The 1970s breakup of Ma Bell (Bell System) dismantled...

Editor's note: ...a highly engineered, extremely reliable analog telephone network once viewed as a "technological wonder", replacing it with a lower-quality digital system that tracks users while showing little concern for service failures or rising costs. This shift and likely breakup of Bell System (AT&T) was deliberately planned and was the early groundwork for surveillance capitalism, data collection economies, and the erosion of ownership into permanent subscription models across music, gaming, and even vehicles. We are being "turned into permanent renters of our goods and services with the surveillance state". Data centers, AI expansion, and Silicon Valley are cast as the core infrastructure enabling real-time tracking and control, built by converting fertile farmland into an artificial digital order that is unsustainable and completely detached from nature. The grid and electrical production output was a long-planned move away from reliability and human-centered design toward silicon-based systems of prediction and dominance. The DOE emergency order republished in the news article below directly manages data centers as large loads that can be shifted to backup power amid thin reserves and high outages on the PJM grid. This illustrates the physical electricity strain created by the very data-center and AI expansion at its core is an unsustainable digital control system. Nature has been replaced by an artificial reality. We are now prisoners in this digital reality. By its very nature digital is tyranny: there can only be 0s and 1s. Unlike nature, the digital world is not sustainable.
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DOE Declares Power Grid Emergency Across 13 States as Blackout Risks Rise

With 61,591 megawatts of generation out for maintenance, the order lets PJM summon extra power and move data centers and other large loads onto backup generation.

By Ethan Fowler | October 14, 2026

The Department of Energy has declared a statutory electric-reliability emergency across PJM's 13-state grid territory after the operator warned that elevated demand, outages, and thin reserves could jeopardize power delivery.

DOE's Order No. 202-26-50 took effect Oct. 13 and runs through Oct. 16. It directs PJM to dispatch specified generators and authorizes backup power before, or during, the grid's highest emergency alert.

PJM expected to come within 900 megawatts of its reserve margin on Oct. 14 while generator outages reached 61,591 megawatts, according to the order. DOE said the conditions pose a "significant risk of emergency conditions that could jeopardize electric reliability and public safety."

PJM extended its Maximum Generation Alert and Load Management Alert through Oct. 14. Unusually warm weather collided with autumn maintenance and construction outages, forcing the operator to recall equipment outages where possible.

The emergency order also lets PJM direct data centers and other large loads onto backup generation if necessary. It grants specified generating units temporary relief from environmental permit restrictions to maintain reliability.

Wednesday demand forecast: 113,312 MW. PJM's territory covers all or parts of 13 states and Washington, D.C.

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Editor's note: The Department of Justice's 1974 antitrust assault on the Bell System was a catastrophic error that dismantled one of the most reliable, customer-centered communications networks ever built. By forcing the breakup of Ma Bell, regulators destroyed a vertically integrated system that delivered near-perfect service quality, rapid fault correction, and universal access under a single engineering standard. In its place they installed a fragmented, lower-quality marketplace that quickly raised local rates faster than inflation and opened the door to the inferior digital networks we live with today. One possible motive for this deliberate destruction is that the lawsuit was never primarily about competition. It may have been the opening move in a long-term plan to clear the analog infrastructure so that a fully digital, trackable, and controllable communications grid could be installed without resistance. The old Bell System's reliability and closed architecture stood in the way of the surveillance-capable digital order that followed. Removing it first made the later transition to data-collection systems, AI-driven prediction, and permanent subscription models far easier to impose. The people who launched the antitrust assault on the Bell System almost certainly understood that dismantling its reliable analog architecture would clear the path for the digital control systems that followed:

What Happened to the Bell System after Divestiture?

The Bell System divestiture: background, implementation, and outcome.

Stashing cash by a banker in case these AI systems crash hey? He's probably making the right decision and so should you because this digital system is not sustainable: 

Senior banking official told me he's stashing cash in case artificial intelligence crashes the financial system: ALEX BRUMMER

Yes, we get it, Mr. Trump, but don't overlook the electrical grid and that's no damn hoax either:

Trump Says AI Doesn't Need Guardrails, Calls Growing Concerns 'A Hoax'