3 ms·

We live in a free society. No one votes on companies building things and expanding their enterprises. That would be socialism

fuzzer371 10mo ago
Doesn't sound too free to me
t-writescode 10mo ago
On the contrary, companies building things is *constantly* under scrutiny for local building plans. That’s literally what the NIMBY / YIMBY movements are all about - using political clout and power (especially including voting) to affect what can and cannot be built.
- graeme 10mo ago
  That's not quite correct. There's a lot of NIMBY pressure in cities, where land is scarce and there's lots of people to attend planning meetings to block building. However, if you want to build a datacenter, you don't need to build it in downtown Manhattan. You can build it anywhere, and some places make it easy to build data centers. By definition local restrictions apply locally. If you want more housing in Manhattan then Manhattan nimbyism really matters. But if you want to build a data center somewhere you have a lot of options. There's no nationwide vote on allowing datacenter construction.
  - nemomarx 10mo ago
    I do wonder if you'll see local community NIMBYs about it though. Electricity prices near data centers go up, right?
    - jeffbee 10mo ago
      No, they go down, obviously if you think about it. Having a huge volume consumer nearby amortizes away the fixed costs of the grid, which are massive. https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1040619025000612-gr5_lrg.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S10406190250006...
      - t-writescode 10mo ago
        Except, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electricity-prices/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec... > Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.
        jeffbee 10mo ago
        Yeah I don't have the inclination to repeat myself but it's a bad article based on bad data and flawed reasoning. Bloomberg also ran this article, by the same author, that says AI data centers are interfering with your applicances, which is also pure bullshit. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-power-home-appliances/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-power-home-applia...
      - cowsandmilk 10mo ago
        What fixed costs of the grid? In Northern Virginia, we’re constantly adding substations and transmission lines because the grid isn’t a fixed cost when you’re building data centers constantly; it quickly becomes a variable cost.
    - jonas21 10mo ago
      > Electricity prices near data centers go up, right? I hear this a lot, but the most comprehensive study I've seen found the opposite -- that retail electricity prices tend to decrease as load (from datacenters and other consumers) increases [1]. The places where electricity prices have increased the most since 2019 (California, Hawaii, and the Northeast) are not places where they're building a lot of new datacenters. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040619025000612 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061902...
  - t-writescode 10mo ago
    While that’s true, and there are several locations that are using their local authority to perform those actions; but, *all* of that is power wielded by elected officials. The smaller the location the less “who voted for this” likely means anything because the decisions that are made that impact all of us are made by a smaller and smaller number of people with less and less authority, but it is still voted for.
wolvoleo 10mo ago
Socialism is the way for people to be free. Extreme capitalism is the way for the ultra rich and their companies to be free.
- monero-xmr 10mo ago
  Socialism is the way for the majority to constrict the individual. You may want that but I do not
  - platevoltage 10mo ago
    Corporations aren't people, Mitt.
    - monero-xmr 10mo ago
      I don't want to have the will of democracy applied to every commerce decision made
      - platevoltage 10mo ago
        oooookay, is anyone suggesting that?
hshdhdhj4444 10mo ago
Yeah, and who gets to vote on bailing these companies out when their finances collapse and picking up the collateral damage? OpenAI is already normalizing the eventual bailout.
- monero-xmr 10mo ago
  I wish, so so deeply in my bones, that after the 2008 financial crisis we just let everything fail. Fail fail fail, pain, turmoil. But after the pain would have been a much better, fairer system, where large banks and other "systemically important companies" like insurers would actually have to watch what they are doing, and prove they are careful stewards of money. As an aside, basically all hedge funds in America park their funds in the Cayman Islands. Nobody is going to bail out the Cayman Islands (other than hedge funds). So I would hope that if a series of large hedge funds fail, holding myriad funds of high net worth individuals, they just fail
  - coliveira 10mo ago
    The Fed was created EXACTLY to bail out large banks when they inevitably fail due to the nature of their mismanaged business. Don't expect anything different.
    - monero-xmr 10mo ago
      You can imagine my opinion on the fed!
jscottmiller 10mo ago
This is false - the way these data centers are financed and built is a direct result of the financial and legal systems established and enforced by our government. I do not say this to argue for more or less construction, but to point out that it is as much a creation of our society as the NHS is of the UK.
- jeffbee 10mo ago
  I have a hard time seeing the truth of your statement. If I think about where Google's largest data centers are located in America, they are all on former industrial sites that had access to large amounts of power and water, like the old Gatorade factory in Oklahoma. While you can argue I guess that this choice, like everything else, was the product of all choices made by society prior, I am not seeing a direct connection between financial and legal incentives and the siting of those data centers.
- eli_gottlieb 10mo ago
  Nonetheless, we did not vote directly for or against any particular data-center. They don't go up for a vote that way. It would take forever and nothing would get built if you gave voters a possible veto on literally every single thing.
kmeisthax 10mo ago
Publicly traded companies with shareholder voting are socialist now? Like, here's the purely greed-driven capitalist argument: "Why are you throwing my investment away on a specious gamble that we can 100x America's datacenter buildout with a capex spend that would dwarf the actual government?"
platevoltage 10mo ago
A free society, with a masked police force.

fuzzer371 10mo ago

Doesn't sound too free to me

t-writescode 10mo ago

On the contrary, companies building things is *constantly* under scrutiny for local building plans. That’s literally what the NIMBY / YIMBY movements are all about - using political clout and power (especially including voting) to affect what can and cannot be built.

graeme 10mo ago
That's not quite correct. There's a lot of NIMBY pressure in cities, where land is scarce and there's lots of people to attend planning meetings to block building. However, if you want to build a datacenter, you don't need to build it in downtown Manhattan. You can build it anywhere, and some places make it easy to build data centers. By definition local restrictions apply locally. If you want more housing in Manhattan then Manhattan nimbyism really matters. But if you want to build a data center somewhere you have a lot of options. There's no nationwide vote on allowing datacenter construction.
- nemomarx 10mo ago
  I do wonder if you'll see local community NIMBYs about it though. Electricity prices near data centers go up, right?
  - jeffbee 10mo ago
    No, they go down, obviously if you think about it. Having a huge volume consumer nearby amortizes away the fixed costs of the grid, which are massive. https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1040619025000612-gr5_lrg.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S10406190250006...
    - t-writescode 10mo ago
      Except, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-electricity-prices/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec... > Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.
      - jeffbee 10mo ago
        Yeah I don't have the inclination to repeat myself but it's a bad article based on bad data and flawed reasoning. Bloomberg also ran this article, by the same author, that says AI data centers are interfering with your applicances, which is also pure bullshit. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-power-home-appliances/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-power-home-applia...
    - cowsandmilk 10mo ago
      What fixed costs of the grid? In Northern Virginia, we’re constantly adding substations and transmission lines because the grid isn’t a fixed cost when you’re building data centers constantly; it quickly becomes a variable cost.
  - jonas21 10mo ago
    > Electricity prices near data centers go up, right? I hear this a lot, but the most comprehensive study I've seen found the opposite -- that retail electricity prices tend to decrease as load (from datacenters and other consumers) increases [1]. The places where electricity prices have increased the most since 2019 (California, Hawaii, and the Northeast) are not places where they're building a lot of new datacenters. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040619025000612 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061902...
- t-writescode 10mo ago
  While that’s true, and there are several locations that are using their local authority to perform those actions; but, *all* of that is power wielded by elected officials. The smaller the location the less “who voted for this” likely means anything because the decisions that are made that impact all of us are made by a smaller and smaller number of people with less and less authority, but it is still voted for.

wolvoleo 10mo ago

Socialism is the way for people to be free. Extreme capitalism is the way for the ultra rich and their companies to be free.

monero-xmr 10mo ago
Socialism is the way for the majority to constrict the individual. You may want that but I do not
- platevoltage 10mo ago
  Corporations aren't people, Mitt.
  - monero-xmr 10mo ago
    I don't want to have the will of democracy applied to every commerce decision made
    - platevoltage 10mo ago
      oooookay, is anyone suggesting that?

hshdhdhj4444 10mo ago

Yeah, and who gets to vote on bailing these companies out when their finances collapse and picking up the collateral damage? OpenAI is already normalizing the eventual bailout.

monero-xmr 10mo ago
I wish, so so deeply in my bones, that after the 2008 financial crisis we just let everything fail. Fail fail fail, pain, turmoil. But after the pain would have been a much better, fairer system, where large banks and other "systemically important companies" like insurers would actually have to watch what they are doing, and prove they are careful stewards of money. As an aside, basically all hedge funds in America park their funds in the Cayman Islands. Nobody is going to bail out the Cayman Islands (other than hedge funds). So I would hope that if a series of large hedge funds fail, holding myriad funds of high net worth individuals, they just fail
- coliveira 10mo ago
  The Fed was created EXACTLY to bail out large banks when they inevitably fail due to the nature of their mismanaged business. Don't expect anything different.
  - monero-xmr 10mo ago
    You can imagine my opinion on the fed!

jscottmiller 10mo ago

This is false - the way these data centers are financed and built is a direct result of the financial and legal systems established and enforced by our government. I do not say this to argue for more or less construction, but to point out that it is as much a creation of our society as the NHS is of the UK.

jeffbee 10mo ago
I have a hard time seeing the truth of your statement. If I think about where Google's largest data centers are located in America, they are all on former industrial sites that had access to large amounts of power and water, like the old Gatorade factory in Oklahoma. While you can argue I guess that this choice, like everything else, was the product of all choices made by society prior, I am not seeing a direct connection between financial and legal incentives and the siting of those data centers.
eli_gottlieb 10mo ago
Nonetheless, we did not vote directly for or against any particular data-center. They don't go up for a vote that way. It would take forever and nothing would get built if you gave voters a possible veto on literally every single thing.

kmeisthax 10mo ago

Publicly traded companies with shareholder voting are socialist now? Like, here's the purely greed-driven capitalist argument: "Why are you throwing my investment away on a specious gamble that we can 100x America's datacenter buildout with a capex spend that would dwarf the actual government?"

platevoltage 10mo ago

A free society, with a masked police force.