4 ms·

You guys really don't get it, do you? You've got these people going on TV and doing interviews saying that this new technology will be capable of replacing hug

by CPLX 4mo ago

You guys really don't get it, do you? You've got these people going on TV and doing interviews saying that this new technology will be capable of replacing huge amounts of jobs. The people that say that most jobs will be eliminated by AI are making direct threats of violence against the families of millions of people. Telling someone that they will no longer have any way of feeding their children is telling them that you're going to kill their family. I'm not saying this to convince you that that's true. You could make some counter-arguments to that, and I'm sure people will come along and do that. The point is to understand it that that's how it's perceived by the people hearing it. And then to add insult to injury, they want to come do it in your town. They want to pitch a giant "development" project. But remember nobody ever wants “development” except for the fact that it might bring jobs and economic growth, to them, not you living somewhere else. Meanwhile, you've already told them that the reason we need so many more data centers all of a sudden is specifically so that we can eliminate whatever jobs are left that we didn't get a chance to eliminate over the last several decades when we exported most of the jobs we could to different countries. By the way we're the same assholes who said "trust us" last time, and pitched the idea that it would lead to a prosperous future for everyone. Instead you made money off sending the jobs to china, capturing all excess value with software, and addicting our children to opioids. And your next exciting offer for us is a giant windowless building that will take up open land, nature, and yes, water and electricity, and employ almost nobody. People don't feel like they control a whole lot, but they do have some ability to complain about this thing happening where they live. The actions of people opposing these data centers are completely rational. If I'm trying to make one point, that's it. The actually interesting part of this back and forth on HN is that Silicon Valley (aka "tech") culture has grown so fundamentally rotten at its core that not only do people not have values that place humans first, they can't even recognize when other people do.

tptacek 4mo ago
You could just say "I concede the point on water but stand by the rest of what I wrote". Instead, all this.
- CPLX 4mo ago
  My original post that started this discussion did not mention water: > The ratio of jobs and taxes to local resources tied up has to be one of the worst possible trade-offs of any industrial use that you can envision. That is precisely why data centers are proving to be profoundly unpopular. Nonetheless I can see that fixating on this instead of my obviously correct point which is that people absolutely hate data centers and the sociopathic tech billionaires behind them for rational reasons is a good dodge. Hardly unexpected when I am posting on the promotional discussion board of a private equity firm responsible for launching many of these sociopaths into society. My later comment about water usage is both unneeded for that point to stand and trivially proven true.
  - tptacek 4mo ago
    It can't just be that we disagree about this issue; no, it must be the "private equity firm's" fault.
    - CPLX 4mo ago
      This is a story about Microsoft building data centers and people opposing it. So yes, one of the two key players here is the heavily financed tech sector. Starting to think these disingenuous replies are in fact the point here. Since none of of these conversations on HN make much difference anyways, my only hope is that one person, somewhere, who is a part of the "tech community" that usually gathers here (and of which I am a longtime member) becomes newly aware that people fucking hate us now for excellent and extremely well-supported reasons and thinks a little about how that happened and how they might change it.
      - tptacek 4mo ago
        I simply disagree with you. I'm not a fan of populism, and, more importantly, I think that people have had very good reason to "fucking hate us" for decades --- we are in the business of automating away people's jobs, and have been since the 1960s. It's fine that you think the discussion is unproductive; I agree, our premises are too far apart to get anywhere. But you'd get further with, well, everybody that doesn't already agree with you if you'd stop accusing anybody who doesn't agree with you of being "disingenuous".
phil21 4mo ago
> But remember nobody ever wants “development” except for the fact that it might bring jobs and economic growth, to them, not you living somewhere else. This is really the only point that matters. It's held true my whole life, and I expect it will be true until I die. Doesn't matter what you build. I was watching a couple transmission line projects over the past decade that are still in the "lawsuits and community rage" phase - proposed to bring wind farm watts to load centers - and now they will likely be killed since the anti-development folks can pretend they were always due to Datacenters. Datacenters are just an easy scapegoat for the anti-development crowd. It's been amazing to watch how quickly it's gone, and how folks have such a strong opinion on stuff that otherwise would have been built half a mile from them and they'd never have known any better until they were told to care. The rest of what you wrote is largely social media driven ragebait in comment form. Kernels of truth, but largely immaterial. Datacenter land use is the least interesting thing you could possibly discuss. Knocking out some corn fields and building some warehouses off the road no one can see or hear, with almost no traffic to/from them after construction is pretty much the lowest possible bar for local community impact for quite literally any project. It change nothing for anyone, other than the farmers who sold the land and that a few local trades companies have a couple decades of stable highly paid employment. Therefore, the only way to get communities up in arms about these things is basically lie about it. It's going to be a real head scratcher to folks when electricity rates continue to march upwards even if they get all AI datacenter construction banned. The green tech crowd who had the datacenter bogeyman land in their lap is playing an exceedingly dangerous game here. What we are largely seeing is the bill coming due for generational lack of investment into the grid. If your local community can't figure out how to get the money raining down from the skies like it is now to subsidize the build out of your local infrastructure for something as minor as municipal water treatment in Wisconsin You likely will never be building anything at all.
- CPLX 4mo ago
  Who's lying about it? https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unempl... The people who want these data centers are telling us that the reason that they want them is to keep momentum on their plans to destroy our entire way of life. They just say it. They go on TV and do interviews and say it out loud. So then everyone who has any ability to stop it in any possible way tries to do that. What exactly the fuck do you think they're going to do? And more importantly, what causes you to feel that it's obvious that they are only coming to these opinions through ignorance? Lumping together anti-data-center sentiment with anti-development sentiment in general is bullshit. Yes, there are certainly impossible to negotiate with NIMBYs who don't like apartment buildings because they cast shadows on a sidewalk corner or something. That has nothing to do with this. The politics of data centers are completely different. If this was a real, actual job-creating industrial project, people would react differently.

by CPLX 4mo ago

tptacek 4mo ago

You could just say "I concede the point on water but stand by the rest of what I wrote". Instead, all this.

CPLX 4mo ago
My original post that started this discussion did not mention water: > The ratio of jobs and taxes to local resources tied up has to be one of the worst possible trade-offs of any industrial use that you can envision. That is precisely why data centers are proving to be profoundly unpopular. Nonetheless I can see that fixating on this instead of my obviously correct point which is that people absolutely hate data centers and the sociopathic tech billionaires behind them for rational reasons is a good dodge. Hardly unexpected when I am posting on the promotional discussion board of a private equity firm responsible for launching many of these sociopaths into society. My later comment about water usage is both unneeded for that point to stand and trivially proven true.
- tptacek 4mo ago
  It can't just be that we disagree about this issue; no, it must be the "private equity firm's" fault.
  - CPLX 4mo ago
    This is a story about Microsoft building data centers and people opposing it. So yes, one of the two key players here is the heavily financed tech sector. Starting to think these disingenuous replies are in fact the point here. Since none of of these conversations on HN make much difference anyways, my only hope is that one person, somewhere, who is a part of the "tech community" that usually gathers here (and of which I am a longtime member) becomes newly aware that people fucking hate us now for excellent and extremely well-supported reasons and thinks a little about how that happened and how they might change it.
    - tptacek 4mo ago
      I simply disagree with you. I'm not a fan of populism, and, more importantly, I think that people have had very good reason to "fucking hate us" for decades --- we are in the business of automating away people's jobs, and have been since the 1960s. It's fine that you think the discussion is unproductive; I agree, our premises are too far apart to get anywhere. But you'd get further with, well, everybody that doesn't already agree with you if you'd stop accusing anybody who doesn't agree with you of being "disingenuous".

phil21 4mo ago

> But remember nobody ever wants “development” except for the fact that it might bring jobs and economic growth, to them, not you living somewhere else. This is really the only point that matters. It's held true my whole life, and I expect it will be true until I die. Doesn't matter what you build. I was watching a couple transmission line projects over the past decade that are still in the "lawsuits and community rage" phase - proposed to bring wind farm watts to load centers - and now they will likely be killed since the anti-development folks can pretend they were always due to Datacenters. Datacenters are just an easy scapegoat for the anti-development crowd. It's been amazing to watch how quickly it's gone, and how folks have such a strong opinion on stuff that otherwise would have been built half a mile from them and they'd never have known any better until they were told to care. The rest of what you wrote is largely social media driven ragebait in comment form. Kernels of truth, but largely immaterial. Datacenter land use is the least interesting thing you could possibly discuss. Knocking out some corn fields and building some warehouses off the road no one can see or hear, with almost no traffic to/from them after construction is pretty much the lowest possible bar for local community impact for quite literally any project. It change nothing for anyone, other than the farmers who sold the land and that a few local trades companies have a couple decades of stable highly paid employment. Therefore, the only way to get communities up in arms about these things is basically lie about it. It's going to be a real head scratcher to folks when electricity rates continue to march upwards even if they get all AI datacenter construction banned. The green tech crowd who had the datacenter bogeyman land in their lap is playing an exceedingly dangerous game here. What we are largely seeing is the bill coming due for generational lack of investment into the grid. If your local community can't figure out how to get the money raining down from the skies like it is now to subsidize the build out of your local infrastructure for something as minor as municipal water treatment in Wisconsin You likely will never be building anything at all.

CPLX 4mo ago
Who's lying about it? https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unempl... The people who want these data centers are telling us that the reason that they want them is to keep momentum on their plans to destroy our entire way of life. They just say it. They go on TV and do interviews and say it out loud. So then everyone who has any ability to stop it in any possible way tries to do that. What exactly the fuck do you think they're going to do? And more importantly, what causes you to feel that it's obvious that they are only coming to these opinions through ignorance? Lumping together anti-data-center sentiment with anti-development sentiment in general is bullshit. Yes, there are certainly impossible to negotiate with NIMBYs who don't like apartment buildings because they cast shadows on a sidewalk corner or something. That has nothing to do with this. The politics of data centers are completely different. If this was a real, actual job-creating industrial project, people would react differently.