Comment by godwinson__4-8
3 days ago
Wow good one.
What about the water treatment plant? Or the power station? Or the new subway line?
Why don't you go live in the woods since building anything where anyone doesn't want it built is so evil?
Maybe because you only think of the consequences of building things when it's for anything other than AI?
In many places these data centers make communities money. It's really not as black and white as you are making it. If I'm getting paid out I also am not sure why you think it's a trade nobody would make. Maybe you live in a very nice house.
I support UBI. No one should be poor in the United States. My goal would be telling someone "why don't you trade places with someone in x" in the United States should never feel like a threat. If I were to have to reside next to a data center to make this happen then so be it. Data centers are not the problem. Income inequality is. I think you have me confused with someone else.
What's your plan to solve income inequality? Don't build anything, crash the economy, and push more kids into student debt so they can take up bullshit knowledge work jobs?
> Why don't you go live in the woods since building anything where anyone doesn't want it built is so evil?
Wow, you're really triggered by the idea that people should get a say about what happens in their lives.
You'll note I didn't oppose the datacenters - I offered a solution to getting the datacenters built. If you trade houses with the people who don't want a data center in the neighborhood you're getting the datacenter! It's just that you're so upset about someone else having the ability to affect their own lives that you aren't seeing that you have the same power, and can work towards your own perfect world with power plants and datacenters and sewage treatment plants and subway stops just down the street!
I think the problem with that plan is what I pointed out - you want other people to have all the downsides of those things in their neighborhood while you get the benefit. It's pretty sick to think that them not wanting the downsides is a problem, but you not wanting the downsides also means they have a problem. Fortunately there's a solution! Go form a YIMBY community that allows all the projects that have representatives promising benefits, and prove that the NIMBYs are all wrong. I'm 100% certain it will make you way happier.
> What's your plan to solve income inequality?
Well part of it starts by not giving giant companies with lots of money even more money in the form of tax breaks, extra access to government, and the ability to use eminent domain for their profit. All these thing grow income inequality.
You wouldn’t want to live next to a data center because of income inequality? Or you would want to live by one because you think data centers cut checks to townspeople?
>What about the water treatment plant? Or the power station? Or the new subway line?
You mean, utilities, run by the public for public benefit instead of private profit?
Ah yes that will be a useful distinction when it comes to my private home value.
So you concede you don't care about private value in the face of public benefit?
Where did they put in a subway line for a data center
If they make the communities enough money the community will be happier to let them be built. Try increasing that amount and offering it up front, maybe.
I would support that. Companies should do that. Sometimes communities disagree, obviously. Communities that really don't want them often succeed. That's why the administration is throwing such a fit.
I don't support that. The administration is the worst advocate for AI because they are so clearly corrupt. If local people pursue their economic self interest at the end of the day that's their right. This whole nimby thing was a diversion from my point about knowledge workers turning on AI. Perhaps I should have just ignored that comment.
If people want to stop a local data center then fine. I think it's bad national politics. But if it's helping these companies make better deals or find better places to go then good. What I object to is the doomerism about it, and the uncritical conflation of self interest with civic virtue or robust public policy.