5 ms·

Are you being deliberately obtuse? In case you aren't, the answer is roads, bridges, public transportation, electrified rail, grid modernization, utility-scale

Are you being deliberately obtuse? In case you aren't, the answer is roads, bridges, public transportation, electrified rail, grid modernization, utility-scale storage and solar. We need these things desperately, and instead we're going to get sheds full of video cards from here to the horizon.

mike_hearn 10mo ago
If you want to spend your money and time building bridges for electrified rail, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you. Other people clearly feel they have enough of that and would rather invest in datacenters. Who are you to say they're wrong?
- ElevenLathe 10mo ago
  I say they're wrong, and I do so in my capacity as a citizen. These large pools of capital should not be allowed to follow the whims of a handful of unelected oligarchs who have clearly lost the plot. In a functioning society, this scale of decision would not be left to the whims of international finance capital, but decided via democratic means. It's unfortunate that the last scraps of the Fordist labor truce are unraveling, because it means that I and my comrades are going to have to discipline this generation of oligarchs just like our grandparents did the last really nasty one.
  - hollerith 10mo ago
    So, would you say that the money being invested in data centers belongs to the voters?
    - ElevenLathe 10mo ago
      I would say it should belong to voters (or "society", or "the people", or whatever formula you want to use to express it), in a functioning society. Unfortunately, we're not in a functioning society, and it doesn't. On the other hand, property is socially constructed, so this political economy can be changed, though how exactly is left as an exercise to the reader -- I don't a foolproof answer.
      - hollerith 10mo ago
        Let me guess: you do not have any significant savings and do not anticipate accumulating any.
        ElevenLathe 10mo ago
        I have savings, sure. I need them, because in the current system the alternative is to starve in the street if anything at all goes wrong with my employment, my health, etc. Many others are not so lucky. If you mean this to be a "gotcha" because I wouldn't want my savings "confiscated" to build roads and bridges, then save it. There is a difference between 1) taxing billionaires so that they're merely hundreds of times richer than the average citizen, and 2) stealing my retirement savings and emergency fund without providing any equivalent public safety net.
- danaris 10mo ago
  This kind of absolutist individualist argument just rings more and more hollow as we see the very real consequences of that philosophy for our society. Who am I to say they're wrong? A human being, that's who. A human being who lives in a modern society that does not have to prioritize the whims of the wealthy few over the needs of the many. We can choose to set stringent requirements on people who have that much money, and therefore power, and that is not evil. Indeed, it is the furthest thing from it.
  - mike_hearn 10mo ago
    And what happens when those people don't want to have your requirements "set" on them? Do you force those peaceful people to do your bidding with violence? Would that not make you the evil ones? Look at the reply from the guy I was questioning. It took just two or three mild questions for him to go full Hitler, talking about how his comrades will have to "discipline" a whole generation of "oligarchs" (i.e. anyone who makes things he doesn't personally prioritize). Collectivist thinking always leads to violence, and eventually societal failure.
    - ElevenLathe 10mo ago
      There's nothing violent about using elections to make the decision to tax rich people so that we can spend (formerly) their money building roads and bridges. The idea that this is the road to Hitlerism is absurd, and thankfully this rhetorical stance no longer rings the slightest bit true to anyone within earshot of the working class. Also, as I'm sure you're aware, I was using "discipline" as a term of art to mean "withhold our labor until their profits suffer and they are willing to negotiate". This was the strategy employed the last time we seriously dealt with concentrated capital getting high on its own supply. It is also not a form of violence. What's the alternative? Capital using force to require us to work against our will? Would you call that slavery? Or just serfdom? Which do you advocate?
      - mike_hearn 10mo ago
        > There's nothing violent about using elections to make the decision to tax rich people so that we can spend (formerly) their money building roads and bridges The results of votes are enforced on the losers using the police, who will do so violently if required. You mentioned the Fordist truce. The unions the auto industry dealt with weren't just a bunch of people refusing to work. They were frequently violent, and they also used stealing other people's property as a standard tactic to prevent anyone else from working also. Those were violent times.
ishtanbul 10mo ago
This is what I meant by real infrastructure.

mike_hearn 10mo ago

If you want to spend your money and time building bridges for electrified rail, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you. Other people clearly feel they have enough of that and would rather invest in datacenters. Who are you to say they're wrong?

ElevenLathe 10mo ago
I say they're wrong, and I do so in my capacity as a citizen. These large pools of capital should not be allowed to follow the whims of a handful of unelected oligarchs who have clearly lost the plot. In a functioning society, this scale of decision would not be left to the whims of international finance capital, but decided via democratic means. It's unfortunate that the last scraps of the Fordist labor truce are unraveling, because it means that I and my comrades are going to have to discipline this generation of oligarchs just like our grandparents did the last really nasty one.
- hollerith 10mo ago
  So, would you say that the money being invested in data centers belongs to the voters?
  - ElevenLathe 10mo ago
    I would say it should belong to voters (or "society", or "the people", or whatever formula you want to use to express it), in a functioning society. Unfortunately, we're not in a functioning society, and it doesn't. On the other hand, property is socially constructed, so this political economy can be changed, though how exactly is left as an exercise to the reader -- I don't a foolproof answer.
    - hollerith 10mo ago
      Let me guess: you do not have any significant savings and do not anticipate accumulating any.
      - ElevenLathe 10mo ago
        I have savings, sure. I need them, because in the current system the alternative is to starve in the street if anything at all goes wrong with my employment, my health, etc. Many others are not so lucky. If you mean this to be a "gotcha" because I wouldn't want my savings "confiscated" to build roads and bridges, then save it. There is a difference between 1) taxing billionaires so that they're merely hundreds of times richer than the average citizen, and 2) stealing my retirement savings and emergency fund without providing any equivalent public safety net.
danaris 10mo ago
This kind of absolutist individualist argument just rings more and more hollow as we see the very real consequences of that philosophy for our society. Who am I to say they're wrong? A human being, that's who. A human being who lives in a modern society that does not have to prioritize the whims of the wealthy few over the needs of the many. We can choose to set stringent requirements on people who have that much money, and therefore power, and that is not evil. Indeed, it is the furthest thing from it.
- mike_hearn 10mo ago
  And what happens when those people don't want to have your requirements "set" on them? Do you force those peaceful people to do your bidding with violence? Would that not make you the evil ones? Look at the reply from the guy I was questioning. It took just two or three mild questions for him to go full Hitler, talking about how his comrades will have to "discipline" a whole generation of "oligarchs" (i.e. anyone who makes things he doesn't personally prioritize). Collectivist thinking always leads to violence, and eventually societal failure.
  - ElevenLathe 10mo ago
    There's nothing violent about using elections to make the decision to tax rich people so that we can spend (formerly) their money building roads and bridges. The idea that this is the road to Hitlerism is absurd, and thankfully this rhetorical stance no longer rings the slightest bit true to anyone within earshot of the working class. Also, as I'm sure you're aware, I was using "discipline" as a term of art to mean "withhold our labor until their profits suffer and they are willing to negotiate". This was the strategy employed the last time we seriously dealt with concentrated capital getting high on its own supply. It is also not a form of violence. What's the alternative? Capital using force to require us to work against our will? Would you call that slavery? Or just serfdom? Which do you advocate?
    - mike_hearn 10mo ago
      > There's nothing violent about using elections to make the decision to tax rich people so that we can spend (formerly) their money building roads and bridges The results of votes are enforced on the losers using the police, who will do so violently if required. You mentioned the Fordist truce. The unions the auto industry dealt with weren't just a bunch of people refusing to work. They were frequently violent, and they also used stealing other people's property as a standard tactic to prevent anyone else from working also. Those were violent times.

ishtanbul 10mo ago

This is what I meant by real infrastructure.