> I never said there was??
You distinguished data centers from other types of facilities on the basis of those other facilities having external effects that are "essential to a community", and then used that distinction as a basis for arguing that it's acceptable to restrict the construction of data centers.
Arguing that it's OK to restrict activities because they aren't generating positive externalities is equivalent to arguing for rules that mandate positive externalities.
> I said the online AI fervor brings eyeballs to local datacenter projects and once people are aware of these projects they are against them because of the negative impacts to their community not simply because they are against AI if they even are. In fact many people in Utah are pro AI but against the construction of Stratos simply because it is _bad_for_their_community_.
That seems a little dubious to me, since I'd expect people who are against large commercial developments regardless of how they're being used to already be aware of proposed development projects without having to learn of them via online AI hype. The sorts of NIMBY-minded folks you're talking about are the sort that routinely monitor municipal governance, and especially things like building permit issuances, zoning board discussions, etc.
My suspicion is that the people you're talking about here are anti-AI activists trying to make a "parallel construction" argument to advance their position.
> Many of those governments are responsive to the people and the people _do_not_want_ datacenters in their community.
This doesn't add up. New data centers are being built regularly, so it's not possible for all of the premises of your argument ("data centers require government approval", "governments are responsive to the people", "the people are opposed to data center construction") to be true, since data centers would not be constructed if they were. At least one of these premises must be false, and I think there's a strong possibility that all three may be false.