Anger over Data Centers Is Fueling a New Political Movementtca | Hacker News Reader

Anger over Data Centers Is Fueling a New Political Movementtca

8 pointsdoener22 comments

I've worked in DCs for the last 7 years - Where is all this hysteria coming from about them taking water?

Out of the 10 DCs that I rotate throughout in my work week, I've only seen 2 tiny little water treatment rooms and no other places where water is supposedly stolen or siphoned on a massive scale.

I know they keep water in tanks on hand for sprinkler systems and yes, there's a lot but it's not like they need to replace water that they already have. Is it all propaganda?

Not sure if it is really a "movement" but it is the first glimmer of something that transcends D-R polarization. Like if any election is perceived to be a referendum on data centers, data centers lose, and it doesn't matter if it is red state or blue state or if the candidate presents as lefty or righty.

I suspect its popular in part, because it feels like fixing "the problem" without actually having to change your own behaviour at all. Don't need to change my gas guzzler, or fly less, or change your diet. I support the goal, but worry its a distraction.

https://tuhat.net/@sbr/p/change-for-the-climate

What if AI can find a better solution in the future?

What if I hope for a genie to emerge from a lamp in order to grant me wishes?

The problem with political organizing in order to solve ecological or environmental problems is that it makes too much logical sense. For solving the problem, that is. It’s better to not build a data center in the first place than to build a data center and then fight against its use. It’s better to build and retrofit transportation architecture than to scold people who are not Work From Home workers to not drive to work. Which is why it gets attacked with non sequitors about feeling like you are solving the problem without having done your own personal penance.[1]

Your linked ChatGPT-structured listicle is sound in what it proposes for the individual, but spends no time motivating the change or balancing out of political organizing. Like how to balance individual action versus political action? A big fat nothing. The one single hinge: evErY cHanGe MatteRs. This trivial observation is supposed to balance nine individual-effort phrased points versus one limp-wristed political action point.

At least it admits its corporate stooge tradition by mentioning BP and “carbon footprint”.

We are told that we need a cutthroat and efficient economy for commodities. For sweaters and automobiles. But for not ruining the planet? We need to incentivize individuals to not-do-bad-things. These are not serious ideas.

> I support the goal, but worry its a distraction.

You support people opposing data centers. Presumably you think that building them is bad. And presumably pressure against data centers can help them not be built. Which means that you would get less of the bad things. And yet this development which can cause less of the bad things is a distraction? This isn’t really coherent.

[1]: Curiously this critique is about feeling like you are solving the problem without the consequence explicitly outlined as not solving the problem. Is feeling better while also helping solve the problem... a problem?

This is 100% correct and downvoted. I guess because some like distracting from actual working organizing.

> or change your diet.

That part reads like parody.

The changes on the individual consumer side do the least. They are just a deflection from what actually needs to be done - regulations and enforcement over industrial polluters.

I disagree. If someone isn’t willing to make changes in their own life to support something they claim to care about, then I’m extremely unwilling to listen to them.

It might not be dietary change to veganism, but when I ask, “What steps have you taken…” I want to hear a reasonable answer, not “Well if I change it doesn’t matter so someone else needs to change…”

I want to see changes that actually have results rather then hear constant demands for pointless virtue signaling. "Unless you all start doing this ever expanding list of useless signals, I will oppose all actually useful regulations and changes" is being intentionally obtuse.

"I will prevent wind powerplants, I will scream 'communism' each time some wants cleaner plants, I will pretend global warning does not exist, because every single person who wants to do opposite did not turned themselves into vegetarian and some people still fly". Oh, and I also pretend I am the only not hypocritical one here.

Oh no, I know that I am hypocritical if that is what you mean. If the Earth was cooling too fast and we were implored to drive more, fly more, etc., I wouldn't do it. It just happens that the way I like to live happens to be the best way to exist in the Western world when it comes to climate change.

> It might not be dietary change to veganism, but when I ask, “What steps have you taken…”

Agitating for political change.

Congrats, how's that going lol

Dunno what you are asking me for. That’s what the hypothetical person that you are confronting about their personal halo is doing.

I actually linked a whole article about this point. Yes BP popularised personal carbon footprint to deflect responsibility. But actually in yge short term dramatically reducing methane is one of the most impactful things we can do as while it has a short half life its 80x more impactful than carbon. And the majority of methane comes from agriculture.

We are no longer at the point of do x instead of y. We need to do it all, put fossil fuel comapnies out of business and change your diet.

Seems to be missing a link, somehow. Perhaps this:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/08/02/the-new-lu...

Would love to see a person on the street segment where people get to rail against data centers and are then asked to select the data center from a lineup of buildings.

What a strange fantasy.

I suppose everything is okay as long as it's done inside of a building.

I'm not sure how that's your takeaway?

I would hope that somebody who hates something could at least identify the thing they hate?

It's not the exterior facade that people have an issue with.

No, you don’t understand: people say they might dislike asbestos and want to not live in an environment with it, but how could they possibly have that stance if they were not able to recognize asbestos by sight, smell, or touch...

There’s nothing like those irrelevant TV gotcha segments. Wow, we were able to find five ignorant people (out of [?]), what a joke of a cause.

You don’t want this proposed nuclear power plant because you are afraid of a nuclear meltdown? Well you thought that those plumes were emissions but they are actually steam, idiot.

Go home. Watch the TV. Don’t express any opinions. That’s right. Good citizen.

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