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'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

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Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#81

Post by OutOfHere »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #73
exabrial wrote: post #7

Right, all they're going to do is rip the concrete out and repour it, causing even more damage to the environment (concrete production and curing is unbelievably C02 intensive) I don't disagree we shouldn't be expanding power consumption unless we've moved the vast majority (>90%) of the load off fossil fuels, but this certainly didn't help anything.

Sabotage works by introducing friction into your opponents activities. Sabotaging one piece of one data center doesn't do much, but the more you do, the more outsized the impact. Imagine I'm a factory building widgets. If I buy materials, my default assumption is that I get the materials I asked for. If 5% of the time, or even 1% of the time, my vendor sends me junk that breaks my machines, now I have to introduce a…

> my vendor sends me junk

Indeed. A single bad review of a product from a user, if justified, can build the impetus to destroy a product. Three bad reviews probably will.

Insurance costs too can be affected.

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#82

Post by athrowaway3z »

exabrial wrote: post #7

Right, all they're going to do is rip the concrete out and repour it, causing even more damage to the environment (concrete production and curing is unbelievably C02 intensive) I don't disagree we shouldn't be expanding power consumption unless we've moved the vast majority (>90%) of the load off fossil fuels, but this certainly didn't help anything.

This is too dismissive of the impact.

Datacenter builders now have to add security so it doesn't happen a second time, perhaps even add it in more places around the world, and the overall attractiveness of building a datacenter in the region go down.

The CO2 not emitted by opening a later easily offsets curing by orders of magnitude.

To fully model it you'd have to account for the demand being moved as other centers will pick up the load and try to model either the reduced output and reduced future-demand at the temporarily higher cost.

That's too much effort for me, but "concrete curing causes more CO2" is jumping to a conclusion.

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#83

Post by holbrad »

afandian wrote: post #33
nick__m wrote: post #17

Ruining concrete seems to go against extinction rebellion main goal. According to the World Economic Forum the co2 released during ciment production account for 8% of global co2 emissions, datancenter are estimated to contribute between 1 and 2 percent.... Math is not theirs forte!

I imagine their maths is fine. Their objective is to tackle climate change through raising awareness. That happens at the macro scale.

Ah yes, the majority of people obviously don't know about climate change!

It's far grimmer to realise that people know, they just don't think we have an acceptable answer yet.

I'm not willing to accept any climate action, if it means I can't go on holiday abroad or it makes my life meaningfully more expensive etc.

It's selfish, but we need to solve it in a way that makes people globally richer.

(This is one of the great things about renewables coming down in price)

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#85

Post by bix6 »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #70
bix6 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Industrial vs consumer use is night and day. Industrial has much higher draw of resources and should pay more as a result especially when total capacity needs to increase specifically for them.

The reason an industrial use uses x times more than a consumer is because the industry is selling products and services to x consumers. You can't compare them 1:1.

Well the industrial should charge more to cover its costs instead of offloading the cost of its goods to consumers? Why does Walmart get to utilize food stamps or hyperscalers get to drain all the energy? Thats a massive public subsidy for a private corporation.

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#86

Post by IAmBroom »

inigyou wrote: post #28
marcosdumay wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and doesn't change anything It does change people that don't know about your cause against it, quite reliably as long as activism results go. For climate change, everybody probably heard about it, so yeah.

"there's no such thing as bad publicity" once again.

If ever true, it's for brand recognition.

PETA's brand recognition has probably made more people anti-vegan than all other vegans put together.

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#87

Post by holbrad »

skeaker wrote: post #57
namuol wrote: post #44

I suspect many HN commenters would be surprised to learn just how much the general public are on the side of these activists, condoning if not outright applauding their actions.

Yep. Even in very red areas like Texas, isn't the public opinion something like 95% opposed? City councils keep allowing it despite this, clearly due to bribes. Whole situation sucks.

I mean bribes can be good.

Sure you can build a data center near me, if your going to fund a new swimming pool and library with the taxes you pay. Also I get reduced local taxes? Even better!

Infrastructure building would be a whole lot easier, if people could directly tie it to tangible benefits.

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#88

Post by Legend2440 »

inigyou wrote: post #80
Legend2440 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also, it is important to remember that automating and mechanizing is what brought society as a whole out of abject poverty. It would be very short-sighted to look only at the jobs lost by the few weavers, and not the wealth gained by everyone else.

You mean the wealth gained by the ruling nobility of the time. As they said, the loom operators were worked to the bone for almost no pay.

No, I mean the wealth you and I have right now.

All of it - the car, the iPhone, the healthcare, the indoor plumbing, the air conditioner, the closet full of clothes - is only possible because of automation.

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#89

Post by holbrad »

bpodgursky wrote: post #37

An obvious point, but if Europe wants sovereign onshore AI, they have to get these people under control. It's easy for Microsoft to simply build EU-serving datacenters elsewhere.

If you believe AI will become increasing important, which most people in tech seem to agree on.

Having data centers in your country seems incredibly important, especially to the EU. You'd really hope to see the exact opposite of this behaviour.

Re: 'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'

#90

Post by tavavex »

The point people bring up about concrete CO2 use is absurd. To me it screams of refusing to talk about the debate the protestors are having and instead trying to find any minor nit to pick, which then lets you declare that they're imperfect and therefore not even worth discussing.

In the grand scheme of things, the concrete use here is completely unnoticeable. They're not causing extreme ecological damage here. This is a protest that does something about the problem they're complaining about, slows down their enemies and brings a lot of publicity to their act of protest. Without making a value judgement, this is much better than what a lot of other protests achieve in terms of direct effectiveness.

Frankly, the CO2 retort can be reused for almost any protest that destroys or defaces something, because the work to undo or replace that probably creates emissions.

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