Comment by Schiendelman
6 hours ago
I guess I'm curious: all the comments I see about this act as if the people proposing putting data centers in space are complete idiots. Do you believe they are complete idiots?
6 hours ago
I guess I'm curious: all the comments I see about this act as if the people proposing putting data centers in space are complete idiots. Do you believe they are complete idiots?
They're hucksters who know that adding "in space!" to a sales pitch is a free booster for tech enthusiasts.
It's the same way that Sam Altman talks about the risks of AI deciding to kill humanity: because that's dramatic and attention grabbing, and also the most unlikely outcome. Talking about it keeps us from talking about the real, ground level problems like the massive, unplanned-for disruption in jobs and education.
They just need to keep the money tap flowing, and tomorrow can worry about itself. Who's going to hold them accountable for data-centres-in-space five years from now, when they don't exist? Has Musk suffered any blowback from his hyping the Hyperloop that never materialized?
So you've only looked at the very loud people talking about this, and not the hundreds of quiet people working on this?
No, I think they're charlatans.
If they’re actually serious about this, they could simply address the points about cooling that numerous experts have raised. But they haven’t done that, at least not that I’ve seen. I have no idea whether they’re complete idiots, and I don’t really care. Maybe it’s idiocy, maybe it’s hubris, maybe it’s a grift, I have no idea. But until I see a compelling solution to this known problem, or a compelling suggestion as to why they’re not sharing a solution, I’ll continue to think they aren’t particularly smart or serious about this.
What if it's actually not that hard to cool something in space, and y'all just have these beliefs about the people talking about this that make you think there must be something obvious they aren't thinking about?
If it’s not that hard, then perhaps someone can just point to the simple math of how it would work.
It’s not like only idiots who know nothing about space are pointing out the cooling issue: https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...