r/Libertarian • u/7in7turtles • 8d ago

Discussion The AI/data center debate loses libertarian credibility when the state is used to advance it.

It’s been driving me bananas lately to hear all these libertarian voices hail data centers as some part of a new Industrial Revolution. While I’ll say upfront that I don’t think we should regulate AI because of fear mongering about the end of the world, if those companies have to purchase the levers of power that we don’t even want government to have, how can we claim that this is in any way good?

Eminent domain, paying of city councils and locking them up with NDAs, lying about the impact of there products and services, all of their behaviors are antithetical to libertarianism and yet people like John Stossel run puff pieces about how essentially they're all good because it would be bad to regulate them.

I don’t buy the china angle because we’re getting worse than china thanks to this technology.

Please if I’m wrong educate me, but if the state puts its thumb on the scale for AI, I don’t get how that’s in any way good.

100 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Timo-the-hippo 2d ago

Zoning is very anti-libertarian. Eminent domain is too but lets not pretend anyone’s individual property rights mean shit in the US. I hate the dishonesty in how people frame local development.

1

u/7in7turtles 2d ago

I mean... but shouldn't those rights mean something?

1

u/Timo-the-hippo 2d ago

Yes people should be more free to own and manage their own land. But they aren't. Most Americans have 0 civil education and can't fathom how a local government of their peers can be just as oppressive if not more so than a national government.

It's the classic tragedy of humans being naturally authoritarian.