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

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:46 PM UTC

nancyminusone wrote: post #48

palmotea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Actually, Americans hate Silicon Valley and AI, the data centers are just a concrete proxy: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... : > It’s A.I. as sort of an avatar for a small group of Silicon Valley billion…

That Saline datacenter is the one I live closest to. I actually know a couple people who live right next to it. The above is basically what happened, but done in the open after that first lawsuit, to the tune of "do what we say or we'll sue you into bankruptcy and then get our way anyways". Mist recent, the datacenter's cost has shot up to ~50 billion, fow which they decided they wanted a tax break of 50% for 12 year…

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:48 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #55

christophilus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They also cover acres of ground with impermeable surface so if they are in an area where rain runoff is an issue they should have to mitigate that also. Maybe they could collect the water to use for their cooling needs.

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:51 PM UTC

archagon wrote: post #67

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.

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:54 PM UTC

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…

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #62

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?