John Donne’s Meditation XVII, best known for the line “for whom the bell tolls,” argues that no person stands apart from the rest of humanity. What happens to one part of the whole eventually reaches the rest. I work in software engineering. I am part of the problem. I understand why data centers exist, and I benefit from them like everyone else. The cloud isn’t some kind of metaphysical thing… it sits somewhere, on land, tied to power and water and people. But I also live

As someone who grew up in Southern Ohio, the tales of Appalachian labor history were all around. Learning about the miners who risked their livelihood as well as their very lives to win the right to organize, I can’t help but see the parallels of the current administration echoing the dangerous and exploitative past.