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Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

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Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#42
post #3

[flagged]

Aesthetics are important. Everyone enjoys looking at a golf course, even non-golfers. Nobody wants to look at a datacenter.

My general thought is, what’s the argument for placing them in populated areas to begin with? Why dedicate land use for it in Nashville? Wouldn’t putting it 40 miles outside town work just as well? Why don’t we create development zones specifically for these things? In Dallas we have a similar thing for our distribution hub, it’s south of downtown kind of in the outskirts and in an economically struggling area. Same for industrial areas, it’s usually something that’s zoned to a particular area so residential neighborhoods aren’t really affected. It’s not land where the community may benefit more by literally anything else (sometimes even a Walmart is better than a datacenter). I assume that’s where this is all headed, cities need to roll out their long term vision of where datacenters fit into their city, if at all. Until then, it’s all these small battles and the information used by opponents doesn’t really matter. If enough people don’t want it, it should probably go somewhere else. This is not serving any community benefit so I don’t see any reason why it has to exist where the developers want it to.

Expecting rational opposition is actually irrational. They just don’t want it. The why is varied and probably based more on emotion than anything else.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#43
post #34

Unfortunately - the widespread propaganda seen around both nuclear power plants and datacenters is ultimately going to cost America everything - the American way of life our child’s will inherit is going to mean something very different than what it meant for us. China controls 90-99% of the rare earths - which are necessary for everything from cars to defense, chips, energy and even construction steel; China control…

I don't understand how the abundance of AI datacenters translates into wellbeing of common folk. Right now AI is a net negative for the people.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#44
post #34

Unfortunately - the widespread propaganda seen around both nuclear power plants and datacenters is ultimately going to cost America everything - the American way of life our child’s will inherit is going to mean something very different than what it meant for us. China controls 90-99% of the rare earths - which are necessary for everything from cars to defense, chips, energy and even construction steel; China control…

It's a religious belief that we're going to invent a machine god and our machine god will fight china's machine god.

I don't think OP mentioned a machine god?

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#45
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> water usage despite being less than golf courses, etc Golf courses are a common example of wasteful water use.

Then why is no one eminent domaining golf courses? Clearly there are other factors at play here

A lot of golf courses are owned by cities or other public entities.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#46
My sincere theory is that this is finally the government/politics stepping in to take their cut from the AI revolution. The politicians now have a fee-based strategy where they can literally just stick a fee on any upcoming project(s). Pay up if you ever want your permits to go through and construction to get started.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#47
post #3

[flagged]

DC's are being used as a proxy for power and wealth disparity. Fix that. Have an actual measurable plan for general prosperity (health care, QoL, housing, you name it) and the data centers won't be a concern

The issues you listed seem intractable in the U.S., and the current NIMBYism towards data centers seems likely to make NIMBYism towards housing even worse - a number of the same arguments that were used against housing are now being used against DCs, but we’re seeing a whole new level of NIMBY tactics being tried out - I expect we will see similar city-wide/county-wide bans on multi-family housing, mass transit, mixed zoning, etc - or use of eminent domain to block housing projects, etc. if this kind of NIMBYism becomes accepted or even celebrated against DCs.

Or for your suggestion to “fix healthcare” - how and by whom? The solutions that those on the left push are anathema to 1 of the 2 major parties in the U.S., and the party which currently controls all of the branches of government.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why is no one eminent domaining golf courses? Clearly there are other factors at play here

Golf courses do not emit noise, they are relatively nice looking and they are not a threat for people to be unemployed.

Yeah, those might be some of the other factors. My point is just that actual water use does not explain datacenter pushback well, despite being a predominant argument against them.

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#49
post #24

I don't know what DC Blox was going to put in this particular datacenter, but they are a "traditional" colocation datacenter company. Maybe this one would've been superdense GPUs with a jet engine as electrical generator causing all kinds of noise, but it's also just as likely this would've been a project that 5 years ago no one would've batted an eye over, and wouldn't cause any issues in the local neighborhood That…

Given that after the advent of virtualization we had a glut of datacenter space, and then the crypto bros started buying them up to mine: do we actually need more datacenters? Or do we just need regulators to say things like: mining crypto to facilitate money laundering and ransomware isn’t welcome here?

Re: Nashville uses eminent domain to block data center near zoo

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why is no one eminent domaining golf courses? Clearly there are other factors at play here

A lot of golf courses are owned by cities or other public entities.

Then they should be even easier to shut down if they're viewed as a wasteful use of water! I think the fact that they are not shut down is evidence that people do not in fact view them as such, or at least not as much people view data centers as a waste of water.
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