Today’s video begins with a brief discussion about WV Governor Patrick Morrisey’s plan for “Backyard Brawl” / Race to the bottom. Please check out this report from WV Center on Budget and Policy, “Improving West Virginia’s Competitiveness: How the Mountain State Matches Up With Our Region Where It Matter Most”.
Spoiler alert: Morrisey’s “Backward Brawl” ideas are not going to address West Virginia’s competitiveness in almost any of the ways that would matter most.
The bulk of the video (starting around 3 minutes and 50 seconds in) I spend talking about this story and what I see as the implications: OpenAI exploring Stargate data center options in 16 states// Company aiming to develop up to ten gigawatt-scale campuses .
It reminds me of Amazon’s HQ2 search: Amazon reaps a treasure trove of data with its HQ2 search.
And it reminds me of this: Yasha Levine: On The Electronic Frontier, We're All Cattle
Very simply, in my view, the Silicon Valley “broligarchs” are doing nothing less than trying to turn the entire country into the Appalachian coalfields of the early 20th century.
They aim to get states to bend over backward to accommodate Silicon Valley profits, and in my view I don’t see Silicon Valley proposing much innovation aside from “give us more free stuff to scale up our product so we can sell our product for profit.”
For more on what the early 20th century coalfields looked like, check out some of the other essays on the Blue Ridge Breakdown:
Why Don’t Coal Barons Support Immigration Like They Used To?
Lessons for Labor & Community: A Century of Power Ebb and Flow in Appalachia’s Coalfields
Cronies for Appalachian Oligarchs Celebrate Heroes of Southern Oligarchy
Thank you all again!
Troy
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