“I tell you, friends, this is serious stuff.”
When you imagine the future, what do you see? What are you experiencing? What kind of freedom do you have? What kind of surveillance will you be under? Has the climate stabilized and cooled down? What’s the water situation where you live? Is it healthy and readily available for use, and safe to drink? How many Data centers and small modular nuclear reactors are in your community? Marinate and meditate on these questions and imagine?
My relatives and many of you understand power structures like capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism, how their violence impacts us individually, and what their connection is to the problems of the world. I probably don’t have to tell you the future is dark without aggressive change and power shift to light the way. Without a course correction, a safe future doesn’t exist.
I ask the questions in the beginning not to just imagine the future but to potentially see processes that get us there. The process is just as important as the outcomes.
Maybe you see us out of this mess…
Am I the tool, or is AI a tool?
From stone tools to AI, humans have long made technological advancements that helped us be more comfortable and have to work or think less. Western European thought tells us that this technology not only defines the past but drives “progress” for an “easier” future. However, this narrative rarely mentions/acknowledges that tech is just a tool we use for survival and comfort like fire, shelter, and clothing. For me, Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and community are tools for the same things as well. Without these things, we wouldn’t know each other or know our earthly relatives and how to interact with them.
While I’m not a fan of AI, I see how it benefits a tech industry driven by capitalism, centered in patriarchy, and upheld by white supremacy. These hold no respect for Indigenous views and relationships to and with the natural world. And that makes me realize that some of the scariest things about AI aren’t its capabilities, but the pathway those pushing for increasing these tech tools are developing for it to be fully realized.
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNRs)
In my work, I express how I feel like one of the biggest monuments to white supremacy isn’t a statue in a square, it’s a nuclear reactor in your community. Stop to think for a minute about what these structures actually represent: Are they for power and energy? If so, what kind? Are they for producing power from facilities or power over people? Are they for increasing energy for the grid or putting The Peoples energy in check? What is power and energy in relation to nuclear power and the power structures it benefits?
Nuclear energy powers “progress,” and the threat of its bombs slows the roll of anyone who would oppose it. To oppose nuclear power and weapons is to oppose US Imperialism, for humanity and nuclear power cannot coexist. There is a long history of environmental and cultural injustices related to the development of nuclear power and bombs that impact Indigenous, Black, Brown, and poor working class communities. This has been studied and written about extensively.
Data Centers and nukes, who really benefits?
After years of hearing about how we have to have nuclear to save the world and slow climate change…..now we hear we need it to power massive amounts of AI data centers. What’s the connection? Well, the same folks investing and pushing small modular nuclear reactors are the same folks doing data centers, the “tech bros.”
The data centers themselves aren’t sustainable and are being revealed as a scam. Higher electric bills for people, only a handful of jobs, and a fistful of dollars for the owners. They require massive amounts of energy, water, and special materials for their processes and computing. Who really benefits from that? Check out this Counterpunch article for a great breakdown of the numerous dangers of falling for the greenwashing of such projects in our communities.
The need for massive amounts of energy calls for gas plants in the short term to carry the tech into the future, until it can be powered by these small modular nuclear reactors. To make that happen, data centers will continue to be planned and built while energy utilities, like DTE, draw up plans alongside “tech bro” companies to satisfy increasing energy needs. This eventually leads to a call for more nuclear reactors, which we see playing out right now in Michigan.
In a world breeding fascism, inequity, and greed, those hungry for money to feed their hunger, like the “tech bro” billionaires, seek to use cloud technology, bitcoin schemes, and AI data centers to concentrate more wealth and strengthen their grip on the world.
For too long, people we don’t even know have made choices for us and decided our futures. They tear down our ancestors’ societies and cultures, casting them into the grinder. They pulverize us into dust, and taking the powder, they mix with our stolen water, they shape us like fresh clay. And then they ask us to be thankful for being lifted out of our “savagery.”
But what’s savage? Is being in a relationship with our relatives, both human and non-human, savage? Or is it ripping, violently, elements crucial to the earth’s well-being from her body while ethically cleansing and genociding those Indigenous to the land…oppressing and enslaving and exploiting along the way.
We need more connections to the natural world and more teachings from our earthly relatives. It only feels right to slow down and listen. Listen to our people, our neighbors, the water, and the wind, plus all in between.
So the next time someone tells you our safety lies in Nukes. Ask yourself, “Are they really for climate or are they for the expansion of US Imperialism, corporate greed, and the decimation of our planet?”
Jesse Deerinwater is one of the lead organizers at Citizens Resistance at Fermi 2 (CRAFT) an indigenous-led organization seeking to end our reliance upon dangerous nuclear energy. Each year CRAFT hosts a cohort of fellows who learn to honor the earth through deep organizing mentorship and to fight against the corporate takeover of our natural resources. Learn more and get involved by visiting shutdownfermi.org. You can also find them and more resources on IG @craftcitizensresistance
