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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

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opposition to data centers is like 90% hatred of Silicon Valley and its obstinate elites. One they amplified by trying to build these things sneakily.

> Opposition to data centers is like 90% hatred of Silicon Valley and its obstinate elites. One they amplified by trying to build these things sneakily. This is utter nonsense, and reeks of a desperate and deep denial. I mean, you might as well rationalize your denial by claiming they don't like you because they don't like you. Have you tried actually listening to what critics have to say? Nimby doesn't just pop up o…

Because people aren't motivated by facts. They make up lies to justify their opposition: "water usage". But when you disprove that superstition with facts and logic, their opinion on water usage doesn't change. Its like as if you had said nothing at all.

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

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office buildings take land and resources and generate almost nothing for the local community, and are islands in vast seas of asphalt and traffic attractors to boot. But nobody moralizes office buildings, just data centers, despite the fact that data centers are usually objectively better neighbors.

Office buildings presumably are filled with bodies who get paid, who will spend some amount of money in the local economy. I'm not sure data centers could make the same argument.

I have lunch around the datacenters when I go to them.

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also universally saying that AI's benefits far outweigh the challenges and will produce extraordinary improvements in prosperity, health, and human capability.

> will produce extraordinary improvements in prosperity Who says that? Who is doing _anything_ for AI to result in (even non-extraordinary) improvements in prosperity for the average citizen? I'm hearing a lot about AI reducing need for human labour, but literally nothing about doing anything to transition into a post-labour society. Absolute madness. So far it's all very standard (if scaled up) wealth concentration,…

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10487271/

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

#454
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…

"Won't somebody think of the poor non-AI datacenters?"

... said nobody, until now

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

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's less the hard numbers than "promised not to use then used". It destroys trust in any future developments because you know you can't take them at their word.

This is the emotional truth that a lot of people are just not seeing. It takes so long to build trust. It takes seconds to obliterate it. And big tech as a whole has been obliterating it's trust for like... a decade now. You can't just isolate AI data centers, or even this potentially not-AI one, from everything else and be like "well opposition to this normal thing is ridiculous." Yes, it might well be. However ther…

I can't get past the premise here that data centers are using material amounts of water. You took all the time to write this, but then included an assertion I think we all broadly know isn't true.

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

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd take a featureless, opaque warehouse over a structure with windows and architecture that was intended to stand out? The asphalt doesn't have to be an eyesore if planned well, either. Copious vegetation woven throughout, painted teal or with murals instead of black, a policy of "after the following hours, locals are allowed to play roller-hockey and tennis here.", host regular farmer's markets, etc.

I'd love to see a Google Maps picture of a large, attractive parking lot.

Hasn't been done != can't be done.

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

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're moving the goal posts and your true nature is leaking. You get to decide what too much suffering is for others, because you won't have to face any of it and monstrously will continue to refuse to care about how your chasing a shiny toy hurts other people. Losing a job due to AI is suffering, it causes hardship and stress. 1. Oracle, Block, Ford, Cloudflare, Salesforce and others' CEOs have explicitly stated th…

When I look at issues like this, I balance benefits against costs, like any reasonable person should, and I try to do so as neutrally as I can. Using emotionally-charged verbiage like "chasing a shiny toy" and "deplorable" isn't helping your case and makes you sound frankly unhinged. There are substantive, realizable benefits from using AI. Over the past few days alone, it has played a significant role in helping me…

Of course you deem the costs acceptable because you don't have to pay them. The word deplorable means: deserving condemnation and contempt. And frankly, I can't think of anything more deserving of contempt than a person willing to accept the harm to others for a slight increase in convenience.

> Yes, this sometimes puts a toll on the individual. We should support them when this happens via a social safety net. But we shouldn't try to halt progress instead. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

The social safety net is being actively dismantled by the same people building your toys. Reasonable approaches to some of these problems, like requiring solar arrays sufficient to power the datacenters (or more) or equivalent clean energy - are actively opposed by the people who are building the datacenters. Open and transparent local government is being shut down by NDAs and bribes from these datacenter builders in exchange for local tax subsidies.

You'd see a lot less opposition to these things if there was a reasonable assurance that the harm was "change for some people" rather than "reduction in quality of life and increased expenses for some people". I think very few people are fundamentally opposed to datacenters, they are opposed to the actions being taken right now in the real world to put them up and not compensate people for the damages they cause. If there was anyone putting up datacenters in a way that actually addressed people's concerns in a reasonable way, that didn't force the population to pay for some rich guy to get rich off toys for people who are OK putting the cost on others... well I would be fine with it. Unfortunately that's not the situation we currently have and I will continue to oppose this.

See I think the companies and sick fucks who support them should actually earn their income and compensate fairly for it, not just buy governments to force others to bear the costs while they get the benefits.

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

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s wild, where do all the people from Aurora work? Last I checked, Aurora had a large blue-collar Latino population, many of whom are successful tradespeople. These people commute to construction sites elsewhere during the day, and perhaps your own neighborhood, where HN posters snitch to the town if they use a leaf blower within 1500' of their home office.

> These people commute to construction sites elsewhere during the day While it is a shame that tptacek has to see “commuters“ going both ways it is good to know that the people of Aurora have this beautiful park https://www.cyrusone.com/data-centers/north-america/aurora-i...

I don't know what you think this link shows, but you can just jump to CHI1 on Google Maps (or, you know, drive there) to see what that area looks like.

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

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing construction of data centers with their normal operation. Data centers are silent in normal operation. It's the construction you're hearing about that is noisy, but that goes for any construction.

This is plainly wrong considering many people's complaints about the ridiculous amount of noise these things spew out. The whiring of gas turbines and cooling systems of complete, fully operational, data centres has nothing to do with construction.

Again, this isn't unknowable, you can literally just pull up next to CHI1 and open your window and listen. You won't hear anything.

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

#460
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year. For a moment I was worried that this might be an average that includes indirect usage through industry and agriculture, but AFAICT no, it's in line with just residential usage, so good-on-ya for that. > I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here The utility claims it was 30m gallons over 4 months [0], and 90mgal/yr would be like ~3k individ…

I've been checking stats and comparing it with here (Spain) and I never thought the difference of residential water usage was so different. Average use of water per capita in Spain is about 47m3 a year, so a third of the USA. And that number is quite consistent around the EU, except for Greece and Cyprus, where it's about double or even a bit more.

I dont get your math. 50m3/y is more than 30m3/y, which is what I calculated for the US?
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