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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

#81

Post by snaking0776 »

xiaodai wrote: post #53

[flagged]

Depends on who you’re talking about. How does the cost benefit analysis work out for someone while lives within a mile of a datacenter, owns no shares in the company, and pays rate fees for their utilities and will have to pay for maintenance for the increased load capacity as well as higher spot prices? If you view America as a cohesive unit I’d agree with you, but I don’t think these people are necessarily acting irrationally if you view their personal circumstance. It’s up to the building company to sweeten the deal and provide an incentive for the locals to add it. Based on the contracts I’ve read from many of these datacenters it seems more like they’re buying the pockets of corrupt politicians and developers in areas with high political inequality while conferring very little benefit to the people who deal with the externalized cost.

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

#83

Post by Barrin92 »

menthe wrote: 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…

>the American way of life our child’s will inherit is going to mean something very different than what it meant for us.

I'm fairly certain the American way of life is exactly what happened here, that citizens of a locality exercise the rights over their land to stop random tech bros from ruling over them with their AI and China mania. I recommend John Quincy Adams 4th of July 1821

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

#84

Post by j2kun »

mapping365 wrote: post #72
j2kun wrote: post #70

What I think is nice is that the political parties opposed to data center development are actually taking concrete steps, exercising specific powers, to advance their goals. So much opposition to tech boils down to whining, and then the tech companies get to do whatever they want anyway. Same complaint applies generally to the democratic establishment. It's nice to see people finally waking up to the reality that opp…

Eminent domain is like the the Thanos snap version of state power in a democratic / capitalist country. The ultimate representation of the peoples will over the individuals desire.

No, this is more like checks and balances: the state, the public, and corporations are kept in check when two of them join together to oppose the third.

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

#85

Post by gensym »

tptacek wrote: post #78
mixdup wrote: 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…

The funny thing about data center concerns in Chicagoland, where I'm hearing it, is that data centers are better neighbors than almost any other commercial real estate. The data centers in Aurora are surrounded with prairie green space; everything else, including the nicest office buildings, are a sea of eyesore asphalt parking lots. I get there can be real concerns, locally-specific, about energy usage (again: they…

Strip malls at least offer something to the local residents. I recall from my time in Chicago that some of the best immigrant-family-run restaurants were in strip malls on the northwest side.

Warehouses, though, are worse than data centers in that they bring a lot of traffic to the area. (I currently live in Riverside Country, CA which may be the warehouse capital of the country).

But if we're being honest, most people see warehouses as a way to get cheap stuff to them, which they like and data centers as a way to make them unemployable, which they don't like so much.

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

#86

Post by sophacles »

otterley wrote: post #74
sophacles wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when building more fiber could only be good. An awful lot of it sits in the ground lost, never used because it was the wrong type or in the wrong spots, or otherwise pointless waste. Further, electicity price hikes seems like a bad prospect when inflation is already rampant. If you want a datacenter, offer your house for the space instead.

We can generate more electricity, but NIMBY types don't want to approve projects that would add capacity, either.

It's always fun to watch AI zombies wrestle with the idea that sometimes the real humans have different priorities than they do. Usually people are against a lot of those power projects because those very same projects also seem to always raise rates and never deliver the promises of long-term lower rates.

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

#88

Post by annzabelle »

mixdup wrote: post #16
fred_is_fred wrote: post #2

What stood out to me was this: "By a 27-5 vote". That number seemed really high, so I looked it up - this isn't a city or a county or some kind of private tax distict - its was the nation's first city-county government. "The Metropolitan Council is the legislative authority of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, the nation’s first, fully consolidated city-county government, established in 19…

>this isn't a city or a county Yes it is, it's both of those things. Consolidated city/county governments are not a weird oddity that no one knows how to handle, they're not super common but they're not governmental arrangements from Neptune, either

Coming from the state of Virginia, I might say that they're a perfectly standard way to govern.

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

#89

Post by mapping365 »

j2kun wrote: post #84
mapping365 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eminent domain is like the the Thanos snap version of state power in a democratic / capitalist country. The ultimate representation of the peoples will over the individuals desire.

No, this is more like checks and balances: the state, the public, and corporations are kept in check when two of them join together to oppose the third.

It feels like this is the first time I've seen the political system move in tune with the public mood in regards to AI and this is public anger finding expression in public policy.

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

#90

Post by arcanemachiner »

RandallBrown wrote: post #63
mixdup wrote: 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…

> That's the unfortunate thing about the current climate around datacenters I always get a chuckle when I see people complaining about datacenters on the Internet .

I like having my garbage picked up at the curb, but I wouldn't want to live downwind from a landfill.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

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