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No Data Centers in My Backyard

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Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#151

Post by ikr678 »

ajkjk wrote: post #61
Planktonne wrote: post #10

The article is interesting, but I think it dances around what should be a central point, only approaching it obliquely. A lot of the opposition to data centers isn't about specific claimed benefits/drawbacks, but the fact that the people behind them are known to be bad actors. > My conversations make me wonder if the technical content of data center deals is mostly beside the point. Closed-loop cooling systems? “I do…

The other part is: if there really is so much money in these, it should be easy for the companies to produce an actually good deal. Everyone can tell (after all these experiences) what bullshit smells like, when the deals are full of tricks. Why try the tricks--property taxes that pay eventually, jobs that will show up eventually, promises that electric bills won't go up--when you could guarantee the results, and gua…

Corporate America is trapped in a race to the bottom - if you do the 'right' thing and say, don't negotiate hard for tax breaks from the host city or get some sort of predatory preferred pricing from the utilities providers to the detriment of local residents, 1) your shareholders might go after you for not maximising profit and 2) your competitors will do these things anyway and undercut you.

Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#152

Post by JuniperMesos »

broken-kebab wrote: post #92
Planktonne wrote: post #10

The article is interesting, but I think it dances around what should be a central point, only approaching it obliquely. A lot of the opposition to data centers isn't about specific claimed benefits/drawbacks, but the fact that the people behind them are known to be bad actors. > My conversations make me wonder if the technical content of data center deals is mostly beside the point. Closed-loop cooling systems? “I do…

"We can't trust them" is the foundation of practically every conspiracy theory, though, from times immemorial. I remember people protesting against cell towers, and it was exactly what their arguments were built around: "We don't believe this thing won't fry our brains". It was the same before with electrical lines, and I guess steam power had its share too. Not telling a concerned citizen is obliged to trust everyon…

The difference in attitude between cell phone conspiracy theories and data center conspiracy theories is almost entirely driven by the media reporting on them. The media (correctly) identifies people worried about cell phone radiation affecting their health as crackpots. But because the Anglosphere media establishment itself is threatened by the tech industry at large, it not only fails to report on anti-datacenter sentiment among uninformed people as similar crackpottery, it amplifies basically-inaccurate negative memes about data centers such as their water use.

Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#153

Post by DangitBobby »

inigyou wrote: post #110
mirzap wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just proving my point. "Hey, look, AC current can kill you. We must stop this nonsense" https://www.wired.com/2012/01/0104edison-uses-ac-to-kill-ele...

What are we racing for? Smarter chatboxes?

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Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#154

Post by knowaveragejoe »

epolanski wrote: post #32
zkmon wrote: post #8

People in UK opposed train tracks in steam engine days, saying that the train engine sound scares their horses and cattle. Ofcourse data centers are far worse. But it is amusing to see how humanity continues to oppose tech and the tech buldozes anyway, like a evil monster.

It's not about opposing data centers, it's about opposing them close to where you live . There's now a gargantuan amount of documentation about their impact: - insane noise levels 24/7, you can hear them even at miles away - virtually no jobs brought to the place, besides some construction work early on - massive drain of local resources - massive eye sore Like, I'm not against data centers per se, but you tell me th…

I'm fairly sure that most aren't any louder than other facilities of similar size. It's comes down to their cooling infrastructure and they vary widely.

Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#155

Post by JuniperMesos »

inigyou wrote: post #56
bob001 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like a evil monster. I tend to like not fearing starvation every year, not fearing freezing to death every year and not having the vast majority of my kids die. Industrialization led to all that.

I didn't realize we were going to freeze to death if there weren't chatboxes everywhere.

Well, we're all going to die of something unless we invent radical life extension technology. I personally hope that artifical intelligence makes progress on this before I myself get old and die.

Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#156

Post by throwaway2037 »

keeda wrote: post #139
Planktonne wrote: post #10

The article is interesting, but I think it dances around what should be a central point, only approaching it obliquely. A lot of the opposition to data centers isn't about specific claimed benefits/drawbacks, but the fact that the people behind them are known to be bad actors. > My conversations make me wonder if the technical content of data center deals is mostly beside the point. Closed-loop cooling systems? “I do…

> It's not reflexive; it's evidenced. Regardless of what big tech promises, or potential mitigations, everyone knows what tech companies do now. It's not a generalised small-town lack of trust in big city folks, it's a direct response to decades of extractive behaviour by the same companies and people. I feel like this is projection. If you look at the list of top brands ranked by a variety of dimensions (trust, inno…

You raise an interesting point. If we look at Mag7: Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta/Facebook, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Tesla: All of they are probably building data centers at a furious pace. (Honestly, I'm not sure if NVIDIA needs as many as the other six.) However, we do not see great opposition to their own data centers. Why? My guess: They are incredibly careful about how they plan data center expansion to reduce brand impact. Most of the opposition seems to be directed towards (1) pure play data center builders/operators who are mostly B2B and don't care as much about their brand retail reputation (2) pure AI/LLM companies, like OpenAI and Anthropic. About (2): I wonder is the pushback deeper than the data center environmental impact and more about pushback against the unknown: "The Singularity with take all of our jobs.", etc.

Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#157

Post by throwaway2037 »

broken-kebab wrote: post #92
Planktonne wrote: post #10

The article is interesting, but I think it dances around what should be a central point, only approaching it obliquely. A lot of the opposition to data centers isn't about specific claimed benefits/drawbacks, but the fact that the people behind them are known to be bad actors. > My conversations make me wonder if the technical content of data center deals is mostly beside the point. Closed-loop cooling systems? “I do…

"We can't trust them" is the foundation of practically every conspiracy theory, though, from times immemorial. I remember people protesting against cell towers, and it was exactly what their arguments were built around: "We don't believe this thing won't fry our brains". It was the same before with electrical lines, and I guess steam power had its share too. Not telling a concerned citizen is obliged to trust everyon…

You raise a good point. I was raised in the 1980s and 1990s. Every few months there were interviews and investigations on a local news programme about how using a mobile phone might cause brain cancer. Or living near above ground power lines caused all kinds of imaginary illnesses. From what I can see, most of those crazy people moved on to a new conspiracy theory. I cannot remember the last time that I saw any serious media coverage of either issue from my childhood.

Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#158

Post by throwaway2037 »

bob001 wrote: post #54
ofrzeta wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA cites "Each project requires thousands of skilled workers during the two to six year construction period (nearly 10,000 in Mount Pleasant)" so maybe it's not totally fiction (at least during build time).

To me that's not sustainable. It just brings in outside workers, distorts the economy in bad way for locals through increased costs, distorts their daily life in a bad way and then it all goes away leaving a void in its wake. Like the olympics.

This is a weird comment to me. Think about green energy, specifically solar panels and wind farms. Almost by definition, the jobs created are only during installation. (Ok, there is a little bit of long-term maintenance, but a tiny fraction.) Would you say the same about those projects?

It is unavoidable that the modern world needs data centers (how many is open for debate). It is a fact of life that most of the jobs associated with data centers are during the installation, not the ongoing maintenance. Again: Are you trying to say that building any and all data centers is bad for your reasons?

I will give another example: When a company builds a highly automated factory, the same occurs. Inside the factory, there are very few highly skills jobs. Most of them are low skill (moving boxes and refilling automated machines that are cheaper than automating the work). Again: Are you saying that we should not be building these highly automated factories for your reasons?

Re: No Data Centers in My Backyard

#159

Post by throwaway2037 »

ModernMech wrote: post #77
ofrzeta wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA cites "Each project requires thousands of skilled workers during the two to six year construction period (nearly 10,000 in Mount Pleasant)" so maybe it's not totally fiction (at least during build time).

My sister dates a guy who works on these kinds of projects. He’s based out of Chicago, and goes to remote places like Idaho or Ohio to build them. They put him up in cheap temporary housing, I guess that generates some local money, but he’s very quickly moving on to the next job. They’re not hiring locals for these tasks, they don’t have the skills. The people who are benefitting are mostly local landlords.

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