The Case for Digital Degrowth

Found at

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-case-for-digital-degrowth/

Written by

Michael Kwet

Seems to be saying that concern over the environmental impacts of AI are overemphasised.

The core contribution of the digital economy to ecocide is not the “direct” environmental footprint of the information and communications technology sector.

Probably true.

Rather, it is elite accumulation and ecologically unequal exchange within and between nations

Kwet is an ecosocialist. So I guess he's saying that you can't just focus on the environmental impacts and ignore the social elements.

He mentions the 'tech pseudo left', wonder what that's referring to?

Digital technology is central to the state of the environment.

there is no fixing the environment without seriously re-engineering the digital economy and society

Capitalism produces high degrees of inequality.

Those in favor of capitalism argue that inequality can be justified because total growth makes everyone wealthier, even if some people are richer than others.

the United States of America holds the greatest degree of responsibility for the present crisis. It has burned more carbon and consumed more of the Earth’s finite resources to build its wealth than any other country on the planet

U.S. houses just 4% of the world’s population, but holds 31% of the world’s wealth and 45% of the world’s financial assets

Through the process of digital colonialism, the Americans have taken control of the global digital society

Rich tech giants in the Global North monopolize the means of computation and knowledge while the poor countries perform the menial labor, like digging in the dirt for metal, picking coffee beans, labeling data to train artificial intelligence models or cleansing social media networks of disturbing content.

Through the ownership and control of the digital economy, Americans utilize tech for the economic, political and social domination of sovereign nations. U.S. corporations also control the world’s social media networks, search engines, semiconductors, cloud computing systems, operating systems, business networking, office productivity software and more

Instead of trying to create world peace and sanity, the U.S. is maintaining its 750+ foreign military bases, now with a ring of bases encircling China. (By comparison, China has one military base on foreign soil, in the African country of Djibouti.)