Oct 9, 2026 · 24 min · 8 segments
Full episode: www.Patreon.com/KillTheComputer Saul Levin is the Program Director for the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research and host of The Hum…
Saul LevinGuestJuneHostCalebHostI ask a question, Saul? With everything being sort of siloed off and everybody's in their own echo chamber, everything is hyper-partisan right now.
Why this, do you think? I mean, I understand we're all impacted by it, but we're all impacted by a lot of things.
What is it about the data center fight that you have seen that sort of unites everybody across different political spectrums and generations and such?
I mean, first of all, it's a scale issue, right? 90% of GDP growth this year is estimated to be from AI hardware and software.
It's like the equivalent to the US military budget from, you know, five or 10 years ago.
The second thing that is really notable is that AI data centers are really an encapsulation and physical representation of everything that has gotten worse in our lives.
Whether people are mad about the environmental conditions and public health issues, whether they're mad about the noise and mental health related issues, if people are mad about the fact that AI data centers are being used to build weapons of war and a nuclear arsenal, Um, those things are all real harms that people experience, but all of them are kind of connected in a way because it's like, we have no say.
Billionaires are running around this country doing whatever they want to whoever they want with no consequences and no rules and regulations.
And so a lot of people I talk to, like, they're sort of like, oh, well, I don't want the data center here.
And you start talking to them and it's like, well, you know, my kid's addicted to social media.
And I read the news and we're like bombing kids in other countries and then saying we don't have enough money to fund like basic food and healthcare.
So I think AI data centers have come to represent a little bit of the loss of control that regular people have over our lives.
Yeah, I think it was on Paris Marx show, or maybe it was somewhere else that you'd said this.
The difference is sort of that with all these other things, it's a bit more abstract.
But with the data center, there's like a place to go to.
There's like a physical representation of the thing that you're pissed off at.
I ask a question, Saul? With everything being sort of siloed off and everybody's in their own echo chamber, everything is hyper-partisan right now.
Why this, do you think? I mean, I understand we're all impacted by it, but we're all impacted by a lot of things.
What is it about the data center fight that you have seen that sort of unites everybody across different political spectrums and generations and such?
I mean, first of all, it's a scale issue, right? 90% of GDP growth this year is estimated to be from AI hardware and software.
It's like the equivalent to the US military budget from, you know, five or 10 years ago.
The second thing that is really notable is that AI data centers are really an encapsulation and physical representation of everything that has gotten worse in our lives.
Whether people are mad about the environmental conditions and public health issues, whether they're mad about the noise and mental health related issues, if people are mad about the fact that AI data centers are being used to build weapons of war and a nuclear arsenal, Um, those things are all real harms that people experience, but all of them are kind of connected in a way because it's like, we have no say.
Billionaires are running around this country doing whatever they want to whoever they want with no consequences and no rules and regulations.
And so a lot of people I talk to, like, they're sort of like, oh, well, I don't want the data center here.
And you start talking to them and it's like, well, you know, my kid's addicted to social media.
And I read the news and we're like bombing kids in other countries and then saying we don't have enough money to fund like basic food and healthcare.
So I think AI data centers have come to represent a little bit of the loss of control that regular people have over our lives.
Yeah, I think it was on Paris Marx show, or maybe it was somewhere else that you'd said this.
The difference is sort of that with all these other things, it's a bit more abstract.
But with the data center, there's like a place to go to.
There's like a physical representation of the thing that you're pissed off at.
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