We all want to belong. Isolation is scary. So most of us seek out groups where we have some sort of common bond. It could be a religion, a political persuasion, or a business association. Humans are social beings. We like to socialize with people who think like us.
That’s a good thing. Where belonging to a group goes astray is the well-known phenomenon of groupthink. Wikipedia says:
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.
I’ve been reminded of groupthink lately because it has cropped up here in Salem, Oregon, where I live, in the context of a highly controversial proposal for a $5.1 billion data center that would be built in the Mill Creek Corporate Center.
If you’re interested in AI data centers, here’s links to some of the blog posts I’ve written about our local project on my Salem Political Snark blog:
Salem data center encountering same resistance as data centers elsewhere
Opposition to Salem data center is justified, but shouldn’t be wild-eyed crazy
Here’s some of what I told the KATU reporter about the Salem data center that didn’t make it into her story
Who’s to blame for Salem data center debacle? Time to point fingers.
With public opinion mostly against a Salem data center, it’s time to shed more light and less heat on the project
Basically, I’m open-minded about the proposed data center. Meaning, I need to know more before I land in either the camp of opponents or proponents. Members of trades such as electricians and construction workers are in favor of the project, if it can be shown to have minimal negative effects in areas such as electricity use, water requirement, and noise level.
But since I’m a progressive, and opposition to the data center is strongest among members of my liberal “tribe,” I’ve been criticized on social media for not being firmly in the opposition camp. You know, the “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” thing. Saying I don’t know or I’m unsure doesn’t cut it with people who view AI in general, and data centers in particular, as an existential threat to humanity.
They may be right. Or they may be wrong.
Given that I enjoy using AI models such as Claude and ChatGPT, I figure that it would be hypocritical for me to express opposition to a Salem data center when I like to use the AI models that are developed and maintained with the support of data centers. However, I understand why lots of people are deeply worried about the harm AI and data centers could wreak on the United States and the world.
What surprises and disturbs me is how progressives — just like conservatives, and just like religious groups — can view any deviation from group orthodoxy as a fatal shortcoming, even if someone otherwise embraces the tenets of their group. Or at least most of the tenets.
In this country, it is tough for an overtly anti-abortion person to be warmly welcomed as a Democrat. It also is tough for an overtly anti-Trump person to be warmly welcomed as a Republican. We’ve largely lost the ability to tolerate independent thinking in political groups. And this is even more apparent in religious groups.
Sure, I understand that if someone doesn’t believe Jesus existed, it’s tough for them to be considered a Christian. But what if they accept that Jesus existed, yet doubt that Jesus was the Son of God, being instead just a wise teacher? How far can someone deviate from group norms and still be accepted as a member of a group?
I think that leeway should be quite large, because I don’t like groupthink.
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All I know about AI data centres is that they are apparently energy-intensive, using huge amounts of electricity and water. All this adds to our carbon footprint. I guess my knowledge on this is very scant, but anything that adversely affects the environment negatively is, in my books, bad. I suspect that there would be many arguments to counter this, though.
Regarding groupthink, which is rooted in our need for social acceptance and cohesion. This phenomenon may be one of the reasons why it is difficult to break away from political, religious or cultish groups. Perhaps it all stems from our origins as herd animals (for protection) but has now navigated into our minds and our thinking processes.
Just like the herd instinct, it seems we gather ourselves into our particular groups to protect our mental stability. It can be quite unsettling to be the odd one out and pigeonholed into some category. The term atheist comes to mind when one queries spiritually related beliefs and is dismissed as being ‘one of them’. Such pressures can make individuals suppress their personal opinions or doubts to avoid becoming the outcast or even irrelevant. It is in effect, an unconscious way to stop one thinking – or to make ‘them’ irrelevant.
Being a citizen is great; it is simply being an inhabitant – and hopefully contributing to the wellbeing of society and the environment. Being a nationalist, on the other hand, effectually creates a ‘them and us’ mentality, which, to think of it, is one of the main reasons for many of the conflicts we humans continually experience.
Can we humans ever graduate from our herd instincts? If not, it makes the concept of ‘higher consciousness ‘ rather obsolete.
Those opposed to you are mindless groupthinkers, cult members even, while your view is rational and responsible. This seems to be how you approach all issues on this blog. You declare that you see things clearly, and everyone who differs from you is just following the irrational herd.
Instead of reading the links you provided, which no doubt argue from this same perspective, I asked grok AI to summarize the concerns of your fellow Salem citizens on the data center issue:
Water use: Data centers can consume large volumes for cooling (critics cite millions of gallons per day in some cases). Salem already faces water supply pressures, including a looming Detroit Reservoir drawdown affecting the North Santiam River (the city’s drinking water source) and a declared water emergency tied to weak snowpack/drought. Residents emphasize “We can’t drink data” and view the facilities as a threat to scarce local supplies.
Electricity/power demand and costs: These facilities require massive continuous power (tens to hundreds of MW). Opponents worry about straining the grid, potential blackouts, and higher rates for residents—PGE has been linked to rate increases to accommodate data centers. Critics call them “utility parasites” that force the public to subsidize big tech.
Noise pollution: Constant high noise (including low-frequency) from equipment and cooling systems is a frequent complaint, with concerns for nearby residents, students (e.g., Corban University), and wildlife.
Few permanent jobs relative to scale and land use: A ~$5 billion project on tens of acres of industrial land (described as among the last large parcels) was projected to create only around 75 permanent jobs (plus temporary construction work). Opponents argue this is inefficient use of scarce industrial land, fails to deliver broad economic benefits, and prioritizes tech profits over community needs.
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These seem like valid concerns to me. Maybe you’re rich, and higher utility costs don’t worry you. Maybe the data center will be built far enough from where you live that the noise issue won’t affect you, though it will affect other Salem residents. If so, do you really have skin in this game, and just cause to label those who disagree with you are not merely wrong, but mindless cattle?
AI is our future, but greed unfortunately, comes along for the ride. And that is how solar and wind utilization is entirely forgone for hundreds of small methane / gas generators sucking dry and polluting local water resources. And this now becomes part and parcel of the environs of new AI data centers.
All the energy requirements of data centers are electrical energy, and cooling requirements can all be handled electrically. In time technology will erase the heat generated by hypercharged microchips, which is also lost power and efficiency, and wears out said chips.
That means solar and wind can erase the entire carbon footprint. And one day will. But will that be now, as a foundational requirement? Or will it be in twenty or thirty years, after a cycle of pollution and harm (not to mention heavy metal polution…).
So why hasn’t this even been considered? The liberal position in this instance has become so polarized that thinking has evaporated.
The problem with groupthink (originally developed by Irving Janus) has to do with the suppression of our own individual doubts, concerns, questions and ideas with the notion that we all must get behind a platform in order to have strength to move it anywhere.
But if that strength is in opposition, the requirements for political power, and reliable protest, and even some back-office quid pro quo, multiplies exponentially.
There is much less force needed to start with an open discussion about how to move forward with this new technology, and not how to oppose it.
We are all too quick to think opposition is a requirement for progress, and forget that evolution is the rule in nature far more often than revolution, though cataclysmic events do happen now and then. I just don’t think we should rely on them for progress.
If we attempt to think in evolutionary steps, in diplomacy, then all that is needed for teamwork is transparency, constant visibility and constant open invitations.
The team is a team that has all agreed only on one thing: The future will happen. How it happens is all up to us, working together, not in opposition.
With Chat’s Help, here is an actual workable plan, based upon a true progressive federal and local policy, one worth fighting for:
“If the federal government launched a coordinated, “Marshall Plan”-style initiative to rebuild the energy grid and prioritize green infrastructure, it would break the single biggest bottleneck in tech development. Such an initiative would fundamentally reshape the AI landscape by reducing connection wait times from 5 to 8 years down to 1 to 2 years, entirely eliminating the need for local methane generators. The federal government could unlock the grid gridlock through several key strategies:
1. Mandating “Fast-Track” Interconnection Lanes.
Currently, clean energy projects wait in a massive bureaucratic backlog called the interconnection queue.
The Policy Change: The federal government could dictate a “Categorical Exclusion” or Fast-Track lane specifically for data centers that match with newly built local renewables.
The Impact: Federal regulatory agencies (like FERC) are already pushing utilities to use automated AI modeling to study grid connections 20x to 100x faster. Nationalizing this approach would slash the time it takes to get approval to plug into the grid from 3–5 years down to a matter of weeks.
2. Streamlining Transmission Lines via Federal Corridors.
The hardest part of building green energy is constructing the high-voltage lines that carry wind/solar power from rural plains to urban data hubs—a process normally mired in a decade of state-level lawsuits and property disputes.
The Policy Change: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) can utilize its authority to designate National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs). This gives the federal government the power to override local pushback and fast-track the building of lines.
The Impact: Under massive federal prioritization, transmission line construction could shrink from a 10-year battle to a 2-to-3-year build, allowing clean energy to reach data centers fast enough to compete with gas turbines.
3. War Production Act for Hardware (Transformers & Inverters)The grid remodel is physically stalled by supply chain bottlenecks, most notably a 3-year waiting list to buy large substation transformers.
The Policy Change: The President could invoke the Defense Production Act to force domestic factories to mass-produce high-voltage transformers, grid-forming inverters, and utility-scale batteries.
The Impact: Lead times for vital grid hardware would plummet from 160 weeks down to under 26 weeks, resolving the mechanical bottleneck that forces AI campuses to buy gas equipment.
4. Legalizing “Grid-First” Co-Location. Right now, regulatory gray areas make it legally difficult for a data center to plug directly into a massive wind farm or nuclear plant without going through the local monopoly utility first.
The Policy Change: The federal government could codify Clean Co-location Rules, standardizing how huge industrial loads interact with power generators.
The Impact: AI companies could legally build their data centers directly next to massive green energy generation zones. They could bypass the utility’s regional transmission lines entirely while using a clean, “always-on” master microgrid—legally and safely.
The Ultimate Result…If the state and federal governments absorb the financial and bureaucratic burden of grid-building, AI companies would have zero incentive to burn methane. Grid power would become cheaper, faster to acquire, and entirely green, turning the “AI energy crisis” into the catalyst that modernized the country’s infrastructure.”
In one perspective, we are having this problem now because of the poor political vision that should have already created a green grid years ago.
So now there is a serious business reason to address these concerns, and a way to eliminate the barrier.
There is always a continuing push to cut corners. But you help that argument by not offering alternatives.
“Create a golden bridge for your enemy to easily retreat.”
The Art of War
There is a legitimate argument that to have any business at all, a reasonably aggressive time line must be pursued. But that just means a reasonably aggressive energy policy must be instituted. Here is where government and industry can and should work together now, without delay, just as they have for every significant wave of economic development in America and most successful economies the world over.
Individuality is cornerstone of any spiritual path.
Keeping internal experiences secret is one way to reinforce it.
But keeping whole thing as aba-cadabra is counter to truth it holds.
I remember reading one such things when guru nanak put his thumb in hell fire and making it water
I am not sure from which scripture it is taken.
So such things have been recorded over time.
So if u have an experience which you can share with others, there is no harm in it. Just make sure no energy exchange happen.