I’m old enough to remember when data storage was expensive and scarce. During the period when “personal computers” were just becoming commonplace, and the Windows™ operating system made desktop PC’s “user-friendly”, I was designing and selling networked electronic security systems in the Fortune 100. Storing live security video in places like the Philadelphia Fed involved a huge library of VHS tapes, since digital video storage was only just becoming practical.
Today, the average American can shoot live video, store it on mobile phones, text and email it over the internet, and livestream it far and wide at little or no cost. It’s easy and routine to watch video from anywhere in the world, on wireless smartphones and tablets. Phones have built-in high-resolution cameras, and most people have thousands of photos and videos stored on their phones, which are automatically backed up “in the cloud”.
Searching online “search engines” for information has replaced books and encyclopedias. Online navigation has replaced maps. People routinely “ask Siri” to look things up or do tasks. Vehicles and household appliances are connected to the internet. The next level is “AI” (artificial intelligence), where you have only to ask any question you can dream up and expect an immediate answer.
How do you suppose all of this technical wizardry and convenience is possible? It’s because digital storage has become so cheap and available that you can take it for granted. But because it’s so effortless, you never feel the need to economize on your use of data storage. All those forgotten videos, photos you never look at, music playlists you forgot you made, all that digital clutter, have to be stored forever and ever. Somewhere.
That “somewhere” is a data center. You can thoughtlessly generate megabytes of digital detritus, knowing that somewhere, somehow, someone is keeping it just in case you ever need to look at it again someday. No housekeeping needed on your part.
So that you can enjoy that luxury, there needs to be ever-expanding data storage. The tidal wave of stored information keeps expanding exponentially. Maintaining it requires huge amounts of electric power. It also generates tremendous heat, which needs huge volumes of water to cool it. Not to mention acres of climate-controlled buildings on acres of otherwise productive land, running 24 hours each day, week after week, year after year.
If not here, where? “Not in my backyard!!!” is the angry refrain, louder and louder as more and more of these immense data storage warehouses pop up in every community. The rich oligarchs who own and operate these juggernauts are forced to deceive you, secretly conspiring with your elected representatives so that by the time you’re protesting it’s already too late. Meanwhile you’re hooked on the benefits. Overnight “free” delivery of your every need. Instant results. Endless entertainment.
Here’s what’s coming next. CBDC. Central Bank Digital Currency. No more paper money and coins, just swipe your phone or insert your I.D. card. And with it, constant surveillance, along with the ability to turn your money on and off if you don’t obey, or have wrong thoughts. It’s called the “control grid”, and in order to implement it the elites need lots of data centers.
You heard it here first.
An Adams County resident since 1997, Steve Boehme is a local Adams County businessman and political commentator, who published the Adams County CROSSROADS magazine from 2005 until 2019.
Leave a Reply