Comment by jeffbee
4 months ago
The parade of misleading and exaggerated hit pieces in the news must be seen as part of the integrated plan to destroy American science, information, and research.
4 months ago
The parade of misleading and exaggerated hit pieces in the news must be seen as part of the integrated plan to destroy American science, information, and research.
or... maybe there's something to people being skeptical of datacenters?
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/musks-xai-opera...
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...
> In just 11 months since the company arrived in Memphis, xAI has become one of Shelby County’s largest emitters of smog-producing nitrogen oxides, according to calculations by environmental groups whose data has been reviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News. The plant is in an area whose air is already considered unhealthy due to smog.
Had this set the precedent of working with the community, and _not_ breaking the law, I think we'd be in a better place all around.
Similarly, Amazon tried to take the excess nuclear power, without paying back into the electrical grid infrastructure, and got denied in 2024:
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ferc-interconnection-isa-ta...
and again in April of 2025:
https://www.ans.org/news/2025-04-16/article-6937/ferc-denies...
Yeah, that politico article conveniently leaves out that the TVA - the local electricity provider - runs a methane-powered gas power plant literally 200 meters down the road (which replaced a much dirtier coal-burning power station at the same location), but somehow could not be bothered actually hooking their neighbours up to the grid.
I presume they couldn't be bothered hooking their "neighbors" [0] up because the demand was too great, no...?
[0] "Neighbors" here means a datacenter primarily processing data for wealthy people outside of the community and their mega-companies, where the revenue from that processing primarily goes... also to wealthy people outside of the community and their mega-companies...
Edit: Ah yes, that is exactly the case [https://memphischamber.com/blog/press-release/xai-phase-one-...]. While xAI is fronting the cash, the entire upgrade will ultimately be paid for by taxpayers in the form of monthly rebates.
2 replies →
This seems like a pretty objective view of all sides. What makes you think it's a hit piece?
Must R&D be prioritized over quality of life, environment, and be subsidized by local tax breaks/grants?
> Must R&D be prioritized over quality of life, environment, and be subsidized by local tax breaks/grants?
Yes, yes and maybe, if it needs to be accelerated.
No part of our modern life would exist without scientific and engineering advancement. Centuries of inventions and discoveries have built on top of each other to give us the very essential (housing, plumbing, food production) that are vast improvements on the original as well as the very boutique (space travel, self-driving cars, AI), the benefits from which are not fully realized yet. Pressing pause on science is guaranteed to cause misery. The last time Europe did that it lead to the Dark and Middle ages, leading to centuries of suffering.
Science is one of those few things that benefits everyone, from the very rich to the very poor. It's how we ensure that life does not remain a zero-sum game, it's how we grow the pie so that everyone can have more. Science is not free: It comes at a cost, but that cost is repaid many times over.
Is it pressing pause on science to say data centers must be built with care and consideration?
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_This_ article is objective. The opposition this article is discussing has been whipped into existence by the past year or so of exaggerated hit pieces.