They were right, you know.

Those two alone are worth being extremist about. It's not as if the DOJ is out there investigating corporate criminality re loss, harm or damage to whole communities who are currently suffering.

aren’t the fucking extremists here. Or anywhere, but least of all in the US.

They (unfortunately) have next to no clout in this country, where tech companies with openly fascist ideologies reign supreme and regulation is nonexistent, propped up all the more by this regime running the government. As always, they are pretending a nigh-powerless group are the “crazies" here rather than the billionaires and the people in their corner who are pushing and enabling this shit, no matter the cost to democracy, the environment, or the human intellect.

AI bros' wealth and power.

The pro-AI side, including some very influential venture capitalists, is very aware their tech is increasingly unpopular, and with many rightwingers as well as liberals and moderates. I think the regime is hoping to make AI opponents afraid to speak up, organize and protest.

Hayduke Lives!

Lots of people love technology but don't want data centers to destroy residential communities or use autonomous agents to replace humans in all types of jobs. Data centers jack up costs of water and electricity and are loud.

who want to be viewed as saviors delivering a tech utopia, a science fiction fan's dreams.

the instigators are the same class of people as ever.

They were anti-exploitation, not anti-tech per se.

Anything that hurts the tech bros helps us.

Now...where's that dynamite?

nothing to fall back on in those days -- no Welfare, no unemployment, nothing but the churches, and tough luck if you were in the wrong church.

An offer of job retraining might very well have turned them onto a different path, at minimal cost to employers. Too late now; job loss on a recurring basis is now baked into our social structure.

How much data is there that it needs such an incredible amount of computing power and data storage?
What we do need is a moratorium on new data center construction and activation. In fact, I doubt if we need even half of the existing centers to hold and process all the data the nation produces.
There's so massive that it makes me wonder what their real intent is. Are they really data centers, or are they detention centers in disguise?
Whatever they are, they're consuming far too much energy. Not to mention all the jobs they're eliminating.

I can easily foresee anti-tech terrorist groups blowing up data centers and shooting out transformers that supply them power.

Desperate, angry people will do extreme things.