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Comment by consumer451 | Hacker News Reader

Something I heard a person say recently:

> Isn't it weird how there is no huge industry pushback on all this new AI datacenter power need, as there was about electrifying vehicles?

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Almost as if that "industry pushback" argument was not made in good faith? I wonder who would be against electric vehicles?

> I wonder who would be against electric vehicles?

The fossil fuel industry ?

What!? As if to suggest! An assertion most improper!

And car companies, who made the classic “holding back the tide” strategic blunder and basically created Tesla, BYD, and others.

Turns out the market routes right around slow movers.

Was there a big industry push back against looms, tractors, computers, or the internet?

There used to be a social contract, but now there are so many people that it's a problem that there is no work for the displaced. The leverage between the very small number of people with vast amounts of capital and a large number of people with very little capital or leverage - this is a societal dynamic that has existed before in the world. There is historical precedent for this, and it's probably worth paying very close attention to what comes next if you are a very wealthy person pushing against all forms of wealth redistribution.

Tractors didn't get it because about the time they became useful for most farmers WWII was pushing the need for less men on the farm so they could go to war. There were tractors before then, but the previous ones had big negatives if you were not a much larger farm than most were then.

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