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Comment by simianwords | Hacker News Reader

It is completely organic and it is not new at all. Every step change in technology involved people like this (though this one is a bit unique in size).

This type of thinking: "slowing down", "being in harmony with nature", "be content with what you have" is the default mode of thinking for most rich/educated people.

(Note: this type of thinking comes at the upper echelons of Maslow's needs - impoverished third worlders don't have takes on it)

What I think is that most have had enough of chaotic progress and they just want some inkling of stability and some breathing space to even contemplate on the last 20 years of change. What they are instead seeing is a barrage of stuff thrown at them one after the other. I can understand them. And so should all of us.

The suggestion that this is a CCP play shows a lack of theory of mind.

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I haven't heard neither "being in harmony with nature", "be content with what you have", you are literally making them up.

But more importantly, it is not true that every step was like this. In my lifetime, AI is uniquely disliked and it is really its own fault. No other technology was booed in speeches, no other had equivalents of tokenmaxxing and top down push, no other promised dystopia and doom and gloom as selling strategy.

> No other technology was booed in speeches

NFTs, DRM, Linux at Microsoft conferences, Microsoft at Linux conferences, Google Glass, blockchain. Those have all been booed at some point. AI's not unique in that regard.

All of them are either harmful or gambling. And gambling is harmful. Like, people booging SBF or Holmes or Shkreli also does not prove anything about universal hate of tech. It is people booing frauds.

I give them that no one was idiotic enough to try to push NFT and crypto on students in commencement speech.

People are perfectly content to accept pollution if it provides actual jobs not just money for tech bro douchebags living on a yacht in Tahiti.

Instead of buying politicians if you want to build a datacenter start sponsoring the local high school gymnastics club. And for fuck sake never talk about how much you hate society and want to put people out of a job.

Silicon Valley is so terrible at PR. They could learn a thing or two from the industrialists of the early 20th century.

> start sponsoring the local high school gymnastics club

I would prefer using taxes instead of one-off theatrical gestures. And it looks like data centres already pay tax. Maybe what you want is higher taxes? Possibly a good idea if it doesn't disincentivise the construction in the first place.

What they want is neighbors invested in the same future as they are. “AI data centers” are just a very blunt expression of an industry that is banking on making schools, careers, and even interpersonal relationships obsolete. We used to start wars over this kind of threat to our “way of life”

> People are perfectly content to accept pollution if it provides actual jobs not just money for tech bro douchebags living on a yacht in Tahiti.

> And for fuck sake never talk about how much you hate society and want to put people out of a job.

Let's say for the sake of argument, AI eliminates most jobs. In that case, the government will need to replace income tax.

Will the American government have an easier time taxing the physical datacenter in the United States or the billionaire that owns it in Tahiti?

And will the American government have any ability to tax a datacenter built in Dubai because there was too much bureaucracy in Virginia?

> They could learn a thing or two from the industrialists of the early 20th century.

We could learn a thing or two from the industrialists of the 18th century, who built all their infrastructure in the United Kingdom because it was convenient for them.

The British government's early advantage in factories snowballed into the largest empire on Earth and they maintained the advantage until WW2.

> Will the American government have an easier time taxing the physical datacenter in the United States or the billionaire that owns it in Tahiti?

The datacenters already get long term tax deductions, probably easier to tax the billionaire's assets with a wealth tax on stock market assets...

> Let's say for the sake of argument, AI eliminates most jobs. In that case, the government will need to replace income tax.

In this case, these people have no future and no hope. Their kids have no future. Rejecting the AI datacenter that is causing that and in addition polluting is just logical consequence. In this alternative future, poor people will get nothing from government. Rich CEOS will see them as leeches, they will have no electoral power and the taxes will be used only to survey and harm them.

Considering rich CEOs fight tooth and nail against any taxation and pay minimal taxes on their companies, if they get their way, neither will pay taxes.

> And will the American government have any ability to tax a datacenter built in Dubai because there was too much bureaucracy in Virginia?

Well, government thoughtfully killed any chance of stability in Dubai, so you probably dont want data center there anyway. Drones and missies, you know. But, again, since it dont pay taxes and presumably will move away if it is forced to pay them, who cares.

>> The suggestion that this is a CCP play shows a lack of theory of mind.

As if destruction / denigration of US AI / cloud / IT infrastructure wouldn't massively benefit the CCP. Surely there's no correlation there at all, just means, motive, and opportunity, but I'm sure it's nothing.

other side:

what benefit does an AI datacenter bring to a community?

why wouldn't people complain?

on that note, if LLMs dissappeared tomorrow, what would be the loss for common folk?

Solution seems simple, build them away from communities, arrange for sustainable power generation and water use, problem is that eats into datacenter profits...

I think both explanations are not mutually exclusive.

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