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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2190 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 23, 2026

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To what extent is anti-data center pushing big tech into further GOP alignment?

BTW why so much hate for data centers specifically? Is it just "those folks make tons of money and don't give any to us, we must hate them" or is there more to it? I mean yes, they consume electricity/water/space/whatever, so do many industrial sites and nobody (excepting hippie Gaia lovers which are entirely different crowd) cares. Is it just a new fashionable thing to hate or is there anything deeper here? As big industry projects go, they seem to be far from the worst - they don't smell, barely pollute, don't look egregiously bad (in fact, if we ever manage to get away from endless brutalism, they can look as good as one wants) and can be, as I understand, located on the shittiest terrain ever without a problem. Why are they the devil exactly?

I mean yes, they consume electricity/water/space/whatever, so do many industrial sites and nobody (excepting hippie Gaia lovers which are entirely different crowd) cares.

This depends heavily on the localtion. Here in Finland electricity currently a big issue. Not because people hate AI (honestly not that many do in the real world) but because it will likely lead to real and significant electricity price increases while providing very limited economic benefits (due to data centers requiring minimal long term workforce and 90% of the cost being GPUs bought from abroad). This isn't helped by the utterly braindead increase of wind power without requiring similar investment in base or adjustable electricity generation (with many coal plants having even been mothballed due to being uneconomic when spare capacity is ignored by the market and regulations).

OTOH nobody sane considers water or space any sort of problems here given we have both in abundance and data centers don't even have any mechanisms that could pollute local waters.

I dont think space is a concern in any large scale area like a country or a state (by anyone non-retarded anyway), but it can be a local concern.

Imagine if you will that data centers have been built in some old industrial area that regular industry has left. There was land prepared away from residential areas, there is power, grid and all sorts of appropriate infrastructure excess that is ready to go.

The data center operators now want to massively expand to meet the demands of AI and they obviously would prefer to do so in close proximity to their original development. Only they have used up the old industrial space so now expansion will start encroaching on areas dedicated to other things or get closer to residential areas where things like noise will be a concern.

In these sorts of cases space can very much be a concern even if it in the context of the larger stage/country wouldn't be. It is appropriate local space that can be scarce, not space in general.

Imagine if you will that data centers have been built in some old industrial area that regular industry has left.

"Replace shuttered Rust Belt factories with new data centers" has IMO a bit of a nice-sounding vibe to it. Less clear if the infrastructure would be what you want -- less a railyard and more a substation. The telecom connections are probably the easy part. But I don't live in the Rust Belt, so it's not me you'd need to sell on the idea. The "and you have to clean up the Superfund site" is probably a sticking point, too.

If you are anti-AI or anti-big tech, then being anti-datacenter follows quite logically. There area many reasons as to why people hold those positions.

And of course the people who live near where the datacenters are set to be built have a stake in this, and will want to make sure that their communities benefit overall.

The water numbers are wholly made up, but they would be a serious problem if true, and there's been a lot of people pretending that they're true. I can aggressively claim that AOC is a liar -- she's a politician, her mouth is moving -- and recognize that just because people believe her doesn't make them liars.

The electrical consumption and power density concerns are genuinely unusual: some of the larger AI-driven data center plans involve gigawatt values, compared to tens of megawatts for a conventional server farm data center or normal manufacturing plant. The only really comparable industrial plants are the biggest aluminum smelters, and the US has largely stopped anything on that scale. For the most part, this hasn't impacted rates themselves directly, but it's lead to a number of areas being under surge pricing over more of the day, and it's likely to take a few years to fix. Some of this is overstated, since it's been a hot summer and you'd expect increased surge pricing anyway, but the impact does exist.

That's sometimes lead to onsite gas turbine builds, which are genuinely loud.

Some of it's concern about corporation, rather than data centers specifically: see AOC v. Amazon in 2019 for less principled example that rhymes closely, but there have been genuine problems in much of the Rust Belt with various organizations promising a ton of great things in exchange for support today, and those great things getting sidelined with the next business downturn. AI coming after bitcoin and such doesn't help.

((A smaller number are video game fans who want to buy RAM sometime this decade.))

But it's mostly an objection to the technology using whatever arguments are available. Some of that's principled, if not necessarily a principle I agree with: there are genuine problems with the use of AI for spamware, scamware, and employment war crimes; there are some economic concerns that are serious; there's a lot of copyright and intellectual property claims that people make with a straight face. A larger number are anti-these-vibes. And others are just generically anti-big tech.

That's sometimes lead to onsite gas turbine builds, which are genuinely loud.

There of course is an obvious solution to this, but I am not sure we're allowed yet to say it aloud. It beings with "nu"... But ok, I can get this reason. Weird I never heard this complaint from DC haters before though... I hear water (which is largely BS) and power prices (which I assume is BS too, local utilities are usually under local control and can just ration the power if they want to)

A smaller number are video game fans who want to buy RAM sometime this decade

Nah nobody cares about those folks. I mean I feel their pain - a little, I haven't seriously gamed for over a decade now, but I get it still, it stings to have you hobby require high-priced accessories, I have hobbies like that too. But this wouldn't move the public opinion in any way.

And others are just generically anti-big tech.

I mean I can get it. Big tech behaves like a bunch of assholes, much worse than proverbial "robber barons" - those built schools, libraries and museums (many of which we're still enjoying today), techbros literally are destructively consuming our culture but of all ways to fix this having DCs built somewhere else seems the least productive.

There of course is an obvious solution to this, but I am not sure we're allowed yet to say it aloud. It beings with "nu"...

Unfortunately nuclear power (which IMO should have been built massively more worldwide) is not a solution because building a plant and getting it fully operable takes so many years.

I've read SMRs can be built with as little as 3 years. That seems to be a reasonable timeframe.

Is that "can be built, tested, certified and be fully ready for commercial operation in three years at some future point when the design has become commonplace and any kinks of practical implementations have been worked out" or "can be ready for use in three years starting right now"?

Don't get me wrong, I'd love SMRs to become common but currently building nuclear power has so many steps and hurdles on the way (that are in no way related to the fundamental reactor technology) that I don't see it being a short term solution for the current upcoming datacenter powering issues.

There of course is an obvious solution to this, but I am not sure we're allowed yet to say it aloud.

This does seem to be the market the SMR folks were expecting. I hope it works out for them.

But even solar would be a start: it's not like cloud providers don't have expertise in dynamic billing rates. "Inference is cheaper when it's sunny in Nevada" is, uh, fine actually if most of your market is Bay Area tech bros during business hours. The "Claude is slow at certain hours" claims already exist. Maybe there is a market for "run this at some point tonight", too.

This does seem to be the market the SMR folks were expecting. I hope it works out for them.

As do I, but if there's one thing the green types hate more than AI data centers, it's nuclear power.

but I am not sure we're allowed yet to say it aloud. It beings with "nu"...

I'm hoping it happens, but it's best-case scenario is multiple years out for new construction, and the power factor stuff can be difficult: AI data centers shouldn't be very prone to microsurges, but it seems like they're still fighting technical problems on that.

power prices (which I assume is BS too, local utilities are usually under local control and can just ration the power if they want to)

They can ration in the same sense that they can deny construction permits, but utilities boards are a lot less responsive to direct votes.

But this wouldn't move the public opinion in any way.

Fair.

That's sometimes lead to onsite gas turbine builds, which are genuinely loud.

This all made a lot more sense, after I learned the incremental source of gas turbines is converting 737 engines, because like RAM the manufacturers of gas turbines have their peodctuon sold for years.

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/how-jet-engines-are-powering-data-centers-b1c587a9

BTW why so much hate for data centers specifically?

This new construction is qualitatively different from previous data centers that leaned more toward CPU workloads or storage. Additionally, many of the reasons that cause locals to dislike them have as much to do with the slapdash nature of the construction as the data center itself.

The gas turbines sound like a Geneva convention violation. The construction equipment fucks up the roads going into and out of the construction sites. The owners get sweetheart tax deals that negate the property tax arguments. The ongoing "jobs" they create are usually something like eight security guards working part time for $18/hour with no benefits.

If you live in San Francisco or Chicago, that all probably sounds great. If you live a couple of miles away, it sucks.

The ongoing "jobs" they create are usually something like eight security guards working part time for $18/hour with no benefits.

Ohio's about the lowest cost-of-living state that has a serious data center presence. It's hard to get great numbers given "data center guard" includes everything from armed and security-cleared to glorified stor-all clerk, but at least from a quick check all the big name AI ones look to be starting at 30/hour and better benefits than I've got now.

There's just not many jobs there.

Most of the ones around me are neocloud providers, and they contract out the security.

I wonder if that's part of the disconnect in the conversation here - different companies could well be handling things very differently.

Could be, and I don't have the tooling to check Ohio numbers on those. Would be stupid to pay them less than a McDonald's and sit them in front of million-dollar servers, but wouldn't be the first stupid thing.

I'm reminded of a joke about college football refs and fixing games: "If you want us to believe that they're not fixing the games, pay them enough money that it's not plausible!"

Thé going rate for general maintenance in a data center is six figures.

I'm not going to argue the numbers because you're correct, but I have also seen specialty teams flown in from Texas to handle that maintenance. The actual number of locals doing maintenance post construction is pretty low. The number of people getting their foot in the door to even get the training is even lower.

There's a broad attempt by the pro data center contingent to act like these things are comparable to an old tool and die, or rolled steel mill. They're not even close.

I'm not even against data centers per-se. I'm against the fact that the people building them are functionally pillaging rural communities and doing a half-assed job of it at the same time. They're cramming them in tents, for Christ's sake. I might even be willing to tolerate that, if our local politicians weren't so venal and craven that we can't even extract tax revenues from them.

but I have also seen specialty teams flown in from Texas to handle that maintenance.

I think it's an open question whether or not the human capital to build and maintain advanced data centers exists in these rural areas. I have similar questions about the high-skilled immigration debate writ large. One can raise wages, but if the price elasticity of supply of talented workers isn't high enough, then there will still be a shortage

It's AI hate. In my experience, the anti-DC crowd try to weasel out of their position when you ask about (say) streaming video data centers, those somehow being different and fine.

Come on, there's 1-2 orders of magnitude (size, power, ect.) between one of those and an AI cluster.

Not a whole lot, I would think. All of the hard-core Republicans in my sphere are loudly or quietly anti-data center. It seems to be a winning issue with every flavor of populist.

IIRC republicans are split while dems and independents are strongly opposed, per the most recent data. Republicans are also more accommodating to data centers when in power.

I know exactly one person in real life who has loudly and repeatedly claimed to be pro data center this year.

He drove out to Memphis to record a video about how great Colossus was going to be for the community. He never distributed the video and he hasn't publicly spoken out in favor of them since.

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