Tag: leftwing

On the Left and Datacenters


People on the right are often criticized about their paranoia about things like vaccines and wifi signals. Left wing critics will say to them: trust the facts, trust the science, ignore the conspiracy theories springing up everywhere. I think that’s good advice.

I think the same advice should apply to the left when it comes to data centers. Two cases I came across this week makes me think something else is happening.

First off, I read this piece about a research group is on the hunt for hidden data centers. This group, epoch.ai, is using satellite imagery and other sources of information to do this. I found this surprising, since there are other organizations (e.g. CBRE) that track data centers throughout the world. It’s pretty common to do. And unlike CIA black sites or nuclear facilities, it’s in the interest of companies building data centers to let the world know they are doing so. Keeping it a secret is not very good for them.

You could argue that tracking data centers makes sense in terms of their power and water usage. That’s a valid claim, though I think there are better ways to do it. I’m also not convinced this is the best way to push back on resource hungry hyperscalar datacenters. I think communities, cities, provinces and states need to understand the impact of such facilities and push back when these facilities harm them, but to act like its a mystery that can only be dealt with using spycraft does a disservice to readers who are concerned about such things.

The second piece I read about was this one which criticized the building of data centers in places where it was too hot. While reading it I was looking to see if the writers would draw the connection between the placement of data centers, undersea internet cables and Internet Exchange Points (IXPs or IXs or NAPs) Alas I did not find any such references.

There are many reasons why data centers are placed where they are, but one of the key ones is proximity to IXs! Even with the blazing high speeds of current Internet connectivity, the closer your data center is to an IX, the better it will be. A data center built miles and miles from IXs (which will be close to Internet cables) makes no sense. The fact that I could read that second piece and not see this pointed out makes me wonder how much the authors understand the technology, and if they don’t understand the tech, what benefit such a piece is, other than as a hit piece on data centers. It’s not a piece people can come to and gather facts and a better understanding of data center placement.

There are lots of ways for the left to criticize data centers, but if they don’t do it with facts and reason but come at it conspiratorially, they’re no better than the right and their paranoia about vaccines and wifi.

Thinking about left wing social media

300I read these two tweets from someone recently and they struck me as a form of progressive writing that bothers me and I was trying to figure out why. Because I agree with parts of them.

In the first one about Alberta politics:

Shock doctrine 101. Exploiting a burnt out & disoriented populace to ram through commodification of public goods. Expanding duplication of programming via private operators using public funds furthers competition model of education which ultimately fragments society.

I disagree with the idea that the shock doctrine applies to Alberta’s current state or that the Premier needs it in order to pursue such goals. Kenney doesn’t need a pandemic to do this. If anything, the pandemic has slowed down conservative premiers from doing anything like this. Conservative politicians have been forced to act compassionately during the pandemic, because no one wants to lead a province with dead people filling hospital hallways.

In the second one:

One year ago today, hate rooted in white supremacy + misogyny took the lives of 6 Asian women and 2 bystanders. This was a fatal act stemming from long standing erasure, objectification, and entitlement to Asian women’s bodies. Know their names. May they rest in power.

This was a terrible event that should be remembered. But this tweet is a left wing laundry list of issues: white supremacy, misogyny, erasure, objectification, know their names, rest in power. I know that there are limits with what you can tweet: it’s just that tweets like this limit the effectiveness of what you are trying to communicate.

I wish progressive thinkers knew how to preach to others outside the choir. I wish progressive writers could talk to people other than hectoring them. I wish they were more doubtful about it all. It leaves me in the back pew, wishing for a better sermon and looking for a reason to step outside.

I don’t mean to pick on the person who wrote these tweets. These are just two examples. There are thousands of such tweets like this out there every week. Plus websites, like The Jacobin, are full of such writing.

Thanks for reading this. I am just trying to work out why such writing bothers me and how I can think of it better. Maybe my thinking is woolly and wrong headed. It wouldn’t be the first time.

A lesson in politics from Noam Chomsky

This whole interview with Chomsky is worth reading, regardless of your political leanings. Some of the things that struck me were:

On how the left should be:

Well, there is a traditional left position, which has been pretty much forgotten, unfortunately, but it’s the one I think we should adhere to. That’s the position that real politics is constant activism. It’s quite different from the establishment position, which says politics means focus, laser-like, on the quadrennial extravaganza, then go home and let your superiors take over.

The left position has always been: You’re working all the time, and every once in a while there’s an event called an election. This should take you away from real politics for 10 or 15 minutes. Then you go back to work….The left position is you rarely support anyone. You vote against the worst. You keep the pressure and activism going.

On Hume:

We can go back to my favorite philosopher, David Hume. His Of the First Principles of Government, a political tract in the late 18th century, starts off by saying that we should understand that power is in the hands of the governed. Those who are governed, they’re the ones who have the power. Whatever kind of state it is, militaristic or more democratic, as England was becoming. The masters rule only by consent. And if consent is withdrawn, they lose. Their rule is very fragile.

On the letter controversy:

But now segments of the left are picking up part of the same pathology. It’s harmful; they shouldn’t be doing it; it’s wrong in principle. It’s suicidal. It’s a gift to the far right. So here’s a quiet statement saying, “Look, we should be careful about these things and not undertake this.” Should’ve been the end. Then comes the reaction, which is extremely interesting….This criticism is much to the pleasure of the right wing, which hates these statements. So it’s another massive service to the right wing. … You want to play their game? Do it straight. Don’t pretend you’re on the left.

On how to participate in politics:

Well, we have no shortage of immediate ways of getting involved. But immediate changes are another story. There’s kind of an instant gratification culture. I worked for Bernie Sanders, he didn’t win. I’m going home. That’s not the way political change takes place. It takes place step by step, small changes to bigger ones, and so on.

On personality politics:

I’m not much interested in his (Joe Biden’s) personality. I don’t have any opinion. I’m interested in how things get done. And the way things get done is not by Biden having a religious conversion and saying, “Oh, we’ve got to really work on the climate.” That’s not what happened. The DNC probably hates the program, but they have no choice, because their popular base is not only demanding it, but is working constantly, hard, to force them to do it. That’s politics. Not the personality of leaders. I don’t know what’s in his mind. I don’t care, frankly.

On social media:

Social media, like most technologies, are pretty neutral. What matters is how you use them. You can use a hammer to build a house; you can use a hammer to smash somebody’s head in.

Social media are being used in very different ways. They’re used to organize activists, set up demonstrations, to give people the opportunity to interact, think, develop opinions, deliberate. But they can also be used to drive people into bubbles in which you hear only the same thing over and over. Your prejudices get reinforced, and you hate everybody else. They can be used either way. And they are being used both ways.

So the question comes back to us: How are we going to use the technology that’s available? It doesn’t care. We can use it any way we like. The net effect of social media probably, by and large, I suspect, has been mostly negative. Doesn’t have to be, but I think that’s the way it’s turned out.

On his legacy:

I don’t really think about a legacy. What I’m interested in is the people who are doing things. Mostly their names will never be known. I’m sure you can’t tell me, or I can’t tell you, the names of the kids who sat in at the lunch counter in Greensboro. These are the people who carry things forward. If there’s a legacy of people who try to do what they can to stimulate it, it’s theirs. The ones I most respect in the world, I can’t remember their names.

I don’t agree with all of Chomsky’s beliefs, but I do agree with his approach to politics. You can draw those lessons from the interview. I’ve extracted some of them, but it’s worthwhile to read the rest of it.