Lately I have been seeing a lot of articles on data centers. They cover a lot of ground, including the use of power and water, public backlash, government (at all levels), the use of eminent domain to seize land and utilities for “the public good”.
Let me be perfectly clear here – these big data centers will never be for the “public good”. They support intrusions in privacy, are environmentally unsound, are opposed by many many people,are economically not viable, and do not serve the people at all. They cause untold economic and social upheaval.
This is not doomsday prediction (some are predicting that), but I do say that governments at all levels do not have the good of the people in mind. Often local officials are being recalled, replaced, harassed, etc.
There has been at least one attempt in NH to delay construction of these centers, but it never got out of committee (inexpedient to legislate).
https://gc.nh.gov/bill_status/billinfo.aspx?id=1685&inflect=2
While I believe that learning and knowledge are important, the type of learning and knowledge provided by public sources, and in schools, I am opposed to to the gathering of private data such as that gathered through electronic means.
I do support the kind of thing that shadow libraries are doing, archiving and saving the progress of human, cultural, knowledge.