i feel like one of the elements of the futures that some of these tet companies are selling us now are really dependent on this massive scale up inco ting power. And you can see this, i think, with streaming video, streaming media, how that has required a lot more computing power in recent years. But then there's another part of this, which is that computers are built, or are created, based upon industrial process. There is a chain for computation that is completely obscured. It is not sustainable and t is not the least bit achievable.
Paris Marx is joined by Dwayne Monroe to discuss what it’s like to work in a data center, how the cloud came to hold a dominant position, and the consequences of its control by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Dwayne Monroe is a cloud technologist and aspiring Marxist theorist of technology, with twenty years of experience architecting large-scale computational systems. Follow Dwayne on Twitter at @cloudquistador.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.
Also mentioned in this episode:
- Dwayne wrote about cloud computing for Logic Magazine. He’s also written about a public cloud and the metaverse on his blog.
- Amazon’s cloud infrastructure in the eastern United States experienced a major outage in December 2021.
- Residents in various parts of the world have been questioning the logic of building data centers, including in the United States and New Zealand.
- In July, the network of Canadian telecom giant Rogers went down, leaving millions without service.
Support the show