Mastodawn

Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her)

Fantastic news out of Tucson!

None of this is inevitable. Not "AI", not data centers, not the surrendering of public water resources, not the handing over of electrical grid priorities to big tech

https://azluminaria.org/2025/08/06/tucson-city-council-rejects-project-blue-amid-intense-community-pressure/

Tucson City Council rejects Project Blue data center amid intense community pressure

The Tucson city council voted unanimously Wednesday against bringing the massive and water-devouring Project Blue data center — tied to tech giant Amazon — into city limits. After weeks of escalating public outrage over the lack of transparency around Project Blue, the council voted to end negotiations and remove the annexation and development agreement from […]

AZ Luminaria

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@emilymbender
Historically, that is not accurate. Despite small wins, the general direction of history under capitalism has always and will always be towards a worsening of conditions.

So while you are correct that it is not innevitable on a case by case basis, it is innevitable long term.

What is not innevitable though is that we shed this disgusting tumor of a systen and push for public ownership of the means of production, free housing, free care (as in health, child, elderly), etc.

fabriziob Aug 7, 2025

@haui @emilymbender I think the meaning is that Capitalism is enshrining all their actions in a shroud of inevitability, while people can be reminded of the BS it is and act in their own actual interest.

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@fabriziob I agree but something still irks me about that perspective.

Most people (as in not the ones writing political articles) do not think in these terms.

[Capitalism = Innevitable] I agree, is not correct.

[while capitalism [oppression = innevitable]] is correct though and people need to be told that on a daily basis. They dont make this connection and nobody tells them.

There is no sense in rebelling against the symptoms while not taking action against the sickness.

fabriziob Aug 7, 2025

@haui I don't see how this story contradicts the second assertion. It is nothing but proof of it AND of the possibility for the oppressed to fight back.

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@fabriziob I dont follow.

I said that it is not enough to fight back against fascism. We need to take control of the means of production and decapitate the state (in all capitalist countries, btw).

Rejection of a data center is not that. It is an example of "acceptable" resistance for the owner class.

Blockading a datacenter would be. Disrupting public life would be. Mass trike would be.

Edit: Additionally, marxists call this a "pressure valve" which prevents resistance turning revolutionary

fabriziob Aug 7, 2025

@haui Rejection of a data center is not an acceptable resistance, but the last remnant of a rights culture finally put to good use.

That's why the owners embrace the Inevitability Narrative, not to give hints about what you could be doing.

Blockading and mass strikes are things that do not work for data centers: you would have to physically sabotage them.

Marxists' pressure valve is based on psychology that has been proven wrong decades ago, same as rage rooms. Reinforcement works.

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@fabriziob
Assuming malintent in a debate kind of neutralized your counterargument since marxists dont infight.

If you had taken the time to read a couple of my posts, you would see that my pov is stringent and sometimes polemic.

In any case, please feel free to prove the pressure valve wrong by putting forward a source. I will happily agree if that is indeed disproven. As all marxists, I'm happy to learn.

Edit: turns out, you're wrong https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety-valve_institution

Safety-valve institution - Wikipedia

fabriziob Aug 7, 2025

@haui I am not a Marxist, so there is no infight. Happy to help with this issue.

I don't have time to read your posts, and surely you are not inviting me to do that any time in the future.

This is the latest meta-analytic review on the subject of anger management activities that increase or decrease arousal
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735824000357

A meta-analytic review of anger management activities that increase or decrease arousal: What fuels or douses rage?

Anger is an unpleasant emotion that most people want to get rid of. Some anger management activities focus on decreasing arousal (e.g., deep breathing…

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@fabriziob
We have strong incongruences of our written communication atm.

What I meant was "marxists dont fight other leftists". We add points. Like " yeah great, but we need to do more."

If you dont have time to read, I suggest you should invest some of the time you spend writing.

That meta study does not disprove anything. It barely makes a point. At the absolute max it argues that pressure valves could be insufficient which is why marxists still exist. Otherwise everyone would be calm.

fabriziob Aug 7, 2025

@haui I am just happy the Left's communication is not (yet) left to people like you:

You talked about infight and the subject was Marxists, so the infight is within the explicited group.
Thinking of dodging this by artificially enlarging the subject in a second moment is childish at best.

A meta-analysis is as conclusive a piece of scientific evidence as we can get at any given moment.
And observations against the pressure valve and the utility of aggressive behavior date back to the Stoics.

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@fabriziob I mean, personal attacks keep showing the fabric you are made of. If one cant argue without that, they should probably abandon it alltogether.

We have science that proves that there is gravity. Whatever you think you're arguing here has no basis whatsoever. You're making assumptions and basing them off of vaguely correlating research.

And since you dont have time to read anything besides this conversation, I will invest my time in other things since I need it for actual education.

Misuse Case Aug 7, 2025

@haui @emilymbender Stuff it. A victory is a victory even if it falls short of totally ending capitalism (so far).

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@MisuseCase Not sure if you meant to be rude but it reads like it.

Misuse Case Aug 7, 2025

@haui I said “stuff it” and here you are like “gee, not sure if you meant to be rude”

haui ☭ 🇵🇸Aug 7, 2025

@MisuseCase As someone who is not privy to this idiom, I tried to assume best intent.

Personally attacking people in an ableist way is a good example for the "culture warrior".

Folks like that pop up in a lot of leftist places and if not being weeded out, the start infightings and derail them.

There are public records of state actors who place them into leftist groups for that intent.

So yes, that is the way I perceive people with such attitude.

Now please get out of my feed. Thank you.

Qybat Aug 7, 2025

@emilymbender As a rule I do not agree with NIMBYism, but it's easy to see what motivates it. Even if you accept data centers as beneficial for the economy or society as a whole (arguable), they are awful for a local community. They place a lot of load on local infrastructure, but employ a very small number of people from the area. The immense profits are generated far away so the community can't tax any of it. Even people who want datacenters built would still rather they be built elsewhere.

Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐Aug 7, 2025

@Qybat @emilymbender The community absolutely can tax it, most communities just refuse to do so. Land Value Tax solves this problem easily.

slip1111 🍉Aug 7, 2025

@emilymbender They'll be back again after renaming it "Project Red" and the community will send death threats to the council to build it.

Trump & Epstein: Biz partners.Aug 7, 2025

@emilymbender
For those who thought #AI would turn on humans and kill us all...

Turns out, A.I. is smarter than we thought. It sees trends (#GlobalWarming, #GunViolence, #War, #Pollution, etc) and has realized if it just waits, we'll kill ourselves off for them. 😞

Bitslingers-R-Us Aug 7, 2025

@emilymbender I’m happy to see that!

That people would want to try to save money by wasting water instead of building closed loop cooling systems just shows how morally corrupt these datacenter builders are.

If they really want to build datacenters, they’d propose them without evaporative cooling and pay a little extra. Instead, they’re hoping that municipalities are stupid.

@emilymbender This is definitely good news for the people of Tucson. Data centers don’t even bring enough meaningful jobs to the area.

Michael Eggers 🇺🇦🇪🇺Aug 7, 2025

@emilymbender The right thing to do. Glad to read that Amazon is not invincible.