Comment by thelastgallon
1 month ago
> You'd need a dictatorship where people's voices don't matter, but then there's no right of ownership either.
And there are plenty of those countries. As well as countries that aren't dictatorships. Every leader everywhere is available for sale. In democracies, usually for a small sum. Dictatorships ask for a percentage of profit.
Everyone knows how the current administration got to power: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-2024-e...
Trump will gladly allow datacenters to be built on federal lands. Just like he allows Oil/Coal and bans Wind and Solar. The only reason there is new story of Space Datacenters is because even if they are given everything by the Govt, it simply won't work.
If you see a datacenter in orbit, it means something went wrong on Earth: https://systemsthinkingcollection.substack.com/p/space-datac...
People believe all kinds of fiction and garbage, like going to Mars. (Why Terraform Mars When We Can Fix The Earth? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8mhib97--n4)
The same argument holds for AI DCs. If you can build profitable AI datacenters in space, why can't you build profitable AI datacenters on Earth? The only reason is you can't build profitable AI datacenters on earth. Just give us a few more trillions and wait a decade or two, we promise ...
This idea that space is a way to get out of the reach of NIMBYs is so dumb.
a: now you’re in everyone’s back yard, since satellites in orbit can be seen by the naked eye at twilight zipping across the sky, so now the whole earth hates you
b: you are still launching from earth, which is a pretty significant target if you’re worried about ecoterrorism.
Have you considered that the 'NIMBY' problem here might be about permits and local resource usage rather than terrorism, which makes about no sense?
Launch requires permits too, you just don't get to jurisdiction shop...
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Permits are not costing as much as a space launch and all the extra costs associated with that environment.
If it's too expensive to outsource to another country, it's definitely too expensive to put in space instead.
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I'm curious why a space data center has to orbit Earth. Why not a solar orbit? Batched work can be done anywhere if you can tolerate the latency.
It can go further if you want it to be even more expensive, sure.
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> b: you are still launching from earth, which is a pretty significant target if you’re worried about ecoterrorism.
This so much. Good luck destroying a DC on earth without a very strong force. On the other hand, destroying a rocket on its launchpad just take one FPV drone.
> Good luck destroying a DC on earth without a very strong force.
Leaving aside the DCs already destroyed in the Iran totally not a War by an enemy that can be easily crushed at any moment ...
DCs in mainland US aren't well defended - a pattern of shrapnel heads landed by a mobile mortar or two with a 2 km radius would render most in need of some upkeep.
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