We are the permission structure.
Community members from Grayslake and surrounding areas participating in an educational workshop and discussion about the T5 data center development project.
When walking into the reserved space for a first of its kind community workshop on data centers, you hardly know what to expect.
As I enter, I scan the room for a familiar face. My fellow coalition members are present. Check.
Next, find a seat. Only one left.
A lone chair sits vacant next to a middle-aged woman with an evenly split aura of intentionality and interest.
I’mma let her cook.
Excited about the turnout, I settle for the fly on the wall perch in the back and take in the room. To my right, a childhood friend with his son in tow greets me.
“See what happens when you invite me to things?” he says. I chuckle.
As he and I grew into adulthood, our political philosophies went in opposite directions. At the peak of it, the relationship became strained and we limited our associations with each other to concerts we'd both attend. An environment too loud to hash it out, and the music too timeless to remember the outside world. It remains the only way I can envision time travel as possible and worthwhile. The one good thing about music is that, when it hits you, you feel no pain.
That was a good one, Bob.
We're all in this workspace together with our diverse political backgrounds without issue because we have another type of time travel on our minds. It’s one that plunges us into a future rife with uncertainty, danger, and the unsettling potential for a catastrophic extinction level event (the billionaires that own these AI companies agree that the odds of AI causing an extinction level event is about 20%. Seriously.). It's not the future you or I were promised, nor is it the future I promised my son and two daughters. Nevertheless, it has arrived. We’ve got work to do, neighbor.
The event kicks off with a warm and gracious welcome from Roxy, the one that got us together. She hands it off to Lynne to begin the presentation. As Lynne covers the bases, neighbors lock in. A few begin to chime in, ushering in a natural evolution. Presentation becomes open conversation. A variety of perspectives fill the room. All valid. All uniquely important. What becomes crystal clear at this moment is that everyone in the room has concerns that are not only based in reality, but they’re evidence based at their core. If we were to treat this group as a sample of the broader community, there are many positive assumptions we can make:
We’re reading the same information across the political spectrum.
We agree about the data.
We’re all actively researching this.
We’re researching responsibly.
This presents a damning indictment on the powers that be. The incoming doom of a data center has been foisted upon us and we’re all reacting to it in real time. some of us conclude we were never informed ahead of the deal, while others point out that there were some murmurings about it a couple years ago in the Grayslake community forum. I’ll share my perspective on it.
It doesn’t fucking matter.
How we got here is irrelevant. From vulnerable communities like Saddlebrook left to stare down the barrel of this machine at such a proximity that their noses are smudged with soot, to the posh communities of Libertyville, we’re all collectively waking up to the reality that we were recklessly and carelessly sold a dark future by our leaders. When you combine that with the union stunt at village hall (which aged like a salad in a swimming pool), you have the formula to gauge the temperature of the workshop after it was finished. Everyone left fired up, pissed off, and locked in.
The coming days command our hard work, my friends. It is safe to assume that none of us want this data center. That will come to mean that neither you nor I will allow it to take place. We elected these decision makers to make decisions on our behalf and it is decidedly so that this decision was made as a choice against us, either willfully or by sheer ignorance.
Leaders in a free country are to rule by the consent of the governed.
We do not consent.
We, as a community, are the permission structure.
We do not permit.
Don’t flinch.
-ella dreames-
