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Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

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Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#201

Post by gosub100 »

simianwords wrote: post #150
lossolo wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're joking, but "AI datacenter in space" is the kind of phrase that attracts investors, that's straight from Musk's playbook for keeping the stock trading at ridiculous P/Es, especially now that he is planning SpaceX IPO.

why does it attract investors if it is so obvious that it will fail? it is a ridiculous conspiracy theory you are trying to assert - musk comes up with an absurd idea that captures investor's attention. its not like he wants to make a good product, he just wants to fool investors. not only that, he fools them, gets the money and then puts said money into this venture that obviously won't work. why does he waste his t…

Because "investors" are a large group. Many of them are not involved in the industry and are clueless about tech. Same reason they invest in OpenAI, that hasn't made any money.

Investors, both commercial and individual, often have more money than sense.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#202

Post by beart »

coredog64 wrote: post #193
its_ethan wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Due to the United States Supreme Court ruling in Wisconsin v. Illinois, the State of Illinois is not subject to certain provisions of the compact pertaining to new or increased withdrawals or diversions from the Great Lakes. I mean it seems like there's already avenues to skirt around this compact? Also, from what I can tell, this isn't some sort of ban on using water from the Great Lakes basin, it's just a framewo…

I can understand concerns about moving thousands of acre-feet of water into the desert for cooling, or pumping your aquifer dry for the same thing. But moving water from the Great Lakes a few miles inland? How much water evaporates out of the Great Lakes every day, and what is the percentage increase when used for cooling?

Water levels have been down for years as-is. It may not seem like much now, but I think it's important to avoid a "tragedy of the commons" scenario in the future.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#203

Post by simianwords »

tokai wrote: post #186
simianwords wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have put as much money as I believe in it (risk adjusted). And same goes for Google, Spacex, Blue Origin and other companies. This trope > It is all pie in the sky ideas to drive valuation and increase Musk's wealth. Really needs to stop. This is based on a naive interpretation of how wealth gets created. Musk has an amazing reputation getting things done and making things that people like. Whether you like him as…

>Musk has an amazing reputation getting things done and making things that people like Are you trolling?

Almost everyone in the industry thinks this way.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#204

Post by mehlmao »

GorbachevyChase wrote: post #109
StarterPro wrote: post #92

There is no need for this many data centers. LLMs are a scourge on humanity as they are currently implemented, and what will they do when these are no longer needed? I can't wait until OpenAI, NVIDIA and Microsoft all go belly up.

A scourge? I get some kind of valuable use from it almost every day. This criticism sounds completely out of touch.

Do you have children? Post some pictures of them so Grok can show us what they look like unclothed and covered in "yogurt".

It's possible to imagine LLMs implemented responsibly, but our ruling class has decided against that.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#205

Post by bluedino »

slfnflctd wrote: post #134
e40 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that data centers have to be built near homes (or anywhere people live or work) is absurd. The US is huge and vast amounts of open spaces.

The people who work in the datacenters don't want a long commute. Also, in a remote area, the third parties the owners require for continual maintenance will be fewer, take longer to respond, likely cost more, and may be less qualified than those you can find in a more populated area.

Very few people work in datacenters

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#206

Post by webstrand »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #189
state_less wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously data center bidders would prefer their activity to be kept in the dark, but does that make for good outcomes for anyone else except the bidders. First, the community would like to weigh in on whether they want a data center or not, often they don't. Then if they do, they'd rather have a bidding war than some NDA backroom deal with a single entity. All this does is serve Big Tech and Big Capital, and they do…

I feel like the term "community" is leading intuitions astray here. The actual decision at question here is whether the local government provides the necessary approvals for a company to build what they want on their private property. It's good and proper for the government to consider the impacts on a local community before approving a big construction project. That process will need to involve some amount of open c…

Its the same argument for high-density hog farming. If the use of private property may impinge on the neighbors, either through invasive noise, or costs to public utility infrastructure (power, water) then the community ought to have some insight and input, same as they have input into whether a high density hog farm can open right on the border of the community.

Yes some people see the datacenters as part of an ethical issue. I agree its not proper for permits to be withheld on purely ethical grounds, laws should be passed instead. But there are a lot of side-effects to having a datacenter near your property that are entirely concrete issues.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#207

Post by simianwords »

lossolo wrote: post #174
simianwords wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does it attract investors if it is so obvious that it will fail? it is a ridiculous conspiracy theory you are trying to assert - musk comes up with an absurd idea that captures investor's attention. its not like he wants to make a good product, he just wants to fool investors. not only that, he fools them, gets the money and then puts said money into this venture that obviously won't work. why does he waste his t…

You should ask yourself this, not me, you're the one who blindly believes what Musk says. He also said he was creating a new political party in the US, how's that going? Did you believe him when he talked about landing people on Mars in 2018? It’s 2026. How is boring company going? etc. I think you're overinterpreting what I wrote and projecting. I'm telling you how the physics works, and the physics is simple here:…

So you have no clue why he's doing it? He's putting money in a thing that will obviously fail.

Either you are way way smarter than him, or he's doing this for some other ulterior motive.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#208

Post by simianwords »

tokai wrote: post #191
simianwords wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you think their stock will inflate?

Well it made you invest in them.

Yes because as I said I believe it will work out, so does Google, SpaceX, Blue Origin.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#209

Post by bluedino »

duped wrote: post #140
dguest wrote: post #39

I'd like to hear the argument for why this is needed. I can imagine a number of reasons, but this is all I found in the article: > If I’m a company considering making strategic investments... I don’t want my competition to know where I’m going, what I’m doing, what pace I’m doing it at... You want to make sure everything is buttoned up and bow tied before that type of information is put into the public realm. I'm hav…

> Whereas everyone here seems to assume it's to avoid NIMBY Literally every data center project that gets announced near me gets protested at council meetings, petitioned, and multiple series of reddit/bluesky posts about the project. It's hard to put into words for HN how deeply locals resent tech companies and AI. You could call it NIMBY, but the hatred is deeper than that. The sentiment is "you have enough money,…

They all blindly chant "no datacenters" across all forms of social media.

Ironic.

Re: Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers

#210

Post by josefresco »

eigencoder wrote: post #155
dguest wrote: post #39

I'd like to hear the argument for why this is needed. I can imagine a number of reasons, but this is all I found in the article: > If I’m a company considering making strategic investments... I don’t want my competition to know where I’m going, what I’m doing, what pace I’m doing it at... You want to make sure everything is buttoned up and bow tied before that type of information is put into the public realm. I'm hav…

Let me give you an anecdote that illustrates why it was needed in Eagle Mountain, Utah. One of my friends works for the city there and he told me about how the development went down. When the city council first heard that Facebook wanted to build a data center, they shot it down solely because of Facebook's reputation. A year or two later, Facebook proposed the exact same project to the city council, while keeping th…

I was curious so I looked it up. Your description of the events isn't quite accurate IMHO. There was an objection to a Meta datacenter, but then state lawmakers passed new laws after losing the business to NM. It doesn't look like anyone was "fooled" by the anonymous bid but rather they simply changed their minds/laws.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/05/22/utah-county-...

> In 2016, West Jordan City sought to land a Facebook data center by offering large tax incentives to the social media giant. That deal ultimately fell through amid opposition by Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams and a vote of conditional support by the Utah Board of Education that sought to cap the company’s tax benefits.

> That project went to New Mexico, which was offering even richer incentives.

> Three months after the Utah negotiations ended, state lawmakers voted in a special session to approve a sales tax exemption for data centers. The move was seen by many as another attempt to woo Facebook to the Beehive State.

So basically they first said "No", lost the bid, had FOMO so they passed new laws to attract this business.

>Asked about the identity of the company, Foxley said only that it is “a major technology company that wants to bring a data center to Utah.”

>And that vision could soon be a reality, after members of the Utah County Commission voted Tuesday to approve roughly $150 million in property tax incentives to lure an as-yet-unnamed company — that sounds an awful lot like Facebook — to the southern end of Pony Express Parkway.

Seems like a pretty open and obvious secret.

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