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I clicked the article expecting to see some feel-good political grandstanding (I'm a bit cynical these days) but honestly, this seems like a decent approach. Pa

I clicked the article expecting to see some feel-good political grandstanding (I'm a bit cynical these days) but honestly, this seems like a decent approach. Pause approvals for a year giving breathing room for researching the impacts, and hopefully address them.

declan_roberts 5mo ago
Are data centers a new and mysterious technology?
- babypuncher 5mo ago
  The mad rush to build datacenters at this unprecedented scale is already wreaking havoc on the consumer economy. The needs of everyday people are far more important than the whims of a few trillion dollar tech companies run by billioinaires.
  - throwaway198846 5mo ago
    These are not new or unpredictable impacts.
    - kube-system 5mo ago
      The scale is new, and impacts are predictable, thus the moratorium.
  - fintechjock 5mo ago
    How are they harming consumers? I would think that consumers would vastly benefit from cheaper software, nearly unlimited cloud storage, lower property taxes. Heck, the next generation of data centers are looking like they will actually be net energy producers. Consumers might not know that they benefit from data centers, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t
    - wat10000 5mo ago
      The massive spike in the price of RAM is making consumer electronics more expensive and worse.
      - fintechjock 5mo ago
        True, for the average HN consumer But a new iPhone Pro is $154 cheaper than it was in 2020 when adjusted for inflation, and that is probably all the average consumer really cares about
        intrikate 5mo ago
        It seems to me that anyone going out of their way to compare current prices against prices from five or more years ago to adjust for inflation is not the average consumer, and shouldn't be juxtaposed as such.
        macNchz 5mo ago
        To my understanding Apple's supply contracts have allowed them to keep prices flat compared to other brands, but the price of non-Mac desktops and laptops are absolutely ballooning right now because of the supply of memory chips. Apple themselves just last month increased the base price of the Mac Mini by 33% from $599 to $799. The smartphone market appears to be affected as well: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-smartphone-market-faces-record-annual-decline-chip-crunch-worsens-2026-06-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-smartphone-market...
        wat10000 5mo ago
        High margin products are often the last to be impacted at retail because the seller has some cushion. And the impacts are only just getting started. We see the MacBook Neo with a somewhat sad 8GB RAM, most likely due to this. We'll see a combination of just plain higher prices (Steam Deck and Switch 2 have both gone up) and shrinkflation in the form of lower specs.
        fintechjock 5mo ago
  - gruez 5mo ago
    That's a fair complaint, but banning data centers in NY isn't going to make RAM or GPU prices cheaper.
    - autoexec 5mo ago
      Anything that slows their expansion will at least delay some of the impact on RAM and GPU prices since they aren't buying up GPUs until the places are built. In the meantime NY doesn't have to deal with the harmful environmental and health impacts. The data centers will ultimately end up being built elsewhere, until those places start pushing back. Without federal protections for the environment or the people all we can do is hope that state, county and city governments step up to make sure that data centers aren't harming them directly.
- kube-system 5mo ago
  There's a serious concern that we're in a bubble and many of the pending disruptions to land use and infrastructure might be soon abandoned with no one left to clean up the mess
  - cucumber3732842 5mo ago
    What mess? It's a big empty metal box with a heck of an HVAC system and a parking lot sized for industrial use. Just about any less specialized use could be pivoted to at any point during or after construction. These things only become static "messes" or "blighted" because regulation prevents fire sale and pivot to a new use from being viable. Edit: People really seem to be ignoring the sentence prior to this edit. For a hundred years it was common for old industrial sites of all shapes and forms to have their equipment if any remained scrapped and then be subdivided among small tenants. Most space leased by smaller businesses in the eastern half of the country probably fell into this category until fairly recently.
    - trumpdong 5mo ago
      Or if nobody wants to buy them
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
      - cindyllm 5mo ago
        [dead]
    - kube-system 5mo ago
      I lived for many years in the rust belt -- abandoned industrial properties aren't particularly attractive to have in your community. Nor are they attractive to industry unless they're already outfitted for their particular use. Many of these projects are making messes to local infrastructure, the construction and municipal costs associated with that, the wear on local roads, etc. And abandoned buildings are a mess because of their lack of maintenance.
- runarberg 5mo ago
  Cars were not a new technology either when they went nuts on highway infrastructure which ruined the city centers. Perhaps if they had slowed down and studied the impacts before bulldozing neighborhood for highways some damage might have been prevented.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- lenkite 5mo ago
  > Are data centers a new and mysterious technology? They are quite a polluting technology. https://www.staxengineering.com/stax-hub/the-environmental-impact-of-data-centers/ https://www.staxengineering.com/stax-hub/the-environmental-i... They also consume significant water causing water scarcity in many places. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-co... https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-cent...
- sometimelurker 5mo ago
  AI arguably yes (specifically modern really big LLMs)
boringg 5mo ago
Whats new about this? We've had data centers for 20 years now? Research which impacts? Only thing new is speed of deployment and scale - which frankly would align with why we can't build in North America. I would agree that the political system is the place to push if you have real concerns about the our data center / AI build out - and that will be a huge part of this next election. No other way to either accelerate or decelerate outside of macro economic factors outside our countrol.
- nazgulsenpai 5mo ago
  I agree. It seems reasonable to me in the sense that - only one year - only affects new agreements and not current buildouts - gives times for politicians to do whatever it is they need to do to satisfy their constituents
  - recursivegirth 5mo ago
    As a constituent, I see this as the right move. I would not benefit from an outright ban so that would be too heavy handed. On the other hand - something has to be done. If anything else it's proof the people do have the power to convince their representatives that these affairs matter and we are paying attention. I wouldn't be to quick to dismiss this as only political theater.
zerobees 5mo ago
I'm surprised by your interpretation. As a deliberately polarizing analogy, the first Trump administration pushed for a policy that boiled down to the same principle: pause immigration from certain places "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on". I don't think anyone here would describe that example as a good-faith policy. I feel the same goes for the NY bill. It's not a sincere attempt to consider the pros and cons, it's just an effort to shut down unpopular projects to appease the electorate. Maybe that's right, but no need to pretend it's anything more.
- CodingJeebus 5mo ago
  > it's just an attempt to shut unpopular projects down to appease the electorate. It's weird to see "the government is doing its job by responding to its voters" being framed as some nefarious and underhanded move.
  - recursivegirth 5mo ago
    It's not a comment crafted in good faith. It's telling you what to think and why, using an unrelated analogy to attempt to build credibility.
  - akramachamarei 5mo ago
    It shouldn't seem that weird. One can like democracy while also disliking its outcomes sometimes.

declan_roberts 5mo ago

Are data centers a new and mysterious technology?

babypuncher 5mo ago
The mad rush to build datacenters at this unprecedented scale is already wreaking havoc on the consumer economy. The needs of everyday people are far more important than the whims of a few trillion dollar tech companies run by billioinaires.
- throwaway198846 5mo ago
  These are not new or unpredictable impacts.
  - kube-system 5mo ago
    The scale is new, and impacts are predictable, thus the moratorium.
- fintechjock 5mo ago
  How are they harming consumers? I would think that consumers would vastly benefit from cheaper software, nearly unlimited cloud storage, lower property taxes. Heck, the next generation of data centers are looking like they will actually be net energy producers. Consumers might not know that they benefit from data centers, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t
  - wat10000 5mo ago
    The massive spike in the price of RAM is making consumer electronics more expensive and worse.
    - fintechjock 5mo ago
      True, for the average HN consumer But a new iPhone Pro is $154 cheaper than it was in 2020 when adjusted for inflation, and that is probably all the average consumer really cares about
      - intrikate 5mo ago
        It seems to me that anyone going out of their way to compare current prices against prices from five or more years ago to adjust for inflation is not the average consumer, and shouldn't be juxtaposed as such.
      - macNchz 5mo ago
        To my understanding Apple's supply contracts have allowed them to keep prices flat compared to other brands, but the price of non-Mac desktops and laptops are absolutely ballooning right now because of the supply of memory chips. Apple themselves just last month increased the base price of the Mac Mini by 33% from $599 to $799. The smartphone market appears to be affected as well: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-smartphone-market-faces-record-annual-decline-chip-crunch-worsens-2026-06-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-smartphone-market...
      - wat10000 5mo ago
        High margin products are often the last to be impacted at retail because the seller has some cushion. And the impacts are only just getting started. We see the MacBook Neo with a somewhat sad 8GB RAM, most likely due to this. We'll see a combination of just plain higher prices (Steam Deck and Switch 2 have both gone up) and shrinkflation in the form of lower specs.
        fintechjock 5mo ago
- gruez 5mo ago
  That's a fair complaint, but banning data centers in NY isn't going to make RAM or GPU prices cheaper.
  - autoexec 5mo ago
    Anything that slows their expansion will at least delay some of the impact on RAM and GPU prices since they aren't buying up GPUs until the places are built. In the meantime NY doesn't have to deal with the harmful environmental and health impacts. The data centers will ultimately end up being built elsewhere, until those places start pushing back. Without federal protections for the environment or the people all we can do is hope that state, county and city governments step up to make sure that data centers aren't harming them directly.
kube-system 5mo ago
There's a serious concern that we're in a bubble and many of the pending disruptions to land use and infrastructure might be soon abandoned with no one left to clean up the mess
- cucumber3732842 5mo ago
  What mess? It's a big empty metal box with a heck of an HVAC system and a parking lot sized for industrial use. Just about any less specialized use could be pivoted to at any point during or after construction. These things only become static "messes" or "blighted" because regulation prevents fire sale and pivot to a new use from being viable. Edit: People really seem to be ignoring the sentence prior to this edit. For a hundred years it was common for old industrial sites of all shapes and forms to have their equipment if any remained scrapped and then be subdivided among small tenants. Most space leased by smaller businesses in the eastern half of the country probably fell into this category until fairly recently.
  - trumpdong 5mo ago
    Or if nobody wants to buy them
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - cindyllm 5mo ago
      [dead]
  - kube-system 5mo ago
    I lived for many years in the rust belt -- abandoned industrial properties aren't particularly attractive to have in your community. Nor are they attractive to industry unless they're already outfitted for their particular use. Many of these projects are making messes to local infrastructure, the construction and municipal costs associated with that, the wear on local roads, etc. And abandoned buildings are a mess because of their lack of maintenance.
runarberg 5mo ago
Cars were not a new technology either when they went nuts on highway infrastructure which ruined the city centers. Perhaps if they had slowed down and studied the impacts before bulldozing neighborhood for highways some damage might have been prevented.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
lenkite 5mo ago
> Are data centers a new and mysterious technology? They are quite a polluting technology. https://www.staxengineering.com/stax-hub/the-environmental-impact-of-data-centers/ https://www.staxengineering.com/stax-hub/the-environmental-i... They also consume significant water causing water scarcity in many places. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-co... https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-cent...
sometimelurker 5mo ago
AI arguably yes (specifically modern really big LLMs)

boringg 5mo ago

Whats new about this? We've had data centers for 20 years now? Research which impacts? Only thing new is speed of deployment and scale - which frankly would align with why we can't build in North America. I would agree that the political system is the place to push if you have real concerns about the our data center / AI build out - and that will be a huge part of this next election. No other way to either accelerate or decelerate outside of macro economic factors outside our countrol.

nazgulsenpai 5mo ago
I agree. It seems reasonable to me in the sense that - only one year - only affects new agreements and not current buildouts - gives times for politicians to do whatever it is they need to do to satisfy their constituents
- recursivegirth 5mo ago
  As a constituent, I see this as the right move. I would not benefit from an outright ban so that would be too heavy handed. On the other hand - something has to be done. If anything else it's proof the people do have the power to convince their representatives that these affairs matter and we are paying attention. I wouldn't be to quick to dismiss this as only political theater.

zerobees 5mo ago

I'm surprised by your interpretation. As a deliberately polarizing analogy, the first Trump administration pushed for a policy that boiled down to the same principle: pause immigration from certain places "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on". I don't think anyone here would describe that example as a good-faith policy. I feel the same goes for the NY bill. It's not a sincere attempt to consider the pros and cons, it's just an effort to shut down unpopular projects to appease the electorate. Maybe that's right, but no need to pretend it's anything more.

CodingJeebus 5mo ago
> it's just an attempt to shut unpopular projects down to appease the electorate. It's weird to see "the government is doing its job by responding to its voters" being framed as some nefarious and underhanded move.
- recursivegirth 5mo ago
  It's not a comment crafted in good faith. It's telling you what to think and why, using an unrelated analogy to attempt to build credibility.
- akramachamarei 5mo ago
  It shouldn't seem that weird. One can like democracy while also disliking its outcomes sometimes.