In the past few months, the internet, local media, and many jurisdictions have been swamped with articles, opinion pieces, alarmist postings, and multiple claims about how “data centers” are being built all over the place, and bring incredible problems (and evils!) with them.
It joins the constant refrain in social media, the mainsteam media, and all the little activists that are bored with Black Lives Matter, LandBack, and whatever The Donald said that they don’t like so immediately claim to be a lie. And they get all the do-gooders out to tramp along the streets and the sidewalks, put out more false information, and declare that the world is coming to an end.
For example, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, last week: (Courtesy Cowboy State Daily), Wyoming Residents Join National Day Of Protest Against Data Centers A few dozen Wyoming residents gathered at the State Capitol on Saturday as part of a national day of protest against data centers. Organizer Taylor Haynes called data centers “digital prisons” and said the need for artificial intelligence has taken away Americans’ freedom.
Such silly claims are actually some unusual points made in opposition to the huge “server farms” which are springing up across the States. (And, we presume, the world.) The major objections we have observed are of two categories:
Excessive consumption of water and electrical power, therefore using limited resources and driving up prices by demanding more and more.
The use of the centers and their facilitation of AI and surveillance (tied with Flock cameras and Ring cameras and all the rest of the tools of the modern surveillance state).
Not precisely clear on how these are “digital prisons” – are the data centers hoarding data and not letting people access it? Or is this a somewhat twisted allusion to the idea that being able to track people (and their vehicles and no doubt their livestock, service animals, and pets) 24-7 creates virtual prison bars and security perimeters which we cannot pass through?
We admit to a similar lack of comprehension regarding how “the need” for AI takes away our freedom. Everyone’s freedom, apparently. This is in stark contrast to the actual situation: knowing the truth makes us free, provided we also act on the truth. Perhaps they are alluding to the fact that “Artificial Intelligence” often produces products (both words and illustrations) that are terribly, terribly wrong. With very stupid errors.
Of course, it doesn’t take machine “intelligence” to do that. Humans are able to do that all by themselves. We here at TPOL have begun collecting tidbits of “AI fakes” – info spread to the world beyond the usual photoshopping. For examples, geographic “educational material” that shows the Black Hills extending from somewhere in Saskatchewan to northern Kansas, or the headwaters of the Mississippi (which it didn’t spell correctly) starting up in Manitoba. Or other maps showing that ocean levels rising (due to “proven” global warming) will cause the waters of the Gulf of America [Mexico] to extend all the way into the San Luis Valley of south-central Colorado. (The Valley floor has an elevation in excess of 7500 feet above sea level. We don’t think Alamosa or South Fork is going to become a seaport anytime soon.)
But we’ve been collecting bits of false/fake trivia put out by people without the help of computers for a very long time. A favorite of the staff here at TPOL goes back about 25 years. The claim is made that if farmers and ranchers keep pumping the ground water out of the Oglala Acquifer (which stretches from the Texas Panhandle clear up to South Dakota), the entire western Great Plains will collapse into a giant, Florida-style sinkhole allowing the waters of the Gulf to race north to make Mission and Rosebud and Winner (small towns in West River of South Dakota) “seaports.”
We recognize that developing and operating large facilities which consume megawatts of power constantly and require constant disposal of the waste heat generated by their operations can create major problems. Just as we recognize that noise, electromagnetic emissions, sound levels and types, and the exhaust from internal combustion engines all have the potential for significant impacts on human health and the environment.
But it appears that the truth, and rationally addressing the issues, including those of surveillence and privacy, is not adequate for a growing (but still tiny) minority of Americans. It is no longer sufficient for people opposed to something to simply state, “I object, for the following (truthful) reasons.” Instead, horror stories must be created out of whole cloth and anything that they oppose must be presented as the greatest evil since Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. (Or maybe even worse.)
A question which Mama Liberty often asked comes to mind: what exactly is being covered up by this hysteria? What is being done under the covers or behind that curtain?
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.
The Price of Liberty 
The data center controversy
In the past few months, the internet, local media, and many jurisdictions have been swamped with articles, opinion pieces, alarmist postings, and multiple claims about how “data centers” are being built all over the place, and bring incredible problems (and evils!) with them.
It joins the constant refrain in social media, the mainsteam media, and all the little activists that are bored with Black Lives Matter, LandBack, and whatever The Donald said that they don’t like so immediately claim to be a lie. And they get all the do-gooders out to tramp along the streets and the sidewalks, put out more false information, and declare that the world is coming to an end.
For example, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, last week: (Courtesy Cowboy State Daily), Wyoming Residents Join National Day Of Protest Against Data Centers A few dozen Wyoming residents gathered at the State Capitol on Saturday as part of a national day of protest against data centers. Organizer Taylor Haynes called data centers “digital prisons” and said the need for artificial intelligence has taken away Americans’ freedom.
Such silly claims are actually some unusual points made in opposition to the huge “server farms” which are springing up across the States. (And, we presume, the world.) The major objections we have observed are of two categories:
Not precisely clear on how these are “digital prisons” – are the data centers hoarding data and not letting people access it? Or is this a somewhat twisted allusion to the idea that being able to track people (and their vehicles and no doubt their livestock, service animals, and pets) 24-7 creates virtual prison bars and security perimeters which we cannot pass through?
We admit to a similar lack of comprehension regarding how “the need” for AI takes away our freedom. Everyone’s freedom, apparently. This is in stark contrast to the actual situation: knowing the truth makes us free, provided we also act on the truth. Perhaps they are alluding to the fact that “Artificial Intelligence” often produces products (both words and illustrations) that are terribly, terribly wrong. With very stupid errors.
Of course, it doesn’t take machine “intelligence” to do that. Humans are able to do that all by themselves. We here at TPOL have begun collecting tidbits of “AI fakes” – info spread to the world beyond the usual photoshopping. For examples, geographic “educational material” that shows the Black Hills extending from somewhere in Saskatchewan to northern Kansas, or the headwaters of the Mississippi (which it didn’t spell correctly) starting up in Manitoba. Or other maps showing that ocean levels rising (due to “proven” global warming) will cause the waters of the Gulf of America [Mexico] to extend all the way into the San Luis Valley of south-central Colorado. (The Valley floor has an elevation in excess of 7500 feet above sea level. We don’t think Alamosa or South Fork is going to become a seaport anytime soon.)
But we’ve been collecting bits of false/fake trivia put out by people without the help of computers for a very long time. A favorite of the staff here at TPOL goes back about 25 years. The claim is made that if farmers and ranchers keep pumping the ground water out of the Oglala Acquifer (which stretches from the Texas Panhandle clear up to South Dakota), the entire western Great Plains will collapse into a giant, Florida-style sinkhole allowing the waters of the Gulf to race north to make Mission and Rosebud and Winner (small towns in West River of South Dakota) “seaports.”
We recognize that developing and operating large facilities which consume megawatts of power constantly and require constant disposal of the waste heat generated by their operations can create major problems. Just as we recognize that noise, electromagnetic emissions, sound levels and types, and the exhaust from internal combustion engines all have the potential for significant impacts on human health and the environment.
But it appears that the truth, and rationally addressing the issues, including those of surveillence and privacy, is not adequate for a growing (but still tiny) minority of Americans. It is no longer sufficient for people opposed to something to simply state, “I object, for the following (truthful) reasons.” Instead, horror stories must be created out of whole cloth and anything that they oppose must be presented as the greatest evil since Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. (Or maybe even worse.)
A question which Mama Liberty often asked comes to mind: what exactly is being covered up by this hysteria? What is being done under the covers or behind that curtain?
Share this:
About TPOL Nathan
Follower of Christ Jesus (a christian), Pahasapan (resident of the Black Hills), Westerner, Lover of Liberty, Free-Market Anarchist, Engineer, Army Officer, Husband, Father, Historian, Writer, Evangelist. Successor to Lady Susan (Mama Liberty) at TPOL.