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NIMBY is largely used for housing development discussions and to contort it in support of developing data centers is incredibly intellectually dishonest.

If we're going to rebrand things to blur lines, I propose rebranding data centers to pedophile content hubs.

The rest of your argument is full of similar cherry-picking for dishonest discourse.



>NIMBY is largely used for housing development discussions and to contort it in support of developing data centers is incredibly intellectually dishonest.

No, it's frequently used in infrastructure discussions as well, eg. high speed rail or power transmission lines.


Or like property on the Texas Mexico border through which a wall is being built sealing off acres of private land from the owner.


That’s the opposite of NIMBYism. Public infrastructure getting built despite inconvenience to affected landowners.


That pointless infrastructure that has ‘inconvenienced’ landowners is also destroying a national park, so I guess we are all being inconvenienced. And funneled billions of tax dollars to private contractors.


Yes, building public infrastructure generally involves paying private contractors to do it. Who do you think builds government buildings?


CSAM Factory rolls off the tongue a bit better


Opposing new housing construction is bad in basically the same way that opposing data center construction is bad; and I'm happy to use the same word to describe both groups of people.


There is a much stronger argument for why housing should be built near existing housing than for why data centers need to be built near existing housing. Housing NIMBYs are being unreasonable because if they got their way the only new housing would be built in the middle of nowhere, which is clearly unworkable. Data center NIMBYs are arguing for much the same thing, but focusing on building data centers a good distance away from housing seems pretty reasonable.


> Data center NIMBYs are arguing for much the same thing, but focusing on building data centers a good distance away from housing seems pretty reasonable.

The trouble here is that the two things are related. It's easy to build a data center 50 miles outside the city. But because we don't allow higher density housing to be built, they instead have to build low density housing all the way out into what should have been rural land. Then you go outside the city to try to build something and instead of the neighbors being forests or fields of grain it's exurbs.


Why is opposing data center construction bad? People need housing, if there isn't enough affordable housing around, then opposing it can be bad. But also people who live there should have a say in what gets built near them, since they have to live with it.


People need infrastructure. Data centers are infrastructure.


The world and its people would continue to thrive if AI data centers magically vanished tomorrow. They are not necessary infrastructure. They're only necessary for wall street right now.


Sure, but we’re going to thrive more because of AI, just as we thrived more because of the Internet, cell phones, etc.


There's no evidence to support that. There's even arguments to be made that Internet and cell phones have ruined segments of society. We need to take a step back and make sure new life changing technologies are properly regulated, and built safely with communities in mind. Instead, we're going all in gung-ho, because we think its some kind of winnable race, while ignoring all the damage (environmental, privacy, tax payer cost, consumer cost, etc etc). AI will never fix those items.

The reality is we're not doing AI safely because our 401ks and the folks with 12 digits in the portfolio wouldn't grow as quickly as they are if it were regulated.


AI companies need infrastructure. Most people don't care.


Infrastructure for what? To push AI, crypto and gambling on everyone? How about build this "infrastructure" in the back yards of billionaires? They should have plenty of land.


There's a 100% chance this very website you're arguing on is hosted in one if not more data centers.


and 100% chance we could all largely benefit by it vanishing overnight.


No one is forcing you or me to be on here.


Someone has to log in and disagree with VC Tech Bros. It's my moral duty.


Oh please, running this site does not require any of these data centers. Nor new power plants.


I don't doubt you could host this site on any old Raspberry PI, but I guarantee it's hosted in a data center.


Just the worst take I've seen all day.




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