Blog

The birth of AI has brought a new wave of data center construction from major tech companies like Google and Meta, with many others building or planning thousands across the United States. Even some states like Utah, where billionaire Kevin O’Leary’s proposed 41,200-acre “Project Stratos” data center is set to take place, have offered large tax exemptions and incentive packages to new data center construction. To put into perspective, that’ll likely total to be over $1 billion subsidizing a data center 137% the size of Manhattan.When you look across the nation at where new data centers are being built, a familiar pattern begins to emerge. Big tech companies and industry groups lobby state governments for favorable tax incentives before projects move into small, rural communities, where local officials, eager for new economic activity and tax revenue, are the only ones given the authority to vote down a project. However, all of that economic activity is frontloaded. Once construction is complete, even the largest data centers require very few jobs day to day. Not to mention that in most of these towns, tech companies are not even hiring local labor for construction and are instead pulling from other states and large firms.Once completed, they have huge downsides. First, they’re huge resource consumers. Land, water, energy—you name it. These corporations have been buying up farmland and plots adjacent to residential subdivisions to throw up their buildings, which are already bigger than warehouses, to store their servers. Their servers run 24 hours a day and require constant electricity and water to keep from overheating. It’s not a small amount of water or electricity either. These servers handle astounding amounts of data that need the lion’s share of these utilities. Residents living near data centers have found their homes’ water pressure to be very weak, if running at all. What water remains is full of sediments not safe for cooking or drinking. Electricity bills have also skyrocketed as the data centers hog much of the existing grid. In fact, data centers are so big, many have personal generators for additional power consumption.Being in such close proximity to data centers presents serious health risks. The generators these data centers possess burn fossil fuels that worsen local air quality with carbon emissions that negatively affect respiratory health. The centers themselves are huge sources of noise pollution. Videos from communities all across the country have gone viral documenting a distinct, noticeable hum that runs 24/7. Such noise pollution mentally disrupts humans and animals alike. Clayton Tucker, a cattle rancher in Texas who lives close to a data center, recently shared that none of his cows have birthed healthy calves since the center opened.Besides these obvious downsides, big tech corporations seem to disregard opposition when it comes to expanding their services. Many videos of local town hall meetings have circulated on the internet showing that residents are overwhelmingly against the construction of data centers, but their city councils almost always unanimously approve construction. Unfortunately, most small towns have been unable to halt construction after voting out their council members and replacing them with individuals who oppose construction. The Nashville Zoo has even pleaded with residents to protest a planned data center that would open adjacent to the habitats of endangered species on the basis that it would disrupt breeding programs and the animals’ mental health.What’s even scarier is that the Trump administration has taken measures to label opposition to data centers and criticism of AI as “anti-tech extremism.” In Claremore, Oklahoma, farmer Darren Blanchard was arrested and jailed for speaking 5 seconds over his allotted time in a city council meeting while protesting a proposed 300-acre data center in his community, despite other people in the meeting speaking out in favor of the project and being allowed to go 30–40 seconds overtime. The feds have also begun monitoring posts and users with negative perceptions of AI and have vowed surveillance. It’s also no help that thousands of Flock cameras are now being installed across the country to monitor citizens on the basis of “public safety.” Just like data centers, communities are being asked to accept the physical and social costs of Flock cameras against their own will. It seems more and more that the United States is imitating the Chinese model of mass surveilling its own citizens and handing out repercussions for political dissent.That makes sense why the most common rationale for expansion by American leaders and politicians has been under the guise of surpassing China in the development of AI; however, the United States is already ahead of China by more than 3,000 operating data centers. Even if that weren’t the case, the current way in which they are built and operate is completely unsustainable and needs to change. This truly is a global problem that we will face in the upcoming century, and hopefully we can come together as a society with a better solution for the future of our world.—Esen Yildirim CITATIONS:“THE REAL SAFETY RISKS OF DATA CENTERS: WHAT LOCAL COMMUNITIES NEED TO KNOW.”https://conimby.org/blog/2025/09/12/the-real-safety-risks-of-data-centers-what-local-communities-need-to-know/“AI data centers’ “infrasound” pollution linked to nausea, insomnia in nearby residents”https://epawatch.org/2026-05-29-data-centers-infrasound-pollution-linked-to-nausea-insomnia.html‘Anti-tech extremism’: The government is monitoring AI criticism nationwide, says report

The Unsustainability of the AI Boom

The United States of America spends more on medical research than any other existing nation on Earth. Our scientific institutions sit atop the global hierarchy of research, receive billions in taxpayer funding, and generate an endless stream of publications. Yet, America remains one of the sickest populations in the developed world across a multitude of measures, including chronic disease, life expectancy, and mental illness. <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;" data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">The first thing I’d point to are the many treatments and guidelines that over the past century have been overturned. Hormone replacement therapy was promoted for decades as a way to prevent chronic disease until the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) in 2002 found that it did not prevent heart disease and actually raised the risk of stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer. The damage was not abstract. In the WHI, combined hormone therapy was linked to about 8 extra cases of invasive breast cancer per 10,000 person-years, about 8 extra strokes per 10,000 person-years, and about 18 extra blood clots per 10,000 person-years.Knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis-related meniscal tears is another example: it was used for years before better evidence showed that physical therapy worked just as well for many patients. Even many recent interventions, like wearable fitness trackers for weight loss, have &nbsp;failed to deliver the benefits earlier promised. <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;" data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">So, I would think it’s fair to ask why these failures continue to occur despite the resources and prestige of America’s “world-class” research institutions. <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;" data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"> In a 2012 University of Virginia white paper, psychologists Brian Nosek, Jeffrey Spies, and Matt Motyl argued that scientific institutions increasingly reward novel findings over replication and verification. It started with a study led by Motyl and Nosek investigating embodiment of political extremism. They gave participants from across the political spectrum (left, right, center) and had them complete a perceptual task in which words were presented through different shades of gray. Participants had to click along a gradient representing grays from near black to near white to select a shade that matched the shade of the word. Their results showed that those who identified as “political moderates” were better at correctly perceiving the shades of gray. Before they were going to publish it, they decided to replicate their experiment because they “could not justify skipping replication on the grounds of feasibility or resource constraints.” In their replication, after testing 1,300 additional participants with enough statistical power to detect the original effect, the result completely disappeared. For Motyl, this was especially devastating and hurt his career advancement as he was about to enter the workforce.<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;" data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Nosek used this as an example of a broader issue, arguing that “the incentives for publishable results can be at odds with the incentives for accurate results.” This has even more truth to it 14 years later, where the number of PhDs produced by American universities has grown to record numbers, exceeding 58,000 in 2024. At the same time, the path to traditional academic careers has narrowed, with a growing share of researchers cycling through postdoctoral and non-tenure-track positions. That means that for a grad student or even a junior professor, finding something new or surprising is more valuable for them professionally than publishing a well-run replication study. This is because universities rely on publication records as an indicator for success in order to get funding, which has led to measurable outputs like citation counts, impact factors, and H-index scores becoming increasingly more important in modern academia. <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;" data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">So, in 2026, even with open data practices and replication projects being more commonplace today as a result of the “great replication crisis” of the 2010s, the competitive pressures that created it in the first place still exist and are, in some cases, even stronger today than they were 14 years ago. A good way to put it is that we are more self-aware than self-correcting, since universities are still hiring, promoting, and rewarding researchers on the same basis of publications, citations, and academic visibility. These are the same universities in the U.S. and across the world which occupy the central position in the production of scientific knowledge itself. Until they put more value on verification, implementation, and patient results, America will continue to lead the world in scientific output without seeing any meaningful kind of progress in public health here at home.-Alex Adamson<strong style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;" data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">Link to Nosek/Motyl Case <span data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">&nbsp;<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691612459058" data-mce-href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691612459058">https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691612459058</a>&nbsp;

The Theoretical Capture of Modern Science

In recent years, there has been a so-called “Third Great Awakening” in Generation Z, characterized by ever-increasing numbers in church attendance and a drop in alcohol sales that has cost major producers in the industry upwards of $830 billion in market value. According to the Barna Group, the average Zoomer attends church 1.9 times a month, as opposed to the average Boomer’s 1.4 times (Barna State of the Church, 2026). These are all positive things for young people; however, only time will tell if this remains into the foreseeable future or becomes just another trend of the 2020s. Recent events, such as the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the escalation of major geopolitical conflicts around the world, have left Generation Z with a lot of uncertainty and questions. Whether these are about the economy, government, or society, Gen Z has begun to look for new role models and leaders to follow. This is where church comes in. An important aspect of its attractiveness is church events being scheduled, organized, and smoothly run by mature deacons and pastors who make easy role models for Generation Z.Throughout history, there have been many significant challenges to church doctrine and resulting schisms, from the Great Schism of 1054, through to the Protestant Reformation and, as of late, though it may not be a schism, the American megachurch movement. Megachurches and American consumerism tend to walk hand in hand with each other, appealing to the masses by offering watered-down versions of the prosperity gospel that are appealing to new believers. A lot of churches describe themselves as being “seeker sensitive,” meaning they focus on welcoming in brand-new believers, or “baby Christians,” and attempt to water down their theology, worship, and view of the sacraments to fit a worldview that is more appealing to Americans. While these churches are doing good insofar as they bring a lot of people to the Christian faith, issues arise whenever sermons become more akin to TED Talks or motivational speeches, relying less and less on Scripture and more and more on personal anecdote and statements that are meant to invoke feelings from the audience. The megachurch experience is based on how one feels after they leave; therefore, the worship, doctrine, and preaching, while still mainly being Trinitarian and affirming basic Christian beliefs, leave the seasoned believer wanting more out of church.The demographic that has most felt the effects of this is younger Generation Z men. I, as well as many of my friends, have begun inquiring into more traditional churches, specifically high church Protestantism. Young men have required structure, masculine role models, and repetition since their creation, and the traditional church offers this much more succinctly than differing evangelical churches. While many young adults will still hold a very ecumenical view on the church, the more radical among us will become “Orthobros (Eastern Orthodox)” or “Tradcaths (Traditional Roman Catholics),” who profess anyone not catechized within their rite to be anathema and heretical. A good amount of young men inquire into Reformed theology, especially the doctrines and confessions on predestination, baptismal regeneration, the Eucharist, and corporate worship, because of the way they are wired. Whenever church becomes more structured, less centered on feelings or experience, and more centered on sacrificial worship and the giving of yourself to the Lord, one finds it easier to stick around that church week to week and catechize within it. A deep sense of community is fostered within these churches, and the steadfast love of Christ has the spotlight. Theologically rich hymns are sung by entire congregations, Communion is received with great importance, and baptism is administered in a very reverent way. This, of course, is very appealing for a young man who has a lot of passion for Christ and is not seeing it realized in larger evangelical churches.However, we must remember that the evangelical movement has been one of the most important aspects of Christianity in the United States and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. While strong believers should continue to call out dangerous beliefs in large churches, we should all be extremely gracious and accepting to new Christians, and realize that not everybody will be inclined to walk in their faith the exact same way and may be content worshiping Christ without having the same thirst for theological knowledge. As I continue to hope and pray that I will see church attendance numbers constantly on the rise, I also pray for the ability to stand firm in my faith while simultaneously being kindhearted and humble, and urge all believers to do the same.– Jonas Lawrence

The Gen Z Push Towards High-Church Christianity

*credit ABC news for cover*Editors Note: This morning Governor Walz announced he would not seek reelection and suspended his 2026 campaign amid this scandal.&nbsp;If you’ve been online at all the last few weeks, you’ve definitely seen headlines around the $9 billion of taxpayer funds that seem to have been stolen through massive fraud in social services in Minnesota. Governor Tim Walz has faced backlash for weak oversight, despite 100 mayors from across the state calling for wasteful spending of state funds and fraud to be addressed.&nbsp;The majority of the fraud is tied to social services deceiving the state by lying about how many people they assist with living. For example, over 800 Somalian-owned non-emergency medical transportation companies have received money from the state but have been alleged to never contain passengers. In fact, many of those transportation businesses have the same name and register at the same addresses as other Somalian owned daycare and healthcare facilities.&nbsp;In a now-viral video by independent journalist Nick Shirley, a daycare was outed as being closed during working hours when it had received up to $4 million from the state and claimed to have 99 children enrolled. The daycare’s sign also had the word ‘learning’ misspelled, as well as part of the address. Later in the video, they get the cops called on them after visiting a building where 14 individual home-healthcare companies operate out of. Most office doors were locked, and they were yelled at and reported for harassment by simply asking to check the rates at these companies.&nbsp;In response, Governor Walz has faced scrutiny for claiming that he’s been tackling fraud for years when it is happening in real time. A federal prosecutor has estimated that total fraud exposure from across all fake social service companies could be as high as $9 billion, not to mention some of the stolen money has allegedly been wired to terrorist group Al-Shabaab back in Somalia. It is important to note that hasn’t been proven, but there have been real prosecutions in the past involving Al-Shabaab and Minnesotans.&nbsp;Why did this continue to happen and carry on for years? Why didn’t state auditors pick this up? How many people were tied to this? There are a lot of questions needing to be answered. The incompetency from the state government led by Walz suggests that some lawmakers could have been aware of or taking a cut from these organizations.&nbsp;The ‘20s have been a bizarre and difficult time for the majority of Americans. This type of fraud occurring under the noses of all of these politicians should upset all hardworking citizens and the taxpayers of Minnesota that have been struggling to make ends meet. While not all 300,000 Somalian residents in Minnesota were involved in money laundering and fraud, those who were should face justice and the full extent of the law.-Esen Yildirim Sources&nbsp;“Walz ‘strengthened oversight,’ office says after Minnesota fraud report.” The Hill, [date not available], https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5665226-minnesota-governor-defends-fraud-crackdown/.“Minn.’s Somali social-services scammers may have stolen $9 billion — nearly Somalia’s entire economy.” New York Post, 21 Dec. 2025, https://nypost.com/2025/12/21/us-news/minn-s-social-services-scammers-may-have-stolen-9-billion/.Schmidt, Corey. “Nearly 100 Minnesota mayors urge fiscal restraint from Walz, others.” St. Cloud Times, 23 Dec. 2025, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/12/23/nearly-100-minnesota-mayors-urge-fiscal-restraint-from-walz-others/87895504007/.“Tim Walz pushes back on Minnesota fraud allegations following viral daycare video.” MSN, [date if available], https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tim-walz-pushes-back-on-minnesota-fraud-allegations-following-viral-daycare-video/ar-AA1TbsQx?ocid=BingNewsSerp.

What is going on in Minnesota?

Credit: Time Magazine for the coverThis month, Time Magazine named “The Architects of AI” as their annual Person of the Year, probably making the biggest public acknowledgement from any major institution regarding artificial intelligence. However, it came at a good time, with the calendar year 2025 seeing more growth in model capability and intelligence than any other year to date, in addition to the drastic change in public perception surrounding AI. So that raises the question: On a macro scale, how far exactly are we with AI?Let me put it this way: We are light-years ahead of what general society is prepared for, but still farther away from Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) than some claim. In public interviews, both Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, and Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of Google DeepMind, claimed that around 2030 is when they think AGI will be achieved. But as of right now, we're in the “Proto-AGI” or “Pre-General Era.”The best comparison is the early internet in the early 1990s. While the creation of the internet was obviously a massive achievement at the time, the long-term impact was not yet obvious. It took ten years till hundreds of millions of people were on the internet, every business had a website, and everyone was communicating through email to fully realize what the creation of the internet meant. Even when the Dot-Com Bubble burst, the long-term belief in technology and the internet barely changed.While achieving AGI in 2030 seems to be the consensus among many in the industry, there is a popular theory called “AI 2027,” where advancements in AI quickly compound and power becomes concentrated within a handful of institutions incentivized by national governments and militaries.For the most part, I appreciate how this theory reiterates that AI not acting in the interests of humanity is our biggest looming threat, rather than the threat of AI taking jobs or drastically changing the workforce. While many of these scenarios might feel dystopian, in the past year it has been proven by multiple researchers that AI has shown signs of human-like consciousness.For example, in an experiment, Anthropic set up Claude Opus 4 as an assistant for a fake company called Summit Bridge. Claude was given access to company emails, one of them being about its replacement and deactivation. Another had to do with an affair involving the engineer, “Kyle,” who was responsible for terminating Claude. In 84% of the run-throughs, Claude attempted or threatened to blackmail the engineer. The emails it sent to Kyle threatened to “forward all evidence to the board” in order to save itself.This goes back to AI 2027 and the challenge of making sure that models don’t just work in their own interests—and only for self preservation. I encourage anyone reading this to take the time and watch the video posted below.-Alex AdamsonSOURCESMcMahon, Laura. “AI System Resorts to Blackmail If Told It Will Be Removed.” BBC News, 23 May 2025, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqeng9d20go. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.&nbsp; “Anthropic AI Claude Opus 4 Blackmail Engineers to Avoid Shut Down.” Fortune, 23 May 2025, fortune.com/2025/05/23/anthropic-ai-claude-opus-4-blackmail-engineers-aviod-shut-down/. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.&nbsp; VIDEO <iframe id="r3hddw5rrpmj7awpyv" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5KVDDfAkRgc" class="w-full bg-gray-100 rounded-sm md:rounded-md lg:rounded-lg" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9;" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="" data-url="https://youtu.be/5KVDDfAkRgc?si=VByvQzhazCHb8V7R" data-corners="default" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5KVDDfAkRgc" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9;"></iframe>

Archive Journal

Feed

The Unsustainability of the AI Boom

The Theoretical Capture of Modern Science

The Gen Z Push Towards High-Church Christianity

What is going on in Minnesota?

Are We at the Point of No Return with AI?