Somehow though, now in 2026 there has been a surge of anti-data center anger that mimics the anti-large scale factory movement of the late 1800's. Often with the same messaging too - it will take our beautiful land, it will take jobs from skilled people, etc. It seems much louder with data centers though, with many cities declaring a moratorium on building them, with some speculation that Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns are fueling the hatred (I won't get into that... but makes sense). BUT - I do want to get into some of the arguments against data centers that you all seem chant now out of nowhere:
1. Data centers take beautiful farmland from farmers - we are not building enough data centers to take all the farmland and your food supply is not in danger from data centers. The argument that food is more important is just flat out stupid because its not an either/or. Nobody is forcing food producing farmers to give up their land in some gestapo style setting straight out of 1964. Furthermore, these data centers require connections to internet backbones, which are often fairly close to large cities... you aren't going to get big data centers in the middle of Nebraska corn fields or in Western Cattle lands that are far from connections.
2. Data centers are for mass surveillance - No. No they aren't. If we just take Eastern Kentucky and look at the data centers here and/or the ones being built here there are two categories - Terrawulf, a cryptocurrency company that is building them to mine crypto, and Appalachian Wireless, which has one data center so you have internet on your phone.
3. Data Centers raise utility bills and provide minimal jobs - this one is actually a mixed bag. Do data centers indirectly raise utility costs? They can, especially if local governments or utilities are giving them discounts (I'm always against corporate welfare), but these companies also pay higher rates than you and that going into (because it requires) increased infrastructure. This means that while the operation of the data center may only require 10 people, they are paying enough in utilities that the indirect job creation at utility companies and for construction means more jobs to support the data centers. So, there is no doubt that they do provide extra funding and jobs for the community, it just may not be by connecting cables in server racks.
4. Data Centers are noisy - What? This is your argument against free enterprise? I live near the Columbia Gas Transfer Station in Powell County, which is incredibly noisy and only has a few workers that maintain it - but if anyone were to start pushing to have it driven out of town or shutdown you would get laughed out of here. Politicians fuel entire elections on the promise of bringing companies to town, creating noise in industrial parks... but if it is one certain type of company making that noise in that place nobody lives its an issue.
Those are the biggest complaints I have seen in this new sprung-out-of-nowhere hate. I am by no means saying lets build hyperscale data centers everywhere, but the hatred of technological progress that will help move society to be stronger is just dumb. To close this little tirade out I want to speak on the data center that Lexmark has sold in Lexington that is getting hate... this was ALREADY a data center. Nobody cared. It didn't harm anyone. Your water and utilities are the same... but for some reason people are protesting it becoming a DIFFERENT data center. The fact that some of you are allowed to vote when you get mad about this stuff is... well, that's a different conversation.
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