Left to its own devices, capitalism (capital + capitalists) does its damndest to eat democracy alive -- pesky democracy does get in the way of $$$, doesn't it! Since Reagan it's been mostly chomp, chomp, chomp, with a few interludes where democracy (invariably in the form of Democrats) tried to mitigate the damage. I've been seeing Trump II as the end-of-the-road, last-chance endgame, a president devoted to enriching himself, unrestrained by his own party and feebly opposed by the leadership of the opposition -- but I wasn't paying enough attention to the Silicon Valley tech bros charging in from the right, eager to feast on democracy's carcass.
Here's hoping we the people can fend them off and, most important, get them and capitalism back under democratic control.
True. I tend to see the SCOTUS majority as a Republican creation, but unlike elected Republicans, they have lifetime tenure. Once upon a time, like during the heyday of the Warren Court, SCOTUS rulings *supported* democracy instead of undermining it. I don't see that happening again unless the Court is expanded enough to overrule the anti-democracy 6 -- which means at least 13 and 15 would be better unless a couple of the 6 retire and are replaced by pro-democracy justices.
I listened to the audio version. He really does have a well thought out plan, with emphasis on the ground game at the local level and building out from there.
I'm dead set against term limits at least until Citizens United is overturned or otherwise neutralized, and even then . . . Incumbents will generally always have an advantage unless they're conspicuously incompetent or corrupt (or get redistricted out of a safe seat by the opposing party), but campaign finance exacerbates the problem: corporations and other special interests would rather "invest" in someone who's already in office than in a candidate who might not even get elected.
Term limits for SCOTUS. I think he proposed 18 year terms, after which one becomes emeritus. A new justice would be appointed every two years. And, yeah, get rid of citizens united. But I’m not pushing his book. There are a lot of people with ideas. His is the only book I’ve read on the subject of reclaiming our democracy. HCR has spoken well of the book in her politics chats (Tuesday/Thursday, YouTube channel, but also posted in her substack feed.) Ben’s plan is based on the model that turned Wisconsin around after Scott Walker and company gerrymandered the hell out of it and coopted their supreme court.
Data centers are among the least labor-intensive operations in the economy, according to the Brookings Institution. You'd think this is self-evident.
Remember when Republicans were for bringing manufacturing back to the United States to create new jobs? It's another issue they have reprogrammed, but they haven't yet erased our memory of it.
Can we please stop using the term NIMBY in these data center-pushback analyses? I think many of us see the insane addition of more climate-heating emissions, the egregious use of our diminishing water resources and the destruction of green space everywhere, in every community worldwide, as being horrific. It's not just about keeping them away from our own neighborhoods. I don't want anyone's quality of life or the life of our planet being destroyed by these monstrous things whose benefits might be hugely outweighed by harm.
I do wonder though how many of the people who are against the building of the data centers are using AI. I hate AI, but there are so many people I know that use it all of the time. It's becoming such a crutch so that no one has to think for themselves any longer. Oh, I have to write an email? They head right to ChatGPT. It's pretty sad.
Sorry, Paul, but I think you are giving Governor Hot Wheels far too much credit on his position change. Here in Tex-Ass, the carnage started long ago when he gave every mega corporation huge tax breaks for changing their HQ to Tex-Ass. What better way for the GOP to further harm public education? After all, that's been the ultimate wet dream of the GOP for decades.
His position reversal was initially very subtle, just some odd comments about the electrical grid (unique in the entire country, unfortunately). Then his core (rural, farming, not well educated) raised the issue of water supplies (always an issue here). His laughable response was to order the public utilities commission (which he appoints) to report on the state of the grid (never great)...and various local and quasi-government agencies to report on water.
Here in Tex-Ass, you know something is really off when our whack-job Sec of Agriculture actually is ahead of Gov Hot Wheels in calling for a temporary halt and full evaluation of the situation. When Sid Miller starts making sense, you know why Molly Ivins called Tex-Ass "the national laboratory for bad government."
Science fiction, underneath the technology, modern special effects, and sometimes stories that at first glance seem unlikely, are platforms that provide insights into the human condition. Technology often is displayed counter to humanity. The movie “Terminator II” released in 1991 (35 years ago!), had this exchange between the roles played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Edward Furlong:
The Terminator: In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Sarah Connor: Skynet fights back.
Movie irony: there is not a person in the trump administration that is self aware.
The enormously wasteful use of water is what scares me. Here in AZ we're in the midst of a 20+ year drought. Water in Lake Mead has dropped so low that they're discovering bodies dumped in it years ago. And yet, data centers have been built here. And what is with the tax cuts and not paying the electric bill? If you use it, you pay for it, and they need to pay their fair share of taxes.
It's not scaring people enough. Look at lake powell. That is enough to have me shitting myself. I've been watching that and the fighting over the Colorado River for decades feeling a sense of doom. Now stir in a few data centers. They are not for the common good. They benefit few.
Gov. Abbott's "I was for it before I was against it" flip flop is nothing more that a cynical ploy to firm up his standing prior to the November elections. He flip flopped on the border wall in Big Bend for the same reason. As sure as the sun rises, if reelected he will see the error of his ways and apologize to his tech overlords (and Trump) and be all for data centers and the border wall. I worked for the guy when he was Texas AG. He is unprincipled and a liar.
Abbott cannot redeem himself at this point but take what you can.
The data centers marched in as if everything were a done deal and the little people can just rollover. Accept the pollution, the unaffordable electricity, the fouling of the one thing that humans absolutely cannot live without. Water. Well the water crisis in the west may just be helping open some people's eyes to how devastating shitting where you drink is. Arguably we can do without these monstrosities but NOT without clean water.
If you don't think "ill-mannered luddites" is how the vast majority of Americans are seen by the corporate wings of both parties, I have a bridge to sell.
I personally take offense at calling these guys 'tech'. They are simply greedy and get other people to grow their tech, and even the AI tech is not a good design, it is inherently flawed, produces significant errors on a regular basis and is NOT what it is advertised to be. It is one huge 'kludge'. with many layers of band-aids on it to 'discourage' the various known faulty errors it has already produced.
The 'tech billionaires' are surprised that the people are not frantically supporting their goal of gaining even more wealth by putting the american workers out of work while destroying where they live. Go figure.
Great, Texans are learning that all they have to do is wait for an election year when Abbot is campaigning for one more term, in a 'Blue Wave election year, and then on a specific issue where the vast majority of voters are dead set against his policy of self enrichment, he can (sometimes) be 'trusted' to 'do the right thing' for at least a little while... Have to wonder how many are going to take this excuse to vote for him again.
Left to its own devices, capitalism (capital + capitalists) does its damndest to eat democracy alive -- pesky democracy does get in the way of $$$, doesn't it! Since Reagan it's been mostly chomp, chomp, chomp, with a few interludes where democracy (invariably in the form of Democrats) tried to mitigate the damage. I've been seeing Trump II as the end-of-the-road, last-chance endgame, a president devoted to enriching himself, unrestrained by his own party and feebly opposed by the leadership of the opposition -- but I wasn't paying enough attention to the Silicon Valley tech bros charging in from the right, eager to feast on democracy's carcass.
Here's hoping we the people can fend them off and, most important, get them and capitalism back under democratic control.
And SCOTUS…
True. I tend to see the SCOTUS majority as a Republican creation, but unlike elected Republicans, they have lifetime tenure. Once upon a time, like during the heyday of the Warren Court, SCOTUS rulings *supported* democracy instead of undermining it. I don't see that happening again unless the Court is expanded enough to overrule the anti-democracy 6 -- which means at least 13 and 15 would be better unless a couple of the 6 retire and are replaced by pro-democracy justices.
Yeah. Others are discussing term limits. Ben Wikler (book: This is the Plan) describes term limits that result in reform after a few two-year election cycles. Heather Cox Richardson had a conversation with him a few weeks ago. https://substack.com/@heathercoxrichardson/note/p-208757564?r=5k9s3t&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
In any case, the list of nefarious actors is long. I was just adding to yours.
I listened to the audio version. He really does have a well thought out plan, with emphasis on the ground game at the local level and building out from there.
I'm dead set against term limits at least until Citizens United is overturned or otherwise neutralized, and even then . . . Incumbents will generally always have an advantage unless they're conspicuously incompetent or corrupt (or get redistricted out of a safe seat by the opposing party), but campaign finance exacerbates the problem: corporations and other special interests would rather "invest" in someone who's already in office than in a candidate who might not even get elected.
Term limits for SCOTUS. I think he proposed 18 year terms, after which one becomes emeritus. A new justice would be appointed every two years. And, yeah, get rid of citizens united. But I’m not pushing his book. There are a lot of people with ideas. His is the only book I’ve read on the subject of reclaiming our democracy. HCR has spoken well of the book in her politics chats (Tuesday/Thursday, YouTube channel, but also posted in her substack feed.) Ben’s plan is based on the model that turned Wisconsin around after Scott Walker and company gerrymandered the hell out of it and coopted their supreme court.
(His narrative is engaging and personal.)
Data centers are among the least labor-intensive operations in the economy, according to the Brookings Institution. You'd think this is self-evident.
Remember when Republicans were for bringing manufacturing back to the United States to create new jobs? It's another issue they have reprogrammed, but they haven't yet erased our memory of it.
Can we please stop using the term NIMBY in these data center-pushback analyses? I think many of us see the insane addition of more climate-heating emissions, the egregious use of our diminishing water resources and the destruction of green space everywhere, in every community worldwide, as being horrific. It's not just about keeping them away from our own neighborhoods. I don't want anyone's quality of life or the life of our planet being destroyed by these monstrous things whose benefits might be hugely outweighed by harm.
I do wonder though how many of the people who are against the building of the data centers are using AI. I hate AI, but there are so many people I know that use it all of the time. It's becoming such a crutch so that no one has to think for themselves any longer. Oh, I have to write an email? They head right to ChatGPT. It's pretty sad.
These shouldn't be built anywhere. Let the tech catch up first. I'm sure it will.
Sorry, Paul, but I think you are giving Governor Hot Wheels far too much credit on his position change. Here in Tex-Ass, the carnage started long ago when he gave every mega corporation huge tax breaks for changing their HQ to Tex-Ass. What better way for the GOP to further harm public education? After all, that's been the ultimate wet dream of the GOP for decades.
His position reversal was initially very subtle, just some odd comments about the electrical grid (unique in the entire country, unfortunately). Then his core (rural, farming, not well educated) raised the issue of water supplies (always an issue here). His laughable response was to order the public utilities commission (which he appoints) to report on the state of the grid (never great)...and various local and quasi-government agencies to report on water.
Here in Tex-Ass, you know something is really off when our whack-job Sec of Agriculture actually is ahead of Gov Hot Wheels in calling for a temporary halt and full evaluation of the situation. When Sid Miller starts making sense, you know why Molly Ivins called Tex-Ass "the national laboratory for bad government."
I agree. No extra cookies are deserved.
Science fiction, underneath the technology, modern special effects, and sometimes stories that at first glance seem unlikely, are platforms that provide insights into the human condition. Technology often is displayed counter to humanity. The movie “Terminator II” released in 1991 (35 years ago!), had this exchange between the roles played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Edward Furlong:
The Terminator: In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Sarah Connor: Skynet fights back.
Movie irony: there is not a person in the trump administration that is self aware.
The enormously wasteful use of water is what scares me. Here in AZ we're in the midst of a 20+ year drought. Water in Lake Mead has dropped so low that they're discovering bodies dumped in it years ago. And yet, data centers have been built here. And what is with the tax cuts and not paying the electric bill? If you use it, you pay for it, and they need to pay their fair share of taxes.
It's not scaring people enough. Look at lake powell. That is enough to have me shitting myself. I've been watching that and the fighting over the Colorado River for decades feeling a sense of doom. Now stir in a few data centers. They are not for the common good. They benefit few.
Which demographic (if any) is leading the way on opposing flock cameras and data centers?
Gov. Abbott's "I was for it before I was against it" flip flop is nothing more that a cynical ploy to firm up his standing prior to the November elections. He flip flopped on the border wall in Big Bend for the same reason. As sure as the sun rises, if reelected he will see the error of his ways and apologize to his tech overlords (and Trump) and be all for data centers and the border wall. I worked for the guy when he was Texas AG. He is unprincipled and a liar.
Abbott cannot redeem himself at this point but take what you can.
The data centers marched in as if everything were a done deal and the little people can just rollover. Accept the pollution, the unaffordable electricity, the fouling of the one thing that humans absolutely cannot live without. Water. Well the water crisis in the west may just be helping open some people's eyes to how devastating shitting where you drink is. Arguably we can do without these monstrosities but NOT without clean water.
If you don't think "ill-mannered luddites" is how the vast majority of Americans are seen by the corporate wings of both parties, I have a bridge to sell.
I personally take offense at calling these guys 'tech'. They are simply greedy and get other people to grow their tech, and even the AI tech is not a good design, it is inherently flawed, produces significant errors on a regular basis and is NOT what it is advertised to be. It is one huge 'kludge'. with many layers of band-aids on it to 'discourage' the various known faulty errors it has already produced.
The 'tech billionaires' are surprised that the people are not frantically supporting their goal of gaining even more wealth by putting the american workers out of work while destroying where they live. Go figure.
Great, Texans are learning that all they have to do is wait for an election year when Abbot is campaigning for one more term, in a 'Blue Wave election year, and then on a specific issue where the vast majority of voters are dead set against his policy of self enrichment, he can (sometimes) be 'trusted' to 'do the right thing' for at least a little while... Have to wonder how many are going to take this excuse to vote for him again.