A man at a county microphone holds up his phone and plays a clip of rooftop fans filmed from a highway shoulder, captioned with the claim that a proposed data center will run diesel engines around the clock, drain the aquifer, and raise every neighbor’s power bill by 40%.
I'm getting people on Facebook, where I've shared your other articles on this, telling me that these big, hulking, buildings will soon be obsolete, so then what? So? You've never heard of tearing down a building before? It's ridiculous the lame arguments they make.
This is a masterpiece of high-rent corporate gaslighting, dripping with the frantic sweat of a lobbyist who smells a bonus.
The author uses vendor fine print to circumnavigate the crushing reality of these server-farm fortresses. They want us to believe these concrete monsters are as harmless as a local grocery store while they suck the grid dry and drown out the birds. This reads like a corporate shill job, written to protect the money, silence the neighbors, and ultimately track & trace everything you do.
Data centers aside, it’s AI itself that is a big part of the problem enabling this kind of fear, falsity, and panic. The purveyors of AI have done an abysmal marketing PR job trying to sell it to people , and most people are far from sold on what actual advantages or benefits this new technological advancement will actually offer real people in their real every day lives. But they’ve sure heard plenty about it taking over jobs, and helping students cheat, and even Ai itself hacking into other systems all on its own apparently uncontrolled volition. For many, it appears more like a scary, uncontrollable Frankenstein than a boon to mankind.
Someone needs to sit down and seriously create a marketing plan and campaign that demonstrates how AI will not only make life better for individuals, not make them obsolete, and not try to “take over the world”, which seems to be all anyone hears about it - and that’s what’s been coming from the founders themselves! People see it more as a threat than a benefit, and that’s entirely their fault.
An ever growing number of people are increasingly down on tech in general, social media and the ubiquitousness of cell phones and our outsized dependency on computers. And there’s certainly no love lost for the Tech Bros and that industry as whole either.
It’s the mystery surrounding AI and what it will mean to the average person in their daily life that needs to be more focused on and explained - over and over again - in a way people can understand and relate to.
If they will find a way to present this new technological advancement in a manner that doesn’t seem so threatening on a host of levels right now, maybe data centers won’t be as big of a problem as they are - China or no China.
The Meta $18 billion settlement to resolve claims that was brought by 29 states is reminiscent of the big tobacco suits. What ever happened to that money? Like everything else the states peed it away. This isn’t a Tech Bro problem, but a leftist big government problem and government corruption problem. The PR needed comes from the public who want access to information. Americans Need access to data to make decisions unless you want government to choose for you.
So your rationale is we need them because China will build them bigger /faster?
Where have I heard that before?
Oh yes, I remember.
Bioweapons development!
There is no serious use case for large data centres. It is just another financial bubble and a way to monitor our every move in order to charge us for everything.
Feudalism in the digital age.
De-centralised systems are faster cheaper and not able to be as easily controlled. They are already here so 'corporate ' needs to push data centres as fast as possible.
This is how managed decline wins: activists turn engineering questions into moral panic, foreign adversaries benefit from every canceled megawatt, and frightened local officials congratulate themselves for blocking the very infrastructure that keeps banking, hospitals, air traffic, military communications, emergency systems, tax records, and cybersecurity alive. The claims collapse under scrutiny. Standby generators are not 24/7 diesel plants. Interconnection capacity is not continuous load. A server hall is not a civilization-ending furnace. Set property-line sound limits, make the customer fund grid upgrades, verify compliance, and build. America cannot remain sovereign while renting its nervous system from someone else.
Agreed, however, you have not addressed the fundamental question of the type of data being stored business data or personal data from travel patterns to data from personal transactions that can be analyzed without consent of persons being tracked.
Data centers hold data. Data can be public and personal. Having a data centre hold all my personal information to be used for anything is disgustingly, dangerous, and immoral. If the law said personal identifiable data is owned by the individual. Then I would agree
Would you close down the Library of Congress for using too much electricity or close down paper manufacturing because of the water and electricity use necessary to produce books? Of course you wouldn’t! Yet this is essentially what you are doing by stopping data center growth. The exchange of information or restricting access to research is anti capitalist and is economic suicide. American needs to lead the movement of information or freedom is at risk. We saw what censorship was like with the Covid pandemic, and how data sharing was essential to making personal health decisions. You can do your own research with data centers making it possible.
Does anyone mention that the “wind farms” produce noise, kill birds vast numbers, use huge amounts of resources for a meager return and leave titanic scale waste byproducts that are un recyclable? Data centers can at least be improved but Don Quixote’s worst nightmare remains the same clumsy megalith going on half a century?
A brilliant article. We are living in a moment that will define our future, and any country that fails to grasp this will, within just a few years, find itself lagging behind and lost in the empty rhetoric of what you describe as “campus activists,” until they no longer have a digital platform on which to publish their slogans unsupported by data. Croatia is standing at such a crossroads, and we sincerely hope that reason will prevail.
X confirmed Chinese bot accounts are responsible for spreading anti-data centers propaganda.
🎯🎯🎯
I'm getting people on Facebook, where I've shared your other articles on this, telling me that these big, hulking, buildings will soon be obsolete, so then what? So? You've never heard of tearing down a building before? It's ridiculous the lame arguments they make.
You are a breath of fresh air, @muse. I fully enjoy your essays, and learn something new with each one!
This is a masterpiece of high-rent corporate gaslighting, dripping with the frantic sweat of a lobbyist who smells a bonus.
The author uses vendor fine print to circumnavigate the crushing reality of these server-farm fortresses. They want us to believe these concrete monsters are as harmless as a local grocery store while they suck the grid dry and drown out the birds. This reads like a corporate shill job, written to protect the money, silence the neighbors, and ultimately track & trace everything you do.
And yours are the rantings of a troll with the CCP on retainer.
So says the real Troll with zero facts.
Top Countries by Number of Data Centers
1. United States: ~4,724 – 5,427
2. United Kingdom: ~523 – 567
3. Germany: ~529 – 533
4. France: ~322 – 392
>>> 5. China: ~376 – 449
>>> Russia ranks 15th globally in total physical building count, operating between 172 and 251 data centers across the country.
The U.S. has at least 10x the number of “data centers” of any other Country. —Who exactly are you Lobbying for or just a sycophant bot.🤔
Like I would accept your "facts."
And they're looking to triple this number in the next three years! Yeah, not buying the "but CHINA!!!!" argument this time.
Chinese bot.
Here's an idea....how about you get rid of your cars and electricity. Maybe then you'll be a happier person.
Hey, hey, stop throwing facts and logic into a perfectly good panic.
Data centers aside, it’s AI itself that is a big part of the problem enabling this kind of fear, falsity, and panic. The purveyors of AI have done an abysmal marketing PR job trying to sell it to people , and most people are far from sold on what actual advantages or benefits this new technological advancement will actually offer real people in their real every day lives. But they’ve sure heard plenty about it taking over jobs, and helping students cheat, and even Ai itself hacking into other systems all on its own apparently uncontrolled volition. For many, it appears more like a scary, uncontrollable Frankenstein than a boon to mankind.
Someone needs to sit down and seriously create a marketing plan and campaign that demonstrates how AI will not only make life better for individuals, not make them obsolete, and not try to “take over the world”, which seems to be all anyone hears about it - and that’s what’s been coming from the founders themselves! People see it more as a threat than a benefit, and that’s entirely their fault.
An ever growing number of people are increasingly down on tech in general, social media and the ubiquitousness of cell phones and our outsized dependency on computers. And there’s certainly no love lost for the Tech Bros and that industry as whole either.
It’s the mystery surrounding AI and what it will mean to the average person in their daily life that needs to be more focused on and explained - over and over again - in a way people can understand and relate to.
If they will find a way to present this new technological advancement in a manner that doesn’t seem so threatening on a host of levels right now, maybe data centers won’t be as big of a problem as they are - China or no China.
The Meta $18 billion settlement to resolve claims that was brought by 29 states is reminiscent of the big tobacco suits. What ever happened to that money? Like everything else the states peed it away. This isn’t a Tech Bro problem, but a leftist big government problem and government corruption problem. The PR needed comes from the public who want access to information. Americans Need access to data to make decisions unless you want government to choose for you.
Thank you! I love being informed by your knowledge and greatly appreciate your experience and expertise.
So your rationale is we need them because China will build them bigger /faster?
Where have I heard that before?
Oh yes, I remember.
Bioweapons development!
There is no serious use case for large data centres. It is just another financial bubble and a way to monitor our every move in order to charge us for everything.
Feudalism in the digital age.
De-centralised systems are faster cheaper and not able to be as easily controlled. They are already here so 'corporate ' needs to push data centres as fast as possible.
This is how managed decline wins: activists turn engineering questions into moral panic, foreign adversaries benefit from every canceled megawatt, and frightened local officials congratulate themselves for blocking the very infrastructure that keeps banking, hospitals, air traffic, military communications, emergency systems, tax records, and cybersecurity alive. The claims collapse under scrutiny. Standby generators are not 24/7 diesel plants. Interconnection capacity is not continuous load. A server hall is not a civilization-ending furnace. Set property-line sound limits, make the customer fund grid upgrades, verify compliance, and build. America cannot remain sovereign while renting its nervous system from someone else.
Here is some background on the fight against data centers and how the DSA is behind it. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-left-wing-anti-data-center-movement
Agreed, however, you have not addressed the fundamental question of the type of data being stored business data or personal data from travel patterns to data from personal transactions that can be analyzed without consent of persons being tracked.
Data centers hold data. Data can be public and personal. Having a data centre hold all my personal information to be used for anything is disgustingly, dangerous, and immoral. If the law said personal identifiable data is owned by the individual. Then I would agree
Good Article! Are we allowed to post this to social media?
So what about all the water these data centers use? Is that bs? The noise and power usage also have to be considered.
Would you close down the Library of Congress for using too much electricity or close down paper manufacturing because of the water and electricity use necessary to produce books? Of course you wouldn’t! Yet this is essentially what you are doing by stopping data center growth. The exchange of information or restricting access to research is anti capitalist and is economic suicide. American needs to lead the movement of information or freedom is at risk. We saw what censorship was like with the Covid pandemic, and how data sharing was essential to making personal health decisions. You can do your own research with data centers making it possible.
Heard they take less water than to run a golf course!
Also heard they will make more power using their own generators and give back the extra to the communities.
Short answer: Yes, it's bs. Closed loop water cooling doesn't lose water.
Does anyone mention that the “wind farms” produce noise, kill birds vast numbers, use huge amounts of resources for a meager return and leave titanic scale waste byproducts that are un recyclable? Data centers can at least be improved but Don Quixote’s worst nightmare remains the same clumsy megalith going on half a century?
It’s just like our Government isn’t acting as if the goal is to beat China.
https://pulpitfortruth.substack.com/p/watch-what-they-do?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
A brilliant article. We are living in a moment that will define our future, and any country that fails to grasp this will, within just a few years, find itself lagging behind and lost in the empty rhetoric of what you describe as “campus activists,” until they no longer have a digital platform on which to publish their slogans unsupported by data. Croatia is standing at such a crossroads, and we sincerely hope that reason will prevail.