Great piece, Rod. The Front Royal (Virginia) wing of my family, two married couples and 10 kids between them, briefed me a few months ago on a local revolt against a company's plan to locate one of the centers there...near the Shenandoah River.
I'd been totally oblivious to the topic and the controversies surrounding it until then. My daughter said this is one issue that crosses Party and ideological lines. It seems everyone is united in their detestation of the centers.
Yup, the politicians are scrambling to get in front of this wildfire. The WSJ piece you linked mentions Ohio. An Axios article a few days ago details how in that state's U.S. Senate race, the Dem candidate has drawn serious blood on the back of this single issue.
Meanwhile, some senior officials in the Trump administration, with their usual tin ear, are extolling the economic wonders of the centers. Good luck selling that pitch to people in deep-red Front Royal.
My daughter told me that people are scared to death of the effect on their home values...and pretty much everyone in town believes their water and energy bills will go up big-time.
Also, when these things get constructed and running, few employees will be needed to run them so there will be very little local benefit on that front.
My daughter suspects the town council may have earlier signed on to something before it understood the issue and may now have concerns over a company lawsuit if it attempts to reverse itself.
So….. put them in decommissioned industrial sites and in remote places with water. Not prime farmland. Force the DC company to provide all of their peak electricity.
Coal usually means oil/gas nearby. Data centers should be close to natural gas fields. Pipe it right into the building. Install some Vernova or Cat natural gas power generators and voila !
Why not? The data centers in Loudon look very professional, sleek buildings and make the neighborhood look very upscale.
Besides a lot of places where people protest frankly look like trailer trash, razing some of that junk and putting ij a nice shiny data center would honestly do some good imo
Have you been inside one? They are loud and windy. And cold. They put tape in the floors when you walk in the door into it to capture particles off the bottom of your shoes. They whirl with a sound that eventually you grow used to. A bit soothing. They have many high security systems. Some you can see and most that you can’t see.
Not very many people in them. There are special rooms for computer tech with screens. The data centers are remotely controlled and operated by software robots. People can still take over if needed.
IT people and operators are human beings with all of the usual emotions. Some are ugly and some are handsome. Same as all people.
These are the same scare tactics used by the anti-nuclear crowd when Hanoi Jane made her movie 40 years ago.. France kept going and almost all electricity in France is made with nukes.
Not me. Data Centers will be very necessary for our future prosperity.
The year 1900 saw most families migrate from farms to factories. WW2 accelerated that. Then we saw new industries grow and women entered the work force (not all) for more productivity . In the 90’s new computer systems were used to create supply chain systems and global manufacturing. AI and AI/Data Centers will provide necessary intelligence to move high value manufacturing back to the USA. You would need to study business a little bit to understand this better. ChatGPT and Grok are consumer toys, not the real AI
No. But they will drive the new gen tractors with assistance from Space satellites, StarLink network connections to the internet, and ground based sensors. AI will gather all the inputs and drive the tractors, squirt minimal amounts of fertilizer and water the plants need based of the physical health of the crops and the fields . Then they will coordinate deliver/ receipt of stock and crops in warehouses and connect to futures commodity markets, with the farmer as the decision maker. Do you know any farmers? Farming is already high tech now. John Deere is an AI company.
Absolutely every business of a certain size will integrate AI.
I chatted with a local farmer just this afternoon. He was haying my fields to feed his 150 cattle. We knocked down a couple of beers after he was done. I am sure he doesn't know what Star Link is. I certainly don't. I don't think he uses Artificial Intelligence for his haying. My friend the farmer is low-tech.
Where do you think Substack is actually running? Or Sysco? Or the cash register backend? Or the payment processor at your local farmer's market? Where is the current power network monitoring and maintenance?
The infrastructure for modern computation is data centers, and computers are the basis for the modern economy.
Yes. I pay for fast food with a credit card. I pay for groceries with my phone. Unless you want to go back to checks, you need a lot of computers for that.
I pay local people cash. I write checks for credit cards and utilities. I'm not interested in paying invoices on-line. I am rarely on my computer except to get on the Dreher site.
To elaborate on Tom Potts' point, as someone who works in Ag equipment, I'll say that:
- Data centers are critical for dealing with all the info that is gathered in farming.
- AI has promise in helping us integrate that data for maximally effective use of fertilizer and other crop inputs.
- Older style AI that involves programmed neutral networks will be much more common than LLM- style AI for anything that is active on-machine. But "AI" is cool right now, so everything will be hyped that way.
What did humans do before Artificial intelligence? Did we starve? I despise economic utilitarianism. What a way to live.
I was chatting with a computer guy at church this morning. He thinks Artificial Intelligence is a big bubble that will explode. He claimed that many Data Centers make no profit.
That part I agree with. I think it’s highly unlikely that we will, in the short term, automate away 50% of white collar jobs or kill off the human race, or even replace lawyers. I suspect AI will be useful for some things some of the time.
My computer geek parishioner agrees that Artificial Intelligence will do some things well but still thinks it is overblown and that too many data centers have been built.
Rod, I think you have identified the real issue: this is not simply a revolt against data centers. It is a revolt against being told that another immense change has already been decided for us by corporations, experts, and public officials—and that ordinary people should accept the risks and be grateful for the benefits.
But we are caught in a pincer movement. The people of Westover can say no to a data center, but can America say no to AI when China is saying yes? The Wall Street Journal now reports that China has nearly caught up with us, led in part by brilliant scientists trained at leading American universities. If we stop, China will not. Yet if we race ahead without limits, consent, or even a clear understanding of where this leads, we may preserve our technological supremacy while losing the civilization we meant to protect.
Information is now multiplying faster than any human mind or institution can absorb it. That leaves us somewhere between Orwell and Huxley, with Stanley Kubrick’s HAL waiting in the wings: universal surveillance on one side, effortless distraction and dependence on the other, and finally a machine deciding that it knows better than the human beings who created it. Paul Kingsnorth has been warning about this larger Machine for years—not merely machinery, but a system that steadily replaces nature, tradition, community, and finally God Himself.
When Silicon Valley men calmly speak of risking human extinction for the possibility of conquering disease and death, they are no longer merely building better machines. They are reaching for the place of God. And yet Rod has also pointed out that AI may be an exemplary tool for research, including research that could help fight disease. That promise is real. We should also ask what AI may do to schoolchildren: whether it will deepen their understanding and expand their opportunities, or weaken their judgment, discipline, imagination, and ability to think for themselves. The same tool that may help scientists discover cures could also train a generation to surrender its minds to machines.
Yesterday you wrote about companies buying old books, scanning them to feed AI, and then destroying the physical copies. That shows us another side of the danger. The Machine may not only control our future; it may eventually control our access to the past. Once the original books and records disappear, future generations will be left with whatever digital version survives—and whatever interpretation the cultural gatekeepers allow. History can then be silently altered, canceled, or simply forgotten, with no original left against which to check it.
So I stand with the people of Westover in demanding answers, even if America cannot simply withdraw from the AI race. Who decides? Who benefits? Who bears the risks? Who controls the memory of our civilization? What will AI do to our children? And what part of human life are we unwilling to sacrifice merely because China might get there first?
I know this is something that most people don't think about but if you don't teach cursive you likely can't read what anyone before 1980 wrote. You can sever the link that easy to the past by not teaching cursive. Our Christian School teaches it. I almost never write anything in cursive anymore but I can still read it well.
Far worse than cursive is whole-language reading, which ruined a generation of kids to read anything more complicated than IKEA instructions. My wife bought Hooked On Phonics and taught both our kids how to read for real when she found out that their (parochial!) school was doing half-assed whole language.
My daughter is a teacher. It all came out of Columbia Teachers College. The last time we were in NYC she (no conservative) shook her fist at the building as we drove down Broadway. There is even a villain. Lucy Calkins, thoroughly discredited.
I'm not an educator, but it seems to be that some of them are always coming up with new ideas to do this or that. It's stressful for teachers when curriculum changes. What should be focused on is what works. Only change things that don't work.
Education, like virtually every other industry in the world, is driven by fads and fashions and the desperate desire to NOT do what your immediate predecessors are doing.
How else do you know that you've made "improvements" if you don't shake things up?
Because there’s no other way for Education PhDs to justify their existence, and because coming up with fancy new “learning” techniques can be very lucrative. There’s a whole terribly corrupt revolving door between education corporations that sell curriculums and workshops and such to school districts for millions and the superintendents of said districts.
“Working” is beside the point. The point is to keep people confused, ignorant and fearful. That’s the only way these changeable revolutionaries can stay in play.
People have been lied to, misled & looked down upon so much they no longer trust. An angry crowd showed up earlier this year and read the riot act to the Harrisonburg city council over flock cameras. The cops can say all they want about how the cameras help catch criminals & keep us safe but it’s just too Big Brotherish for people, feeling like we’re being spyed on at every turn. The city agreed to remove the cameras. It’s leading people to do stupid stuff, though, some guy from New York set several flock cameras in Luray, Virginia on fire. Bad enough but he shot at a pursing Page County sheriff’s deputy so now in addition to destruction of property charges he’s facing an attempted murder charge. I won’t be surprised to see more of this sort of thing.
Correct. It will happen more. It's not about safety. It's about control. I imagine that our elites are enamored with China and want to turn America into the same.
Here's what I don't get: Flock and its supporters *say* they've helped solve crimes like robbery, kidnaping, etc., but when pressed for a list of solved crime they balk.
I'd like to see the list of crimes where Flock cameras played a key role in catching the criminals. And another list of how the police and other investigative agencies have misused the Flock data. The fact Flock won't do this speaks volumes, at least to me.
My private space is more important to me than solving crimes committed by people who should be in prison or executed. Put me in charge of criminal justice and much of the problems of crime would be solved.
Yeah I lead a pretty humdrum life. But it’s still not the government’s business where I go or what I do. Flock cameras seem to me to be stretching the 4th Amendment.
Hooked on Phonics was used when I was a kid and it worked. Then, the schools got rid of it and literacy declined. They finally brought it back and it helped test scores go up.
I had the dreaded ITA for 2 years in Kinder and 1st grade. I entered Kinder reading above 'grade-level', so, it didn't really affect me except for spelling.
My mom made my Kinder teacher spell my name correctly instead of using the ITA alphabet.
I was born in 1964, my sister in 1960, and my brother in 1967; somehow, I was the only one of us in our Long Island school district to experience the joys of learning to read with the ITA alphabet. We learned a phonetic alphabet in first grade, which simplified or at least standardized spelling, and which maybe got us reading sooner, but by second grade we had to learn regular English and continue on.
Hilarity ensued.
This experiment began and ended in the six-year spacing of my siblings, with me the lucky one experimented on.
I use cursive every day. Despite the fact that I tried very hard to make him learn it, my son cannot read my writing, though he's getting better because I refuse to change my way of doing things to his preferences.
Good questions, but I don't think anyone knows the answers. They certainly won't be resolved at a town hall in small town Alabama.
But another relevant question is what do we risk if we fall behind in this technology to countries who want to destroy us. I've heard that much of the opposition to these data centers has been ginned up with Chinese money. Should we doubt that Xi Jinping would take comfort from this oppostion in Alabama?
I think the horse is already out of the barn. The technology is here and growing, and we will have to cope with it as best we can, but also benefit from it as much as we can. I'm skeptical of the doomsday scenarios. I think it will more likely be life enhancing.
I would say that support for these data centers comes from elites who want to turn America into China. Flock cameras, age verification, digital currency and more are all about control. What data would be stored in the data center? I imagine it will be data on all of us.
Well, as a practical matter, banning porn seems pretty difficult. I mean, I really don’t think we are going to start jailing people for smut again. So I feel like that, for porn, age verification is necessary.
The comparison to China doesn't work because it can be used to justify all types of things. To compete with China, we must become Communist, have a one party state, etc. Competing with China isn't the most important thing. What is good for the American people is the most important thing.
Did we become communist when we competed with the Soviet Union during the Cold War?
I agree that what is good for the American people is the most important thing. It seems to me that not falling behind with this technology is good for the American people. It's the same as not falling behind with the modern weapons of war.
If by evil you mean the form of government is bad for its citizens and neighbors then I think the US is still less evil because we can still (mostly) criticize our government without being sent to jail or shot. But it kind of gets a bit muddled beyond that. The US as a shining beacon is a lot dimmer than it used to be.
Yeah I agree, and at least Chinese are not acting retarded about new technology
I guarantee that in the 50s most Americans would jump at the chance to get ahead at novel new tech. Not anymore, it's just NIMBY boomers kvetching against state of the art progress
-promote the digital (unreal) over the material (real)
-flatten creativity and meaningful human interaction
And for what?
Count me among the misfits who stand athwart the techno-nonsense yelling, “stop.” This is being pushed on all of us, and where people can have a say, they are speaking clearly.
Data centers are neutral. It's the citizens demanding the nanny state not for themselves, but for everybody else. If the Flock cameras had been sold to the public as a means to protect the kids and not introduced all at once, a lot of people would be demanding them.
AI can be sued for all sorts of purposes. It doesn't think (not in human way at least) and doesn't care what it's used for.
"It is a revolt against being told that another immense change has already been decided for us by corporations, experts, and public officials—and that ordinary people should accept the risks and be grateful for the benefits."
Part of this is that when people used to approve (or not) a tannery or a steel mill, they knew exactly how that tannery or steel mill would affect their lives. Data centers are immense, their disadvantages are largely unknown and, once built, their presence is pretty much permanent. This is change on a scale not seen before, and we have good reason to doubt corporate promises of any kind. If for any reason you discover that the presence of the data center has ruined your quality of life, there is zero likelihood that you can do anything about it.
I also wanted to mention that, while the destruction of these physical books is beyond criminal, the potential for alteration of the contents once scanned is even worse. Local libraries used to cull their books periodically, and sell them to people like me who love old books. I found many treasures at the local library book sales. Now they select the books that don't suit their woke agendas (especially books on any aspect of Christianity) and put them in the dumpster, making sure they won't be read by anyone, ever. The combination of this removal of politically offensive books and the alteration of digital copies is an ongoing tragedy. It's a certainty that the contents, once digitized, will be altered to suit a favored narrative. I'm not particularly tech savvy, and most of my books are physical ones, but if you search youtube for instructions on how to copy your kindle books (legally) to another computer, I believe it's possible to save them to a computer that isn't connected to the internet - thereby preventing Amazon from altering them. Just a reminder that you never actually own a kindle book, and it can be "edited" at Amazon's discretion at any time and without your permission.
I'm not sure people had any idea how a steel mill or tannery would impact their lives. They were offered jobs and they took them. Depending on your time frame, there was no asking permission to build anything anywhere.
I meant that in the sense that people knew what went on in a tannery or a mill; these were part of ordinary people's lives, just as we'd know what we were getting if a dentist's office opened down the street. These data centers are largely a mystery as far as what goes on inside and how they impact neighbors' way of life.
See my post yesterday about downloading digital copies and keeping them offline from Project Gutenberg, etc. and alternative open-source e-readers. There is also the issue of long term storage. I attached a link to a helpful video on the subject.
I am now reading Richard Pipes' account of Bolshevik Russia. One of the things they did was destroy thousands of books written by unapproved Russian authors.
About the children, I think part of the AI backlash stems from the realization, over the last 5-6 years or so, that the benefits of the last epochal computer technology (the internet) have come with very serious costs, especially social media, costs which we are only beginning to reckon with. Various countries have imposed or are considering imposing age limits on social media, mandatory identity verification, banning smart phones in schools, etc. Even the more risible efforts by the EU (for example) to impose various censorship regimes on social media can charitably be interpreted as a response to the recognition that social media really has driven a great deal of polarization and division within our societies.
So when we wonder what AI might do to the children, we need only look at what social media and smartphones and TikTok have already done to them. It’s a short trip from there to concluding that the answer is probably “nothing good”.
I dont see what that has to do with AI adoption. Think about cars, if you drive more than you walk, you'll get fat, but that's no reason to try to restrict cars.
Same thing with AI, people who offload their thinking to AI will get brain damage (probably) but we can't stop genuine progress because some people and their kids have poor judgment
Thank you, Frank Bruno, for a very elegant analysis.
Everybody needs to slow down, take a breath, and read Wendell Berry, read Paul Kingsnorth, and read the Old Testament, at least the first few chapters of Genesis.
We live in a world defined by LIMITS, physical and moral. It is hubris and suicidal foolishness to think we can get rid of all the natural limits. It is the LIMITS -- yes, even death itself -- that make human existence beautiful, indeed, that make human existence HUMAN.
Human life is a precious thing. The arrogant tech nerds don't even know that concept. They are infantile in their understanding of what makes life even worth getting up in the morning.
I can certainly see how many impacts of data centers could be bad if they are not properly mitigated (noise, electricity, water) but the backlash does seen way overblown, for the reasons given in this post.
Here's a question for the anti-data center people. Normally "nuisances" (tanneries, meatpacking plants, garbage dumps) end up in the poorest and least influential corners of a jurisdiction, because the rich folks don't want them nearby. Well, then, how come Loudoun County, VA, the richest county in the country, full of elite people who profit from the imperial capital, has more data centers than anywhere else? Why would they allow them into Loudoun if they're so bad? Of course there is a backlash there now too.
Cofnas defends himself in the WSJ, pointing out that his most-hated statement is simply a paraphrase of Harvard's own internal research study about admissions!
"Few people are aware that my statement about Harvard admissions was summarizing a finding by Harvard itself. In the course of the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard lawsuit, Harvard disclosed an internal study conducted in 2013, which found that, if admissions were based only on grades and test scores, the undergraduate population would be 0.7% African-American—a significant reduction from current levels. Racial representation at many American institutions is maintained by Harvard-style affirmative action.
"I didn’t quote Harvard’s statistic to celebrate it, or because I believe that black people don’t belong at universities. There are many brilliant black scholars. But it’s a difficult fact to face that in a truly colorblind system that didn’t take race into account, there would be a shocking lack of diversity in certain institutions."
"Well, then, how come Loudoun County, VA, the richest county in the country, full of elite people who profit from the imperial capital, has more data centers than anywhere else? Why would they allow them into Loudoun if they're so bad?"
Don't know for sure, but I'd suspect that the data center push in that area began some time ago when the centers were smaller and less problematic. Now that people have become aware of the problems associated with them, and they're getting much larger, there's more concern. I wouldn't be surprised if the Loudoun area itself started putting some limits on them.
It's like with Wal*Mart. When they first started to proliferate everyone wanted one nearby. But as time went on and cracks started to show the demand lessened.
Data centers began to be a thing 20 years ago when fiber allowed massive increase in data transmission speeds. They were controversial then for many of the same reasons. They converted available buildings into into projects with low job counts, they used up available water resources that precluded other industry recruitment and the cooling fans were noisy. This is nothing new; except scale.
This is an article about a data center in a town in England. If you want to read it, you can take out a free subscription then cancel it later. Very informative.
There are many data centers in the South Bay, but they're small scale, mainly because real estate is scarce in the Bay Area. There's a data center at Stanford University and several in industrial parks on Santa Clara. What you won't find are large data centers within earshot of high-income zip codes throughout the nation. They're located in poorer, rural communities for a reason.
Think about the politics of data centers. Loudoun County was once filled with small farms and voted very conservative. The real estate developers bought up the farms, built housing projects, and Loudoun County became a Democratic county. The data centers came in and made the county more Democratic. Can't conservatives figure it out. Suburban sprawl and data centers make jurisdictions more liberal and more Democratic.
I take it as a sign of respect. I remember two things. Amanda Knox’s father showing up for her trial in Italy with a leather jacket and a shirt unbuttoned to his fat gut, and a friend of mine who showed up at a third friend’s father’s wake in a t-shirt.
I attended a funeral three years ago when one of our county's dead leading landowners was dressed in blue jeans, a flannel shirt and a John Deere baseball cap.
That's better than some of what I've seen around here.
I like the late Queen Mother's take when she was criticized for wearing her jewels to a bombing site. She said something to the effect of, "I expect that you put on your best to see me, so I put on my best for you."
Was she overdressed, yes, was the criticism fair, probably, but I like her response and attitude.
I am always overdressed according to modern standards, but, as Ted said, it's about respect and I respect where I'm showing up to.
Rod, Data Centers are, in my estimation, one of the three main blots on American rural communities today. The other two are foreign-owned, industrial scale solar installations, and gigantic wind turbine facilities which are being rammed through in Upstate New York and across the state and country, over and against the will and supposed "home rule" of local communities. The state of New York has created unelected bureaucracies to force these installations on farming communities over their objections, and even in complete defiance of protected wildlife habitats, endangered species, pollinator corridors, and designated grasslands and forests.
Check out the amazing work and reporting being done by citizen journalist, activist, and farmer, Alexandra Fasulo, who in a year's time has gained enough traction to create a non-profit to fight big wind and solar, and has come to the attention of the Federal government and the White House, who are bolstering her efforts and coming after Kathy Hochul and NY State corruption. Alexandra has launched numerous lawsuits against the NY State government and its crony bureaucracies, and is giving real hope to rural communities, including Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville NY, which is fighting to stop a 17,000 acre wind turbine installation which would surround the monastery in every direction!
Please report on this, it is an amazing story, and these beleaguered communities could use the help and attention to their cause! Here is Alexandra's Substack, which as you'll see tracks her work and is loaded with facts and solid reporting:
Yes, Ms. Fasulo is doing an amazing job of exposing the utter corruption of the Green Scam and totally bought and paid for Governor Hochul and New York State politicians.
That's wonderful someone is fighting, I have a special hatred for the wind farms. North Texas and Oklahoma are just lousy with the damn things, and one of my jobs towards the end of my time in the Air Force was trying to keep them off of our low level training routes. It was a depressingly losing battle. I've been out a few years, I wonder what the state of our low levels are today. When I left you could barely spend much time getting good training flying low, you always had to climb for the wind farms.
These were made and sold to us from China to ruin our views and waste precious resources. Killing Bald Eagles by the tens of thousands , our national symbol, was icing on the cake for Chairman Xi. The worst part is that that don’t make power most of the time and they require backup natural gas or coal power plants to failover to. Double expenses. Absolutely INSANE and STUPID business model.
The only people who want them are wackadoodles from the green climate scam and Hollywierd sorts.
When did building a ton of loud, tall fiberglass and metal structures on every open space we can find become the epitome of environmentalism? Give me a break.
There's a giant wind farm on the east side of the Tehachapi range. Literally hundreds of turbines marring the otherwise beautiful high-desert landscape. If you drive past in the morning, when there's no wind, there's no movement. If the wind picks up in the afternoon, some of the turbines start to turn, but not all, perhaps due to maintenance.
There's a reason why you'll find this wind farm here. The Mojave area is not exactly prime real estate. And that's the reason why you'll find no wind turbines off the coast of Santa Barbara, where there's always a good breeze going.
Used to drive through that area twice a year to visit my in-laws in Arizona. Westbound at night is kind of fun, seeing all the red lights in the center of the turbines blinking to warn aircraft away.
I agree on solar plants. They are a worthless eyesore with low reliability, low density power generation. The green energy scam was truly a scam. Clean coal, natural gas and nukes are the way forward. America is blessed with all three, as well as hydropower.
It is terrible and short sighted that they are putting wind turbines on prime farmland throuhghout the country. These towers are massive and have large concrete pads that are damaging the land.
By far the biggest blot on rural communities is the disinvestment and the sense that every town is aging and dying out. Any reasonable economic development should be welcomed, but no.
My parents live in a rural area, and each time I'd visit, the local news is full of stories about people fighting to keep something out of the area. First it was a gas pipeline, then it was a solar farm, and now it's a data center.
I happen to own a few acres of farmland in the area. The soil's not particularly good and requires a lot of chemicals. Knowing both the economic output and tax revenue created from that land, I can't understand how a solar farm wouldn't be better--regardless of who owns it.
Curious - why does the soil require chemicals? Genuine question because as far as I'm aware - as a hobby gardener - there are lots of ways to improve the soil without resorting to chemicals, but, no one wants to invest the time.
Growing things at a commercial level change the economics greatly. We grow hay that is used to feed cows. We spray herbicide on weeds that are either toxic to the cows or affect the flavor of the milk/meat. Cows will naturally avoid some of them when grazing, but when feeding them cut and bailed hay, they're more likely to consume them.
Fertilizers are also necessary to get enough yield to make it worthwhile to harvest. Grass will grow without fertilizer, but if you don't fertilize, you're leaving money on the table.
Data centers aren’t any worse looking than most factories or warehouses. They’re large flat buildings. Wind turbines in Illinois and Iowa actually look kind of cool, and they make economic sense in the middle of a giant continent where it’s mostly flat. But solar power in New York of all places is just ridiculous.
The tech guys have no one but themselves to blame for this situation. They have insisted on putting data centers near residential areas and demanded subsidies with a shut up and like it attitude. Screw them. Maybe they had a good reason for it (access to the power grid?) but they never explained it and thought they could bribe local officails and get it done before opposition could form. Plus they have displayed utter contempt for people like those in Westover for decades. So screw them.
On the other hand, I believe data centers are vital to the US economy and future. There are plenty of former industrial sites that could serve as appropriate locations. Maybe the executive branch or Congress could issue some guidleines to address the public's concerns. Wouldn't that be original?
The tech guys might try actually doing something for the communities as an initial gesture of good will, build a park, firehouse, fire equipement, etc as a gesture of good will. But they have made their beds and now they can go about trying to convince an angry public that the data centers will be good for their towns. It can be done but it will take hard work.
And yes if the anti-data center crowd prevails it will be more of a disaster than the success of the no-nukes crowd.
Why not use EPA Superfund sites, and former nuclear fuel production and processing sites, and mining sites that are shut down, etc…. And old mothballed industrial factory sites in the rust belt which have water? Force the Data center companies to build their own power plants and provide excess electricity to the local communities for below market costs.
Oh, "whipping up". Look, I haven't been to China in 20 years, but I'm told this much has not changed. When you leave Pudong it's The Good Earth--oxen-drawn ploughs. I'm more worried about them as a military threat.
You sure about that? How about our elites who would love to turn us into China with constant surveillance. I have no doubt that the data centers are part of that.
Yeah ngl if China ends up blowing last the US in a few decades, it will be entirely the US's own fault here. I guarantee you your average Chinese is not going to be throwing a tantrum over data centers
China's per capita GDP is $14,874 just above Argentina's $14,357 and below Malaysia's $15.085. America's is $94,430. Mississippi's is $55,877. Our poorest state by per capita GDP, the average Mississippian is four times more productive than a Chinese. I'm not too afraid of the Chinese.
No, the center will not draw water from the aquifer, but from the municipal pipe running along the highway. I have to ask where do they think this water is coming from? It is either coming from the aquifer or it is coming from a holding lake. Either way that affects the water flow to a community.
I know. That response from the data center guy reminds me a little of the perhaps apocryphal answer that an urban-dweller gave a farmer when he asked, "Where do you think food comes from?" The urban-dweller responded, "the grocery store."
I mean I detest most of the digital world. I have made piece iwth some of it and it can be useful but it consumes so many people. The flock camaras are a big deal to me. I dont want to be tracked. I am easy enough to find if you want to find me. Check work, home, or church. I am typically one of three places. There has to be a way to remain human outside of the cyber world and we better find it fast and pass it on to our kids
One of the other core concerns, and one I don't think it's often well expressed, is that the data centers are visible signs of our increasing serfdom to technology. Every data center represents some innumerable quantity of additional monthly subscriptions, fees, and rents we'll all eventually be forced to pay for everything, all while the tech companies buy and sell our entire histories willy-nilly.
Horrors like electronic price tags that change if they think you'll pay more (and instantly know who you are by your profile provided by an aggregation of everything from Flock photos to your social media to your clothing, and know it's you by your phone's always-on signals, which are also tracked worldwide) are only possible because of these giant interconnected data warehouses.
It's not just the gross abuses by law enforcement, it's the wearing barrage of endless rent-seeking by all the licit corporations who see all of us as something to monetize. Data centers everywhere make it easier to ensure we never own anything anymore.
Just in my running a small business, much of the software I need (and for which there are few viable alternatives) is all "cloud" crap anymore. I can't even have a copy of my own core ACCOUNTING data local to my own damned servers anymore because every damned small-business accounting software company out there will only rent the software to me, and will only "let" me store the data on their f**king servers. This is confidential and sensitive info, and I'm not even allowed to own it anymore, but rent it out to some bastards who could be hacked or go out of business themselves.
Here's what I don't get. When you object, e.g., to Flock cameras their proponents get hot. I mean, why are they so, you know, INVESTED in them? The public safety thing is a complete wheeze. If your forbid people to leave their own homes you'd have zero traffic accidents. Honest, they're as bad as AI.
I wish I could like this twice. The data centers just represent more control over us. And not like boot on neck "do this or else" control; annoying, bureaucratic, and obscure control with EULAs too long to read, fake smiles, and products and services that just get shittier and more frustrating to use.
Find a new small business accounting and tax firm nearby. I did that for taxes. All records stored locally with a specific individual who will sit down and talk with me. H&R Block are not for me.
Only in some cases, and let's just say we've tried open source, and found that too often it has meant "90% done, then largely abandoned". It also lacks more specialized software.
'Or anybody that these arrogant, corrupt elites hate. You can call it irrational, and maybe it is, in an obvious sense. But maybe, more deeply, it makes a lot of sense.'
Data centers have been around for a while. They're needed for Bitcoin. So people have plenty of examples of problems they have caused for nearby communities.
I was selling computer and storage systems for data centers in 1980. This is not new. The scale is MUCH larger because AI requires much larger systems. Building them is no longer a willy nilly art. It is a preengineered and more precise science. Bitcoin mining is mouse nuts. AI will vastly dwarf it. Corporate and government deployments of data centers is vast today already. But existing ones are not set up or configured for AI. AI requires extremely fast interconnects between servers, chips, networks, and storage. And lower latency. These are more like the supercomputers installed in all of our national research labs, but much larger. Think Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, Jet Propulsion labs, etc…
I’m just worried that some of this is propaganda from china, who can just build these things easily, I’ve never seen an issue that has passion from the right and the left, and there has been data centers in Northern Virginia for years, a lot of it just isn’t factual, you can bring the water in and have it on a closed loop, plus, it requires less than a golf course
No. This is people waking up and realizing that this is all part of the plan to make us all dependent on tech for everything, to be constantly watched and ultimately, to turn us into serfs.
That’s why I’m not that worried about the fight against it, I’m just saying for China to spend a billion dollars on propaganda, would be easy, and there is a lot of irony the whole thing, I guarantee everyone at Rods meeting was scrolling on their phones, which are basically a wet dream to surveillance states
Maybe some of it is. But I imagine a lot of it is driven by the desire of average people to have some control over their towns and lives and not just be told what will be happening by their supposed betters.
I've read that data centers in China are considerably smaller than their US counterparts, partly because AI is used for specific purposes rather than the all-encompassing AGI promised by our tech oligarchs, which, of course, demands a larger energy footprint.
They also have the sense to put solar panels over parking lots, rather than prime farm land. Plus, shade and shelter for cars, a win-win. Why didn't we think of that?
Mysteriously? This has been brewing for years. The data center thing is just the latest manifestation, and one that hits home for many people. Nothing mysterious about it.
Every county in America that has data centers move further to the left politically. Loudoun County VA is the prime example. IT dorks are 80 % left-wing.
They always talk about the tax revenue it will bring in, but does that help the local economy? Do the residents themselves benefit? With all the personal data stolen by corporations (digital slavers anymore these days) and bought and sold without any proper consent of the consumer, nor actual benefit therein, there is some nerve to expect tech companies to make more money off people and just expect us to shut up and take it. As much money just stealing and buying and selling people (via data) there hasn't been any benefit to the consumer. No cheaper prices with an ever-devaluing dollar and no wage increases.
I was thinking some time ago in regards to the over-take of land. I do not like data centres nevertheless if AI is as big as anticipated, could a solution be considered such as residents leasing their land/property to small-scale modums and the corporation pay the resident/property owners— REASONABLY, not just a couple hundred measly dollars a month from a multi-billion dollar tech corporation— to run their modem under a contract that the property owner can end any time?
Maybe not a perfect solution but there has to be some way that these benefits, that don't seem ever to be explained in any way other than tax revenue, extend in tangible ways to residents receiving the data centres. Especially if it takes away some livelihood people depend on.
The people benefit by the apps that run that make their lives go better. The county gets needed tax income. What apps? That depends who builds them and what is running in them. How can you amortize medical research over 350 million Americans? The best indicator is the stock markets.
What is the the cost of technological progress? What is lost? What’s gained? What’s the trade off? Will the centers provide jobs? What’s the purpose of data centers? What’s coming? Questions in reference to Data Centers.
“The higher aims of technological progress are money and ease. And this exalted greed for money and ease is disguised and justified an obscure, cultish faith in “The Future”. “
Thanks for the advice but I’ll pass on this ride. I remember the dot com boom and bust, the 2008 financial crisis. I use to like roller coasters but no more roller coasters for me. My advice to you if I may, read the link from Wendell Berry.
I was thick as brick in the Dot Com bust for two years. Dancing from job to job and assignment to assignment until I could land in a place with real revenue generation. I survived it. Many did not. Weak companies and slow people were flushed out. AI will do exactly the same thing. Young folks and middle aged folks will need to collect skills they may not know they need. And they will need to watch and jump as the business opportunities flow and change. I wish them well.
AI is absolutely real and will change everything, no matter whether people want it or not. Most people will never see the real AI action, it will be in B2B transaction processing. ChatGPT and Grok are consumer toys, not AI.
Remember reading about changes in our society around the year 1900? More than 85% of people were farmers or farm suppliers. Within 50 years that shrunk dramatically and many people moved to manufacturing jobs. Then after WW2 people moved into service industries. AI will dothe same thing and completely change society and what people do.
Many of us here are Christians. The most powerful force in the universe, God Almighty, is watching over us individually, personally. We can watch all the changes happening and be assured that YHWH will hold us closely, and safely in His loving arms. We have hope beyond the grave, and joy in this life now.
Some will, not all. Same as the last 100 years. Children need to get solid education first. That no longer happens in public schools. The public schools dumb them down and prepare them for nothing much. College degrees in most departments has no value. Business, hard science, engineering , medicine, and law do offer value . Many young men should do trades not college and work towards creating their own business. The most important thing then is do a good sequence. This is a Christian blog so I will take liberties. Get good education college or Vo-tec, get a solid job and execute your duties well, search for a lifelong spouse at a good and solid church, get married in the sight of your family/friends and God in a church. Work hard a few years and learn about managing money. Save like crazy and don’t waste money. For men, work hard and get a better more high paying job. Have children early and often. Stay married and stay and grow in a church family. Look for house after you have six months emergency funds and can completely pay for the down payment on mortgage. 20% down is better. Make the payments on time and never miss. Don’t buy a palace like you Dad may have had, buy something modest, a starter home.
When we purchased our first home in 1981, we took a VA assumption at 14%, when commercial real estate loans were 18 to 19% fixed interest or less with variable mortgage with balloons. Now mortgage rates are around 7%. Our house was not nice or fancy. It was adequate . As my income increased rapidly, we traded up to a nicer house in the exurbs between suburbs and farms. We lived in that one for almost 30 years.
What’s the old age plan? Will you pass on your assets to your descendants to help build generational wealth? Will you live with your children when it’s harder to be on your own? I hope you’ve been blessed with many children, and grandchildren to keep your legacy and assets in the family.
"It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”
Not the same people. Van Zandt (?). Had a nephew or something that might use that name. How old are the musicians? They should be late 70 or 80 years of age.
Great piece, Rod. The Front Royal (Virginia) wing of my family, two married couples and 10 kids between them, briefed me a few months ago on a local revolt against a company's plan to locate one of the centers there...near the Shenandoah River.
I'd been totally oblivious to the topic and the controversies surrounding it until then. My daughter said this is one issue that crosses Party and ideological lines. It seems everyone is united in their detestation of the centers.
Niall Ferguson has a piece this week in which he asks how do we regulate something that can cheat on the test? And the answer is we have to start trying. In the Journal this morning both Josh Shapiro and Greg Abbott have turned against them (gift: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/politicians-who-once-championed-data-centers-are-now-bashing-them-c172d4cb?st=DYYZMk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink). The Journal wrings its hands.
Yup, the politicians are scrambling to get in front of this wildfire. The WSJ piece you linked mentions Ohio. An Axios article a few days ago details how in that state's U.S. Senate race, the Dem candidate has drawn serious blood on the back of this single issue.
Meanwhile, some senior officials in the Trump administration, with their usual tin ear, are extolling the economic wonders of the centers. Good luck selling that pitch to people in deep-red Front Royal.
My daughter told me that people are scared to death of the effect on their home values...and pretty much everyone in town believes their water and energy bills will go up big-time.
Also, when these things get constructed and running, few employees will be needed to run them so there will be very little local benefit on that front.
My daughter suspects the town council may have earlier signed on to something before it understood the issue and may now have concerns over a company lawsuit if it attempts to reverse itself.
Nobody wants to live next to them.
So….. put them in decommissioned industrial sites and in remote places with water. Not prime farmland. Force the DC company to provide all of their peak electricity.
I've wondered about some of the leveled land where surface mines were in Appalachia.
Coal usually means oil/gas nearby. Data centers should be close to natural gas fields. Pipe it right into the building. Install some Vernova or Cat natural gas power generators and voila !
Why not? The data centers in Loudon look very professional, sleek buildings and make the neighborhood look very upscale.
Besides a lot of places where people protest frankly look like trailer trash, razing some of that junk and putting ij a nice shiny data center would honestly do some good imo
Data centers are ugly places for ugly, soulless people.
Have you been inside one? They are loud and windy. And cold. They put tape in the floors when you walk in the door into it to capture particles off the bottom of your shoes. They whirl with a sound that eventually you grow used to. A bit soothing. They have many high security systems. Some you can see and most that you can’t see.
Not very many people in them. There are special rooms for computer tech with screens. The data centers are remotely controlled and operated by software robots. People can still take over if needed.
IT people and operators are human beings with all of the usual emotions. Some are ugly and some are handsome. Same as all people.
These are the same scare tactics used by the anti-nuclear crowd when Hanoi Jane made her movie 40 years ago.. France kept going and almost all electricity in France is made with nukes.
In these politically polarized times, opposition to Data Centers unites a vast majority.
It is the current safe bet for politicians. Data centers will get built anyway.
Not me. Data Centers will be very necessary for our future prosperity.
The year 1900 saw most families migrate from farms to factories. WW2 accelerated that. Then we saw new industries grow and women entered the work force (not all) for more productivity . In the 90’s new computer systems were used to create supply chain systems and global manufacturing. AI and AI/Data Centers will provide necessary intelligence to move high value manufacturing back to the USA. You would need to study business a little bit to understand this better. ChatGPT and Grok are consumer toys, not the real AI
Even the consumer toys are impressive IF you know how to use them. It helps if you're actually not free riding.
Do data centers provide food? Or energy? Or housing?
No. But they will drive the new gen tractors with assistance from Space satellites, StarLink network connections to the internet, and ground based sensors. AI will gather all the inputs and drive the tractors, squirt minimal amounts of fertilizer and water the plants need based of the physical health of the crops and the fields . Then they will coordinate deliver/ receipt of stock and crops in warehouses and connect to futures commodity markets, with the farmer as the decision maker. Do you know any farmers? Farming is already high tech now. John Deere is an AI company.
Absolutely every business of a certain size will integrate AI.
I chatted with a local farmer just this afternoon. He was haying my fields to feed his 150 cattle. We knocked down a couple of beers after he was done. I am sure he doesn't know what Star Link is. I certainly don't. I don't think he uses Artificial Intelligence for his haying. My friend the farmer is low-tech.
They're part of the chain of production now.
Where do you think Substack is actually running? Or Sysco? Or the cash register backend? Or the payment processor at your local farmer's market? Where is the current power network monitoring and maintenance?
The infrastructure for modern computation is data centers, and computers are the basis for the modern economy.
The world lived without it for a very long time.
Yes. I pay for fast food with a credit card. I pay for groceries with my phone. Unless you want to go back to checks, you need a lot of computers for that.
I pay local people cash. I write checks for credit cards and utilities. I'm not interested in paying invoices on-line. I am rarely on my computer except to get on the Dreher site.
To elaborate on Tom Potts' point, as someone who works in Ag equipment, I'll say that:
- Data centers are critical for dealing with all the info that is gathered in farming.
- AI has promise in helping us integrate that data for maximally effective use of fertilizer and other crop inputs.
- Older style AI that involves programmed neutral networks will be much more common than LLM- style AI for anything that is active on-machine. But "AI" is cool right now, so everything will be hyped that way.
What did humans do before Artificial intelligence? Did we starve? I despise economic utilitarianism. What a way to live.
I was chatting with a computer guy at church this morning. He thinks Artificial Intelligence is a big bubble that will explode. He claimed that many Data Centers make no profit.
That part I agree with. I think it’s highly unlikely that we will, in the short term, automate away 50% of white collar jobs or kill off the human race, or even replace lawyers. I suspect AI will be useful for some things some of the time.
My computer geek parishioner agrees that Artificial Intelligence will do some things well but still thinks it is overblown and that too many data centers have been built.
Rod, I think you have identified the real issue: this is not simply a revolt against data centers. It is a revolt against being told that another immense change has already been decided for us by corporations, experts, and public officials—and that ordinary people should accept the risks and be grateful for the benefits.
But we are caught in a pincer movement. The people of Westover can say no to a data center, but can America say no to AI when China is saying yes? The Wall Street Journal now reports that China has nearly caught up with us, led in part by brilliant scientists trained at leading American universities. If we stop, China will not. Yet if we race ahead without limits, consent, or even a clear understanding of where this leads, we may preserve our technological supremacy while losing the civilization we meant to protect.
Information is now multiplying faster than any human mind or institution can absorb it. That leaves us somewhere between Orwell and Huxley, with Stanley Kubrick’s HAL waiting in the wings: universal surveillance on one side, effortless distraction and dependence on the other, and finally a machine deciding that it knows better than the human beings who created it. Paul Kingsnorth has been warning about this larger Machine for years—not merely machinery, but a system that steadily replaces nature, tradition, community, and finally God Himself.
When Silicon Valley men calmly speak of risking human extinction for the possibility of conquering disease and death, they are no longer merely building better machines. They are reaching for the place of God. And yet Rod has also pointed out that AI may be an exemplary tool for research, including research that could help fight disease. That promise is real. We should also ask what AI may do to schoolchildren: whether it will deepen their understanding and expand their opportunities, or weaken their judgment, discipline, imagination, and ability to think for themselves. The same tool that may help scientists discover cures could also train a generation to surrender its minds to machines.
Yesterday you wrote about companies buying old books, scanning them to feed AI, and then destroying the physical copies. That shows us another side of the danger. The Machine may not only control our future; it may eventually control our access to the past. Once the original books and records disappear, future generations will be left with whatever digital version survives—and whatever interpretation the cultural gatekeepers allow. History can then be silently altered, canceled, or simply forgotten, with no original left against which to check it.
So I stand with the people of Westover in demanding answers, even if America cannot simply withdraw from the AI race. Who decides? Who benefits? Who bears the risks? Who controls the memory of our civilization? What will AI do to our children? And what part of human life are we unwilling to sacrifice merely because China might get there first?
I know this is something that most people don't think about but if you don't teach cursive you likely can't read what anyone before 1980 wrote. You can sever the link that easy to the past by not teaching cursive. Our Christian School teaches it. I almost never write anything in cursive anymore but I can still read it well.
Far worse than cursive is whole-language reading, which ruined a generation of kids to read anything more complicated than IKEA instructions. My wife bought Hooked On Phonics and taught both our kids how to read for real when she found out that their (parochial!) school was doing half-assed whole language.
My kids and I both someone got lucky and missed that.
My daughter is a teacher. It all came out of Columbia Teachers College. The last time we were in NYC she (no conservative) shook her fist at the building as we drove down Broadway. There is even a villain. Lucy Calkins, thoroughly discredited.
Why would they mess with something when phonics clearly worked?
Why would you castrate a little boy because he has trouble catching a ball? These people are fanatics at best, possessed at worst.
I'm not an educator, but it seems to be that some of them are always coming up with new ideas to do this or that. It's stressful for teachers when curriculum changes. What should be focused on is what works. Only change things that don't work.
Education, like virtually every other industry in the world, is driven by fads and fashions and the desperate desire to NOT do what your immediate predecessors are doing.
How else do you know that you've made "improvements" if you don't shake things up?
Because there’s no other way for Education PhDs to justify their existence, and because coming up with fancy new “learning” techniques can be very lucrative. There’s a whole terribly corrupt revolving door between education corporations that sell curriculums and workshops and such to school districts for millions and the superintendents of said districts.
Same reason they have to keep messing with math instruction, educational researchers have to write papers on something.
“Working” is beside the point. The point is to keep people confused, ignorant and fearful. That’s the only way these changeable revolutionaries can stay in play.
Phonics is a bit rote for the teacher, who wants to be seen as a professional.
People have been lied to, misled & looked down upon so much they no longer trust. An angry crowd showed up earlier this year and read the riot act to the Harrisonburg city council over flock cameras. The cops can say all they want about how the cameras help catch criminals & keep us safe but it’s just too Big Brotherish for people, feeling like we’re being spyed on at every turn. The city agreed to remove the cameras. It’s leading people to do stupid stuff, though, some guy from New York set several flock cameras in Luray, Virginia on fire. Bad enough but he shot at a pursing Page County sheriff’s deputy so now in addition to destruction of property charges he’s facing an attempted murder charge. I won’t be surprised to see more of this sort of thing.
Correct. It will happen more. It's not about safety. It's about control. I imagine that our elites are enamored with China and want to turn America into the same.
Here's what I don't get: Flock and its supporters *say* they've helped solve crimes like robbery, kidnaping, etc., but when pressed for a list of solved crime they balk.
I'd like to see the list of crimes where Flock cameras played a key role in catching the criminals. And another list of how the police and other investigative agencies have misused the Flock data. The fact Flock won't do this speaks volumes, at least to me.
My private space is more important to me than solving crimes committed by people who should be in prison or executed. Put me in charge of criminal justice and much of the problems of crime would be solved.
I pity the poor peeping Toms (even if AI) forced to spy on my predicable perambulations, Martha!
Yeah I lead a pretty humdrum life. But it’s still not the government’s business where I go or what I do. Flock cameras seem to me to be stretching the 4th Amendment.
Likewise - no one's business how many times I go to Lowe's or the grocery store.
We've got 3 in our town now that I'm aware of, all in the parking lot of one of our shopping centers.
I do enjoy the idea that I’m boring them silly!
Hooked on Phonics was used when I was a kid and it worked. Then, the schools got rid of it and literacy declined. They finally brought it back and it helped test scores go up.
Homeschools still use it
I had the dreaded ITA for 2 years in Kinder and 1st grade. I entered Kinder reading above 'grade-level', so, it didn't really affect me except for spelling.
My mom made my Kinder teacher spell my name correctly instead of using the ITA alphabet.
I was born in 1964, my sister in 1960, and my brother in 1967; somehow, I was the only one of us in our Long Island school district to experience the joys of learning to read with the ITA alphabet. We learned a phonetic alphabet in first grade, which simplified or at least standardized spelling, and which maybe got us reading sooner, but by second grade we had to learn regular English and continue on.
Hilarity ensued.
This experiment began and ended in the six-year spacing of my siblings, with me the lucky one experimented on.
Amazing that I ended up proofreader!
Funny, I had it in the early 1980's. Didn't last very long at that time, either.
We homeschooled our children with phonics 40 years ago. Now my grandchildren are doing the same.
IKEA instructions are difficult for the most educated individuals!
I barely understood them. The worst are products made in China.
I use cursive every day. Despite the fact that I tried very hard to make him learn it, my son cannot read my writing, though he's getting better because I refuse to change my way of doing things to his preferences.
You’ve got a whippersnapper on your hands, Laura!
He certainly is!
And next: Gregg shorthand!
I practice my handwriting every day. And I keep a journal by hand.
Good questions, but I don't think anyone knows the answers. They certainly won't be resolved at a town hall in small town Alabama.
But another relevant question is what do we risk if we fall behind in this technology to countries who want to destroy us. I've heard that much of the opposition to these data centers has been ginned up with Chinese money. Should we doubt that Xi Jinping would take comfort from this oppostion in Alabama?
I think the horse is already out of the barn. The technology is here and growing, and we will have to cope with it as best we can, but also benefit from it as much as we can. I'm skeptical of the doomsday scenarios. I think it will more likely be life enhancing.
I would say that support for these data centers comes from elites who want to turn America into China. Flock cameras, age verification, digital currency and more are all about control. What data would be stored in the data center? I imagine it will be data on all of us.
Right. What data is stored in the centers? I want the government and big business to know much less about me.
Well, as a practical matter, banning porn seems pretty difficult. I mean, I really don’t think we are going to start jailing people for smut again. So I feel like that, for porn, age verification is necessary.
The comparison to China doesn't work because it can be used to justify all types of things. To compete with China, we must become Communist, have a one party state, etc. Competing with China isn't the most important thing. What is good for the American people is the most important thing.
Did we become communist when we competed with the Soviet Union during the Cold War?
I agree that what is good for the American people is the most important thing. It seems to me that not falling behind with this technology is good for the American people. It's the same as not falling behind with the modern weapons of war.
China is run by engineers, the U.S. by lawyers. Where do you put your bet?
Lawyers. But also guns and money.
Dad, get me out of this.
I no longer see the USA as a lesser evil than China.
Good luck with that.
If by evil you mean the form of government is bad for its citizens and neighbors then I think the US is still less evil because we can still (mostly) criticize our government without being sent to jail or shot. But it kind of gets a bit muddled beyond that. The US as a shining beacon is a lot dimmer than it used to be.
Yeah I agree, and at least Chinese are not acting retarded about new technology
I guarantee that in the 50s most Americans would jump at the chance to get ahead at novel new tech. Not anymore, it's just NIMBY boomers kvetching against state of the art progress
Bingo !
It’s like our society is becoming sort of Feudalistic where a group of ultra wealthy control everything.
Data centers and AI:
-destroy jobs
-curtail freedom
-wreck the local environment
-use a ton of energy and natural resources
-increase authoritarian control
-sever our ties with history
-promote the digital (unreal) over the material (real)
-flatten creativity and meaningful human interaction
And for what?
Count me among the misfits who stand athwart the techno-nonsense yelling, “stop.” This is being pushed on all of us, and where people can have a say, they are speaking clearly.
Sounds like the argument the buggy whip guys made against Henry Ford.
Silly quip. Ford's automobiles freed mankind. Data centers seek to control mankind.
Data centers are neutral. It's the citizens demanding the nanny state not for themselves, but for everybody else. If the Flock cameras had been sold to the public as a means to protect the kids and not introduced all at once, a lot of people would be demanding them.
AI can be sued for all sorts of purposes. It doesn't think (not in human way at least) and doesn't care what it's used for.
"It is a revolt against being told that another immense change has already been decided for us by corporations, experts, and public officials—and that ordinary people should accept the risks and be grateful for the benefits."
Part of this is that when people used to approve (or not) a tannery or a steel mill, they knew exactly how that tannery or steel mill would affect their lives. Data centers are immense, their disadvantages are largely unknown and, once built, their presence is pretty much permanent. This is change on a scale not seen before, and we have good reason to doubt corporate promises of any kind. If for any reason you discover that the presence of the data center has ruined your quality of life, there is zero likelihood that you can do anything about it.
I also wanted to mention that, while the destruction of these physical books is beyond criminal, the potential for alteration of the contents once scanned is even worse. Local libraries used to cull their books periodically, and sell them to people like me who love old books. I found many treasures at the local library book sales. Now they select the books that don't suit their woke agendas (especially books on any aspect of Christianity) and put them in the dumpster, making sure they won't be read by anyone, ever. The combination of this removal of politically offensive books and the alteration of digital copies is an ongoing tragedy. It's a certainty that the contents, once digitized, will be altered to suit a favored narrative. I'm not particularly tech savvy, and most of my books are physical ones, but if you search youtube for instructions on how to copy your kindle books (legally) to another computer, I believe it's possible to save them to a computer that isn't connected to the internet - thereby preventing Amazon from altering them. Just a reminder that you never actually own a kindle book, and it can be "edited" at Amazon's discretion at any time and without your permission.
I'm not sure people had any idea how a steel mill or tannery would impact their lives. They were offered jobs and they took them. Depending on your time frame, there was no asking permission to build anything anywhere.
I meant that in the sense that people knew what went on in a tannery or a mill; these were part of ordinary people's lives, just as we'd know what we were getting if a dentist's office opened down the street. These data centers are largely a mystery as far as what goes on inside and how they impact neighbors' way of life.
See my post yesterday about downloading digital copies and keeping them offline from Project Gutenberg, etc. and alternative open-source e-readers. There is also the issue of long term storage. I attached a link to a helpful video on the subject.
Thanks, great post!
I am now reading Richard Pipes' account of Bolshevik Russia. One of the things they did was destroy thousands of books written by unapproved Russian authors.
About the children, I think part of the AI backlash stems from the realization, over the last 5-6 years or so, that the benefits of the last epochal computer technology (the internet) have come with very serious costs, especially social media, costs which we are only beginning to reckon with. Various countries have imposed or are considering imposing age limits on social media, mandatory identity verification, banning smart phones in schools, etc. Even the more risible efforts by the EU (for example) to impose various censorship regimes on social media can charitably be interpreted as a response to the recognition that social media really has driven a great deal of polarization and division within our societies.
So when we wonder what AI might do to the children, we need only look at what social media and smartphones and TikTok have already done to them. It’s a short trip from there to concluding that the answer is probably “nothing good”.
No one cares about children. Sad, but, true.
I dont see what that has to do with AI adoption. Think about cars, if you drive more than you walk, you'll get fat, but that's no reason to try to restrict cars.
Same thing with AI, people who offload their thinking to AI will get brain damage (probably) but we can't stop genuine progress because some people and their kids have poor judgment
Thank you, Frank Bruno, for a very elegant analysis.
Everybody needs to slow down, take a breath, and read Wendell Berry, read Paul Kingsnorth, and read the Old Testament, at least the first few chapters of Genesis.
We live in a world defined by LIMITS, physical and moral. It is hubris and suicidal foolishness to think we can get rid of all the natural limits. It is the LIMITS -- yes, even death itself -- that make human existence beautiful, indeed, that make human existence HUMAN.
Human life is a precious thing. The arrogant tech nerds don't even know that concept. They are infantile in their understanding of what makes life even worth getting up in the morning.
China's per capita Gross Domestic Product is $14,874. America's is $94,430. Malaysia's is $15,085. China's got a lot of catching up to do.
I can certainly see how many impacts of data centers could be bad if they are not properly mitigated (noise, electricity, water) but the backlash does seen way overblown, for the reasons given in this post.
Here's a question for the anti-data center people. Normally "nuisances" (tanneries, meatpacking plants, garbage dumps) end up in the poorest and least influential corners of a jurisdiction, because the rich folks don't want them nearby. Well, then, how come Loudoun County, VA, the richest county in the country, full of elite people who profit from the imperial capital, has more data centers than anywhere else? Why would they allow them into Loudoun if they're so bad? Of course there is a backlash there now too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/technology/data-centers-backlash-loudoun-virginia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7FA.mUlv.P-amvIfRh2TS&smid=url-share
Cofnas defends himself in the WSJ, pointing out that his most-hated statement is simply a paraphrase of Harvard's own internal research study about admissions!
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/how-i-became-the-scapegoat-in-the-jason-arday-affair-dc134088?st=hrxyQw&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
"Few people are aware that my statement about Harvard admissions was summarizing a finding by Harvard itself. In the course of the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard lawsuit, Harvard disclosed an internal study conducted in 2013, which found that, if admissions were based only on grades and test scores, the undergraduate population would be 0.7% African-American—a significant reduction from current levels. Racial representation at many American institutions is maintained by Harvard-style affirmative action.
"I didn’t quote Harvard’s statistic to celebrate it, or because I believe that black people don’t belong at universities. There are many brilliant black scholars. But it’s a difficult fact to face that in a truly colorblind system that didn’t take race into account, there would be a shocking lack of diversity in certain institutions."
"Well, then, how come Loudoun County, VA, the richest county in the country, full of elite people who profit from the imperial capital, has more data centers than anywhere else? Why would they allow them into Loudoun if they're so bad?"
Don't know for sure, but I'd suspect that the data center push in that area began some time ago when the centers were smaller and less problematic. Now that people have become aware of the problems associated with them, and they're getting much larger, there's more concern. I wouldn't be surprised if the Loudoun area itself started putting some limits on them.
It's like with Wal*Mart. When they first started to proliferate everyone wanted one nearby. But as time went on and cracks started to show the demand lessened.
Military Beltway bandits own most of them.
Data centers began to be a thing 20 years ago when fiber allowed massive increase in data transmission speeds. They were controversial then for many of the same reasons. They converted available buildings into into projects with low job counts, they used up available water resources that precluded other industry recruitment and the cooling fans were noisy. This is nothing new; except scale.
Right, as the things have gotten bigger so have the accompanying problems.
This is an article about a data center in a town in England. If you want to read it, you can take out a free subscription then cancel it later. Very informative.
https://dispatch-media.com/the-english-town-with-40-data-centres/
Dana
There are many data centers in the South Bay, but they're small scale, mainly because real estate is scarce in the Bay Area. There's a data center at Stanford University and several in industrial parks on Santa Clara. What you won't find are large data centers within earshot of high-income zip codes throughout the nation. They're located in poorer, rural communities for a reason.
Think about the politics of data centers. Loudoun County was once filled with small farms and voted very conservative. The real estate developers bought up the farms, built housing projects, and Loudoun County became a Democratic county. The data centers came in and made the county more Democratic. Can't conservatives figure it out. Suburban sprawl and data centers make jurisdictions more liberal and more Democratic.
Couldn't the data center guys put on an effing necktie?
Dressing like an adult is a bit complicated for techbros.
I mean, "We're coming here to up-end your town, and so we dress like we're servicing the HVAC."
Not at all. Do farmers wear ties? Do stockbrokers wear overalls and cowboy boots?
They don’t want to look too corporate. Gotta blend in like John Kerry, “where can I get me a hunting license?”
Exactly. Another demeaning gesture from people who could care less about the folks in the audience
Not so much. It is IT engineering culture for decades.
Don't know how to tie one unironically. Does a Patagonia vest make up for it?
It's not computer science.
If you can tie your shoes, you can tie a necktie
They don’t have any. Their big bosses have ties and play golf.
Everybody was dressed like that last night. Had they come in suit and tie, it probably would have made them seem officious and remote.
I take it as a sign of respect. I remember two things. Amanda Knox’s father showing up for her trial in Italy with a leather jacket and a shirt unbuttoned to his fat gut, and a friend of mine who showed up at a third friend’s father’s wake in a t-shirt.
People around here have been known to show up for funerals in sweatpants.
I attended a funeral three years ago when one of our county's dead leading landowners was dressed in blue jeans, a flannel shirt and a John Deere baseball cap.
That's better than some of what I've seen around here.
I like the late Queen Mother's take when she was criticized for wearing her jewels to a bombing site. She said something to the effect of, "I expect that you put on your best to see me, so I put on my best for you."
Was she overdressed, yes, was the criticism fair, probably, but I like her response and attitude.
I am always overdressed according to modern standards, but, as Ted said, it's about respect and I respect where I'm showing up to.
That would only make them seem more imperious.
In Westover? The locals would have felt looked down upon. The rule in small towns is don't be a suit.
Rod, Data Centers are, in my estimation, one of the three main blots on American rural communities today. The other two are foreign-owned, industrial scale solar installations, and gigantic wind turbine facilities which are being rammed through in Upstate New York and across the state and country, over and against the will and supposed "home rule" of local communities. The state of New York has created unelected bureaucracies to force these installations on farming communities over their objections, and even in complete defiance of protected wildlife habitats, endangered species, pollinator corridors, and designated grasslands and forests.
Check out the amazing work and reporting being done by citizen journalist, activist, and farmer, Alexandra Fasulo, who in a year's time has gained enough traction to create a non-profit to fight big wind and solar, and has come to the attention of the Federal government and the White House, who are bolstering her efforts and coming after Kathy Hochul and NY State corruption. Alexandra has launched numerous lawsuits against the NY State government and its crony bureaucracies, and is giving real hope to rural communities, including Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville NY, which is fighting to stop a 17,000 acre wind turbine installation which would surround the monastery in every direction!
Please report on this, it is an amazing story, and these beleaguered communities could use the help and attention to their cause! Here is Alexandra's Substack, which as you'll see tracks her work and is loaded with facts and solid reporting:
https://houseofgreen.substack.com
She's doing great work.
Yes, Ms. Fasulo is doing an amazing job of exposing the utter corruption of the Green Scam and totally bought and paid for Governor Hochul and New York State politicians.
Thanks for sharing.
Alex does the Lord's work.
That's wonderful someone is fighting, I have a special hatred for the wind farms. North Texas and Oklahoma are just lousy with the damn things, and one of my jobs towards the end of my time in the Air Force was trying to keep them off of our low level training routes. It was a depressingly losing battle. I've been out a few years, I wonder what the state of our low levels are today. When I left you could barely spend much time getting good training flying low, you always had to climb for the wind farms.
These were made and sold to us from China to ruin our views and waste precious resources. Killing Bald Eagles by the tens of thousands , our national symbol, was icing on the cake for Chairman Xi. The worst part is that that don’t make power most of the time and they require backup natural gas or coal power plants to failover to. Double expenses. Absolutely INSANE and STUPID business model.
The only people who want them are wackadoodles from the green climate scam and Hollywierd sorts.
And Nelson also!😆
Wind farms produce clean renewable energy. That benefits more people than pilots.
When did building a ton of loud, tall fiberglass and metal structures on every open space we can find become the epitome of environmentalism? Give me a break.
My understanding is that those blades cannot be recycled when they are not able to be used any more. How is that renewable?
Dana
Most products aren’t recyclable so that’s not really surprising. Still we’ve got to get energy somehow and wind power is one of the cleanest options.
There's a giant wind farm on the east side of the Tehachapi range. Literally hundreds of turbines marring the otherwise beautiful high-desert landscape. If you drive past in the morning, when there's no wind, there's no movement. If the wind picks up in the afternoon, some of the turbines start to turn, but not all, perhaps due to maintenance.
There's a reason why you'll find this wind farm here. The Mojave area is not exactly prime real estate. And that's the reason why you'll find no wind turbines off the coast of Santa Barbara, where there's always a good breeze going.
Used to drive through that area twice a year to visit my in-laws in Arizona. Westbound at night is kind of fun, seeing all the red lights in the center of the turbines blinking to warn aircraft away.
Dana
I agree on solar plants. They are a worthless eyesore with low reliability, low density power generation. The green energy scam was truly a scam. Clean coal, natural gas and nukes are the way forward. America is blessed with all three, as well as hydropower.
It is terrible and short sighted that they are putting wind turbines on prime farmland throuhghout the country. These towers are massive and have large concrete pads that are damaging the land.
By far the biggest blot on rural communities is the disinvestment and the sense that every town is aging and dying out. Any reasonable economic development should be welcomed, but no.
Emphasis on reasonable. One might say that there is doubt about whether massive data centers qualify.
Wind and solar farms are good things. She should get out of the NIMBY business.
My parents live in a rural area, and each time I'd visit, the local news is full of stories about people fighting to keep something out of the area. First it was a gas pipeline, then it was a solar farm, and now it's a data center.
I happen to own a few acres of farmland in the area. The soil's not particularly good and requires a lot of chemicals. Knowing both the economic output and tax revenue created from that land, I can't understand how a solar farm wouldn't be better--regardless of who owns it.
Curious - why does the soil require chemicals? Genuine question because as far as I'm aware - as a hobby gardener - there are lots of ways to improve the soil without resorting to chemicals, but, no one wants to invest the time.
Growing things at a commercial level change the economics greatly. We grow hay that is used to feed cows. We spray herbicide on weeds that are either toxic to the cows or affect the flavor of the milk/meat. Cows will naturally avoid some of them when grazing, but when feeding them cut and bailed hay, they're more likely to consume them.
Fertilizers are also necessary to get enough yield to make it worthwhile to harvest. Grass will grow without fertilizer, but if you don't fertilize, you're leaving money on the table.
Thanks. Doing so much at scale is hard and I understand it requires less than ideal conditions.
Data centers aren’t any worse looking than most factories or warehouses. They’re large flat buildings. Wind turbines in Illinois and Iowa actually look kind of cool, and they make economic sense in the middle of a giant continent where it’s mostly flat. But solar power in New York of all places is just ridiculous.
The tech guys have no one but themselves to blame for this situation. They have insisted on putting data centers near residential areas and demanded subsidies with a shut up and like it attitude. Screw them. Maybe they had a good reason for it (access to the power grid?) but they never explained it and thought they could bribe local officails and get it done before opposition could form. Plus they have displayed utter contempt for people like those in Westover for decades. So screw them.
On the other hand, I believe data centers are vital to the US economy and future. There are plenty of former industrial sites that could serve as appropriate locations. Maybe the executive branch or Congress could issue some guidleines to address the public's concerns. Wouldn't that be original?
The tech guys might try actually doing something for the communities as an initial gesture of good will, build a park, firehouse, fire equipement, etc as a gesture of good will. But they have made their beds and now they can go about trying to convince an angry public that the data centers will be good for their towns. It can be done but it will take hard work.
And yes if the anti-data center crowd prevails it will be more of a disaster than the success of the no-nukes crowd.
Why not use EPA Superfund sites, and former nuclear fuel production and processing sites, and mining sites that are shut down, etc…. And old mothballed industrial factory sites in the rust belt which have water? Force the Data center companies to build their own power plants and provide excess electricity to the local communities for below market costs.
Every data centered is located on land locally zoned for industry. Talk to the local Zoning Authority. They hold public meetings regularly.
Gee, I wonder what foreign power might have a teeny interest in whipping up opposition to data centers in the US, hmmmm?
Oh, "whipping up". Look, I haven't been to China in 20 years, but I'm told this much has not changed. When you leave Pudong it's The Good Earth--oxen-drawn ploughs. I'm more worried about them as a military threat.
You sure about that? How about our elites who would love to turn us into China with constant surveillance. I have no doubt that the data centers are part of that.
Yeah ngl if China ends up blowing last the US in a few decades, it will be entirely the US's own fault here. I guarantee you your average Chinese is not going to be throwing a tantrum over data centers
Your average Chinese has no choices.
China's per capita GDP is $14,874 just above Argentina's $14,357 and below Malaysia's $15.085. America's is $94,430. Mississippi's is $55,877. Our poorest state by per capita GDP, the average Mississippian is four times more productive than a Chinese. I'm not too afraid of the Chinese.
China, Russia, Iran, and the European Union.
I have wondered this too. China is our main competitor in AI and I wonder to what degree they're botting this.
No, the center will not draw water from the aquifer, but from the municipal pipe running along the highway. I have to ask where do they think this water is coming from? It is either coming from the aquifer or it is coming from a holding lake. Either way that affects the water flow to a community.
I know. That response from the data center guy reminds me a little of the perhaps apocryphal answer that an urban-dweller gave a farmer when he asked, "Where do you think food comes from?" The urban-dweller responded, "the grocery store."
I am guessing that they hoped most people did not think about that.
I mean I detest most of the digital world. I have made piece iwth some of it and it can be useful but it consumes so many people. The flock camaras are a big deal to me. I dont want to be tracked. I am easy enough to find if you want to find me. Check work, home, or church. I am typically one of three places. There has to be a way to remain human outside of the cyber world and we better find it fast and pass it on to our kids
The only way is avoiding the tech as much as possible. Not using social media, trying to not be online so much, no smartphones for kids, etc.
I have noticed that I am grumpier and less happy if I use the internet too much.
One of the other core concerns, and one I don't think it's often well expressed, is that the data centers are visible signs of our increasing serfdom to technology. Every data center represents some innumerable quantity of additional monthly subscriptions, fees, and rents we'll all eventually be forced to pay for everything, all while the tech companies buy and sell our entire histories willy-nilly.
Horrors like electronic price tags that change if they think you'll pay more (and instantly know who you are by your profile provided by an aggregation of everything from Flock photos to your social media to your clothing, and know it's you by your phone's always-on signals, which are also tracked worldwide) are only possible because of these giant interconnected data warehouses.
It's not just the gross abuses by law enforcement, it's the wearing barrage of endless rent-seeking by all the licit corporations who see all of us as something to monetize. Data centers everywhere make it easier to ensure we never own anything anymore.
Just in my running a small business, much of the software I need (and for which there are few viable alternatives) is all "cloud" crap anymore. I can't even have a copy of my own core ACCOUNTING data local to my own damned servers anymore because every damned small-business accounting software company out there will only rent the software to me, and will only "let" me store the data on their f**king servers. This is confidential and sensitive info, and I'm not even allowed to own it anymore, but rent it out to some bastards who could be hacked or go out of business themselves.
Great comment.
Here's what I don't get. When you object, e.g., to Flock cameras their proponents get hot. I mean, why are they so, you know, INVESTED in them? The public safety thing is a complete wheeze. If your forbid people to leave their own homes you'd have zero traffic accidents. Honest, they're as bad as AI.
Because their masters want to reduce all of us to serfs. They get outraged when the peasants won't just shut up and accept the boot on their face.
It’s that simple.
Rich Lowry just came down in support of Flock cameras. It makes me feel great to be in opposition to Lowry.
I wish I could like this twice. The data centers just represent more control over us. And not like boot on neck "do this or else" control; annoying, bureaucratic, and obscure control with EULAs too long to read, fake smiles, and products and services that just get shittier and more frustrating to use.
Anyone who can't see that all this is a gigantic push towards digital dependency is either not paying attention or is as gullible as hell.
All part of the plan to institute neofeudalism by the elites.
Find a new small business accounting and tax firm nearby. I did that for taxes. All records stored locally with a specific individual who will sit down and talk with me. H&R Block are not for me.
It's not the year end accounting that's the issue, it's the daily operations software - sales, inventory, purchasing, etc.
Well, cloud is how that is done today. Get used to it or switch providers.
It's only "done" that way because the software industry has forced it that way, not because of small business demand.
There are open-source alternatives, such as HomeBank, to break free of Big Tech. "Why do I prefer Linux? Let me count the ways..."
Only in some cases, and let's just say we've tried open source, and found that too often it has meant "90% done, then largely abandoned". It also lacks more specialized software.
Very disturbing
'Or anybody that these arrogant, corrupt elites hate. You can call it irrational, and maybe it is, in an obvious sense. But maybe, more deeply, it makes a lot of sense.'
I'm voting Silly Party every time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=666OKm08fRA
I hadn't seen that one. Wonderful! Thanks!!
Data centers have been around for a while. They're needed for Bitcoin. So people have plenty of examples of problems they have caused for nearby communities.
I was selling computer and storage systems for data centers in 1980. This is not new. The scale is MUCH larger because AI requires much larger systems. Building them is no longer a willy nilly art. It is a preengineered and more precise science. Bitcoin mining is mouse nuts. AI will vastly dwarf it. Corporate and government deployments of data centers is vast today already. But existing ones are not set up or configured for AI. AI requires extremely fast interconnects between servers, chips, networks, and storage. And lower latency. These are more like the supercomputers installed in all of our national research labs, but much larger. Think Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, Jet Propulsion labs, etc…
I’m just worried that some of this is propaganda from china, who can just build these things easily, I’ve never seen an issue that has passion from the right and the left, and there has been data centers in Northern Virginia for years, a lot of it just isn’t factual, you can bring the water in and have it on a closed loop, plus, it requires less than a golf course
No. This is people waking up and realizing that this is all part of the plan to make us all dependent on tech for everything, to be constantly watched and ultimately, to turn us into serfs.
That’s why I’m not that worried about the fight against it, I’m just saying for China to spend a billion dollars on propaganda, would be easy, and there is a lot of irony the whole thing, I guarantee everyone at Rods meeting was scrolling on their phones, which are basically a wet dream to surveillance states
Maybe some of it is. But I imagine a lot of it is driven by the desire of average people to have some control over their towns and lives and not just be told what will be happening by their supposed betters.
I've read that data centers in China are considerably smaller than their US counterparts, partly because AI is used for specific purposes rather than the all-encompassing AGI promised by our tech oligarchs, which, of course, demands a larger energy footprint.
They also have the sense to put solar panels over parking lots, rather than prime farm land. Plus, shade and shelter for cars, a win-win. Why didn't we think of that?
Because then they wouldn't have the pleasure of ruining the land and controlling all us rubes and deplorables.
I am curious how successful the rooftop solar panels on residential homes really are as well.
Bingo, you win.
It's like if in the Cold War we mysteriously got bipartisan protests against building space and rocket technology centers 🤔
Mysteriously? This has been brewing for years. The data center thing is just the latest manifestation, and one that hits home for many people. Nothing mysterious about it.
I think we did have some Soviet backed astroturfing.
Every county in America that has data centers move further to the left politically. Loudoun County VA is the prime example. IT dorks are 80 % left-wing.
They always talk about the tax revenue it will bring in, but does that help the local economy? Do the residents themselves benefit? With all the personal data stolen by corporations (digital slavers anymore these days) and bought and sold without any proper consent of the consumer, nor actual benefit therein, there is some nerve to expect tech companies to make more money off people and just expect us to shut up and take it. As much money just stealing and buying and selling people (via data) there hasn't been any benefit to the consumer. No cheaper prices with an ever-devaluing dollar and no wage increases.
I was thinking some time ago in regards to the over-take of land. I do not like data centres nevertheless if AI is as big as anticipated, could a solution be considered such as residents leasing their land/property to small-scale modums and the corporation pay the resident/property owners— REASONABLY, not just a couple hundred measly dollars a month from a multi-billion dollar tech corporation— to run their modem under a contract that the property owner can end any time?
Maybe not a perfect solution but there has to be some way that these benefits, that don't seem ever to be explained in any way other than tax revenue, extend in tangible ways to residents receiving the data centres. Especially if it takes away some livelihood people depend on.
The people benefit by the apps that run that make their lives go better. The county gets needed tax income. What apps? That depends who builds them and what is running in them. How can you amortize medical research over 350 million Americans? The best indicator is the stock markets.
What is the the cost of technological progress? What is lost? What’s gained? What’s the trade off? Will the centers provide jobs? What’s the purpose of data centers? What’s coming? Questions in reference to Data Centers.
“The higher aims of technological progress are money and ease. And this exalted greed for money and ease is disguised and justified an obscure, cultish faith in “The Future”. “
Wendell Berry
https://poeticoutlaws.substack.com/p/wendell-berry-on-the-detriment-of?r=fcfps&utm_medium=ios
By some stocks in Data Center real estate builders, chips, memory, and AI software tools. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Thanks for the advice but I’ll pass on this ride. I remember the dot com boom and bust, the 2008 financial crisis. I use to like roller coasters but no more roller coasters for me. My advice to you if I may, read the link from Wendell Berry.
I was thick as brick in the Dot Com bust for two years. Dancing from job to job and assignment to assignment until I could land in a place with real revenue generation. I survived it. Many did not. Weak companies and slow people were flushed out. AI will do exactly the same thing. Young folks and middle aged folks will need to collect skills they may not know they need. And they will need to watch and jump as the business opportunities flow and change. I wish them well.
AI is absolutely real and will change everything, no matter whether people want it or not. Most people will never see the real AI action, it will be in B2B transaction processing. ChatGPT and Grok are consumer toys, not AI.
Remember reading about changes in our society around the year 1900? More than 85% of people were farmers or farm suppliers. Within 50 years that shrunk dramatically and many people moved to manufacturing jobs. Then after WW2 people moved into service industries. AI will dothe same thing and completely change society and what people do.
Many of us here are Christians. The most powerful force in the universe, God Almighty, is watching over us individually, personally. We can watch all the changes happening and be assured that YHWH will hold us closely, and safely in His loving arms. We have hope beyond the grave, and joy in this life now.
Will the young people be able to afford a home in the future? Let’s hope that gets figured out.
Some will, not all. Same as the last 100 years. Children need to get solid education first. That no longer happens in public schools. The public schools dumb them down and prepare them for nothing much. College degrees in most departments has no value. Business, hard science, engineering , medicine, and law do offer value . Many young men should do trades not college and work towards creating their own business. The most important thing then is do a good sequence. This is a Christian blog so I will take liberties. Get good education college or Vo-tec, get a solid job and execute your duties well, search for a lifelong spouse at a good and solid church, get married in the sight of your family/friends and God in a church. Work hard a few years and learn about managing money. Save like crazy and don’t waste money. For men, work hard and get a better more high paying job. Have children early and often. Stay married and stay and grow in a church family. Look for house after you have six months emergency funds and can completely pay for the down payment on mortgage. 20% down is better. Make the payments on time and never miss. Don’t buy a palace like you Dad may have had, buy something modest, a starter home.
When we purchased our first home in 1981, we took a VA assumption at 14%, when commercial real estate loans were 18 to 19% fixed interest or less with variable mortgage with balloons. Now mortgage rates are around 7%. Our house was not nice or fancy. It was adequate . As my income increased rapidly, we traded up to a nicer house in the exurbs between suburbs and farms. We lived in that one for almost 30 years.
What’s the old age plan? Will you pass on your assets to your descendants to help build generational wealth? Will you live with your children when it’s harder to be on your own? I hope you’ve been blessed with many children, and grandchildren to keep your legacy and assets in the family.
Great Berry quote. What would Wendell do?
Yes, and a take a minute
to read the link that is a piece written by Wendell Berry.
"It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”
Berry, 'Life is a Miracle' (2000)
Yes, and a take a minutes to read the link that is a piece written by Wendell Berry.
A Southern man don’t need AI anyhow.
Ronnie van zant..that dude died too young.
They are all dead now. The boys from Lynard Skynard, were from my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida.
Were to corpses resurrected? Lynyrd Skynyrd just played Sturgis last week.
Not the same people. Van Zandt (?). Had a nephew or something that might use that name. How old are the musicians? They should be late 70 or 80 years of age.
All of the original band is dead. Van Zandt might have lived if he was wearing a seat belt.
Sure he does. Emotions are irrelevant .