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There is simply no upside for the average person to weigh against the impacts. Data centers in particular are ghost factories, all the bad effects and no economic offsets.

If only the residents of cancer alley in Louisiana had the same opportunities to prevent chemical factories from ruining *their* local environment.

This isn't NIMBY, & calling it so is a really bad take. Data centers affect everyone on the same power grid, deplete water, spoil beloved rec areas, take up farmland, devalue property, spew toxins, make noise/vibration, & are ugly AF. In exchange they provide 0 benefit. They should be banned.

bsky.app/profile/carl... These are not typical, not just because the companies who are building them are irresponsible and inefficient, but because they're so massive. When the AI bubble bursts they will be unreusable eyesores, and a lot of resources will have been sucked up by them.

THIS ⬆️ And the AI companies spread this kind of propaganda to avoid responsibility for their actions. They want to convince people there are little conscious gremlins in the box doing all the bad things they WANT to do, but ofc, would never ever really do, not them 👼

A good read on it: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

I’d argue that the anger is due to the water usage & millions in tax breaks that state & local governments are giving the greedy tech companies

I'm not so sure about that take on water use

Assume they're also engaging in clandestine crypto mining using municipal infrastructure.

Very solid take which explains why we have had them for 70 years, built hundreds over the past decades, use them daily without reservation, and no one said a word or thought about them or pushed back in nearly any way until now.

And you get to pair that with - data centers don't *actually* create many jobs - if a data center goes in and your utilities go up, guess who's getting the blame (regardless of how much it actually causes it)

An additional element here is the way datacenters are being forced into small communities where they are (a) very noticeably not part of the landscape, and (b) obtaining permits in very undemocratic and corrupt ways, because they are in a hurry and don't respect the locals.

You slightly missed the fact that people don't want all the electrons and water in their neighbourhood being diverted to these things.

The world managed to regulate CFC's when the ozone crisis was recognised. The worlds governments should get their shit together and regulate AI

This makes logical sense, but the weird thing is we don't see a backlash against "tech" - Google is still extremely popular with the public, Meta less so but still very popular, etc. But there's massive outrage about the data centers, which I find a little hard to square still.

And they are increasing electric demand right when we’re need to be transitioning the grid to renewables as quickly as possible, and competing for building materials like steel, delaying solar projects.

A huge issue in politics, academia, medicine as well is that a bunch of people seem to have forgotten that when you say something in public to appeal to one group, people not in that group can also listen to it!

yeah I saw that, it's good

*to shine First line of my byline warns there will be typos. I strnd by it.

Just wrt your first highlighted paragraph there.

Tbf, Meta got exactly what it wanted in the settlement.