Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 112 posts

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#41

Post by protocolture »

everdrive wrote: post #34

Populism is on the rise, and nearly everyone is discontent. The discontent has gotten so out of hand that much of it is quite ridiculous, but it's serious enough that it must be dealt with. Given the past 20 years, I expect politicians to completely fumble this easy layup and find ways to force data centers anyhow.

Populism is on the rise, and nearly everyone is discontent. The discontent has gotten so out of hand that much of it is quite ridiculous, but it's serious enough that it must be dealt with. Given the past 20 years, I expect politicians to completely fumble this easy layup and find ways to destroy or hamper important infrastructure anyhow.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#42

Post by lostlogin »

ninkendo wrote: post #25
consensus1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the above are false, except for 3 which has actually happened in a few cases, though is definitely the outlier as I have been near data centers and couldn't hear a thing. And they provide a lot more jobs than the 0 jobs that were provided by the undeveloped land they are built on.

I wonder what fallacy you’re going to use to justify GPU-heavy data centers using zero water: are you going to take the “they’re closed loop” path, and conveniently ignore that they need to be continually topped off, and that effectively makes them open loop anyway (or that they heat exchange with a separate loop that is evaporated?) Or maybe you’ll just say “sure the water evaporates, but it’ll rain down somewhere s…

There has been some talk recently about the impact on water of closed loop systems - as it turns out they get a flush before first use and that contamination from that has been a problem.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#43

Post by tzs »

consensus1 wrote: post #29
mukbangpervert wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inaccurate to claim that the opposition is "completely irrational". One _extremely_ rational and common reason that people oppose these projects is that they can bid-up the energy cost in their regions, meaning that one of the residents biggest monthly bills gets bigger. A second one goes around pollution and noise, particularly when the AI DataCenter is using "portable" gas turbines or similar. Solutions are ha…

Residential electricity rates don't get "bid up" like that. Increases typically must be approved by the government and have to be justified by expenses rather than market prices. Ashburn VA, which has more data centers than anywhere else, actually pays below US average rates.

Which market do you mean when talking about "market prices"?

I'm pretty sure the utility where I am has been able to get rate increases approved partly based on rising prices they have to pay to buy power on the wholesale market when they do not have enough capacity of their own to cover all their customers.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#44

Post by dmitriy_ko »

antonymoose wrote: post #35
adriand wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these mitigations (although they’re good ideas) address what I think is the real issue here, which is that people don’t like AI. And why would they, when the dish being served by AI CEOs is job loss with a side of extinction risk. I think many data centre opponents understand that being opposed to AI is not sufficient to halt a local project, so it is noise, water use and power consumption that they latch ont…

In my area (South Carolina) - the opposition seems hyper fixated on “water use” with little or no conversation around electrical usage or even equitable utility rates. AI itself largely absent from the discourse.

Data centers use miniscular amount of water. Data center water use is a fake issue.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#45

Post by falcojr »

ninkendo wrote: post #25
consensus1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the above are false, except for 3 which has actually happened in a few cases, though is definitely the outlier as I have been near data centers and couldn't hear a thing. And they provide a lot more jobs than the 0 jobs that were provided by the undeveloped land they are built on.

I wonder what fallacy you’re going to use to justify GPU-heavy data centers using zero water: are you going to take the “they’re closed loop” path, and conveniently ignore that they need to be continually topped off, and that effectively makes them open loop anyway (or that they heat exchange with a separate loop that is evaporated?) Or maybe you’ll just say “sure the water evaporates, but it’ll rain down somewhere s…

Not who you responded to, but water usage only matters in areas where water is a scarce resource, yet I live next to one of the great lakes and constantly hear about how we should reject proposed data centers because of the water usage. The argument makes no sense around here. The usage would be a drop in the bucket compared to already existing industrial uses of water, so it's clear that people just parrot arguments that they don't even understand.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#46

Post by protocolture »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #5

[flagged]

I have been sending more letters to the editor and politicians than ever before.

A senator down south has been repeating the noise concern trolling from the USA, but wont even go to his local DC You just cant win. The stupid is the product.

It really is just a case of opportunistic politicians feeding the mob.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#48

Post by sseagull »

jrowen wrote: post #39
everdrive wrote: post #34

Populism is on the rise, and nearly everyone is discontent. The discontent has gotten so out of hand that much of it is quite ridiculous, but it's serious enough that it must be dealt with. Given the past 20 years, I expect politicians to completely fumble this easy layup and find ways to force data centers anyhow.

Everyone may be discontent (which might be a baseline feature of the human experience for many), but is anyone actually willing to do anything about it? Compared to the activism of the 60s and 70s, where so many people seemed willing to put their entire lives on hold for the cause, the fact that there is no major populist uprising against the dismantling of the institution of the presidency leads me to believe there…

> but is anyone actually willing to do anything about it?

They did. They elected Trump.

> no major populist uprising against the dismantling of the institution of the presidency

Some people view the president as the only directly-elected person powerful enough to fight for them in dismantling the rest of a government that isn't working (or even actively working against them). So they implicitly want a strong president.

This only goes as far as the president agrees with them of course.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#49

Post by kingstnap »

I really don't think it has anything to do with the datacenters as a building. It's more that AI has been kinda poison pilled in the minds of the people in terms of the negative emotions they feel regarding:

* Billionaires

* Job Loss

* AI slop floods

Ultimately they feel the need to be activists and they do so by being NIMBYs because you can have a ton of influence in municipal politics.

Re: Americans are angry about data centers. Politicians are feeling the pressure

#50

Post by swed420 »

dmitriy_ko wrote: post #44
antonymoose wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area (South Carolina) - the opposition seems hyper fixated on “water use” with little or no conversation around electrical usage or even equitable utility rates. AI itself largely absent from the discourse.

Data centers use miniscular amount of water. Data center water use is a fake issue.

I've long suspected that monied interests are seeding social media with weak arguments about water as a distraction, and people mindlessly re-share that as part of their identity. Then the other half can come along and "correct" them while the main issue of power is forgotten. Social media gets engagement, and capital gets its data centers.

It's the same tired distraction pattern we've seen for a long time now in politics, and they keep rolling it out because it works.

Post reply on HN