My 5-year-old son had a winter school performance last year. It was filled with joyful singing and like the softy I am, I began to tear up. Partly because of the innocent, pure, feeling of these coalescing voices, but also the realization I needed to do more to protect their future.
As parents left the auditorium, flooding into the street, smiles, and laughter all around me. I was in a deep existential cloud.
As I’ve said many times, most recently in this post discussing my decision to switch to a dumb phone…I now view Big Tech as a threat to our basic humanity.
Companies using my data to flood the internet with AI slop, drain the planet’s resources, kill jobs, and make us all profoundly dumber — that was a bridge too far.
What sort of world was I leaving my son?
And what was I going to do about it?
That same week, I was eating at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant and there was a copy of Pasadena Weekly, lying on the counter, opened to an article that read:
Data Center Delayed: Monterey Park postpones vote amid opposition
I swear to you this actually happened.
The article was blaring at me.
I had to show up.
As you’ll see in the video above, the vibe was visceral and tense. With no words minced.
Except in one moment, where a resident simply played the sound of a data center on her phone. An eerie sound that, if constructed, would haunt the residents.
After that January meeting, more town halls followed, culminating in a vote yesterday.
Over 86% of residents voted to ban data centers in Monterey Park…forever.
I’m not a resident and had no vote in the manner.
But I want to believe showing up to those early meetings, showing up for my neighbors, did something to help.
If anything, seeing that many people rise up, gave me hope for the future.
And maybe that’s enough.
