The writing prompt this morning got me thinking about the idealism often involved in standing up to large corporations with their lawyers in tow, who come into a community, wanting to buy property on which to place some sort of structure(s) that may or may not provide the promised economic stimulus, or long-term employment opportunities, or increased tax base.
It’s one thing to oppose such a proposal based on perceived, perhaps justified suspicion of large corporate entities, or possible damage to wetlands or other environmentally sensitive areas, or the less quantitative defense of “quality of life” issues that may arise.
But it’s another thing to oppose something simply because change is hard and we prefer things the way they are and have always been.
Data centers are at the fore in this neck of the woods right now. I’ve read my share of op-ed articles and news reports, and I’m of the mind that opposition to such huge projects, while based on the potential for undesirable outcomes, may also be short-sighted, given that the main reasons for such data-driven expansion are because of the billions of us who upload or watch videos on YouTube or hold Zoom meetings or depend on TikTok as an income stream or store our billions of photos in “the cloud” which is not a cloud at all but myriad computers tucked away in one of these demonized data centers across the country and around the world.
In short, no small reason for this expansion of data capabilities is… us.
While it is appropriate to maintain a certain amount of skepticism regarding the potential for abuse and misuse– i.e. surveillance and data collection, nefarious AI manipulation, etc., Big Brother stuff– the main driver appears to be our own demand.
In a conversation I had with Chat GPT, which I find a bit ironic to admit, I learned that modern society has shifted from being electricity-intensive in the industrial age to electricity and computation-intensive now.
So, it appears we may have a choice to make– swallow hard and back away from our on-demand lives, or scrupulously and persistently hold Amazon and the rest to account after they knock on our doors looking for acreage and dangling “life-changing” million$ to build giant buildings full of the technology that supports our online habits.
3 Cents' 