191–200 of 421 posts
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Most US citizens want to be an electrostate. This current administration wants to go back in time and try to be a petrostate....
That may not be true for much longer given the (disappointing) trend 2020 - 79 : 20 (renewables : fossil fuel) 2026 - 57 : 42 https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2026/04/03/americans-shi...
It’s reaching the point of absurdity in my area. People are bringing “All data centers are flammable” signs to city meetings. A plot of land that’s already zoned for the heaviest of industrial activities, is across the street from a dump, 3 miles from an airport, 16 miles from a nuclear generating station, and in a region with good climate, and no water crunch is a pretty good place for a data center. Facts don’t mat…
This isn't about efficiency, power, water, or fire. AT ALL.
Massive amounts of people have their jobs and livelihood threatened. The datacenters, which are enabling that, are being deployed in their neighborhoods while everyone in that neighborhood goes jobless. There is no plan of relief in the form of better economic policy, UBI, less taxation of actual humans, or anything else. That is the real crux of what is being fought.
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Is that all you have? Calling people sociopaths? No, I feel a great deal of empathy for and solidarity with my neighbors. Enough that I’ll argue for acting in our self-interest even if it’s unpopular. And what do you do when your neighbors are being mislead? When their fears, anxieties, and hardships are being exploited by demagogues attempting to consolidate their power by whipping them up into an unthinking emotion…
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> datacenters very measurably contribute to rising costs of electricity and climate change the people who make this true are the same people who oppose the data centers. if they just let people build solar and data centers neither of those things would be true.
Who’s saying not to build solar?
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Is that all you have? Calling people sociopaths? No, I feel a great deal of empathy for and solidarity with my neighbors. Enough that I’ll argue for acting in our self-interest even if it’s unpopular. And what do you do when your neighbors are being mislead? When their fears, anxieties, and hardships are being exploited by demagogues attempting to consolidate their power by whipping them up into an unthinking emotion…
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What do you propose building next to the dump? South of the airport? Zoned for heavy industrial use.
A playground?
I can tell you, based on local examples, that politicians are setting up deals to bring in data centers without trying to build community support first. Not only that, they are often signing NDAs that prohibit them from telling voters what they have agreed to. It's no way to operate in a democracy, and voters are right to be angry.
What is so objectionable about data centers anyway? That they consume utilities without employing a substantial amount of people? Compared to actual manufacturing like fabs the pollution concerns are laughable. The water use issue seems to be a wedge.
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Is that all you have? Calling people sociopaths? No, I feel a great deal of empathy for and solidarity with my neighbors. Enough that I’ll argue for acting in our self-interest even if it’s unpopular. And what do you do when your neighbors are being mislead? When their fears, anxieties, and hardships are being exploited by demagogues attempting to consolidate their power by whipping them up into an unthinking emotion…
It wasn't directed at you personally, but I think the fact that you dismiss opposition to data centers/AI as "fears, anxieties, and hardships" [...] "being exploited by demagogues attempting to consolidate their power" does reinforce my point. So does dismissing people's concerns as an "emotional frenzy". Ironically, that applies far more towards what the AI companies are working towards.
It’s an inditement of the people who used misinformation to bring people to that point.
I’m not dismissing their fears. Furthest thing from it.
I’m going out of my way to allay their fears by citing local circumstances and pointing out the potential benefits of development.
The loudest voices against have used hypothetical hyperscale data centers built in the desert as a model. Or exclusively talking about the Musk data centers.
I am not unclear: Data centers should not directly run on fossil fuels or the souls of orphans.
But on nuclear? Why not?
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you believe this?
Even OpenAI believes it, and found concrete evidence: https://openai.com/index/prc-linked-influence-operations-ai-...