Power in a Machine Republic
Discussion
Excerpted from Chor Pharn:
- Energy-compute – Infrastructure as power
"The machine surplus is physical before it is digital. America’s industrial strategy merges the energy transition with AI deployment: electrify, compute, subsidise. Data-centre investment exceeds $100 billion a quarter and will surpass $3 trillion within three years. The Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce have become coordination ministries—issuing credits, directing supply chains, and arbitrating between environmental limits and strategic urgency.
The corridor’s external dependencies are structural. Gulf capital funds the grid; Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese manufacturers supply chips and materials; Canadian and Australian mines provide critical minerals; Chinese refineries and Indonesian nickel feed the supply chain despite sanctions. Protectionism raises costs; friend-shoring deepens dependence. Industrial policy delivers capacity but not autonomy. The machine expands; sovereignty thins.
- Information – Attention as governance
The information corridor mediates everything else. Platforms are now political infrastructure: they translate surplus into perception. Engagement metrics, not elections, determine which problems the public notices. The business model rewards agitation; the advertising market finances volatility. When politics and media share the same algorithms, outrage becomes the stabiliser of the system.
Regulation trails innovation. The European Union writes the most influential rules for data and AI; India and the Gulf enforce localised compliance; American firms optimise around all of them. The state’s influence is indirect—content moderation requests, security briefings, and antitrust gestures that signal attention without imposing control. The information corridor delivers visibility but not coherence."
(https://thecuttingfloor.substack.com/p/machine-surplus-governing-abundance)