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Introduction paragraph

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• Links of references from the show

• Episode Summary

• Episode Transcript

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Important links and mentions

• Ben Inskeep Twitter

• Citizens Action Coalition

Third Space Indy is supported by:

• City Rising

Episode Summary

This week, I sat down with Ben Inskeep from Citizens Action Coalition, someone I've followed on Twitter for a while and who always gets me riled up about data centers. We got into the environmental toll, the grid risks, the sad math on jobs per megawatt, and the deeper AI conversation around stolen labor, harmful use cases, and who actually benefits.

Sponsor:
City Rising — cityrising.org
Music:
Jennasen — "Scared Rabbit"

Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
01:24 – Meet Ben & CAC
08:52 – Environmental & grid impact of data centers
13:56 – Jobs vs. power consumption
16:07 – AI, copyright & slop
18:03 – AI harms
22:31 – Legitimate AI uses & the hype bubble
26:41 – Economic fallout of automation
30:35 – Grok, Memphis & environmental injustice
34:23 – Subsidies & lack of transparency
39:20 – Moratoriums & local fights
41:49 – How to get involved
46:00 – Politicians dismissing opposition
47:47 – Sponsor break
48:19 – Third spaces & libraries
54:06 – Rapid-fire: previous guest's question, Luddites, final thoughts
1:01:06 – Sign-off

Episode Transcript

Ben Inskeep

Michael Zarick: [00:00:00] This week I'm talking to Ben Inskeep, the program director at Citizens Action Coalition, the oldest consumer protections nonprofit here in Indiana. I've been following Ben on Twitter for quite some time and love continually hearing from someone who has a lot of in-depth knowledge about data centers and someone who rails so deeply against them.

I had a great time chatting and hope you enjoy what he has to say

If you would like to rail against data centers yourself, keep an ear out for local opportunities to do so. And if you are listening on Monday, July 13th, the day of release, there is a hearing at the City County Building downtown, 200 East Washington Street at 5:30 PM. Show up, wear red, and share your testimony.

And if you're interested in supporting Third Space Indy, you can do so by going to support.thirdspaceindy.com, where you can toss a couple of coins my way, or you can do something as simple as leaving a [00:01:00] review on your preferred podcasting platform or giving a like or subscribe on YouTube.

Thanks so much as always for watching, and on to the show

Michael Zarick: Hello, my name is Michael Zarick, and this is Third Space Indy. In 1989, a man named Ray Oldenburg wrote a book called The Great Good Place, and in this book he coined the term the third place. This describes somewhere that is outside of your home and outside of your work that you can go be with others and build community.

So I've made it my goal to find people all over Indianapolis, and today in Lawrence, which is still Indianapolis. Find people all over who are doing this type of work to build community in whatever way they can, which brings me to today's guest, who is [00:02:00] somebody I've been following on Twitter for quite some time.

He gets me riled up, and I think he gets himself riled up over the current fight against AI and data centers here in Indianapolis. Today, my guest is Ben Inskeep, who's the program director of the Citizens Action Coalition, which is the oldest citi- or, sorry, the oldest consumer advocacy group in Indiana.

Not in the country, right?

Ben Inskeep: That's right. No, yeah.

Michael Zarick: Okay. Uh, how you doing?

Ben Inskeep: Doing well. Thanks so much for having me today. Absolutely. It's great to be on your show.

Michael Zarick: So for anyone who may not know who you are, which I assume is quite a few people, let the people know who you are and what you do, what you're about, and then maybe transition into what CAC is.

Ben Inskeep: Sure. So I'm Ben. I'm from h- Indianapolis. I consider myself a Hoosier through and through. Uh, work at a great organization, consumer and environmental, uh, Indiana-based nonprofit, Citizens Action Coalition, where we are a utility watchdog. We take on some of [00:03:00] the biggest and most powerful corporations that are threatening our environment, raising the cost of living, and undermining our democracy.

Mm-hmm. So our work is a pretty big task, but it's really important stuff, and it brings us out into communities, talking with Hoosiers, and it's really empowering to see the ability of Hoosiers when they organize, making their voices heard. So that's taken us, uh, in a number of different areas. Most notably recently, we are, uh, very vocal about our opposition to some of the very large data centers to coming to Indiana, but we've also had a long history of, of doing things like fighting, uh, rate hikes, uh, in the electric utility and natural gas space as well.

Michael Zarick: Okay. Cool, I did have questions about that, but- Yes ... I'm glad you answered, because right now you're... Would you say that you're being consumed by your work- ... against data centers?

Ben Inskeep: I would say it's taken over a big part of our work. We still do have our standard bread and butter issues. We're still intervening in rate cases, opposing large rate increases.

We're still fighting traditional environmental harms like [00:04:00] coal ash pollution that is, uh, prominent in Indiana that's getting into our waterways. So there's still those issues, but now we have layered on, uh, another big issue that also demands increasing amounts of our attention.

Michael Zarick: Yeah, I'm sure that is- Um, has complicated things.

Ben Inskeep: Yes.

Michael Zarick: Uh, so what does a program director do in the context of your life? When you are doing advocacy in the context of CAC, are you the main communicator of ideas working on the sort of advocacy side, getting people, as I said, riled up? Or are you doing something else?

Ben Inskeep: It's, uh, a position where you wear many different hats, I would say.

Yeah, and, uh, on any given day, it's, uh, gonna be different than the day before. It could mean talking to the, uh, journalists and media folks, helping educate them and helping them with stories to spread information to Hoosiers. It could mean going out in the community, giving a presentation, uh, leading a town hall.

It can mean, uh, reading and analyzing really complicated filings [00:05:00] by electric utilities and drafting written expert witness testimony that's gonna go in front of the commission, where you have to be very thoughtful and careful about what you say because you can be cross-examined on the witness stand by these high-priced, uh, utility lawyers.

Mm-hmm. So it, it involves a number of different areas, but it's all about, uh, getting information and education out to the communities, help- helping them get organized, uh, and helping them stand up for themselves, uh, through things like expert witness testimony, where we're, uh, bringing a lot of facts, evidence, analysis to support our arguments and recommendations.

Michael Zarick: Mm. So I listened to a podcast yesterday, uh, on the original Luddites. So not the pejorative Luddite, which came from this, but, uh, someone suggested me this podcast that was sort of history-focused about the original Luddites, which were people who destroyed machines during the initial industrial era as a [00:06:00] way of advocating for their own labor rights because they saw that the people who own these factories who were implementing these machines were, um, totally disregarding the workers, firing them, reducing their workforce, automating systems, and all for the sake of their own profits.

And in many cases also, the output of the machines was less. The example used was socks. Uh, the quality of the socks dropped substantially. Uh, and when I listened to this podcast, so many of these themes echoed with me in terms of what we are facing at this moment, which is to me that, uh, the conversation around artificial intelligence and data centers is a conversation of labor and human rights as opposed to a conversation around just [00:07:00] how much business it will bring in because I-- my personal opinion is that if artists could sustain themselves, if workers could-- were properly compensated, and if the environment was safe, we had invested in sustainable energy 15 years ago or something, uh, it wouldn't even be a conversation that we're thinking on.

Do you have any thoughts on any of that?

Ben Inskeep: I think the Luddite example is actually a perfect analogy to the time we're in right now. I'm in the middle of reading Brian Merchant's excellent book on this very topic, "Blood in the Machine."

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

Ben Inskeep: So I encourage folks to check that out and get the full history of the Luddite movement, because there was a lot of misconceptions I had about it, because that's turned into a pejorative term, when really it is about people organizing and standing up to those who control the means of production, those who have the technology and are using it for their benefit, uh, at the detriment of labor and the people working in the factories, the people, um, that are struggling to make ends [00:08:00] meet.

So I feel like, uh, AI is kind of a, a good example of this very situation, where we have the folks who are building these AI models are just very transparently taking people's labor. You know, they're taking data that they have not purchased, that they don't have a right to use, and they're training their models on it without compensating the creators.

And then they're using the, you know, the models they create to then replace labor. Um, and they're owning the models themselves. They're, you know, um, fencing off who can use them, under what conditions, who benefits from them in terms of the ownership. Uh, so there's, I think, a lot of, uh, interesting analogies there that, uh, that track.

And at the end of the day, the, you know, a lot of the concerns we're seeing, in Hoosier communities about this technology boi- does boil down to how is it gonna be used, who's gonna benefit, and a- again, who are, who are, who are gonna be the losers of this technology and the, the ownership of it.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. I'd like to break down almost the individual issues, if we could, uh, with [00:09:00] data centers.

So the thing that rings true most deeply with me is the impact on the environment. I think in a lot of cases that might not ring true with the most people. But in the past week, we've seen, uh, what I would consider very intimidating storms where we're having, quote-unquote, "an outbreak of tornadoes," which is not ever a word you want to hear.

Ben Inskeep: No.

Michael Zarick: So when you talk about the impact on the environment, how much of the conversation around energy usage and water usage and then water pollution as a, a result, as well as sort of, you know, the, the conversation around the data center going in Martindale Brightwood sort of polluting the land, having a, a long-term effect in the same way that cities built canals 60-plus years ago, and those are all sort of defunct, and we are lucky to have the current canal even though [00:10:00] it almost bankrupted our city, question mark.

So, uh, maybe talk about like the truth of, as far as you know, in terms of environmental impact.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah, I think the challenge with data centers in, in conveying the harm to the public is it's like a whole new s- order of magnitude, a whole different scale than we're used to with large commercial or industrial projects.

These data centers can use literally an order of magnitude more power or electricity than the next largest user of electricity in a utility service territory, which is considerable 'cause in Indiana, we have a lot of heavy manufacturing and industry. We have a lot of big e- energy users in our state already.

We have some of the largest steel mills in the country, the largest inland refinery in North America. We have some of these, uh, you know, o- old aluminum smelters. So we have some very large users, but to have a data center come in that's 10 times bigger in terms of power consumption is, is pretty eye-opening.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

Ben Inskeep: Because that means the-- then the associated [00:11:00] environmental impacts are also gonna be of a similarly large magnitude. For energy, we're talking about the equivalent of an entire city's worth of electricity consumption from just one large data center, and as a result, it means our utilities are either, A, not retiring their really, uh, polluting coal fire power plants, or B, a lot of them are now expanding or building out new natural gas fire power plants, so doubling down on our fossil fuel infrastructure that has, you know, not only impacts on our climate, but also, you know, detrimental impacts to our water quality, water consumption usage, negative air quality impacts, and so on.

So, uh, there's a tremendous amount of impacts from these data centers, and that's why we got so concerned. When we s- did the math and we calculated these impacts, it was truly eye-opening. It's like, "Oh, wait. This isn't just a, a new user that we can just kinda mitigate some of the damages. We need to actually slow down or stop some of this growth because it's unsustainable.

We can't meet it at the scale and timing that they're demanding."

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm. There's pla- I don't [00:12:00] know exact locations, but there are places in the Western United States that have already faced power outages because of their data center consumption, right?

Ben Inskeep: I think, uh-

Michael Zarick: Is that conjecture?

Ben Inskeep: There, there is concern about it happening in the future.

I don't know that we've witnessed it directly today, um, other than we have had some stability issues on the grid where data centers shut off power consumption very rapidly when there was a small fault, uh, on the power system, and most power users would just continue to ride through that fault, but the data centers shut off power so suddenly it led to stability issues on the grid.

It didn't lead to power outages, but it did make reliability experts very worried about the impacts as we build more and more of these things. Uh, one, you, yeah, create potential impacts to the stability, just the, the hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute stability of the grid. But then to your point, there's-- uh, they use so much energy and they're coming online so fast, the concern is in the future you could get a situation [00:13:00] where there's just not enough power to go around, and when that happens, who's gonna have their power shut off first?

Is it gonna be households? Is it gonna be the data centers? Uh, that's TBD. Yeah. Um, but a huge concern because when residences lose power, it kills people. I mean, that's the basic math of it. When we saw, for example, down in Texas in 2021 with their major storm that led to power outages for some households nearly a week down there, we saw hundreds of people die either as a result of not having heat during the middle of the winter or from having, uh, backup diesel generators that ran but weren't properly ventilated, leading to, leading to- Yeah

carbon monoxide poisoning.

Michael Zarick: Or even medical-

Ben Inskeep: So it's really important ... medical

Michael Zarick: devices-

Ben Inskeep: Medical devices ... things like that. A lot of households need to have their medicine stored in refrigerators or use oxygen machines. People don't necessarily think about all these implications of having reliable power and what happens when you don't.

So it, it does matter, and it's, can be a life or death issue for many people.

Michael Zarick: So on the way up here, uh, I had about a 20, [00:14:00] 25-minute drive, so I had a moment to listen to part of the town hall that you did I think late last year. And there was a stat that really stuck out to me, which was that in terms of

number of jobs per megawatt or something like that, and you cited a stat that was like other... It, uh, it was sort of a generalized other industries saying that on average these generate one person per less than one megawatt, whereas-

Ben Inskeep: Yeah ...

Michael Zarick: for data centers it's like 45 or some number in that range.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah, for other industries-

Michael Zarick: Um-

Ben Inskeep: Yeah

Michael Zarick: so one job for 45 megawatts, so the difference was like 100X. Yeah. Uh, so saying that th- for power consumption in terms of job creation, connecting the, the sort of environmental impact to even an economic impact for an individual [00:15:00] community is null in a lot of ways.

Ben Inskeep: That's right, and- Yeah ... yeah, people think we're just opposed to economic development, and the opposite's the case.

We think data centers are gonna be, uh, challenging, um, and undermining future economic development because like you're saying, they use so much power and they have so little return in terms of the job creation, permanent job creation that results from it, that when a data center comes to a location, it can then take years before the utility can accommodate any sort of additional economic development or growth because the data centers come in and gobbled up all of that spare capacity, all that resource consumption that they demand.

Michael Zarick: Yeah.

Ben Inskeep: So not only do you have situations where, yes, other industry could provide 100X or more in terms of jobs per megawatt, um, of power consumption, but you also have situations where some utilities are saying, "We're kinda closed for new business. We can't accommodate a new large industrial manufacturer for the next five to 10 years, uh, because we need to make some very serious additional electric system upgrades to [00:16:00] have that type of large user come because we had a data center come and, and take up all of that system capacity, so we don't have anything spare left over."

Michael Zarick: Yeah.

From a more, uh, I guess emotional standpoint, uh, it seems like a lot of-- Well, we talk about the stealing of data in the terms of sustainability of being an artist or a writer or something like that

What are CAC's concerns or even just your concerns about the way AI is being used going forward from a pure business action standpoint, I guess. 'Cause there's a ruling, as far as I understand, that says you cannot copyright an AI-generated image. So if I were to start a business and I make a logo for myself, someone else could theoretically just take that logo and say, "This is mine," 'cause there's no copyright ability, You, you already see it.

Uh, there's a new Instagram account. It's called the Indy AI Wa- Indy AI Watchdog that's just sort of collating [00:17:00] all this data of a variety of businesses around town who are putting out posters, who are putting out now hiring, uh, just anything that's like, "Hey, we're doing this thing," but it's all AI generated, and they all look the same in terms of the sort of quote unquote slopification of, of things.

Uh, what do you think of AI in terms of like business output or individual artist output?

Ben Inskeep: Yeah, we have a lot of concerns, I would say, about these applications of AI. So it's not just the underlying data center impacts that create cause for concern, but also like you're saying, the AI itself, the technology applications can be really harmful.

So yes, it creates slop, so low quality content that's, you know, again, based off of stealing other people's creative works. but it can also be wrong information. You know, AI hallucination is endemic. It's part of this technology. It's not something that can be solved or taken away. Uh, it's always gonna be there.

So you always have the risk when you're [00:18:00] using AI applications that it's just making up things.

Michael Zarick: Yeah.

Ben Inskeep: So I've had that happen when I've tried to use it in work applications to test it out myself. It gives me a lot of wrong information all the time, uh, sends me down, um, just wildly incorrect paths. And then you look at the way its users have been negatively impacted by AI.

Um, so there's a reason why Copilot and these other AI applications say in their terms of use that this is for entertainment purposes only. Oh, re- Even though-

Michael Zarick: That's, that's real?

Ben Inskeep: They literally say that. I did not know that. Even though they're pitching it, uh, to enterprises, businesses, spend, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars on this technology for your work.

The terms of service say don't rely on this for your business because it could be wrong, could have negative impacts there. So I think, you know, uh, we have a lot of concerns then, uh, about how it could be used, the negative impacts, and then, um, I would say the psychology of it too has been negatively harming people.

You know, we see how it's been used by [00:19:00] teenagers to commit suicide. We see how it's led to AI psychosis where it's the ability of AI to mimic human communication tricks people into thinking that it's not just a machine, it's not just computer code, but it's some sort of supernatural or, you know, super intelligence that is actually thinking when it's not doing that.

It's not thinking. It doesn't know anything. It doesn't have feelings. But it can trick humans very quickly because you get into a pattern where it's mimicking conversation.

Michael Zarick: There is a video-- Sorry, it just came to me. Uh, there's a YouTuber. His name is Eddy Burback, and he does these sort of absurdist videos.

But he did a test where And he, he kind of, uh, fed it some seed stuff to get it going a little bit, but talking about how he felt like he couldn't trust his, like, family and friends. And then it, like... And then, like, started to

go down this cycle. He was like, "Oh, I'm just gonna do this test where I just, like, listen to the AI and do what it says I do." So he, like, ends up, like, moving to this [00:20:00] isolated location, and c- I have no better word than communing with a, a large rock and drinking, like, like, baby formula or something. Like, it's a super absurd, almost comedy video, but the, the harms of the way he was interacting with AI, if you find someone at the wrong point in their life who is taking it too seriously, uh, were very clear and dark.

The other thing that I think often gets people's attention is that, AI at this time is being used for CSAM production, which stands for child sexual abuse material. Uh, and a lot of people don't even consider that level of stuff where it's harming children. It's also being used to remove women's clothing and things like that, and just in terms of- Yeah

actual human harm outside of just the emotional, like, "I don't like people generating posters."

Ben Inskeep: Oh, yeah. Exactly. It's, it has all these [00:21:00] different harmful applications. I think the, um, the mass production of these really disturbing images by Grok in particular, we saw earlier this year, um, uh, was horrifying, and the just refusal of our, um, institutions, our government to do anything about it to protect the people that are being abused by the h- by, by this horrific content should also concern people.

So I think it's not just the big tech companies that, um, I'm disturbed by, but I've also been disturbed by the reaction from our institutions, whether it be the government or the media or some of these other establishments that you would think would be raising the alarm and doing something about this but haven't been.

And just

Michael Zarick: seeing- Yeah. I have a question. Is it the reaction or the- ... captured by- Is it the reaction or the lack thereof?

Ben Inskeep: Yeah, right. It's both, right? You know? You're disturbed by the content itself, and then a company has the audacity to, uh, create something like this and, and not have the protection, the appropriate protections in place.

But then I think it's equally horrifying to see our society doesn't have any sort of, uh, [00:22:00] institutions in place that will protect us against entities of this size. And I think that kind of underlines our concern with having these multi-trillion dollar corporations that are in control of this technology that are, you know, too big to regulate, too big to fail, um, that are increasingly looking for government subsidies and bailouts and, uh, that are being used for really, really harmful purposes that are obviously undermining, individuals, individual rights, uh, but also our...

what we want for society in general, I would say. You know, I would argue.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. Are there effective uses of AI that we've seen? I know that obviously we've had a lot of conversation around AI imaging in healthcare in terms of identifying tumorous cells and things like that. A lot of the arguments being made about being pro-AI are, "It's here, it's not going away," um, or, "Here's a list of things that it is helpful for."

What are your opinions on, on that side of it?

Ben Inskeep: I think it's a very fair [00:23:00] question because I think there are some useful applications of large language models, um, generative AI as the concept has been, um, discussed and- Mm-hmm ... approached. But I don't think there are, uh, there's a multi-trillion dollar business opportunity there.

I don't think there's a justification for large big tech companies spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year on new capital expenditures, data centers to build these things. I think they're, um, there's a huge bubble being pushed by a narrative, a story created about it, about the possibility of, yeah, super intelligence about, uh, you know, just overselling this technology.

Yeah. So I think obviously there are some useful applications, but is it gonna fundamentally change everything in society? No. Is it gonna, um, make everybody filthy rich? No. You know, like, so I feel like there's, the way it's being described, um, it, it has completely lost [00:24:00] touch with reality. And then for the useful applications, I think there are actually ways to, um, get the benefits without some of the large scale harms of these massive data centers.

So there are smaller models that don't use the same large, you know, trillion parameter plus kind of models or, um, that can be run locally on a computer as opposed to through the cloud, through the, the data centers. and there's maybe just a tailoring of the applications. Right now we're not seeing these large big tech companies charge customers for the true cost of using their data center facilities.

So right now we're all being subsidized in our AI use. Once consumers start having to pay the price, the actual price of these things, I think we're gonna see, oh wait, maybe this technology is too expensive to use and a lot of applications are just, the payoff isn't worth the price. Mm-hmm. So I think we're, we're gonna see that as these big tech companies realize [00:25:00] we're just burning cash, we're not making money, we're losing billions of dollars every year.

We need to start charging appropriate prices. Yeah. And so I think we're gonna see that crystallize a bit more, uh, in the year to come.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. I've seen people like, uh, Wildstyle Paschall posting about his personal use of AI on a, you mentioned, uh, like a local running of it. What's the word? Help.

Ben Inskeep: Like a local server or computer, like-

Michael Zarick: Yeah.

He basically like downloaded the model to his computer- Exactly ... and he's running it locally. And he's like, he's like, "After I've tried this," he goes, "I don't see how data centers are even a, a feasible thing." Like he goes, "This thing is doing the work better and- It's, it's having the same sort of effect, and he's just sort of doing what you do, which is more very investigative.

Ben Inskeep: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. These things are not just... Yeah, these, um, there, there's, there's other ways to do it, and I think it's also important to know that, you know, this, the AI branding is, is a branding exercise. There are other types of, um, [00:26:00] advanced computing like machine learning and, , other types of potential artificial intelligence applications that aren't just relying on large language models that are gobbling up just the biggest data sets you can imagine, that are more tailored to specific applications, uh, rather than having kind of a general purpose, purpose model that is much more computer-intensive.

So, uh, you know, I would just say, you know, we're- I'm not, uh, against the a- advance of, of science and technology. I, I just think we also need to be critical thinkers about what are the applications it's being used for. I- or is it commensurate with how it's being described, and are there ways to mitigate some of those impacts- Yeah

uh, to have the benefits without some of these drawbacks.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. There's something I've repeated to my wife a number of time, which is that there's been studies done by economists that are like, if we continued down the path we're going right now without any change, the economy just like will collapse because we are laying off thousands of workers, at a variety of tech [00:27:00] companies where, uh, or beyond for the sake of efficiency.

But when you remove workers from the system, you remove spending power in our current economy, and if no one can spend any money, then it will just collapse on itself. Like that's just how, that's just how it works. That's basic math, I think.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah. One

Michael Zarick: of the fundamental- Basic math that I don't know, but, uh- Yeah

someone knows it.

Ben Inskeep: I think it's one of the fundamental contradictions of this AI race. You're right. It's like, as it's, as it's replacing workers, there's fewer people left to pay for its services and use it. So yeah, I think it does highlight that kind of a issue.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm. The other thing... Oh, I, I guess this is also a question I have that I've been thinking a lot about.

So I brought up the Indy AI, Indy AI Watchdog. That's so hard to say And they're highlighting individual, uh, small businesses or individuals around town using AI posters or whatever. What is the [00:28:00] impact an individual is having? Is, , Is an individual using AI to generate posters regular having-- regularly having an impact where, um, them being highlighted in that way is reasonable.

Mm. Like, is it, is it, is the individual user having such an impact that they should be ostracized or anything like that for having a n- a negative impact on their community? Or is it just sort of like the, uh, show up to vote mentality where it's like the more people that do it, like, your individual impact collectively is having that impact?

Ben Inskeep: It's a fair question. I think, I think part of the pushback is more tailored to taking away that social license of using AI by when you criticize examples of it on your day-to-day life and you're, uh, making fun of or you're, you know, again, uh, putting negative pub- publicity on the folks that are using it for their businesses, I think you're helping to reduce that social license and reduce the use of it [00:29:00] by peer pressure, if you will.

You know- Mm ... social pressure. Yeah, certainly there's an impact when you use these tools, uh, because they are so energy and water intensive. There is an underlying impact you're making. Can be very hard to calculate that or determine that. I'm a big proponent of not necessarily over-individualizing these problems, like criticizing somebody for their individual carbon footprint, for example, but not, but then failing to emphasize the importance of, uh, broader action, uh, because our individual actions alone aren't gonna be able to solve our social problems that we have.

We need to- Mm-hmm ... change our system in order to, to fix these problems. So, uh, you know, I would say I, That's an issue I would say can be challenging, because you're right, your individual impact might not be itself major or significant from a you're completely destroying a community by you, one person using it.

But I [00:30:00] still do think it's worthwhile to avoid using it as a person, to call out those that do, to encourage them to use other tools or methods to achieve the same goal. Because at the end of the day, this is, and, you know, because it's neg- a negative societal and environmental impact, I do think we want to discourage its use.

And so I think that social feedback is a valuable way to reducing its proliferation and reducing its adoption, um, even if, one individual's consumption isn't gonna be, like, a make or break, uh, impact on a community.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. That's interesting. Thanks for, uh, answering.

Ben Inskeep: I just maybe to, to further elaborate on my answer there on that. I just-- I'm thinking of like the communities in like Mississippi and outside of Memphis where the, the data centers are for Grok, you know, the xAI, AI, uh, application, you know, that's on Twitter and that Elon Musk has put out.

They are using these, um, unpermitted, uh, gas turbines at the Colossus 1 and [00:31:00] 2 data centers there that are sited in these, uh, historically Black communities, um, where they aren't meeting environmental regulations. And so I can say, you know, I, I would feel bad if I used Grok at all even once or twice because I would know that every time I'm using it, it's having this direct negative harmful impact on these specific communities that you can directly point to where it's just a, an environmental injustice happening.

Uh, of course, that's happening elsewhere with oth-other models. Uh, I think this is just a very concrete specific example you can directly point to, to, to illustrate like, wow, you're contributing to this really significant harm to the-these communities that certainly don't deserve it and that are not having their voices heard, are not being respected, and the companies are just blatantly ignoring the law to site these data centers and their power infrastructure there.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. Do you think we'll be able to-- I mean, we've already seen it, but how short of [00:32:00] a timeline is it to see the negative outcomes of a data center? I'm gonna use Martindale Brightwood just because that's sort of top of my mind. Um, so if we were to build a data center in Martindale Brightwood, is it a year or is it five years until people notice, and then we go, "Why did we do this?"

Ben Inskeep: Uh, the impacts can be s- felt immediately, as soon as they start construction. You know, one, you start having just the impacts of a large construction project, we can negatively impact a community. But two, we're, we're seeing examples of harms happen during the construction phase of a data center. So one is the, the new Carlisle Amazon data center, where they had to de-water the land by pumping millions of gallons of water out of the land in order to build the foundations for their data center buildings, and that's led to negative impacts on that surrounding community, like wells running dry for nearby homes.

Other examples would be one up in Michigan City, where Google's building a data center on a old industrial site that had environmental contamination. I think [00:33:00] that's a good analogy to the Martindale Brightwood situation, where that data center would also be sited on a parcel of land that has environmental, uh, old environmental contamination from past industrial use.

And there, up at where Google's data center is, is they found soil that Google was moving around and putting into berms and shipping off-site, actually had some severe hazardous chemical contamination in it. Love that. That they weren't properly testing and remediating before disposing of it in the proper landfills.

So, we are seeing some of these impacts happen at a early stage, during that construction process. It doesn't just have to be once they're operating, you feel impacts. It's actually during the construction, you start getting some of those impacts. Once it then switches to operating and beco- becoming a operational data center, you have maybe a different set of impacts.

You know, the, the noise pollution is, is a big one, continuous 24/7, 365 loud noises.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm. I've seen some of those videos. That is l- it's like a sound from hell, kind of.

Ben Inskeep: It is. I wouldn't wish that on [00:34:00] anybody- Mm-hmm ... to live next door to that. You would never be able to enjoy being outside again on your own property, opening your windows on a beautiful summer day.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

Ben Inskeep: I, I just, uh, yeah, it, it's a travesty that anybody has to live by that type of onslaught, that noise pollution onslaught.

Michael Zarick: Is there anything else you are thinking about in terms of data center fight right now, uh, that you want to share?

Ben Inskeep: Yeah. One of the things I'm thinking about a lot is the transparency and accountability angle with data centers.

They have not been very transparent, uh, at any stage of the process so far, uh, whether that be a proposed data center they're considering siting in a community that communities don't find out about until the last minute, or whether it be just understanding the impacts of an operating data center where they have not been transparent about what's in their wastewater stream, how much electricity are they using, where are they getting their power consumption from, um, and then the subsidy issue.

These are some of the most heavily subsidized companies I've ever seen in [00:35:00] Indiana history. A- And the scale of the subsidies is truly staggering. We just finally got the state of Indiana to release the first batch of information about how much the data centers are getting in subsidies. Already, uh, $655 million has gone out the door in terms of reduced sales tax- Mm-hmm

uh, for data centers.

Michael Zarick: And that's just the start.

Ben Inskeep: That's just what's happened in the past. Yeah. That's not what's gonna happen over the next 50 years that they get this subsidy for. So we're talking tens of billions of dollars at the end, at the end of the day, that Hoosiers are gonna lose out on because we are subsidizing the wealthiest corporations in human history.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

One thing I think a lot about is, you use the term onslaught Martindale Brightwood, the community came together to push back heavily. But then there's a conversation happening in Irvington. There's the LEAP District in Lebanon. There's XYZ- Mm-hmm ... ABC things happening [00:36:00] where because these companies have so much money, they can just keep poking the bear.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah.

Michael Zarick: And it's up to the collective effort of the communities to push back, but that becomes extremely tiring- Yes ... and exhausting. What do you think the solution is to that? Um, I would say effective legislation, but maybe that's, uh, reductive at a time where we may or may not be getting that.

Ben Inskeep: No, I think that's, uh, actually a, a good point.

We, we need legislation that's protective of all communities in Indiana because these fights are happening, they're popping up all over this place, and it is hard to fight one by one. Some of them communities' voices are respected and data centers, uh, proposals are withdrawn or defeated, but in other communities they're not being respected.

And in Indianapolis, we've seen a turn. We stopped a Google data center last September, got that proposal withdrawn, but then since that point in time, we've had three data centers move forward, whether it be Martindale Brightwood, the Sabey [00:37:00] data center in Decatur Township on the south side, um, or, uh, a third data center.

Oh, the, the Irvington one, um, the DC Blox one that has gotten, uh, at least an initial thumbs up. It hasn't received the full approval yet. But, um, uh, so we're seeing, uh, kind of a lack of accountability and a lack of, um, responsiveness by local government, uh, to listen to the constituents instead of, um, just doing the bidding of large corporations and industry.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

Ben Inskeep: Um, and that's a big challenge because, um, a lot of elected officials are not beholden to their constituents, they're beholden to industry and special interests. Um, and I think the data center example is really highlighting that to a new extent for a lot of Hoosiers who maybe are, are waking up to this fact and realizing this issue.

So what can we do about it? At the local level, we've been pushing for moratoriums, temporary pauses on additional data centers being permitted or allowing to be constructed in order to give local government the time to think through this issue, [00:38:00] conduct their own studies or collect feedback from their constituents, and then adopt the appropriate policies or regulations to protect their communities.

And, you know, for example, that could mean data centers are allowed in certain areas but not in other areas, or there's setbacks from residential areas to make sure they're not gonna-- their noise isn't gonna negatively impact existing homeowners. there's other types of, uh, protections like making sure they are using clean power instead of, you know, building new fossil fuel powered, uh, power plants.

Michael Zarick: Yeah.

Ben Inskeep: Uh, so there's a number of different ways you could, craft local or state level policy to mitigate some of those harms And then at the end of the day, I think a, a big thing we need to do is, is get rid of these subsidies. That's just adding insult to injury. We're accelerating our own destruction by throwing billions of dollars at these companies to come here.

So we need to stop that spigot, turn that spigot off. Um, so the first step, you know, do no harm. You know, first step when you're, you know, digging a hole, [00:39:00] you know, is to stop digging so you can get out of the hole. Mm-hmm. And I think that's where we are at data centers is, um, we need to, to stop these, uh, local and state level subsidies.

We need to create those protections, and, uh, moratoria are a good first step, um, or way to, you know, press pause on, on an avalanche of data center proposals facing communities in our state.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. There is, um... Bernie Sanders just suggested a policy that was like make 50% of, I don't know if it's taxes or profits from data centers publicly owned, so then everyone in the US just gets paid like $1,000 a year or something from the data centers.

Now, I will say I think it's funnier than it is practical, 'cause I think it still legitimizes the, the building of these data centers

But I think it goes to show if you, if you can implement a policy like that and taking 50% of their profit or whatever the, the term is after the 50%, and you're giving [00:40:00] 350 million people $1,000 a year, like how much these people are, are making off of this stuff, behind the scenes. And when we are giving them such deep subs- subsidies, as you say like how much they're, they're robbing us in the most literal sense of the word.

Ben Inskeep: Exactly.

Michael Zarick: Yeah.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah. And I, you know, I, I appreciate, uh, you know, Senator Sanders raising these types of issues and, and suggesting kind of bold, uh, ideas. I do share some concerns with that specific proposal. You know, one is these things are not making any money right now. They're losing billions of dollars.

Yep. So, uh, number one is there's no money to, to share with the public. Number two is I would certainly not wanna create an incentive structure that would either result in taxpayer money going to these companies to building out more data centers or throwing them a bailout, uh, because they're losing so much money.

Um, so I would, you know, be worried that, um, about that. And then, uh, you know, also just we should be, [00:41:00] um ... This technology itself is, you know, exploiting, exploiting people, exploiting creatives, taking people's copyrighted or intellectual property and using it without their permission. And I think we shouldn't be encouraging that.

We shouldn't be, uh, just sharing the profits of that. We should make sure the- Yeah ... the, the creatives, uh, that did that work themselves are being fairly compensated for their work as well.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. Bernie Sanders is old. He doesn't get it. Uh, so one last question on data centers, and then we'll shift gears just a little bit.

Let's say I am a resident, and there is-- and I'm deeply concerned about this. What is something that I can do other than donate to Citizens Action Coalition? What is something that I can do to join the fight, if you will?

Ben Inskeep: I think, we need everybody involved in this fight one way or another. So there are many opportunities to get involved depending on what your interest and [00:42:00] ability and, uh, time commitment, uh, ability is as well.

So there's, uh, you can get involved in, uh, organizing your own community on data centers. So if there's a specific proposal in your community, that can mean knocking on doors, talking to your neighbors, um, sharing flyers and information, helping people turn out to your, uh, city or your city council meetings or your county council meetings where they're making decisions and where there's gonna be opportunities to give public comment.

You can contact your state and local elected officials. That's one that's super important. Um, and people get tired of us saying that, but they need to hear from us, uh, because they're, right now, they're feeling the pressure in a way that local elected officials and state elected officials haven't on many issues in the past.

But we need to keep that pressure because if we can continue to ratchet it up, we're gonna force their hand to actually do something about it and protect citizens. 'Cause right now, I think a lot of elected officials are looking at this issue pretty nervously saying, "Wow, people are getting pretty upset about this issue."

And [00:43:00] they're kind of hemming and hawing about what the right response is, but we need to make sure that they respond in a way that's actually creating the policies that protects people, and then that they're not getting a free pass, um, to ignore this issue or continue to, to doing, um, things at the behest of the large big tech companies that are harming our communities.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Zarick: I've seen so many clips of people who, uh, across the political spectrum, but I think of specifically people in, like, deep Texas who are historically deep red conservative, red-blooded American conservative, who are like, "This is my This is my, uh, one issue. And it's like I will abandon all of my other-

Ben Inskeep: Yeah

Michael Zarick: things to rail against this one issue because it is so divisive, and it's also one-sided. Like, this is an 80/20 issue of, like, 80% of people oppose this data center conversation, no matter [00:44:00] where you are and, and that is not common.

Ben Inskeep: This is a unique- ... and truly unifying issue because like you're saying, we're working in communities across the state, and people of all walks of life.

We're talking about working, yeah, Martindale Brightwood, a historic Black community here in Indianapolis, urban, but we're also involved in suburban and exurban communities on the outskirts of Indianapolis or the outskirts of cities. And then we're also in, you know, deeply rural areas of the state where data centers are also being proposed.

And so you're talking to people from all partisan persuasions, people that are completely apolitical and have never done any politic, uh, related work in their lives, and people that say, "I don't wanna talk about politics, I just wanna talk about data centers." Like, "Wait a second. This is a political issue.

You're gonna be-" Hold on. But people don't even think them, you know, getting involved in a data center fight is necessarily them getting involved in politics, and you have to go, "Wait, hold on a second. You're actually... This is a deeply political issue," and-

Michael Zarick: Good gateway drug, I think.

Ben Inskeep: And it's, exactly. And it's a good way to, to broach that [00:45:00] conversation and to start talking about a lot of these issues where people might not have put two and two together in the past or might not have thought about things in a certain way, but then you...

The data center issue's a good way to start those conversations about, "Okay, yeah, you got this water concern in your community. Oh, did you know about this other type of development that's using a lot of water?" Or, "Did you realize, uh, these regulations are actively being repealed right now at the federal level that are protecting your water?"

So it creates an opportunity to have those conversations with people that, uh, from all walks of life that might not otherwise consider themselves an environmentalist or a consumer advocate or in line with you on many other pol- uh, policy or political issues, but then you start talking about data centers with them and you agree perfectly and you're singing kumbaya together.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. Their face turns a little red. They're like, "Uh." Um, so I am going to... Oh, what? Sorry. I have to take a step back. There was a mayor in Indiana that said something really troubling about his constituents. Yes. [00:46:00]

Ben Inskeep: Do you recall? I believe you're maybe referring to the mayor of Shelbyville- Yes ... who had some choice words about the, the quality of people's homes who were having the signs outside that says, "No data centers."

I think he referred to them as, you know, shitty households or shitty yards or s- something about the upkeep of the houses being poor and- Yeah ... uh, the folks that are, um- Yeah, against data centers being, uh, uh, lower class or working class people, um, which, you know, I think a lot of people found very insulting and, um, you know, very classist language about, uh, you know, just denigrating, uh, you know, working class Hoosiers who, you know, have the audacity of, of standing up a- against their own exploitation, so.

Yeah. Uh, but it's not just here in Indiana where we... And it's not just, uh, one political party that's making those statements. You know, we saw a state north of us in Michigan, we saw Governor, uh, Whitmer make, uh, some also pretty offensive comments, uh, on a hot mic where she was saying, "Communities come out and oppose data centers, and we'll just ram it through anyway."

You know, essentially [00:47:00] something along those lines of saying, "We're not gonna respect local community sentiment." Yeah. "We're just gonna..." You know, and, and her comment was directed to, I believe an, uh, an OpenAI, you know, executive who was there for some sort of ribbon cut- cutting for a, a data center that the community opposed, the community passed a, an ordinance against, but they only let it through because they were threatened to be sued into oblivion.

And so it was this kinda strong arm law fare tactics by these billionaire, trillionaire companies, uh, that are kind of abusing the legal system to force communities to accept infrastructure that they don't want.

Michael Zarick: Yeah. Yes, sir. We'll, we'll keep giving you, uh, tax subsidies. Don't worry. Uh, so we're gonna shift gears just a little bit.

This is gonna be a little more Ben Inskeep moment, if that's okay. Yeah.

Ben Inskeep: Okay.

Michael Zarick: Uh, Third Space Indy is sponsored by City Rising. City Rising is a social impact studio. Most recently, they implemented an eviction data dashboard that looks to highlight and reduce the impact [00:48:00] of the 30,000 evictions mostly affecting Black and Latina women and their children Indianapolis faces every year.

Learn more at cityrising.org. City Rising has sponsored a question, which is: What is a third space to you? Have you ever thought about that?

Ben Inskeep: Yes. I... Because this is a challenge. We have so-- We have fewer and fewer third spaces that are accessible and free and welcoming for community members to go to. But it makes me all the more appreciative of some of the kind of legacy and, um, you know, options we have.

I'm thinking particular of our public libraries as one of the greatest community resources and third spaces we have. I have some librarians in my family. I got an aunt and uncle who were, uh, worked at l- a library for their career, um, and high school library teacher. And, um, thanks to that, I am aware that they're not just places that anybody in the [00:49:00] community can go to, um, that are welcoming and free places where you don't feel pressured to buy something, and that you can, um...

As Citizens Action Coalition, we can put on events. We've used library sp- meeting places to hold community events. But they also are our amazing, uh, resources for community members. Librarians have all sorts of knowledge about how to apply for benefits- Mm-hmm ... how to, uh, get involved in a community action, how to find information, uh, maybe if you're interested in a specific project or the history or...

So I would just, uh... When I think of third spaces, that's one of the ones I always think to as just a true treasure of our communities, that people just think, "Oh, that's just a building that has books."

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

Ben Inskeep: No, these are community spaces that are community resources that are true treasures- Yeah ... and, uh, true gems of any community that we need to fully fund and protect, because many of the other types of third spaces and communities are, you know, moving in a different [00:50:00] direction, are becoming, uh, you know, more costly to go to, um, or, you know, maybe don't, or not as accepting of all people from all walks of life like a library would be.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm. Great answer. I think of in the context of AI and data centers, one of the founding sort of principles of this podcast is that in the post-COVID world, in the world where you don't understand what's real because it's all AI generated, people will have a large backlash towards that to look for more tangible experiences.

And places like libraries and other third spaces become more important as we seek out like a, a consensus of reality basically. So

Ben Inskeep: true.

Michael Zarick: Um, yeah. That's sort of how I, uh, think of it at this time is like when, when you don't know what's going on, like the only thing you know is true is that I can like hold your hand at this moment.

Like you're a real person, that type of thing.

Ben Inskeep: Isn't that the truth? I, I notice [00:51:00] that in my personal life just now gravitating to more of those types of, uh, things that I know are real, that are offline, that are tangible. You know, things just as simple as journaling in a physical journal or, you know, unplugging from, uh, the internet and going on a hike in the woods or, you know, like just- Yeah.

Uh, yeah. I think, I think, I, I hope at least with AI people are gonna... That this backlash becomes a trend where people do seek out more meaningful opportunities that are-- they can, yeah, identify as real, as not artificial. Um, and reclaim some of those benefits that maybe we've forgotten about or gotten out of touch with a little bit.

Uh, but now that with, uh, with AI backlash coming, there's kind of a push in that direction.

Michael Zarick: Yeah, definitely. Follow-up to the previous question: What is a third space or place that has existed for you previously but no longer does?

Ben Inskeep: [00:52:00] Well, we were actually just talking before you, uh, we started recording about just, you know, like a local coffee shop in Lawrence that I used to go to frequently closed down. And so that was an example of, uh, just a, you know, a casual place that you could go to that was, you know, um, a place outside of my own house that I could go to to work or read or just be in a different environment, meet ple- meet with people, uh, that now no longer exists.

You know, we've seen a number of businesses in my community not be s-sustained and have that falling through, and then it's like, okay, now I gotta go farther to get to that type of a place or find something different. Mm-hmm. So that's an example,

Michael Zarick: um- What was the name of that coffee shop?

Ben Inskeep: Oh.

Michael Zarick: I challenged.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah, now you got me. Uh, that's been a minute that I've, uh, I'm forgetting off the top of my head. Uh, Porter Books and, uh, Br- uh, Porter... Yeah, I think it was Porter. But, um, yeah, so that was a bummer that we lost that. I'm lucky that I still have, um, you know, one of the places that I really enjoy, [00:53:00] uh, is still around is, is the, the state park we have here in Indianapolis, the, the Fort Harrison, um, State Park, which is a, a treasure to have in our city.

Uh, that's in my backyard, and that's one that I still get a lot of value from on a weekly basis having access to. Um, and that's a treasure for our community, having that green space that's low cost, that's right there. Not a lot of people in the country can find an affordable house that backs up to, uh, a, you know, a green place, a green space, or a park.

You're,

Michael Zarick: you were, so you were literal backyard.

Ben Inskeep: So it's literally my backyard- ... which, you know, just speaks to, you know, the benefit of living in a city like Indianapolis where we can have that access that a lot of people in a lot of cities wouldn't have that type of opportunity. Mm-hmm.

Michael Zarick: I've made it my brand identity to go to a place like Benjamin Harrison State Park-

Ben Inskeep: Yeah

Michael Zarick: or another beautiful green space, take a short recording of it, and go, "Wouldn't a data center look great here?" That's my current, that's my current brand identity, uh, of just being like, "Look at this [00:54:00] beautiful space. Wouldn't it be amazing if there was a warehouse here?" Oh,

Ben Inskeep: yeah. Many, many people are asking this.

Yes.

Michael Zarick: So every episode I ask a question from the previous guest.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah.

Michael Zarick: The previous guest from this episode, their name is Clockwork Jans. That's their real name. Okay. They asked the question, "Why are you in a rush?"

Ben Inskeep: Why am I in a rush?

Michael Zarick: Take it how you will.

Ben Inskeep: Ooh. I like the, I like the challenge of the question, kind of implying you should slow down, you know?

Michael Zarick: Mm.

Ben Inskeep: So it's an interesting question. I, uh, feel like there is so much happening right now, and there's such high stakes for the communities that we care about that I feel pressure to do a lot and try to be very active in standing up for Hoosiers. And so as a result, sometimes that means I'm rushing about taking on too many challenges, [00:55:00] uh, in order to try and advocate for so many different causes.

So, um, but I think it's, uh, always good to think about do you need to be in a rush or can you slow down? Because, um, so many times we're putting an artificial constraint that's making us feel rushed and, um, so I like the, the, I like this question because it's, uh, suggesting to me that, you know, you can still do a lot, but maybe you don't also need to feel that time pressure and as a result, uh, make yourself miserable or feel stressed.

you can still do a lot without, um, yeah-

Michael Zarick: Yeah ...

Ben Inskeep: without

Michael Zarick: feeling- Sometimes you, uh, just im- you just impose, like, deadlines on yourself that you made up. You know what I mean? You're just like, "I have to read this book by Wednesday or else I'll blow up."

Ben Inskeep: Uh, yeah, exactly. So many of those are self-imposed- Yeah

in that when you, uh, label it, you think about it, um, expressly as opposed to just kind of accepting it, you, you maybe can [00:56:00] challenge it and realize, "You know what? Maybe I don't need to feel that way." Yeah. "I can, I can be chill."

Michael Zarick: I have a couple last questions. I'm gonna try to get you in trouble.

Ben Inskeep: Uh-oh. Why would you do that?

Michael Zarick: Oh, it's fun. Do you think... Now I'm going all the way back to the beginning of the conversation Do you think that, um, the original Luddites as the actions they took in terms of, uh, physical action to destroy machines were justified in their actions or understandable standpoint?

Ben Inskeep: I can certainly understand why when a government and industry is not responsive to the concerns of the mass public, you know, people, um, and the actions they're taking are just further immiserating people, not, uh, giving them opportunity, and then shutting down their ability to create a different, um, outcome or different opportunity, then, [00:57:00] you know, uh, people are gonna take those actions into their own hands.

You know, it's, uh... Forget who said it, but, you know, somebody more famous than me once said, you know, kind of along the lines of governments that prevent, you know, non-violent action are basically creating the mean-- or creating the necessity of violent responses.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

Ben Inskeep: So when you don't allow communities to make their voices heard and, and have that impact change, what's the only way they can make change?

Is taking on a more extreme action. So, uh, we certainly, you know, are not, uh, condoning violence or, uh, property destruction or anything like that. But I will say, when people, don't have the ability to put food on their table, that creates, you know, the need for strong action, right? Like it's, uh, you can't fault somebody for stealing a loaf of bread if they're going hungry, right?

You know, it's the kinda quintessential kind of example of, in, in, used in ethics.

Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.

Ben Inskeep: Um, so [00:58:00] I would just say that, yeah, uh, governments and industry needs to be careful about the conditions they're creating because for every action, there's gonna be a reaction. And if they don't want a violent response, they should ensure non-violent response can be effective in, uh, creating the change that people need in order to thrive and survive in their community.

Michael Zarick: I also know the quote you're talking about. I believe it was a US president.

Ben Inskeep: Okay.

Michael Zarick: It's, it's something like, "Those who make non-violent change impossible make violent change inevitable," or something like that.

Ben Inskeep: Thank you. That's much more eloquent- Yeah ... than my butchering of that phrase.

Michael Zarick: I do not know the individual who said it, though, off the top of my head.

I do have my laptop in front of me, but I won't deal with it.

Ben Inskeep: Yeah.

Michael Zarick: Someone will comment or whatever. Two last questions. Is there any last thing that you're thinking about that's on your heart, on your mind, on your soul that you would like to bear in, in front of the, the microphone at this time?

Ben Inskeep: I think affordability has become a major challenge for [00:59:00] Hoosiers across our state, and we're seeing that on a number of different fronts with the data center issue and concerns about bills rising.

But it's also happening just through our traditional utilities and traditional kind of trends outside of the data center issue. So we need to make sure, you know, Hoosiers have access to affordable, essential use- utility services, whether that's power, whether that's water, whether that's high-speed internet.

All these things are becoming m- more expensive and more difficult for Hoosiers, and so this is kind of, uh, one of the bread and busher- butter issues we've been fighting for for, you know, 52 years at Citizens Action Coalition. We got our start, uh, with the first, you know, one of the first energy crises in, in our country in the 1970s.

Uh, we're experiencing a lot of similar concerns today with s- uh, soaring inflation, soaring cost of electricity. Um, so I think that's on, been on my mind as we see kind of electric utility bills [01:00:00] soar. We saw some responsive legislation this session, but it's not gonna meaningfully change the trajectory of bills in the future.

So it's, uh, gonna be something that's, really important for Hoosiers to make their voices heard on, um, and continue to fight for because, it, it's so critical, but we have a lot of work to do.

Michael Zarick: Absolutely. Great answer. One last question. What question, Mr. Inskeep, would you like to ask the next Third Space Indy guest?

Ben Inskeep: Hmm.

Michael Zarick: It's not scheduled, so I don't know.

It can be about anything

Ben Inskeep: Mm-hmm. I would s- challenge them to identify what ways they think people can make their neighborhoods better at the very micro local level. What, what actions have you taken or would you take to just improve our city at the neighborhood level? There's a lot of talk at the statewide level, at the citywide level.

I think there's a lot that [01:01:00] people can do just within their own little micro-communities, so I'd be h- interested to hear how they would respond to that type of a question.

Michael Zarick: Totally agree. Great question. Thanks so much for joining me today out here on the, the coldest day of June. Uh.

Ben Inskeep: Yes, a little unseasonably cool, but I'll, I'll take it.

You know, the heat is not my favorite part of the summer.

Michael Zarick: Uh, so if you would like to be found, you or CAC, where can the people find you? Uh, please share.

Ben Inskeep: Please check out our website. It's C-I-T-A-C-T.org. Uh, if you wanna follow my spicy Twitter takes- ... I'm @ben_inskeep on Twitter, so look for me there. And

Michael Zarick: Inskeep is, uh, I-N-S-K-E-E-P.

Ben Inskeep: That's correct.

Michael Zarick: Inskeep, yeah.

Ben Inskeep: Yep. One N.

Michael Zarick: Amazing- Thank you so much for watching or listening to this episode of Third Space Indy. You can find me by going to thirdspaceindy.com or by going to thirdspaceindy on Instagram. Thanks so much to City Rising for sponsoring the podcast.

And as [01:02:00] always, thanks so much to the local artist Jennasen for allowing me to use your song Scared Rabbit as the intro song. Thanks once again for watching. Thank you, Ben Inskeep, for joining me. Donate to CAC, Citizens Action Coalition, because this is an important cause that we are facing at this time.

Have a great rest of the day. Goodbye. Thanks.