Some who advocate for the re-industrialization of the American economy are simultaneously opposing the development of industrial-scale computing facilities, drawing a parallel to historical resistance against factories and other large-scale industrial operations.
Historically, the early 20th century saw workers laboring under demanding conditions, including 12-hour days, seven days a week, and facing significant safety risks in factories. These industrial operations often led to environmental consequences, such as blackened skies and polluted waterways. However, the argument is made that if contemporary standards had been applied then, widespread industrial development might not have occurred.
Similar to how factories of the past could be seen as "dark Satanic mills" rather than aesthetically pleasing structures, modern data centers are often criticized for their appearance and their significant consumption of energy and water. Yet, these concerns are framed as not fundamentally different from the challenges posed by early manufacturing plants. For instance, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has raised concerns, highlighting issues like cloudy well water near a data center construction site in Morgan County, Georgia. This is contrasted with historical environmental problems, such as the Cuyahoga River repeatedly catching fire due to industrial byproducts.
The development of key industries during the Industrial Revolution, such as integrated steel mills, paper mills, aluminum smelters, chemical plants, and oil refineries, all required immense amounts of water and energy. For example, integrated steel mills alone account for approximately 5% of the country's energy usage and demand substantial water for cooling. The text suggests that if such resource-intensive operations had been prohibited, the economic growth and technological advancements of that era would have been impossible.
While "Big Tech" has been accused of arrogance, the comparison is drawn to historical industrial titans. Unlike the historical instances of labor disputes, such as Carnegie Steel's actions during the 1892 Homestead Strike, there are no reports of tech companies engaging in violent confrontations with workers building their facilities. Instead, the construction and maintenance of data centers are noted to be creating substantial blue-collar employment opportunities and driving wage increases, aligning with calls for more lucrative and plentiful jobs.
The article posits that opposing data centers, which are crucial for the current wave of innovation driven by AI and computing power, is a backward-looking stance. It suggests that the resistance to these facilities is incongruent with the desire for economic revitalization and overlooks the historical necessity of embracing large-scale industrial development for national progress and economic strength. The AI revolution is presented as the current technological frontier, and the associated blue-collar construction boom is seen as a positive, if unexpected, outcome.