'Data Centers' and the Neofascist World Order

That those who 'data centers' are designed to fleece PAY for them is OBSCENE.

Just a year ago, most, including myself, hadn't heard of these monstrosities being surreptitiously built and operated "to maintain our competative edge over China" and help 'justify' SpaceX and ICE.

Data centers help produce "infotainment" and make possible a world wide prison without walls: every movement, every purchase, every thought tracked, analyzed and monitored for extraction and compliance.

A vast majority of Americans oppose their construction. People are pushing back against the complexes for a variety of concrete reasons:
Resource Drain: Data centers demand unprecedented amounts of electricity and water. A single facility can consume as much energy as 100,000 households, straining the power grid and driving up utility bills for everyday consumers. Water supplies are heavily tapped for cooling servers, especially in drought-prone areas.
Low Local Value: Developers tout job creation and economic growth, but after initial construction, data centers employ only a few dozen staff, bringing little long-term local economic benefit.
Quality of Life: The facilities are massive, warehouse-style buildings that generate constant 24/7 noise from cooling systems and traffic from construction. Many also rely on dirty backup diesel generators that produce air pollution. Perhaps worst, they raise ambient temperature in the surrounding area.
Public Subsidies: data center developers receive massive tax breaks, meaning local funds are diverted from public services to benefit large tech corporations.
Tech Skepticism: Data centers are a physical, highly visible symbol of AI, fueling broad public anxiety about the pace of technology, data privacy, resource allocation, and class conflict.

There are almost 12000 "data centers" (half of them in the USA), primarily owned by Big Tech cloud providers and investment firms. Top Owners include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Meta. "Colocation Providers' include Equinix, Digital Realty, and QTS Data Centers. Investment & Private Equity Firms have bought in: Because data centers are highly lucrative, many are now owned by major financial players who fund construction and lease the properties to operators.Top Owners: Blackstone, DigitalBridge, and KKR. A newer wave of operators, specialized AI/Neocloud Providers, focuses primarily on providing high-density computing power for AI workloads. Top Owners: CoreWeave, Lambda, and xAI.

32 countries globally host specialized AI computing data centers: Germany has 500+ facilities, UK also 500+; China: 360+ facilities, France 340+, Canada and India both 280+; Australia 270, Japan: 250+ and Italy 210 (major hub: Milan). Emerging hotspots for massive data center construction include Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile.
140 countries have some, but nearly 150 nations lack significant domestic AI infrastructure. Major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) have no data centers in over 100 countries across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, in Ethiopia, Libya, Zimbabwe, Angola, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Iraq, Yemen, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and small island nations. Absence of hyperscale data centers results from unreliable electrical grids, lack of local undersea fiber-optic cable landings, and largely, low commercial demand.
Even Myanmar has commercial data centers. The market is small but established, with most facilities located near Yangon. Key data center facilities and operators include True IDC Myanmar, established in 2015 as a joint venture providing standard IT managed services and colocation; Myint & Associates (M&A) Data Center; Golden TMH Telecom (GTMH); plus telecom operators like Ooredoo which operate localized data centers and landing stations such as the Campana submarine cable landing station.

Water shortages, blackouts, increased cost of living... hey, at least data centers benefit needy billionaires.

My books

1. A Little Knowledge by Joel Barlow 2008, 2010 - A series of related essays on knowledge and the reality we live in, including a good bit of history, physics, linguistics, anthropology and philosophy.
2. The Road From Kaliyuga to Ragnarök by Joel Barlow 2020 - Essays on mythology, the deification of mortals, reality, fabulous frauds, assertions of superiority, challenges in the world we live in, emotional weather, orders of infinity, ancient history, hoarding compulsion and French poetry, sensibly and rationally adjoined.
3. Dignity, Too by Joel Barlow 2009, 2010 - George wants to beat the system - to exist within it lacks dignity. There MUST be a way. He reads of ancient wisdom, of communes and hippies, of "alternative" this and that... refuses to settle for a drab life with boss, debts, homogenous mimicry of neighbors, a straightjacket of rules, inside all day, everything antiseptically packaged. Bad enough to be a Midwestern nobody, without hope of wealth, fame or glamour. People on the coasts might THINK they were smarter or more talented, than he or his ilk, but they weren't. Well, maybe than his ilk, but not than George himself, who certainly did not consider himself a naif.
4. Enticing Siam by Joel Barlow 2006 - Concise details for navigating the rich culture and society, with sections on pop-culture, folk beliefs, festivals, food, tribes, weather, sports, interesting places, herbal medicines, Siamese cats, fighting fish, orchids, and a concise history with intimate examination of Golden Triangle drug trade, plus background on Chinese immigration.
5. IuMien Tao, Ultima Altai by Joel John Barlow - A treatise on how the world’s arguably oldest still revered belief system relates to early East-West interface, mythology and modern understandings, with information on the Iu-Mien people and their art and beliefs, and a bit of poetry.
6. The Dollshop on Gogo Row - by Joel Barlow 2010 - Might a man who marries a waitress get a cook and maid in the bargain? If he marries an Asian bar-girl, will he retain any friends? And even if he does, will the fun go on? Three men and their bar-girl friends, all out to find fun, insight and the joys of cross-cultural contact, if not love, discover instead magic, new social bonds, secret workings, a dangerous plot protected in high places, in another magical story of the Land-of-Guiles.
7. Dream of Self by Joel John Barlow 1976, 1980. illustrated by Jonathan Lethem - poetic essay of a time when one could still struggle to be easy and free, reveling in faded splendor and grandiosity, self-indulgence and lust for adventure.
8. Lost Lanna Found, by Joel Barlow 2005 - History and some contemporary details of as fine a place as any.
9. Going to Laos, by Gene Ballou (Joel Barlow). A novel of alternative social conventions in the New World we made 10. A Web of Connected Curiosities, 2000, 2020:
“Little Sister™ Corp, the ONLY one owned by all its customers, works for YOU – offering HOPE! Joining costs nothing. Log in & become a member of the largest co-op of all, employed with genuine advancement potential no matter who you are, or what your education.
Little Sister™ & HomefieldAdvantage™ will teach you all you need to advance, while YOU earn where-with-all to pay your way to increasingly valuable positions in its structure. ANYONE can become a member of the assemblage: an editor, analyst, promoter, distributor, supervisor, even an executive.
It’s up to YOU, with a little help from Little Sister™ herself – always a joy to be with, guaranteed.
With sections on
Information & advertising
The history of alcohol
The punch-card loom & reactive systems Ethical Ecological Economics
Programed Instruction
History of Museums
Assassins of the Old Man in the Mountain Emin Pasha; Hsuang-tsang; Vasco de Gama; Ibn Batutah
& Shendi Bazaar.
If interested to receive as an attachment, inquire at jobarlow53 at yahoo.