Technology

Honestly that doesn't really need a datacenter, a single solar panel and a low power computer or couple of PIs.

I think the scale of these AI datacenter build out is part of the problem, that level of compute is really only useful for AI and Ai-adjacent loads like mass surveillance!

It takes a surprisingly small data center to serve a single house. I run a more reliable streaming service than Netflix from my basement.

With all the tax breaks and investor money that might be cheaper than buying a gaming PC at this point.

Groups like the ones pushing data centers can and do literally hire people to figure out how to get in the politicians' good graces, convince the politicians it is not only a good idea but the best idea, stoke the politicians' ego(s) such that they think they know best/better than the people they supposedly represent, and then literally train the politicians on how they can do an end run around their constituents to get things passed by the letter of the law but clearly not the intent of the law.

I know Louis Rossman can be a controversial figure due to how he communicates things, but he's been doing a good job exposing how Flock surveillance cameras are getting passed/governmentally funded in shady ways in numerous jurisdictions where they have negative public support. It would be silly to expect that the tactics they are using are also not in use by the much larger forces with deeper pockets behind all these data center pushes.

I absolutely have less than zero respect for politicians, but I seriously cannot imagine living a life almost entirely surrounded by people deeply trained to manipulate my emotions, sense of self, and self validation towards corporate ends. Beyond all the obvious life experience/world view differences due to wealth and socioeconomic strata, that's fucking terrifying.

The distinction is that NIMBYs only object to the infrastructure when it's in their back yard. I think the majority of people object to these data centers anywhere, but only have voting power to directly oppose them in their back yards, so that's where their effort is spent. I haven't seen anyone say "I definitely want another massive datacenter to go up, just not here."

Those datacenters are already built, though, and consume a fraction of the power of the new sloppified AI stuff. You can get space in one right now, if you want