AI Politics
Costello, ideas trenchant borrows
New song benefactor is the past tomorrow?
In travels this summer, met up with a lot of political folks I’ve been out of touch with for many years. Extensively talking and thinking politics as I've not done for years, I came to the realization of the importance of AI as a political issue. I was once paid for politics – really, and I can say with no hesitation AI presents a political issue of rare power. For me, in the immortal words of that great American Mo Udall, "the sap is rising." AI offers an opportunity to cut across our entrenched idiocy, the ability for people to talk, and let me reiterate, any hope of a healthy politics in this country, of reviving democracy in America, begins and ends with we the people talking with each other face to face.
As an issue, AI allows and necessitates discussion about everything from energy to the environment to corporate power, most essentially, creating a politics of technology. No need to take my word for it, people are organizing across the country to stop this not well thought AI infrastructure. Indianapolis spoke last night, Google withdraws controversial data center in Franklin Township. In Louisiana, the citizenry is waking up to the fact they’ve just been hoodwinked by their PUC, which you can only really say, again. (Apologies for linking to Elon's shitshow. Lots and lots of people still gotsta learn Elon, Zuck, the Google boys, Huang, Altman, Bezos, go down the list, they ain’t on your side. I'd like to say the last six months conclusively showed they're all cowards, but avarice is the biggest part of their kowtowing, they all get loads of government funding.)
This morning it struck me AI offers a politics similar to those of the Populist era. In recent years, after being lost to history, the term populism resurfaced, co-opted by the established money powers to degrade and defame anything that might be conceived democratic politics. They don’t much like democracy, never have, never will. The original Populists were the yeoman dirt farmers of America’s agrarian republic, fighting to keep power from being ripped from their hands by the burgeoning corporate powers organized around the new technologies of railroads, the telegraph, and East Coast bank-debt money.
AI offers a similar democratic opportunity as people awaken to the fact power is being ripped from their hands. Unlike the Populists, who had functioning local democracy, we have its tattered remnants, ready to be revived and evolved into new 21st century democratic systems. This only begins by organizing. The first step to all organizing is education. I couldn’t more highly recommend Larry Goodwyn’s introduction to The Populist Moment, the abridged publication of his simply magnificent and important history, Democratic Promise. Long ago, I sat in “the Professor’s” house in North Carolina telling him this introduction was simply a great essay on democratic organization. He looked at me and in his Texas drawl replied, “Well, that’s cause you’re an organizer. That’s why you understand it.”
Everybody needs to become an organizer. I will say, in ways right now, people of this era have a much easier row to hoe than the Populists ever had, that didn't deter them. Also, there was plenty of grift as the new gilded barons took power in America, but honestly, nothing compared to today. Make no mistake, grift is a weakness. WSJ has an article about how Nvidia is funding their main customer, that’s sure a funny thing.
Well, this is the greatest political opportunity I’ve seen in many a year and as luck will have it, there’s a whole previous American experience people can learn from – if at first you don't succeed.... The first and foremost thing to learn, just as they were in the Populist era, the two parties are eminently corrupt and worthless as democratic entities.
Finally, one reason AI is an issue, its energy needs are simply ludicrous, in fact, its a technological barrier to any widescale adoption.
