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I think it can't be categorized as NIMBYism because the underlying sentiment is not just no data centers in my backyard, but anyones backyard. It's about the AI

I think it can't be categorized as NIMBYism because the underlying sentiment is not just no data centers in my backyard, but anyones backyard. It's about the AI project itself, even if it expresses itself differently for a local context.

Retric 2mo ago
NIMBY may be the incorrect term, but objecting to building something that raises your electricity bill extends how far your “back yard” goes. Objecting because it raises your ram prices extends that to a global scale.
christophilus 2mo ago
I’m fine with datacenters being built as long as we have some rules: they have to be quiet enough to not be audible beyond the border of the land owned by the datacenter. They have to pay for new electrical capacity so that they don’t burden locals with that externality. Really, that’s it. I think most people could get behind that.
- varenc 2mo ago
  Theres always going to be some negative externality effecting people that live near anything getting built. Even if the operational data center isn't loud enough to be heard beyond its property lines, the construction process will be louder. I'll also negatively effect peoples views and cause generally increased activity in the area. But that all seems fine as long as not egregious. But for anything to get built, housing or data centers or what not, we have to accept that those right next to any building project will experience some negative externalities.
- MinimalAction 2mo ago
  No. If they still draw an enormous amount of water, that's the finite resource that's getting wasted no amount of money could immediately retrieve. Paying for electricity doesn't mean the resources are not shared.
  - preg_match 2mo ago
    My understanding is that the water argument is the weakest one - the water is given back to the city, it's not like it's used up. And using water for cooling is one of the "cleanest" uses of water, it's not like toilets or showers. Personally I am much more concerned about datacenters that take it upon themselves to burn natural gas. And noise. Noise pollution can actually be detrimental to your health, and there's basically no mitigation that exists. So we really have to look at noise.
- SoftTalker 2mo ago
  They also cover acres of ground with impermeable surface so if they are in an area where rain runoff is an issue they should have to mitigate that also. Maybe they could collect the water to use for their cooling needs.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    That isn't how water cooling works.
  - therealpygon 2mo ago
    Land disturbance and rainfall/runoff/watershed considerations are literally part of the permit processes for any building?
- mindcandy 2mo ago
  Does anyone have any numbers on what percentage of recent datacenters don't follow those rules? Those are completely reasonable requirements. But, the high-pitched online discussion tends to imply building a datacenter requires doing everything the worst possible way every time. I know there are problematic data centers. I just want to know what the stats are vs. the rhetoric.
  - throwfaraway4 2mo ago
    I don't have all the numbers but as someone who lives in VA and has had their power bill _double_ over the last year, I'd be hard-pressed to think DCs are commonly paying their fair share when tariffs like this need to be passed: https://virginiamercury.com/2026/08/05/scc-orders-dominion-to-develop-tariff-to-assign-more-transmission-costs-to-data-centers/ https://virginiamercury.com/2026/08/05/scc-orders-dominion-t...
to11mtm 2mo ago
I can speak from a relative perspective, at least for my state; - The major Electrical provider has a terrible track record for improving overall reliability of service to local homes. The average outage time is 3x the normal average, and the percentages for rate increases always favor corporate customers vs residential. Yes, Residential often has more 'long tail' cost in outage scenarios but it should be better balanced IMO. but also our grid seems to be a bit stressed and adding that additional stress is a big concern. - The water usage for these data centers is an unknown, and sure they can do a closed or mostly closed loop but we aren't getting any promises on that. My state is lucky enough to have a LOT of water around it, but we also have awareness about what industrialization has done to those waterways and the ecosystems that live in them. We don't need more problems. - In fact we actually have an issue where communities have newish data centers, that frankly have ggravating shrill sound at all hours. [0] [1] [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5XZJfF0kQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5XZJfF0kQ [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wDr2dec474 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wDr2dec474
therealpygon 2mo ago
My 2 cents is that it’s more about market manipulation (by proxy) than anything. What happens if you convince consumers AI is bad and they shouldn’t approve small datacenters, is the next step regulations? Businesses (primary target) will still use it, people probably will too despite calling datacenters and AI bad. Then model regulations are the next logical target. And who will be regulated? The effect is exactly what OpenAI and Anthropic have been looking for. How many of X/Amazon/Google/Anthropic/OpenAI data centers have been blocked? I’m going to bet that number is close to zero for any important projects they were planning, likely because they were approved before the real regulation pushes started. Both sides are getting played with the same song that ends in AI regulations, which is bad for people and good for profits. It’s all strategy and theater so people can find alternative cause to latch onto that can be steered so it doesn’t really hurt the big players but will ultimately lead to more regulations (and thus more profits).
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2mo ago
  > What happens if you convince consumers AI is bad I get this isn't your primary point, but this line suggests people would have otherwise thought AI was good if it wasn't for some devious party convincing them otherwise. This is definitely not my read on the current environment. People think AI is bad because of its badness. The slop, the automated responses, the help bots, the being replaced at your job, and so on are just not popular.

Retric 2mo ago

NIMBY may be the incorrect term, but objecting to building something that raises your electricity bill extends how far your “back yard” goes. Objecting because it raises your ram prices extends that to a global scale.

christophilus 2mo ago

I’m fine with datacenters being built as long as we have some rules: they have to be quiet enough to not be audible beyond the border of the land owned by the datacenter. They have to pay for new electrical capacity so that they don’t burden locals with that externality. Really, that’s it. I think most people could get behind that.

varenc 2mo ago
Theres always going to be some negative externality effecting people that live near anything getting built. Even if the operational data center isn't loud enough to be heard beyond its property lines, the construction process will be louder. I'll also negatively effect peoples views and cause generally increased activity in the area. But that all seems fine as long as not egregious. But for anything to get built, housing or data centers or what not, we have to accept that those right next to any building project will experience some negative externalities.
MinimalAction 2mo ago
No. If they still draw an enormous amount of water, that's the finite resource that's getting wasted no amount of money could immediately retrieve. Paying for electricity doesn't mean the resources are not shared.
- preg_match 2mo ago
  My understanding is that the water argument is the weakest one - the water is given back to the city, it's not like it's used up. And using water for cooling is one of the "cleanest" uses of water, it's not like toilets or showers. Personally I am much more concerned about datacenters that take it upon themselves to burn natural gas. And noise. Noise pollution can actually be detrimental to your health, and there's basically no mitigation that exists. So we really have to look at noise.
SoftTalker 2mo ago
They also cover acres of ground with impermeable surface so if they are in an area where rain runoff is an issue they should have to mitigate that also. Maybe they could collect the water to use for their cooling needs.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  That isn't how water cooling works.
- therealpygon 2mo ago
  Land disturbance and rainfall/runoff/watershed considerations are literally part of the permit processes for any building?
mindcandy 2mo ago
Does anyone have any numbers on what percentage of recent datacenters don't follow those rules? Those are completely reasonable requirements. But, the high-pitched online discussion tends to imply building a datacenter requires doing everything the worst possible way every time. I know there are problematic data centers. I just want to know what the stats are vs. the rhetoric.
- throwfaraway4 2mo ago
  I don't have all the numbers but as someone who lives in VA and has had their power bill _double_ over the last year, I'd be hard-pressed to think DCs are commonly paying their fair share when tariffs like this need to be passed: https://virginiamercury.com/2026/08/05/scc-orders-dominion-to-develop-tariff-to-assign-more-transmission-costs-to-data-centers/ https://virginiamercury.com/2026/08/05/scc-orders-dominion-t...

to11mtm 2mo ago

I can speak from a relative perspective, at least for my state; - The major Electrical provider has a terrible track record for improving overall reliability of service to local homes. The average outage time is 3x the normal average, and the percentages for rate increases always favor corporate customers vs residential. Yes, Residential often has more 'long tail' cost in outage scenarios but it should be better balanced IMO. but also our grid seems to be a bit stressed and adding that additional stress is a big concern. - The water usage for these data centers is an unknown, and sure they can do a closed or mostly closed loop but we aren't getting any promises on that. My state is lucky enough to have a LOT of water around it, but we also have awareness about what industrialization has done to those waterways and the ecosystems that live in them. We don't need more problems. - In fact we actually have an issue where communities have newish data centers, that frankly have ggravating shrill sound at all hours. [0] [1] [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5XZJfF0kQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5XZJfF0kQ [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wDr2dec474 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wDr2dec474

therealpygon 2mo ago

My 2 cents is that it’s more about market manipulation (by proxy) than anything. What happens if you convince consumers AI is bad and they shouldn’t approve small datacenters, is the next step regulations? Businesses (primary target) will still use it, people probably will too despite calling datacenters and AI bad. Then model regulations are the next logical target. And who will be regulated? The effect is exactly what OpenAI and Anthropic have been looking for. How many of X/Amazon/Google/Anthropic/OpenAI data centers have been blocked? I’m going to bet that number is close to zero for any important projects they were planning, likely because they were approved before the real regulation pushes started. Both sides are getting played with the same song that ends in AI regulations, which is bad for people and good for profits. It’s all strategy and theater so people can find alternative cause to latch onto that can be steered so it doesn’t really hurt the big players but will ultimately lead to more regulations (and thus more profits).

Eddy_Viscosity2 2mo ago
> What happens if you convince consumers AI is bad I get this isn't your primary point, but this line suggests people would have otherwise thought AI was good if it wasn't for some devious party convincing them otherwise. This is definitely not my read on the current environment. People think AI is bad because of its badness. The slop, the automated responses, the help bots, the being replaced at your job, and so on are just not popular.