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Comment by mindslight | Hacker News Reader

There are plenty of situations these days where we can invoke this specter of the law of the jungle, but I don't think the power grid is one of them. Here the monopolies aren't granted by the social contract but are rather basically natural monopolies (last mile power distribution). And the problem is that the power generators have found more lucrative customers [0], so that market truth doesn't help.

What do you see as a specific type of retaliation? DIY attacks on datacenters that are using too much power? That seems relatively easy to defend against until one gets to the level of improvised explosive drones (ala what recently happened in the Middle East), and even that feels only a few years out until they can be defended against.

[0] or at least they think so, modulo how big of an overinvestment bubble we've got

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You don’t think the power grid is one of them? What about your water supply? Your air? Fuel for your car? Where is the line for you exactly if it’s not one of the defining characteristics of the modern world: power for your home?

And those utilities are mandated by building codes so they have benefited from many developers who foot the bill for their infrastructure. The local jurisdiction and private property is undoubtedly littered with easements for their power distribution. This was OBVIOUSLY done under the context of a social contract that they would supply power. No one thought to codify that because no one envisioned someone could be that immoral.

I’m obviously not going to suggest specific forms of retaliation on the internet. But I will say that the people in power are overplaying their hand. They’re telegraphing exactly how they intend to treat you the instant they think they have the benefit of technological superiority and autonomous security.

I think you misunderstood me. I was not arguing about the morality of what you said. Rather I was arguing about the practicality. For some things I think a mass repudiation of the social contract would hurt the people currently abusing the social contract at scale, more than it would hurt the masses. For the power grid it feels like the opposite dynamic. As things stand, the masses derive benefits from the highly organized technological system giving them each comparatively just a little electrical power. Meanwhile data centers can use the grid to bring down their costs, but if that option becomes prohibitive they can also just build on-site generation.

Ah... I understand what you're saying now, my apologies.

In that case though, I actually still disagree, but again I must refuse to elaborate. I will only say that in an asymmetric conflict, creativity disproportionately favors the underdog.

Discussing security vulnerabilities and hypothetical balances of physical power isn't illegal. Or if you're hoping that by not stating what you see as vulnerabilities you won't be helping datacenters (/$whomever) to secure things, I'll point out that the novelty is likely to wear off after a couple uses anyway.

The crux of the matter here seems to be that the masses of individuals need the civilization-reliant power grid much more than an individual data center. And by the time we're considering direct attacks on datacenters, they'll most likely already be off the grid (nuisance noise might still be a motivation though, or general anti-tech sentiment). So we're really just talking about defending a facility from things like drones, which is a generally hot topic these days regardless.

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