NIMBY in action (but far more palatable than usual)
My fucking idiot neighbors would say, “bUT ThE jObBBs!”
They’re just against anything that sounds vaguely “liberal”.
Speaking from experience here, there are vastly more people employed just to build datacenters than there are to fully staff one. Hundreds of engineers, consultants, general contractors and construction laborers to build the datacenter versus maybe a dozen people at best to staff a football field sized datacenter. If datacenters go away those builders will still have jobs because they’ll just pivot to building schools or hospitals or whatever else is needed at the time. Heck, even the IT guys who work on the racks could pivot and find another role somewhere else.
The only people who will be out of a job when the AI bubble pops are the hucksters pushing it.
They gonna get a shock when we wont even have enough people to fill jobs soon.
That’s great but i don’t understand why people think voting can make anything “permanent”. Kids will also get to vote one day and they’ll be just as important then as you think you are now.
That’s the essential thing that is so dangerous about democracy to the elites/ruling classes. It’s why there has been such a strong push for fascism/authoritarianism in the recent decade. The ting is- if we don’t like our laws we can change them. We can remake fucking society- it’s all just made by people
It’s going to be really, really frustrating watching Democrats campaign in support of AI companies this fall.
But this is a good reminder. Your only power now is local, so take an interest in your neighborhood and fight for it.
What happens when they get built anyway. Would it be legal to burn them down.
Because a lot places voters voted to not allow them and they get built anyway.
It won’t ever be legal, but I don’t think that’s going to matter. These data centers are threatening hundreds of communities’ basic survival, and there are so many people in this country that are struggling and ready to snap.
Also just to add but when the current financialized system finally implodes it’s gonna make things a whole lot worse and make people a whole lot more volatile. Personally I think either the SpaceX or OpenAI IPO will cause it, either those or some type of supply chain failure kinda a coin flip IMO.
There is an extremely good reason why the government is preemptively getting a rubber stamp with “technology extremist terrorists” written on it ready. They know how fraught things are getting
Monterey Park is the city in California, in case anyone else is wondering.
which is part of the LA metro area, in case you’re like me and thought of the NorCal aquarium town
Hamilton, ON, blocked a land severance designed to allow development of a datacenter yesterday.
Among the lies from the developers:
$3.8B in economic activity
23,000 new jobs. (hilarious)
The centre would only be used for data storage…sure, which is why it was planning to use 10mW of power and suck cooling water from Lake Ontario.
But the big question is whether Doug Ford will waddle in and let them build anyway.
Just to be a pedant, I know you meant MW not mW.
I’m happy for them to waste 10mW but paper straws vs 10MW of bs… well I think we know what we prefer.
Hamilton with a population of 570 000. So the data center would employ about 4%. Sure.
Holy shit! That’s amazing! Great job Hamilton!
Great, now do the whole state.
I think Tennessee took a small step in the right direction: datacenters must pay for electrical system improvements they need. In theory no impact to the existing customers. However o believe they forgot the part about adhering to energy and pollution regulations (in case red states have any). They shouldn’t be allowed to set up coal burners for example.
Just like anything else, datacenters don’t have to be a bad thing. The bad part is our economic system letting them externalize the costs onto everyone else
I could see a reasonable statewide zoning law but a statewide ban? You’ve got to be kidding. Tech is one of California’s biggest industries. We’re just going to NIMBY the problem onto someone else?
We’re just going to NIMBY the problem onto someone else?
As is tradition.
Yup. Also traditional: the blind hypocrisy of using a tech product that routes through a data center to call for a total ban on data centers.
“blind hypocrisy”
Really, this is your argument? People are hypocrites for using tech to ban tech? You really phoned that one in.
Agreed - it was so obvious it didn’t take much work to name it.
So the 280-300 in the state currently that do nice things like let the internet happen, let 911 calls go through, allow universities do research on diseases, hold cancer patient records, and show California residents Lemmy should…what? Go away?
An absolutist view of anything is typically a terrible idea. You don’t even know which very specific class of large data center you are “against.”
Well I then I guess tech bros should stop fucking around if they don’t want to find out what an enraged Luddite’s sabo taste like.
Pretty sure the user is talking specifically about AI data centers. We could even be more precise and say LLM datacenters.
I haven’t read the article so I don’t know if the legislation makes a distinction. If not, it should. But a state-wide ban on LLM datacenters is a good idea. A nationwide ban on them would be a good idea, if it were politically feasible at this time.
Not only is it a bubble economy based on pure speculation, and doomed to collapse catastrophically at some point, as well as putting a pinch on critical supply chains such as for compute hardware, but California has areas that are facing water shortages and they certainly don’t need big tech building giant new data centers that will hog all this water for cooling while polluting what’s left.
Not to mention global warming and society’s outdated reliance on fossil fuels making these giant computers a terrible idea. Not only does it make electricity more expensive for residential consumers, while increasing the amount of fossil fuels being burned and the CO2 being put into the atmosphere, but the computer hardware alone creates so much heat that it has a measurable effect on the temperature of the area around it.
I could go on. There’s lots of reasons to be opposed to new LLM datacenters. And it seems kinda disingenuous to deflect by categorizing them with every other kind of datacenter. Those other kinds of datacenters aren’t the ones people are talking about.
Look, let’s start at the source. The measure in a small, dense suburbia town was to ban “data centers.” All of them. All kinds, all types.
I’ve been to Monterey Park several times. It’s nice. But it’s just LA suburbia. Very rational to expect problems from any building being turned into a data center to be right up on top of mostly residential areas.
So, now you’re talking about not just making a leap as to what the commenter meant, but also that they were taking about something else because they were misinformed.
I get not wanting LLM only data centers. I agree. Put those fuckers in orbit as far as I’m concerned. I actually love that idea. But data centers have been necessary utilities for decades. They’re not new. They’re not innovative. They let you organize online. They let you call you granny. They show you cat videos. They save lives, and other than very recent LLM needs did more good than harm in the grand scheme of things.
I’m asking you to just understand that the thing you’ve only just heard about it used for lots of things, and has been around for years.
Keeping them out of residential areas and limiting their impact on municipal utilities seems prudent.
Trying to evade regulations by hiding it in a subdivision isnt cool.
Yeah, and Monterey Park was 100% right for what they did. Any developer thinking they can “hide” a data center worth building in a suburb is insane.
It’s a classic knee jerk from commenters who don’t know what they are talking about.
A tale as old as time.
Hate for hate’s sake.
Certainly a lovely way to live life. /s
Everyone hates AI. Takes an AI company CEO to not notice.
Fun fact: data centers existed and were incredibly important pieces of digital infrastructure long before LLMs were publicly available. You don’t even know what a data center does apparently.
Nor do you realize that my comment isn’t about the virtues of data centers or what happens in them, but rather, having a massively under-informed opinion based largely on emotions. Hate for the sake of hate. That’s what MAGA people do. You’re really doing to double down and tell me that “oh, well, not me, I’m not like that” with a straight face?
Downvote all you like, it doesn’t make your heart kind, or your mind work better.
Don’t break an arm jerking yourself off so hard, there, hero.
We actually have very good reasons to be telling society destroying tech speculators to take their “but muh inovashions” “diruptions bro” and fuck off and die in a slit trench.
But you do realize that un-innovative, plain old data centers not for bots and AI are a thing, right?
You literally can’t throw your opinion at me without them.
Yeah, but the scale of the current set of data centers has gotten to a point where they are becoming a problem for the communities they inhabit. If data centers stayed at the consumption levels they did decades ago, I don’t think we’d be seeing organized political action against them.
I’m aware of that, but at some point it’s also like when the Ming Dynasty destroyed their naval fleet for political reasons. They still needed a normal navy for even local maritime trade. They killed it all and caused (in a reductive sense) a 200 year depression.
We still need data centers for literally a million things that aren’t LLMs. And personally, I’m 100% on board to shoot that LLM shit into orbit. Get your solar from the source and fuck off.
Yes, actually. It’s quite nice 🙂
Don’t feel bad - you just dared to bruise their favorite “AI BAD” narrative with practical facts. Sometimes this place really is just an echo chamber to shout idiotic wishes into the dark instead of a forum for actual discussion.
Thanks for the message. I don’t feel bad that other people have no idea how their own lives work. It’s kind of sad to some degree, but how many people know how their car engine or phone work? Relatively few.
Personally, it’s just crazy how MAGA-like it all is, the emotional groupthink.
Zip it, Hanloser.
lol, I see I struck a cord ;)
Tell me how many data centers existed in the world in 2016. Then tell me how many ran LLMs. Then if you give me a pie chart of what those 2016 data centers were used for, I might mail you a cherry pie. (warning, it will get smashed and gross and spoil before it gets to you)
“look how many plantations were actually cotton monoculture and get back to me before you have opinions about the Confederacy”
- a Very Smart person
Yeah, that’s not the same.
But so it sounds like you’re full on anti-technology and anti-internet. I would genuinely love to know how you arrived at that decision. My Mom is sort of the same way, so it’s intriguing to me how non-MAGA folks reach the same point.
I was a PM in Google’s ad system for a decade.
I may be well be every bit as familiar as you (or more)with what datacenters were doing in 2016, and the business processes they supported. One of my most skilled coworkers had previously been at the NSA.
I quit for a reason.
I picked 2016 arbitrarily, but for what it’s worth, you know why I selfhost and de-Googled my life.
Honest question: have you ever talked with a therapist or counselor about your past and anger? Not saying your anger isn’t warranted or valid. Not at all. But anger can be a drug and a boost and a survival tool until it turns you into a survival tool for itself.
Choke on your own pie.
Will the billionaires let them do this?
You can be sure Monterey Park didn’t have any data centers to begin with. They aren’t exactly in every town. And there’s no shortage of towns ready to line up for data center money. I’m sure this town will be fine.
I don’t understand why you said the first bit, nowhere had data centres to begin with.
Not all datacenters focus on ai. Even before ai, the US had many, many datacenters
Aye fair enough, my bad. I’ve been having this ai datacentre discussion in a few places recently and the whole concept of datacentres had become linked to ai in my mind.
This is just like with the crypto mining. Energy market regulations are made by idiots, so it’s easier to just ban the business altogether than charge them more for electricity and other resources
For any kind of industrial facility I’ve always felt like whosoever is most directly responsible for the safety and negative externalities of the facility should be required to live in the area most affected by them.
You responsible for safety at a chemical plant, our ass gets to live wherever will be most hit by a spill of whatever your most deadly product or reagent is.
You responsible for a data center, you get to live where the water and power issues are most felt.
wonder if that will change if Xavier becomes the next governor since hes a full on DINO corporate shill,.
Sadly the alternatives aren’t any better. Rather they are objectively worse.
steyr is a little wish washy, but his messaging has been consistent, xavier seems to flip alot, and is corporate sell out, he seems alot worst than everyone else. CALI like NYC seems to choose someone worst over a progressive(likely has to do with dino/billionaire funded campaigns)
lol no it has to do with the fact there are like 28 dems on the fucking ballot, against 2 republicans.
Found the becerra voter. Steyer is unquestionably better. All I ever hear from haters is that he’s a billionaire but if you ever look at their policies and debates then you’ll see he outright wins
Counterpoint: billionaires are proven liars and the scum of the earth so anything said during a debate is about as reliable as wet toilet paper.
xavier is objectly worst, pritzker in illionois would be an exception.
Look at the endorsements becerra have. Full of big oil and baby killers. So much money has been spent on an anti-Steyer campaign, it’s batshit crazy. Sure, you want Becerra, just say you want an establishment do-nothing-democrat.
Ohh noo, the progressive is a billionaire, let’s vote for an establishment baby killer but at least he’s a minority.
At least the ones who had a chance of making it through the primary.
Good they should go where there’s cheaper land value and the water flows downstream from where I live! Also any traffic needed for construction should be diverted to the point it doesn’t affect my day to day.
Everyone liked that.
Thanks for your input, anyway…
California City? The failed city with a few thousand residents max and thousands more roads that lead to non-existent suburbs? That California City?
As in “a city in California.” The city is Monterey Park.
