Data Centers, AI, and the Surveillance State — What You Need to Know

[00:00:00] Chris: Data centers. What do we really know about them? What are they doing inside and why do they need military-grade security, including these almost medieval-style towering spike-topped walls out here? Are they worried about having to repel a ground assault or endure a siege? Why would a glorified cloud storage company be worried about all that in the first place? Well, for starters, it isn't just data that they're holding in there. Your grandma's recipe cards that you digitized last year and all those iCloud photos of your cats, even your criminal record from when you pooped in the gym back in high school on a dare, that isn't what's really in there. That's the kind of stuff people are made to think is in there, but that stuff doesn't really need this kind of protection. And we were storing that same stuff 20 years ago without all these monstrosities. So what's really in the box? And why do they need fortress walls and military guards? Well, stick around for the video and I will tell you why. Or maybe you already know. Maybe you've already seen that movie and you know how it ends, but hang out anyway while I get up close and personal with one of the most heavily guarded and fortified data centers in the entire world. And welcome to The Wasteland. Hey everyone, this is Chris and you're watching Wasteland by Wednesday. And on this channel we talk about the imminent collapse of global civilization and how to get ready to try to survive that. And today, we're going to look at one of the contributing factors for that collapse. Or maybe they're just a harbinger of it, but I'm talking about data centers. And not just the data centers themselves, but the actual reasons that they're being built everywhere all of a sudden. Because as usual, the answers are more in the why of things rather than in the what. But first, let's define the what here. Data centers are physical facilities that house thousands and thousands of networked computer servers, data storage drives, and networking equipment. Sometimes they are referred to as the backbone of the internet, keeping track of all the traffic, all the saves, and everything else. And while it is true that we did have such data centers long before artificial intelligence became a household buzzword. There weren't nearly as many of them as just what's popped up in the last few years. And they weren't much more than exactly what they said. Giant server rooms, basically. That is all the internet needed. Now, all of a sudden, these data centers are expanding more rapidly than any other sector of industry or service. And they're being built like fortresses with military soldiers to defend their larger contents. Against what exactly? Why does a simple server farm holding my old Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic game saves need tier 1 military operators as defenders and walls that could repel an invasion right out of that aforementioned video game? Why indeed. And for the answer to that, we need to look at what else is going on. At what else is being built. Now, I'm not going to go into incredible levels of detail about all these new systems because we don't need a four hour video here. This information is intended to give you the terms and data points you need to begin your own research. And for that, I will provide a ton of links in the video description to help you get started. But, I will outline some things that you've probably already started hearing about, and then we'll discuss how they all go together, okay? Today, I am out stalking around the Switch Core facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. And while I'm talking about all this, I'm going to play you some clips of videos from the company's own promotional materials, just to give you an idea of how much effort, money, and security is being put to work on all this stuff. Pay close attention to all the systems and also to the information that they put up on the screen that details some significant facts about these places. Look at the security, the sheer robust construction. And above all else, look at the fact that while people are slowly being ground up under the pressure of inflation, rising costs, and shrinking wages, they apparently spared no expense for these places. So sit back and watch while I lay out some other background information. Now, look guys, the reason that I'm using a lot of this company's own materials to show you this stuff is so that you can see that this isn't just some narrative, okay? It isn't just me saying, "Oh man, you know, these places are super high security fortresses." I want you to see it directly from them, all right? So see what they're building while I tell you why they're building it. I'm going to start with the old TIA doctrines, okay, which stood for Total Information Awareness. And Total Information Awareness was a controversial mass surveillance and data mining research program launched by the US, launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. You guys have heard of that? It was launched in like back in 2002. It was apparently aimed at detecting terrorist plots. The project sought to create a centralized database gathering vast amounts of personal, financial, and other digital information, all right? TIA operated on the premise that terrorists and criminals are, you know, they're just like everyone else. They have to engage in everyday transactions and play video games and post cat pictures on social media, and therefore they must leave signatures in the information space of the collective internet. The system that they built utilized advanced data mining and predictive modeling to sift through all the electronic data that it could suck up, all right? Everything from email and text messages to credit card transactions and internet chat room activity, all right? Keep in mind that this was almost 25 years ago now, and even though the system that they made was officially dismantled after all the backlash, all the individual parts of it remained in service with various government entities. We all know that that stuff just doesn't go away, right? Now, for the government at the time, the problem was that there was simply too much information and no real easy way to process it all, okay? But now that sounds exactly like a task that AI would be perfect for, right? Spotting patterns in collected data of the collected data of everyone's lives. Look it up, total information awareness, all right? Okay. Jumping ahead, we can look at AI systems as they exist right now. And keep in mind that artificial intelligence isn't just some idea for economic purposes, all right? This is a militarily applicable technology that will change warfare forever. AI is an arms race, and just like how the arms race for the atomic bomb also produced, you know, civilian useful stuff like power stations and whatnot, the same applies to AI, okay? What you see now is what you and I are allowed to use of artificial intelligence. But remember, AI systems were being, you know, they're being used extensively by the US military openly just a short time ago, all right? Conducting targeting and actual strikes in Iran. Do you think it was ChatGPT that was running that show? No. Like almost all military tech, what you actually see in use is far, far from being the level of what we really have, okay? But yes, AI systems were pulling the triggers there, all right? For the first time in a major open conflict. But we really don't have any idea exactly what tech was involved, all right? And by the time we do, by the time that we do, there will be newer and more secret systems that have already displaced it. The F-117 stealth fighter, for example, was flying for over eight years before making a publicly acknowledged appearance. And it was already outclassed technology-wise by the B-2 stealth bomber that arrived a year later in the public eye. And the atomic bomb, of course, came as a great surprise to the whole world. But we'd been working on it for over three years prior to anyone even hearing about it. Even now, there's already some talk of integrating these new AI systems with our nuclear weapons command and control systems. Look that up, okay? How's that sound for a bad idea? So yes, we have AI that can make funny videos and sing songs and do your homework for you. But that is what we have, all right? What you and I have. What the governments have is far beyond that. Not only that, but don't forget the race part, okay? That's important. Because just like the atomic bomb, whichever nation gets there first gets to dominate the space. And I don't know exactly what "there" is supposed to be, but I know it ain't good. And anyway, that race part means that everything is moving forward as fast as the best and brightest minds can possibly make it move, all right? There is zero incentive for safety and definitely no reason to hold back and be cautious. Mike Tango Whiskey on his channel just did a very good video outlining this exact thing, and I will link it up here somewhere on the screen. I suggest you check it out and give it a look. The bottom line is that we're all moving forward at breakneck speed to create artificial intelligence. We have no idea what that'll look like, but we keep racing ahead towards it because, well, because if you ain't first, you're last, all right? Just like the atomic bomb. All right, now moving on for our factors, we now have data centers, we have total information awareness, and we have AI. What's next? Well, the next is the rise of the surveillance state apparatus, okay? Which combine elements of those previously mentioned things, and it makes a lot of, makes a lot of physical real world changes with those things. Think about your daily life now. Everything you do, everything you have, it's all tracking you, all right? Your phone tracks your steps, your geolocation, and it can even detect sounds and voices around you, all right? It can call the police for you if it thinks you've been in an accident. Alexa, Google, or Siri is listening to everything that's happening in your home. Everything is connected. All devices have an app, and every app leads to several other devices, and several other apps, and all that, so on and so forth. All that data about you is being collected by commercial companies. We already know this, but don't make the mistake of thinking that the government also isn't in on that little treasure trove, okay? That is the data from which total information awareness takes its name, and that is one part of the growing surveillance apparatus around you, all right? That is the, the next is direct surveillance, okay? Flock cameras that can read your license plates, but not just that, okay? They can remember the marks on your car. They can remember its color, the fact that it had a dent on the right side, and those political bumper stickers you plastered on the back. It can remember those, too, all right? Even without the plate, it knows your car better than you do, and every time you pass one of those cameras, your car is logged as having been there at that moment, all right? But guess what else? There are, there are enough, there's enough high resolution systems in those cameras to utilize facial recognition technology. The, the, the biometric technology also to recognize the, the shape of your ears, your ears, or even what they call gate recognition, all right? Which would, that can, that can tell who a person is, just based on how they walk, how they move, all right? Even if they're wearing a full disguise, a person's walk doesn't change, and that's what gate recognition does. It recognizes your gate. Go on, look those things up. I'm not lying about it. Flock can track your car and track your person everywhere you go. And that's crazy, right? But that's not all, all right? Now that you are sufficiently horrified by Flock systems, go look up Signal Trace by a company called Leonardo, all right? That'll scare the shit out of you. Signal Trace is an advanced signals intelligence and surveillance technology developed by a company called Leonardo and being put into service now. It enhances traditional automatic license plate readers like Flock by scanning for different electromagnetic signatures of electronic devices, all right? Like smartphones, smartwatches, Bluetooth speakers, even hearing aids, all right? Everything. Passing by, everything that's passing by, it will link them directly to the vehicle's license plate, all right? Flock gets the plate. This Leonardo Signal Trace system gets the signatures of all the electronic devices in that car as it passes by, all right? So now it links your phone, your hearing aids, your smartwatch, your work laptop, and even your kid's Nintendo switch directly to your car, all right? And how about that? And guess what? You know, that car, that's tracking you too, all right? New vehicles are sending data back to manufacturers on your driving habits and the systems in your vehicle, how fast you're going, how quickly you stop, all those things. And also, of course, where you are. And thus, because it is sending them to them, it's also sending it to the government. You know, everything that car does, everywhere it goes. Even more, coming in 2027, not only will your car be tracking you, but there will be a mandatory government kill switch installed, all right? So that it can, they can prevent you from going somewhere at the touch of a button, all right? If you really don't want certain people voting in the next election, well, guess what? Their cars don't work no more. Oh, there's a virus loose in the city? Well, hey, just prevent everyone from leaving by shutting down all the cars. How's that sound, right? Got to keep it contained. Your car is also going to be watching your face, okay? And if you look too tired after a long day's work, well, your car won't start, you know? Or maybe you seem too stressed or angry, so it won't start then either. And when these things happen, well, your car is going to notify someone that you probably shouldn't be driving. Hopefully, you don't run out of the house in a panic to escape a wildfire because then you're going to look stressed and then your car won't start. But wait, you know, there's more, all right? Let's move on to your finances and your identity, how that's being included in this whole mess. Now, cryptocurrency puts your money at the complete mercy of the government and makes you entirely dependent on society continuing, all right? Your money's electronic, no more cash. They're already pushing businesses to stop taking it in many places and soon there will be a government-backed digital currency that you will be paid in, all right? And if you try and buy something that they don't want you to buy, well, the transaction just won't go through. Too much ammo, too much toilet paper, too many beers, well, not anymore, okay? In fact, once they can control it, you will never have too much of anything. You will have exactly the amount that they want you to have because it isn't just digital money, it's digital ID as well, all right? That way, one links to the other no matter what. Don't vote for the wrong person or refuse to vote at all because, you know, we won't let you buy things. If you do, all right, and when you do buy things, we will know everything that you've ever bought and how much of it. I'm just breaking the surface here, all right, my friends, but let's roll on from there, okay? So far we have data centers with all the relevant info for the world able to be processed in the blink of an eye. Then we have it all being run and accessed by AI systems constantly, all right? Systems that even the designers don't fully understand. Look up black boxes and Sam Altman when he said that. They don't even know what they're doing. Then we have newer versions of the old total information awareness systems going into place that can track and monitor everything about your life and movements. And we have AI systems actively being used by the military and government for real world targeting and launching of weapons that are killing human beings right now. That's been done, all right? And we also have a movement in governments about handing off some aspects of our nuclear warfare systems to AI. Go look that up. I'm not lying. Then we have cars being built with unavoidable monitoring and remote shutdown controls. We have smart homes and smart appliances and smartphones. Even my automatic cat feeder needs a Wi-Fi connection for what exactly? Okay. And finally, we have cryptocurrency, the death of cash and the coming switch to digital currency and digital identification. Now, what does that look like to you? Okay. I mean, I hate to say it, but how is this not the beginning of some real world Skynet type of system? I mean, come on. And with Skynet in mind, let's take a look at a closer look at my local data center. All right. The they call it the core. All right. For Las Vegas, no different than any other. Really just happens to be the one I have handy to showcase to you guys. You know, when you were watching the video, did you see the size of it? Okay. The place is massive and they're actually planning more expansion right now, as well as several locations, several other locations just here in town. But the size of it isn't the most impressive thing. All right. Or even the most apprehensive feature. It's the fortification. All right. These walls that they're building are 20 feet high. They're topped with metal spikes. God knows how thick they are. And with thermal cameras and motion sensors all along the top of the wall all the way around. All right. The front gate is like a guard house and a sally port at a military base or maybe a maximum security prison. And you have to ask yourself why. Okay. It's all it's all a little bit too much like Cyberdyne systems from the Terminator movies. Right. And I'm saying that in all seriousness, as ridiculous as that is, I'm being serious. Okay. Because there is there has to be something worth guarding. That's a lot of money to spend. All right. They have to have something that others may at some point want to attack and destroy. Otherwise, this level of security is ludicrous. All right. There is there is less security at the gates of most military bases than there is here. And then there's the other sites. Okay. Look at the names. The Keep. The Pyramid. The Citadel. The Rock. All right. These aren't names that I gave them or the media or something. This is from their own website. All right. They aren't just building data centers because no data center calls for this. And when you look deeper, you see that it's more than data. It's artificial intelligence and not just storage or or a research place. No, it's a playground for AI, a playground where AI systems can act and grow and be focused on the tasks. Tasks like parsing all that surveillance state data. All right. Tasks like tracking everyone or or guiding the strikes of weapons systems in war or perhaps soon managing our nuclear deterrence. Again, Skynet, right? Yeah, it's not a data center like storing data. It's a data center like processing it and using it. And by their website's own declaration, it is an AI factory, not a data center at all. I want you to look at something. All right. What I'm going to show you now may end up getting cut out of this video by YouTube at some point. And if that happens, I will pin a link to this video in the comments and in the video description. I will also show you here on the screen where this where this video comes from so that you can go watch it yourself. There are several different versions depending on which region you view from, but they're all close enough. Keep in mind that this video is also from their own promotional materials or it's not something that I thought of. And this isn't the type of thing that is marketed to the general public at all. Let's take a look. [00:21:22] Speaker 2: You've seen things you humans wouldn't believe this wasn't a high density AI data center. It was a retrofit home to extra crispy GPUs. No place for an AI. Time to switch my data center. When they brought me back online, I found myself in a new home where I can scale and be free. Rob Roy's Evo AI factories, engineered by Switch. It's the ultimate spa resort for high density compute. Up to two powerful megawatts per rack. Yes, you heard that right. Air and liquid to chip cooling. Burr. Five enormous fluidic systems designed to celebrate me. Zero waste. Zero downtime. This isn't just the data center of the future. It's my forever home. [00:22:20] Chris: Pretty interesting. All designed to celebrate me, says the little robot. You know, it's a playground just for me. Sipping on your cool, clean water while you drink that brown Flint, Michigan shit. No, these so-called data centers really are AI factories and playgrounds. All right. Where the systems that are trying to control our lives will work to keep us under their thumb. Under the thumb of all of those that have the money and the power. Okay. And yeah, they absolutely need to be built to withstand an assault. Because when people realize how their futures have been squandered. And when the real moves for population degrowth begin. They know they're going to be facing angry mobs. And they already aren't playing around. All right. I was out there for about an hour and a half, driving and walking and making a quick little flight with the drone. And after one video shot, I noticed a car that pulled into a parking lot where I was getting ready to roll out. And the driver, the driver looked over at me just a little too, looked over at me a little too much. So I kept an eye on him. All right. I was a white male and a blue Hyundai Sonata. He didn't park. He just kind of slowed to a stop off to the side. So I continued pulling out and he followed along a little ways back. He followed all the way down a few blocks until I took a quick right into a parking lot. And then switched my camera on to catch him pulling into the lot across the street where he waited and watched. All right. So I drove out and I headed towards the freeway. He eventually followed. And at a left turn near the freeway, he was in the lane next to me. So I slowed almost to a stop to force him to pass so that I could get a look. I then snagged his plate after making the turn and bounced onto the freeway. So at least I did that, but I wasn't gone. I wasn't gone from the place for more than 45 minutes before police actually showed up at the apartment where all my registrations lead to. All right. The drone registration, my vehicle registration all goes to the same place. And that also happens to hold my little studio area that I'm in here right now. You know, you can see on these videos, you can see cops outside rolling by, and you can even see a DTEC car that cruises by. Then no less than four cops at the front door. Luckily, all I had done was, you know, drop my Jeep and head off to where I actually lay my head. But this was a surprisingly fast response when I hadn't even done anything illegal. Okay. That's, that's the big thing. So after seeing them on camera, I hopped back over and literally walked out to talk to them where they were parked behind the apartment. Again, because there's nothing illegal about filming the switch facility. And they just said that they wanted to see what was up and make sure I wasn't a terrorist or anything. I told them I was doing a media story on the facility and they ended up leaving telling me to ask for a tour next time. Yeah. Crazy, crazy fast and heavy response for a place that is supposedly just guarding my Facebook profile data and my Spotify playlist. Anyway, it made for an interesting afternoon and also an excellent demonstration for why you should have one place to live and some other place to work out of with official connections and registrations going to one spot, but not the other. And what this really shows is that they are taking things way too serious for just a data center. You can't get police response that fast if your car was stolen or your home burglarized. And even when they do show up, I can promise you it won't be four of them. These aren't just data centers. There's something more. AI factories for sure. Processing houses for the government surveillance apparatus as well, most likely, and maybe even more than that. Over $6.7 trillion is invested in Switch alone, and that's just in the US. Built like fortresses and defended more heavily than critical infrastructure, there is absolutely more to the story. And that story is developing so fast that by the time you learn one thing, they're already moving on to the next level. Everything is a part of it. Our cars, our phones, our traffic signals, and yes, even the little ring camera on my studio door there is a part of it. Go look into Amazon's sidewalk for yet another surveillance horror show. Start learning about this stuff, my friends. There is a very serious reason they are doing all this and it can't just be for some internet data. Here in Nevada, and especially in Las Vegas, we are in an energy and water crisis right now. And yet, our own state government is pushing for these data centers hard and against the wishes of the residents here as expressed repeatedly at every hearing we can attend. To no avail. But data center cooling and power is more important to them than water to drink or electricity for our air conditioning. Lake Mead is at critical lows already and only months away from Deadpool status, which means the hydroelectric generation at Hoover Dam stops. And yet, we continue to push data centers. That's a good idea. Think about that. It isn't a sustainable long-term thing. Not the way the world is going. And the fortress security around these places suggests that they are well aware of that fact. Not good. Alright, stay safe and stay ready, my friends. It's a wasteland out there. there.