2025-01-02

Welcome to Blunder Valley

Happy New Year, Gemini!

OK, so: since I wasn't able to find an existing group opposing this ludicrous $70B, gas-powered, 7.5 gigawatt AI data centre project being proposed by Kevin O'Leary, I went ahead and learned enough about 11ty to be able to spin up a super basic blog-style website for that purpose. It still needs lots more work, but I wanted to gradually get it out there and seek opinions and feedback as I go:

Aiming to put forward arguments that don't only appeal to progressives, but also resonate with conservatives and libertarians in Alberta, where this thing would get built.

Because, projects like these have negative consequences for almost all of us. There shouldn't be a shortage of reasons why regular folks on almost all parts of the political map might want to oppose things like this.

It's not that Albertan conservatives are my allies or something. But I do think that this project proposal is a good opportunity to pry open some of the contradictions inherent in the right-wing 'populist' movement here in Canada, and, just maybe, pit O'Leary and Big Tech against the Danielle Smith government?

Heck, if Stephen Harper, recently installed by Smith as Board chair at Alberta's CAD$170B public sector pension fund, starts funneling that money into something that seems pretty likely to (financially speaking!) blow up spectacularly, then it seems useful to point out that the pension fund includes *police* pensions alongside the retirement savings of teachers and so on.

Grocery prices are hardly a partisan issue right now across Canada - maybe it's useful to point out how major US chains are leveraging various kinds of so-called 'AI' to help them extract the maximum possible dollar amount that customers are willing to pay for goods?

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For anyone reading this, if those examples get you thinking of other ideas for how to approach this - or if you have any comments, suggestions, etc. - please don't feel shy about getting in touch.

In the meantime, I'll keep working on getting more posts up. And even if this particular data centre project gets abandoned, I'm hoping that most of the site will still serve as a general-purpose resource for opposing similar projects in the future.

various ways to reach me listed here: