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Goodguy  18hr ago (text post)   Edited 15hr ago   5536 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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Less splashy but possibly important:

Apparently, of 75 municipalities that had a data center ban or moratorium on the ballot, all 75 passed. This is a bipartisan 80/20 issue. Support for data centers is political suicide now. I expect a lot more bans.

Lots of ways this could go.

  1. Obvious take: The future is Chinese.

  2. Nothing ever happens take: We don't need new centers when chips/software get 10x faster each year.

  3. Elon take: Data centers in space doesn't seem so crazy now

  4. Pollyannaish take: Maybe China follows suit and we can pace the frontier

I'll register a variant on 2. Business as usual is we just ignore shit like this. Places where centers aren't even on the ballot yet sign contracts with local government members to force it through before the measure is ever presented for public consideration, 5 figure one off bribes are provided to swing close races, they choose towns where they can sneak in without too much kerfuffle. The country is big, hyperscalers are rich, they'll find a way.

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