The largest infrastructure buildout in human history is currently underway, financed almost entirely by private capital, justified almost entirely by a commercial promise the underlying numbers clearly do not support.

What I do want to point out is that the product being built is exactly the kind of centralised data infrastructure a surveillance apparatus would need, if one ever wanted to be built on top of it. That alone should concern any thinking man (not that there are many of those left, going by the general public discourse).

Nobody has to plan this outcome for it to happen. The state doesn't need to build the panopticon. It just needs to wait for the market to build one, misprice it, and be sitting there, insolvent, when someone with the authority to nationalise, regulate, or "partner" shows up.

Capitalism is extremely good at mobilising enormous pools of capital toward a physical build. It has never once been good at asking who inherits the asset once the company that built it goes bust (which is exactly what happens once the economics catches up with the narrative).