Comment by KingMachiavelli
6 hours ago
I often get side tracked into commenting on regular social media like Instagram and I'm somehow surprised over and over how poor critical thinking skills in the greater population. The zeitgeist of US politics is "this doesn't directly benefit me so this must be bad". According to the Instagram demographic, ALL industrial uses of water and electricity are bad because they "compete" with household use. The massive Agricultural industrial complex is actually OK because I like meat, almonds, etc. AI is bad because it doesn't make my job easier.
Even among the more "globally conscious", there's a severe misunderstanding of how much industry, factories, and overall "consumption" it takes to feed the Western - especially American - way of life. If running data centers can actually sustain the next 10-15 years of ~2% GDP growth, that's literally an economic miracle. An industry that takes in water & electricity yet produces no long term pollutants is literally the closest you can get to money growing on trees.
What other industry in history of the US's economic development has been this clean? I can't think of any. I'm surprised more data centers are not just built in Mexico or other countries that would support rather than oppose/block their development.
I find it deeply ironic that you accuse the public of lacking critical thinking about the externalities of agriculture but claim data centers produce no long term pollutants whatsoever. Demand for compute hardware has skyrocketed, and producing that hardware creates massive pollution from factories and mining. I shouldn’t have to explain how rare earth mining harms millions around the globe. To borrow your expression, you’d be more accurate in saying “this doesn’t directly harm me so it must be good”.
> claim data centers produce no long term pollutants whatsoever While running. Incurring a pollution penalty once in fungible location (i.e where mines are approved and "hopefully" managed responsibly) is better than incurring pollution proportional to the output (e.g. plastic and chemical waste).
> shouldn’t have to explain how rare earth mining harms millions around the globe.
Is rare earth mining specifically for semiconductor manufacturing actually a significant driver? My intuition is that rare earth and most raw material mining would be driven much more by EV car motors and batteries.
Certainly you can say all energy use is indirectly responsible for the pollution of the oil, solar, wind, etc. I don't disagree at all! I'm say in-addition to the pollution of raw inputs like energy - contemporary industries have additional and unavoidable side products.
> are earth mining harms millions around the globe.
Those mines are going to operate day after day because it's unfortunately the best economic opportunity in those areas. Those areas deserve our support to improve their socioeconomic realities but opposition to data centers in rich countries does not suddenly provide better opportunities to those regions.