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Comment by SpicyLemonZest | Hacker News Reader

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 community consultation, and reasonable minds can differ on when and how that needs to start. The article describes a concrete proposal at the end, where NDAs would be allowed for the due diligence phase but not once the formal approval process begins; that seems fine.

It's not good and improper for the government to selectively withhold approval for politically disfavored industries, or to host a "bidding war" where anyone seeking approvals must out-bribe their competitors.

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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.

Why shouldn't permits be withheld on ethical grounds? Isn't that just giving permission for companies to be unethical and get away with it?

If a government wants to penalize companies for unethical behavior, they should pass a neutral and generally applicable law that provides for such penalties. Withholding permission to do random things based on ad hoc judgments of the company involved is a recipe for corruption.

Clearly there needs to be room for both things to occur. You should absolutely begin with passing laws, but to think that the laws on the books can cover every situation is naive. When companies skirt the law and cause harm, there needs to be a remedy.

I don't agree. The benefits of a business environment governed by due process and the rule of law far outweigh the benefits of individual government actors having arbitrary discretion to fill the gaps. As we've seen clearly on the federal level this past year, once you create that discretion, the common way for corporate executives to "prove" that they're nice and generous and deserve favorable treatment is not good behavior but open bribery of public officials.

Bribery is illegal. What hope do you have for due process and the rule of law when it is being carried out as it is now? You can't use an extraordinary case to justify your belief about the ordinary case.

Also, we don't live in a world adjudicated by machines, there will always be discretion and the potential for special favors. No matter how much you tie the hands of regulators there will be some actor who will have the power to extort. Not to mention that regulation is not opposed to due process and the rule of law, but is the most important component of both.

Imagining a world without discretion is imagining a world where corporations can do as much irreparable harm as they want as long as there isn't a law against it.

I agree with you. this should be handled by the legislative process. but we should also agree that secret deals announced as a fiat acompli are pretty fertile ground for corruption also

Right, and as I said I agree with that. But is there any reason to worry that communities aren't getting the input they're entitled to? The article mentions one case in the Madison suburbs, where "officials worked behind the scenes for months" and yet the residents were able to get the project cancelled when the NDA broke and they decided they didn't want it.

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