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The moral panic over data centres is foolish

economist.com

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Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#131

Post by skeledrew »

nateglims wrote: post #13
verdverm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "it works" mean in this context? Are we prioritizing short-term political wins at cost of long-term competitiveness? Why are non-Western populations so excited by Ai while the West is eating fud? I suspect the data center thing has become popular because it's been a long time since people have felt like they can effect change in government policy. Details and nuance are irrelevant, there are larger, underly…

> Why are non-Western populations so excited by Ai Are they excited? Or do they just not have political control at a local level?

I know in Singapore that they're pretty excited. They're teaching it in schools and the public is generally responding well, according to someone I know who's a citizen there.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#132

Post by bloaf »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #130
bloaf wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not seen a single politician calling for statewide bans on golf courses. Its pretty obvious here that people decided datacenters were bad first, then went looking for justifications second.

Go look up articles from mid to late 2010s. There's where you will find frustration about golf courses, during the time where water restrictions were being put on residential lawns. Do not conflate the more recent, more successful campaign of anti-data-center sentiment with the non-existence of a past campaign against golf courses. It existed, it just petered out.

Look, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Either water consumption is a problem today, or it is not. If it is a problem, then golf courses are today a better target for people who want to solve the water problem than data centers. If water consumption is not a problem, then the data center's water consumption is not a problem.

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#133

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #31
lc9er wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Then then you live next to one.

No thanks, they are loud. I even called that out. But no one should be living next to them. Those people need to get their local government to regulate noise from all buildings. The companies won't do it on their own. (This is part of why I no longer help build them, because when I asked about reducing noise and using green power I was laughed at).

[deleted]

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#134

Post by bdangubic »

bloaf wrote: post #132
xboxnolifes wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look up articles from mid to late 2010s. There's where you will find frustration about golf courses, during the time where water restrictions were being put on residential lawns. Do not conflate the more recent, more successful campaign of anti-data-center sentiment with the non-existence of a past campaign against golf courses. It existed, it just petered out.

Look, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Either water consumption is a problem today, or it is not. If it is a problem, then golf courses are today a better target for people who want to solve the water problem than data centers. If water consumption is not a problem, then the data center's water consumption is not a problem.

if we limit the number of data centers so that it cannot exceed number of golf courses in any zipcode in america than this is a solid argument, otherwise it is strawman

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#135

Post by bigbadfeline »

agentultra wrote: post #22

> just about everything in modern life, from streaming Netflix to running a dishwasher, consumes water at levels that can be portrayed as wasteful by hair-shirt environmentalists. Ad-hominems in an Economist article. This reads more like an opinion piece than reporting. There are plenty of documented problems with water usage of data centres. Some can use it efficiently but it costs more to do so and many (most?) do…

> Ad-hominems in an Economist article.

As expected - that source rarely publishes anything else. Here's another pearl [1], where they're rejoicing over the kettle's burned color.

In both cases The Economist is totally blind about the economic foundations of the problems and there's no hint of a solution.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49580174 America has a whopping debt. But Europe has the whopping debt problem

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#136

Post by westurner »

agentultra wrote: post #22

> just about everything in modern life, from streaming Netflix to running a dishwasher, consumes water at levels that can be portrayed as wasteful by hair-shirt environmentalists. Ad-hominems in an Economist article. This reads more like an opinion piece than reporting. There are plenty of documented problems with water usage of data centres. Some can use it efficiently but it costs more to do so and many (most?) do…

> We are also in a time when most people would prefer to use that water for drinking, washing, cleaning… basically anything except data centres.

That is not what is indicated by consumer behavior.

Though it isn't healthiest, people prefer sugar water and so the sugar water companies have been able to afford to acquire water rights and they have driven up the cost of water.

Drilling holes through aquifers and not capping them, over-grazing and over-tilling, and wasteful industry production processes have driven up the cost of water.

Given a low-enough energy cost and basically unlimited salt water from the oceans, we shouldn't be out of water. There should not be coastal water scarcity.

Golf course, chip factory, almonds, fracking, lawns, swimming pools, or purple pipe golf course water?

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#137

Post by milkshakes »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #116
milkshakes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is not that AI is evil, but most of the people would have to learn new skills and adapt because the profession or job they trained at college doesn't exists anymore. isn't the problem then capitalism? the promise of AI is to deliver efficiencies, leverage, and consequent surplus. AI does not itself allocate the surplus.

> isn't the problem then capitalism? Nope, capitalism is not perfect, but it has lifted billions of people out of poverty and elevated their living standards. The hatred towards capitalism is as irrational as the hatred towards data centers. If you really want to find something to hate and blame all your problems, then blame it on corruption and incompetent politicians.

i'm not blaming all problems here, i'm blaming the allocation of surplus. it does seem at least at surface level that this is driven by capitalism?

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#138

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #136
agentultra wrote: post #22

> just about everything in modern life, from streaming Netflix to running a dishwasher, consumes water at levels that can be portrayed as wasteful by hair-shirt environmentalists. Ad-hominems in an Economist article. This reads more like an opinion piece than reporting. There are plenty of documented problems with water usage of data centres. Some can use it efficiently but it costs more to do so and many (most?) do…

> We are also in a time when most people would prefer to use that water for drinking, washing, cleaning… basically anything except data centres. That is not what is indicated by consumer behavior. Though it isn't healthiest, people prefer sugar water and so the sugar water companies have been able to afford to acquire water rights and they have driven up the cost of water. Drilling holes through aquifers and not capp…

> We need to use AI to redevelop AI datacenters in order to cancel the harms.

This is worth money. It is worth a lot of money to solve the AI data center sustainability problem. And, solving the AI datacenter sustainability would preserve the AI value multiplier in other sustainable process redesign efforts.

> We need to use AI to solve for global warming.

It's actually imperative;

"Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49576124#49578556

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#139

Post by cmoski »

timmg wrote: post #40

I was actually pretty worried that the anti-datacenter backlash would stunt and important industry (for the US). But I think the effect will be that the companies building them will "sweeten" the deal for the local towns where they are building -- probably by way of taxes. And while that will be a drag on their development (by adding costs), the scale won't be bad enough to really hurt. And in that sense, everyone wi…

Everybody wins? Come on...

Re: The moral panic over data centres is foolish

#140

Post by ok123456 »

goodmythical wrote: post #121
ok123456 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is quite a limb to go out on. What is the exact value proposition of AI as it exists right now for the average person who lives where these things are being built? They don't even get jobs. With golf, they can enjoy the outdoors and escape a little bit.

I'm not entirely certain, but I think a data center might just provide more temporary and permanent jobs than a golf course, and with likely higher mean and median wages. The golf park isn't even the best natural-adjacent use of the space. A regular park or a trail will service a significantly larger portion of the population than a private property that transfers wealth from the community to a single person or corpo…

>I'm not entirely certain, but I think a data center might just provide more temporary and permanent jobs than a golf course, and with likely higher mean and median wages.

Well, you're right to be uncertain. After they're built, once the crews that built them move on to the next one, they don't even bother to keep the lights on. They might hire private security guards to patrol the exterior, but that's hardly an infusion of capital into the community.

> The golf park isn't even the best natural-adjacent use of the space.

> A regular park or a trail will service a significantly larger portion of the population than a private property that transfers wealth from the community to a single person or corporation.

Ok. Then they can decide to build a nature trail instead. The local community should make the decision and not be coerced because someone from the coasts thinks that they're a minor annoyance that needs to be lectured on the future of humanity or whatever lessbad rational-du-jore is being peddled.

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