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Comment by kavok

11 days ago

NIMBY seems to have a hard time stopping data centers. Why do they have more success stopping renewables and rail?

11 comments

kavok

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Avicebron  11 days ago

If we put the same amount of economic pressure on rail that data centers have...the US would have probably have almost as nice infrastructure as China and be significantly better off.

kjkjadksj  11 days ago

The public rail industry has no bribing mechanism unlike the data center industry and the fossil fuel industry. Did I write bribe? Sorry, “campaign contribution.” But sometimes also literally bribes like Tony Soprano cash in the bag.

CharlieDigital  11 days ago

NIMBY is stopping data centers.

Maine set to become first state with data center ban: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/09/maine-data-center-ban.html

Also, it's a different kind of more insidious and visceral NIMBY rooted in racism and classism.

  • kulahan  11 days ago

    It's facetious to pretend NIMBYs are as such because they're racist and classist, rather than because they just want to protect the single most valuable and future-determining investment they'll make in their entire lives.

    • otterley  11 days ago

      Those factors are tied together and aren’t easily separable. The racism and classism comes in because they believe that people of a different race or class will diminish the value of their investment.

      3 replies →

  • ghaff  11 days ago

    Not sure it's a bad thing. So, they would employ maybe 30 people after they're built. Consume a lot of power and water. I'd have to see the details of a specific proposal but I'd probably vote against personally.