It’s Happening, Man...

If you haven’t watched Taylor Sheridan’s cowboy soap opera Yellowstone, chances are you’ve at least heard of the phenomenon that spawned a host of spinoffs and side projects, and offered red-state America a cultural alternative to the ideologically siloed message that Hollywood has been pumping out for decades. Culture wars aside, one fan-favorite character, a ranch hand named Teeter (ably played by Jen Landon) with a Texas accent so thick you could serve it with a spoon, came to mind as I pondered another culture war: the hand-wringing over AI and the data centers that will power it.

Teeter, shortly after arriving at the Yellowstone-Dutton ranch and proving her ability at handling cattle, set her sights on Colby, another hand in the bunk house. Colby, initially resistant to her advances, was endlessly needled by the other hands, “Oh, it’s happening.”

That’s the reality of AI.

That’s the reality of data centers and the infrastructure that will support them.

No matter how loud the skepticism, the “Not In My Back Yard” rejections, the protests, the tub-thumping, the doomsaying, the Papal encyclicals, or the fear-mongering.

As to that last part...

While every disruptive innovation produces its share of fear (humans have a natural fear of the unknown), much of what we see is stoked by agitators rather than emerging naturally.

Yes, agitators can themselves be natural. I “agitate” for liberty, and I do so honestly and without ulterior motive. People passionate about their beliefs can and do try to convince others to see things their way, and sometimes to organize movements to better pursue their desired goals. For better or worse.

Many agitators, especially with the advent of social media and, yes, AI, are not of this sort, however. They have those ulterior motives and hidden agendas, and coax people in certain directions in their service. They often lie or troll or otherwise misrepresent. They often hide behind fake profiles. They often employ bots and other tools. They often insult or use other emotional manipulations.

This isn’t hard to figure. It’s a bit harder to resist, especially if you don’t see it often enough to recognize the patterns, but in time most people can get a sense of who to ignore.

Unfortunately, many of the “most” don’t realize that the agitators’ efforts have already borne fruit by then. People don’t take the next steps, which are asking the most important questions.

All this agitation, all this resistance to AI and to progress... and to capitalism that fosters real progress... and to the liberty that fosters capitalism... isn’t merely the product of delusional academics and ideologically blinkered young people.

Just ask yourself, “who would benefit from Americans resisting the mechanisms of progress and prosperity?”

The obvious answer is, “America’s rivals.”

China is just one of a number of foreign powers actively running covert social media efforts intended to build distrust of capitalism and liberty itself among America’s younger generations.

Why?

So that China can undermine America’s economic might and global dominance.

That’s pretty obvious, right?

Now, ask the next question.

If China, purportedly a socialistic/command economy, thinks socialism and command economies are so great, why advocate that over capitalism for America? Why push America toward her own model, if that model is better than capitalism?

The answer there is that China’s leaders know that capitalism works better. They’ve been moving their nation in that direction for decades, albeit in a twisted, corrupted, single-party fashion. Fifteen years ago, I read about the city of Wenzhou, where a libertarian experiment emerged organically thanks to government indifference. That story was a telltale of China’s growth. That growth is the result of her departure from communist/socialist principles, not from those principles themselves. The same arc is found in many other places, notably the Scandinavian nations that went socialist, stagnated, and renewed their growth by unraveling the socialistic knots they tied themselves into.

We see the answer to why China would seek to undermine Americans’ trust in capitalism. China knows capitalism works. But, capitalism is a threat to single-party rule, so China’s leadership can only allow so much of it. To “do better” under such a constraint, China needs to hinder the competition, and what better way to do that than to convince the competition to do it to themselves?

Again, we know that China is behind a lot of the anti-AI propagandizing we see. As I made obvious at the top of this piece, AI is happening, whether Americans embrace it or NIMBY it outside our borders. We can reap the benefits or choose to stagnate and watch the rest of the world outpace us. To see how the latter plays out, take a look at Europe.

We also know that China is behind a lot of the anti-capitalism propagandizing we see. Again, I ask, why would a supposedly socialistic nation try to convince its rival’s populace that socialism is a good thing? They know what you and I know - that it’s a destructive ideology that only benefits those at the top of the power structures. By planting the socialist virus in the American corpus, they hope to weaken our nation and benefit theirs.

What can you and I do?

First, stop falling for the AI fear-mongering. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s happening, man. Others are going to build big data centers whether we do or not, and if we don’t have any, we won’t be able to a - compete and be - counterweigh.

Second, realize how many of the anti-capitalist misinformers out there are fake in one fashion or another. Treat them that way, and point their fakeness out to others. Unmasking the liars, rather than arguing with them, is the right remedy.

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A footnote regarding regulation of AI. As is so often the case, the people insisting on its regulation, guard-railing, and other forms of “braking” or oversight are overwhelmingly the ignorant, under-informed, or mis-informed. Dunning-Kruger runs rampant, journalists (notoriously ignorant, see Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect) bloviate, and politicians (see Mark Twain) pontificate. Worse, I trust none of their motives. Those not based on fear are lusting for control or wealth or both.

While this doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate concerns, we must always ask whether the “cures” will do more harm than good. Whether the combination of ignorance and bad motives will make things worse rather than better. Whether doing nothing and letting market forces sort things out is better than having government make its usual hash of things.

Beware of nirvana fallacies. They make you ripe for the plucking.