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> The same thing happened in the 80s, 90s and early 00s when many economists painted those who lost their jobs due to globalization as Luddites who just didn't understand economics. Only decades later did many economists readily admit many of the huge downsides to many populations from globalization and that reskilling rarely works.

The question is whether globalization is a net positive and whether people understand that, even if it comes at a cost to themselves personally.

It should be noted that modern globalization (post 1945), with Bretton Woods, GATT/WTO, container shipping, and eventually the internet creating the integrated global economy we have today, is but the latest milestone in a long history.

Industrial wave of 1829 - 1914 radically reduced the cost of moving goods and information.

The first globalization happened 1490s - 1800s, when Columbus’s 1492 voyage and Vasco da Gama’s 1498 route to India created the first truly intercontinental trade and migration networks, linking the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe for the first time.

> The question is whether globalization is a net positive and whether people understand that, even if it comes at a cost to themselves personally.

That's moving the goalposts. While economists acknowledged there would be some disruptions, in the 90s the vast majority of them downplayed what turned out to be prolonged negative effects to huge populations in richer Western countries. And, ironically, it was those negative effects that led to the rise of nationalism and the dismantling of globalization that we see today. I understand folks' objections to some of the opinions and writings of Paul Krugman, but I give him credit for admitting he was wrong: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-10/inequa...

Sure, there aren't many people who deny that globalization lifted millions out of poverty in East Asia. That's not really comforting to folks in the Rust Belt whose communities have been hollowed out and devastated.

This. 100% this. Data centers drive up our energy costs and are external to the local economy for the most part.

Blocking them should be a priority until rates are negotiated with your G&T / major provider (PJM and FERC in Maryland and many other states)

RE blaming the peon reader: you’re talking about Vox so that is expected unfortunately.

I think a lot of the cost increases come from utilities being in bed with government and both going "aha we've found our scapegoat" more than the demands of the data centers themselves.

But yes this article is absolutely the "usual sort" of paternalistic garbage.

> 2. At their heart, data centers are extractive. Their boosters always overstate the jobs they will create, but they basically take land and resources from one place and create the vast majority of the wealth somewhere else. They are giant windowless boxes, they don't support their community in any way, and in fact with AI they basically add to more job destruction in their communities.

Best part is when they figure out how to take their $10-20k donations to the local community as "doing good" and turn it into positive PR spin to the local yokels that don't know any better that they're getting robbed blind daily. They have a full playbook to rob local communities and get them to fall for it and it sucks.

I've watched it happen in Upstate NY and we certainly aren't seeing any benefits of any of it.