whenever I walked into his house. I vowed that I would do whatever it took to get central AC. When we bought our first condo over 25 years ago, it obv had AC. I told myself then "I made it" and everything after was just gravy. Low expectations is key to happiness.

You do all realize that Europe is more northern then US and the tropics? And that in large parts of Europe it is mostly cold for the major part of the year requiring heating. And that this situation is fairly new and perhaps best handled by heat exchangers due to the strain ACs have on the grid. Or we will have to send all the elderly and at risk northward during hot seasons. Besides that a solution is needed that doesn't accelerate climate change, because that would be just bad planning. And for many a comfortable temperature is maybe 24-26, not 18, even indoors.

More Europeans are dying from heat-related causes tied to a lack of air conditioning than Americans die from guns. Europe: ~63,000 heat excess deaths in summer 2024. US: ~44,500 gun deaths for the whole year. Lee Kuan Yew understood this decades ago. Widespread AC saves lives in hot weather, Europe is learning it the hard way.

@TrungTPhan

@elonmusk highly recommend reading this, many of his predictions from 20+ years ago are spot on

@TrungTPhan *laughs in 34C Paris apartment*

@davidlee I spent a few summers in Boston and Monteal…July-August was no joke!!

“Wall of cool” great description.

@TrungTPhan Yet EVERY office facility in the United States is 76 degrees F because “Tina is cold”

@TrungTPhan Air conditioning has allowed places like Singapore, Dubai or Panama to exist

Without it, they would still be backwaters

@TrungTPhan Americans causing trouble in The UK

@TrungTPhan Europeans denying the need for AC has been one of the most fascinating of the recent X discussions.

Really fun to watch 😂

@elonmusk LFG! We need LKY inspired politicians in America instead of mentally ill communists.

@elonmusk ❄️

My mother always said the big decline of neighborly companionship was due to AC. When she grew up without AC, everybody would have drinks and socialize and be outside trying to get fresh air whereas modern days everyone hides in their AC houses - AC did take some human socialization downward. An interesting perspective

@TrungTPhan There is a correlation between AC availability and IQ. I don’t think anyone can sit down and focus in hot and humid weather

@elonmusk @Cernovich Yep, the west needs leaders of Lee Kuan Yew

@elonmusk Yes.

I recommend this book to people who want to understand why:

@moneymancalls @elonmusk Starmind it is...!