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Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

cnn.com

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Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#61

Post by gyanchawdhary »

goda90 wrote: post #54
gyanchawdhary wrote: post #30

Coming from a third world country (emerging/developing for the sensitive souls) .. and having many friends from former Soviet countries, one thing we all seem to agree on is the sheer luxury rich countries have .. it’s like a cancer of prosperity .. where a society becomes so successful that it starts attacking the very things that created its success ..

AI data centers aren't the source of America's prosperity. In fact many arguments can be made that they will contribute to its loss.

I respectfully disagree

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#62

Post by threatofrain »

BoggleOhYeah wrote: post #41

It may have been the AI CEOs bragging that they’re going to take everyone’s job away. Maybe one day, Silicon Valley will learn that their insufferable arrogance is not a virtue for everyone outside of their bubble.

You can see this as an American thing if you want... but you might look at the rest of the world to ask whether you're trying to convince the world to un-invent gunpowder.

If China gave superior paid offerings we might just start transferring all our data over to them instead. Anyways, have we considered building our compute infrastructure in China's backyard instead?

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#63

Post by rabf »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #28
TimTheTinker wrote: post #15

The rumor is going around on X that foreign enemies of the US (especially China) are trying to influence Americans through social networks against building data centers.

Of course a company like X has an incentive to push a narrative like that, given their AI position. People are concerned about their property values, utility prices, etc. It's not hard to see why the average person doesn't want one of these built in their backyard.

Their position is to build the data centers in space, so apposition on the ground plays directly into their hands!

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#64

Post by Legend2440 »

goda90 wrote: post #58
Legend2440 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ultimately those things (apartments, high-speed rail, mines, factories, datacenters, etc) exist for the benefit of the public. We give tax breaks because we recognize that these things are beneficial to the economy and want to incentivize their construction. Some countries go even farther and directly subsidize development.

"Privatize the profits, socialize the losses" So many of these things DON'T benefit the public, especially as automation reduces the number of jobs they produce. They mostly benefit the capital holders and they'll take steps to increase their profit even if they hurt the public in the long run.

Nonsense. Who consumes the goods produced by the factories and mines? Who lives in the apartments and takes the high speed rail?

Automation is also a massive boon to the common man. It's the only reason we're not both dirt farmers right now, and is responsible for most of the increase in standard of living over the last two centuries. Your views are short-sighted.

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#65

Post by foco_tubi »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #15

The rumor is going around on X that foreign enemies of the US (especially China) are trying to influence Americans through social networks against building data centers.

This does more to discredit X as a trustworthy source of information than anything else.

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#66

Post by threatofrain »

palmotea wrote: post #19
woah wrote: post #4

It's sad. For all the lamenting that the US is losing industrial capacity (or lost it long ago), we can't even handle some of the lightest industry possible. A big building that hums and releases slightly warm water, and the only sector in which we could still be called a world leader. Instead of trying to find property tax arrangements that work to give municipalities a big payoff, and power supply arrangements that…

> It's sad. For all the lamenting that the US is losing industrial capacity (or lost it long ago), we can't even handle some of the lightest industry possible. A big building that hums and releases slightly warm water, and the only sector in which we could still be called a world leader. No. Data centers have very, very few positive externalities for the people who live around them. They employ very few people, use a…

Or why not build then in China? Isn't that the better solution? Are you okay with that backyard?

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#67

Post by archagon »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #15

The rumor is going around on X that foreign enemies of the US (especially China) are trying to influence Americans through social networks against building data centers.

An unsourced rumor going around a notoriously right-wing social media site? Definitely credible.

This is basically a content-free comment that only serves to rile up the community.

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#68

Post by threatofrain »

boc wrote: post #2

One under-discussed topic is whether Americans hate data centers in their neighborhoods, or whether they actually just hate gas turbine generators running 24/7 in their neighborhoods.

Would they hate them as much if they were in a Chinese neighborhood? Why not build in China? We say there's not much jobs here anyway, and that it's all negative externalities.

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#69

Post by mindcandy »

christophilus wrote: post #36
mapping365 wrote: post #9

I think it can't be categorized as NIMBYism because the underlying sentiment is not just no data centers in my backyard, but anyones backyard. It's about the AI project itself, even if it expresses itself differently for a local context.

I’m fine with datacenters being built as long as we have some rules: they have to be quiet enough to not be audible beyond the border of the land owned by the datacenter. They have to pay for new electrical capacity so that they don’t burden locals with that externality. Really, that’s it. I think most people could get behind that.

Does anyone have any numbers on what percentage of recent datacenters don't follow those rules? Those are completely reasonable requirements. But, the high-pitched online discussion tends to imply building a datacenter requires doing everything the worst possible way every time.

I know there are problematic data centers. I just want to know what the stats are vs. the rhetoric.

Re: Americans are rallying against data centers. Surprisingly few are getting built

#70

Post by colechristensen »

Lucasoato wrote: post #22
TimTheTinker wrote: post #15

The rumor is going around on X that foreign enemies of the US (especially China) are trying to influence Americans through social networks against building data centers.

I’m extremely suspicious of this, but have no way to prove it or collect data related to it. Even more, I’d really doubt that is a US interest to let the public know if such campaign is happening against non-US countries, so I don’t expect Meta, X or whatever to kindly inform me about that.

Zoom out and ask yourself which injustices the popular voice care about and which they don't.

There is a hard to miss tendency for the things which get the most noise to be the most useful to national adversaries.

You can't mention specific incidents here for comparison because the comments will be filled with disagreements and accusations about the specifics not the big picture.

Search yourself for things that are getting attention and not getting attention and judge for yourself how useful each would be to external powers.

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