Instead of ranting about nimbyism, why not go to these neighborhoods where people don't want to live next to datacenters, and offer to trade houses with them?
You get the datacenters you want, and they get the place they want without a datacenter. I know you won't, because you only think the consequences of a datacenter next door are just fine when its other people who have to deal with them.
What about the water treatment plant? Or the power station? Or the new subway line?
Why don't you go live in the woods since building anything where anyone doesn't want it built is so evil?
Maybe because you only think of the consequences of building things when it's for anything other than AI?
In many places these data centers make communities money. It's really not as black and white as you are making it. If I'm getting paid out I also am not sure why you think it's a trade nobody would make. Maybe you live in a very nice house.
I support UBI. No one should be poor in the United States. My goal would be telling someone "why don't you trade places with someone in x" in the United States should never feel like a threat. If I were to have to reside next to a data center to make this happen then so be it. Data centers are not the problem. Income inequality is. I think you have me confused with someone else.
What's your plan to solve income inequality? Don't build anything, crash the economy, and push more kids into student debt so they can take up bullshit knowledge work jobs?
I don't support that. The administration is the worst advocate for AI because they are so clearly corrupt. If local people pursue their economic self interest at the end of the day that's their right. This whole nimby thing was a diversion from my point about knowledge workers turning on AI. Perhaps I should have just ignored that comment.
If people want to stop a local data center then fine. I think it's bad national politics. But if it's helping these companies make better deals or find better places to go then good. What I object to is the doomerism about it, and the uncritical conflation of self interest with civic virtue or robust public policy.
You mean, utilities, run by the public for public benefit instead of private profit?
So you concede you don't care about private value in the face of public benefit?
Wow, you're really triggered by the idea that people should get a say about what happens in their lives.
You'll note I didn't oppose the datacenters - I offered a solution to getting the datacenters built. If you trade houses with the people who don't want a data center in the neighborhood you're getting the datacenter! It's just that you're so upset about someone else having the ability to affect their own lives that you aren't seeing that you have the same power, and can work towards your own perfect world with power plants and datacenters and sewage treatment plants and subway stops just down the street!
I think the problem with that plan is what I pointed out - you want other people to have all the downsides of those things in their neighborhood while you get the benefit. It's pretty sick to think that them not wanting the downsides is a problem, but you not wanting the downsides also means they have a problem. Fortunately there's a solution! Go form a YIMBY community that allows all the projects that have representatives promising benefits, and prove that the NIMBYs are all wrong. I'm 100% certain it will make you way happier.
> What's your plan to solve income inequality?
Well part of it starts by not giving giant companies with lots of money even more money in the form of tax breaks, extra access to government, and the ability to use eminent domain for their profit. All these thing grow income inequality.
However these AI ones are being built with all expenses spared. That's why they come with on-site electricity generation that is loud enough to keep the whole town awake at night and pollutes enough to give them all permanent asthma.
I lived by a datacenter in Cali and would happily do it again. It’s about the most benign form of “industrial” activity you could imagine.
I understand you're disappointed that people had the ability to choose things in their lives and didn't choose the thing you wanted. You can still do plenty to get the datacenters right across the street from you - sometimes in this world you have to work for the outcomes you want. IDK if it's fair or not, but it is how it seems to work out.
Those are two I know off the top of my head. There are others.
Why would you lie about something so easily dispoven?
That doesn’t support any argument against new builds nor does it support the notion that they are inherently noisy.
Also, in reply to your further up NIMBY nonsense suggesting I move.
I don’t think you understand how people operate. I like my small city and am upset idiots spread fear and harmed its prospects that we will pay for with continued anemic local employment, poorly budgeted infrastructure, etc.
I want to see good things here. I’m not just going to give up on it and go to some city that has its shit together on the business side.
Datacenters have been around for decades and the Dulles Tech Corridor, the ones around Portland, the SIX in Seattle, etc all have shown they can operate just fine.
> I understand you're disappointed that people had the ability to choose things in their lives and didn't choose the thing you wanted
No, I’m disappointed they did it based on ignorance and propaganda. There was no informed decision making going on. This is no different than people who voted against gay marriage because they thought their god would seek retribution through calamities.
This is a good point. Was it a data center across the street from somebody’s house when it was mining Bitcoin? Yes. Will it still be a data center across the street from somebody’s house when it reopens as an ai data center? Also yes
> I don’t think you understand how people operate.
Hahaha you think people care what the datacenters do.... and you accuse me of not understanding how people operate.