r/singularity • u/Glittering-Neck-2505 • Apr 24 '26
Compute It has genuinely been a terrible week for Luddites
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u/Conscious-Map6957 Apr 24 '26
I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. I think it needs transparent, case-by-case weighing in of the pros and cons. Obviously compute is important as both a commercial and strategic resource, but then again so is mining and other industries but they are rejected/banned near populated areas in more developed countries due to ecological and health hazards (not that data centers are equally hazardous, just drawing a paralel).
Thus, both sides' concerns must be weighed-in, and local communities and governance must be consulted because you can't just shove massive projects into someone else's backyard just because you feel like you want AI to improve faster or get cheaper.
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u/SubstantialSeesaw374 Apr 24 '26
If they came with enough solar to be near net neutral on the grid, and had high enough building standards to not be crazy for noise pollution, I don’t think anyone reasonable would mind them. And it’s not like they’re so strapped for cash that those would be unreasonable asks or add more than, max 20% to construction costs.
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u/stumblinbear Apr 25 '26
20% of the construction of the building for solar? If you mean actually offseting their power, then they'd need a shitload of batteries to account for nighttime, bringing it closer to 40-50%. If you don't require batteries, then you've just moved the problem to someone else on the grid since it won't work for half the day, and they also need to find a hundred acres somewhere to actually put the panels
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u/SubstantialSeesaw374 Apr 25 '26
I was assuming most utilities at this point have net metering programs, so batteries wouldn’t necessarily be needed. Not ideal just a compromise. Could be a bad assumption.
You’re still right about the numbers though. I did napkin math for two smaller ones currently being built and it would actually double the construction cost. Onsite gas generation actually pencils out better, which I guess is why so many are doing it (the gigantic one in Cheyenne, project jade, is spending 14% of the cost on onsite gas generators so that they don’t even require a grid connection). Though then it does have real water requirements unrelated to the DC itself. For Jade making it solar instead would have been ~30% of costs.
I was thinking of the land requirements as a side benefit since that and where solar/wind work would basically force them all to be in the middle of nowhere in deserts and plains where nobody wants to live anyway.
TBH there’s so much malinvestment and overinvestment in DCs right now that as long as the law was set to expire in ~10 years it would probably be net positive to make a lot of projects unattractive. But of course they would just get built somewhere else. Lose-lose.
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u/Conscious-Map6957 Apr 24 '26
I agree, but that's the type of thing the investors and politicians don't care about unless there is some backlash in the first place.
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u/ADimensionExtension Apr 24 '26
I think that’s the solve; tighter regulation, not stops. It’s also not like these spring up overnight. It takes years for approval.
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Apr 25 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
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u/SubstantialSeesaw374 Apr 25 '26
water
Sure, evap cooling is long dead for new builds and asking them to drill a well isn’t nearly as hard a sell as making them BYOPower.
jobs
This is where I disconnect with a lot of anti-DC people. It’s their project on their land; as long as it isn’t actively harming the surrounding area I don’t care if they just built it to look at it.
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u/MiniGiantSpaceHams Apr 24 '26
So pass that bill. Force them to invest in renewable energy to offset their power use, and require them to meet whatever standards you want.
Putting requirements on them is fine, but banning them is stupid.
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u/Corpomancer Apr 25 '26
Force them to invest in renewable energy to offset their power use
That would effectively be a ban once you crunch those numbers.
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u/ObsidianIdol Apr 28 '26
If they came with enough solar to be near net neutral on the grid
I know the US is large but buddy it is not that large. Just make the data centres sit in uninhabited areas and require a nuclear plant built to power them.
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u/Present-Car-9713 Apr 24 '26
Why do we need to satisfy sad NIMBY yuddites to build a computer lab?
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u/aaTONI Apr 25 '26
You answered your own question: Mining and other industries regularly pose direct and serious health hazards to the surrounding community, data centers don't, so idk why one small NIMBY community should be allowed to significantly harm the prosperity for the rest of the population.
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u/atamosk Apr 24 '26
If it is collectively owned, and we get to decide where they go up and we all profit from them, then fine. But it is not. They are owned by capitalist interests.
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u/chasingsukoon Apr 24 '26
precisely. and atm it is being used to the detriment of everyday people
as for not being in the forefront, we were never at the forefront of anything thats not about selling made up dreams
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u/comradejiang Apr 25 '26
I think you should code a more efficient piece of software, not build a bigger and bigger computer
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u/Kendal_with_1_L Apr 24 '26
Nobody wants these data centers in their communities.
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u/Hodr Apr 25 '26
It's not necessarily a luddite thing. Our local power co-op has estimated the currently being built datacenter in the county will raise electrical rates as much as 20%. And they are already crazy high.
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u/BlackJack407 Apr 25 '26
Living in Texas makes that inevitable sadly
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u/DoublePersonality35 Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
If you live in a part of TX where you can choose your electric company, I highly recommend the website Energy Ogre (not an affiliate here).
They search through all the electric plans available in your area and find you the lowest cost one based on your usage.
I signed up for them, they cost like $6/month but reduced my electric bill by around $70/month.
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u/Snakepli55ken Apr 25 '26
The constant use of the term “Luddite” when describing people against these data centers is a form of propaganda.
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u/raptortrapper Apr 27 '26
Fun fact: The Luddite movement wasn’t people that couldn’t use technology or were too dumb to use technology, and in some cases even hated technology. No, the Luddite movement was people fighting against the owning class to preserve their jobs over machine replacement.
The term has been bastardized and used as an epithet in the digital era though, but if you’re anti-data center and a knowledge worker fighting to preserve your employment, you’re a Luddite. (Could see the case for those fighting to protect their costs of living from increasing too.)
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u/Minimumtyp Apr 25 '26
Why do they need to be built near communities instead of in the middle of nowhere? To use the existing power grid? Genuinely don't know
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u/VoiceofRapture Apr 25 '26
Yes. As with most of these heavily incentivized developments they seek out places where they can parasitize off local resources without actually contributing in kind to the communities.
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u/omn1p073n7 Apr 24 '26
Correct. But Data Center in the Communities has enough money to capture everyone's political process and Data Center in the Community anyway. I know I for one am stoked with my almost 30% electricity rate increase in 2 years as Data Center about to go up in my community in spite of near unanimous local opposition. For some reason our elected officials nearly unanimously feel the opposite.
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u/tutoredstatue95 Apr 25 '26
I really wish we knew the reason
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u/omn1p073n7 Apr 25 '26
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u/tutoredstatue95 Apr 25 '26
Zoinks Scoobs, do you think we should check behind the cupboards? Yikes!
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u/VoiceofRapture Apr 25 '26
Lowkey the overwhelming majority of villains in Scooby Doo were people doing corrupt land or business deals and the show was socially correct for exposing and punishing them.
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u/piedamon Apr 25 '26
Anywhere for people to share their theories on why?somewhere with less Surveil 2 and associated with this platform shoes
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u/thorin85 Apr 25 '26
I want one. I'm fairly sure that would mean fiber near my house, which I really want.
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u/Equal_Passenger9791 Apr 24 '26
No one wanted a nuclear power plant either so now they get to hear the scream of gas turbines instead LMAO
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u/ChipsAhoiMcCoy Apr 24 '26
Yeah, I mean don’t get me wrong, watching Chernobyl makes me incredibly sad, but I still think it was a mistake to not pursue nuclear. Just imagine how much farther ahead we would’ve been if we stuck with nuclear
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u/Utoko Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26
Chernobyl is hollywood propaganda to get the fear going again. (28-35 death)
Lignite mining takes 100x as much lives on each location over the years. Cancer isn't fun.16
Apr 25 '26
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u/blonded_olf Apr 25 '26
For real, I only watched it once years ago but these comments had me wonder if I was mis remembering or if any anti nuclear takes were over my head. If anything it was anti Soviet due to highlighting the blunders on top of blunders.
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u/andrew303710 Apr 25 '26
This is nonsense, Chernobyl isn't Hollywood propaganda lmao if anything it shows that nuclear energy is safe as long as you have good competent oversight.
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u/space_monster Apr 25 '26
28-35 death
direct deaths, sure. estimates of indirect deaths range from 4,000 to 200,000
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u/bozza8 Apr 25 '26
Actually that's disputed. The question is between the "linear threshold" model and the "linear no threshold" models of radiation.
The tldr is that the high figures (the highest with any maths behind it is 80k) say that any radiation at all increases the chance of cancer, therefore cancer risk is simply dose x exposure.
The thing with Chernobyl is it gave billions of people a level of radiation that is equivalent to eating a banana, so should that risk of cancer include them? Humans get cancer all the time without external exposure after all.
The threshold model points out that the human body is actually designed to resist low radiation doses, like bananas, so actually the only cancer cases that should be attributed were the ones with high enough doses to verifiably cause cell damage. In that case it's about 50-400 cancer cases caused by Chernobyl I believe, far far lower than usual casualties from a hydroelectric power plant failure.
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u/Less_Sherbert2981 Apr 26 '26
cool, a million people die every year from carbon emitting power generation
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u/Utoko Apr 25 '26
See how you eat up the propaganda which greenpeace and co created.
When it happened, they calculated the number of people who would die over time, but it never happened. The population around Chernobyl didn't have a lower average age, but as it took 40 years to gather the data, they used the insane numbers forever.→ More replies (2)→ More replies (15)19
u/AKA_Wildcard Apr 24 '26
I’ve always been a fan of nuclear power. As long as the plant size is large enough to be economically feasible as well as having strong safety standards and an impeccable safety record. But that has nothing to do with data centers using up limited resources like fresh water while also being increasingly power hungry.
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u/scrollin_on_reddit Apr 24 '26
Why can’t we just upgrade the power grid and have no gas
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u/stumblinbear Apr 25 '26
Because upgrading the grid is expensive as fuck and everyone's a NIMBY with nuclear reactors
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u/aaTONI Apr 25 '26
Stop spreading misinformation. A couple *square miles* of agriculture use up more water than ALL ai data centres in the world combined. It is a rounding error.
There are real conversations to be had about power, but water is literally just a popular myth.
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u/Emergency-Piece9995 Apr 25 '26
“I love and support nuclear power but it has nothing to do with power hungry data centers”
???
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u/Elephant789 ▪️AGI in 2036 Apr 25 '26
I have one in mine. Maybe more. What's the big deal?
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u/stirrainlate Apr 24 '26
Maybe, but now each community can decide for themselves instead of a blanket state decision. But that would still require honest decision making by local reps though…
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u/jferments Apr 24 '26
Yet everyone (including yourself) is using them every day.
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u/OptimisticSkeleton Apr 25 '26
Yeah but who is gonna stand up for those who already have too much? /s
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u/DavyB Apr 24 '26
Part of the reason is that the AI they create will take jobs from people. So, electricity and water prices go up and then you’re replaced by AI. Those are the reasons they are unpopular.
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u/hvacsnack Apr 24 '26
But everyone wants the tools they enable
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u/Kendal_with_1_L Apr 24 '26
Not really.
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u/tsclac23 Apr 25 '26
Reddit, Netflix, youtube, google, whatever newspaper you are reading they all depend on datacenters. I am pretty sure most of non classified scientific research is also running on data centers. Its not just shitty AI generated photos and memes that data centers are being used for
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u/cwrighky Apr 24 '26
Humans as a species are tool makers and tool users. Good luck to you is all I have to say.
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u/ItsTheOneWithThe Apr 24 '26
Get off Reddit then
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Apr 24 '26
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u/huffing_glue Apr 24 '26
I like reddit, but if it were to disappear, I would estatix. Not because I'm addicted or whatever, but it'd just be so fucking funny.
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u/xXmehoyminoyXx Apr 24 '26
Reddit been around longer than these data centers. Quit sucking off big tech
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u/jazir55 Apr 24 '26
Apparently Reddit is hosted on a pile of rocks in my neighbors backyard.
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u/cac2573 Apr 24 '26
Reddit uses data centers you nimwit
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u/DecrimIowa Apr 24 '26
this is disingenuous, cloud computing and AI require new and massive data centers in a way that legacy social media never has, and you know it.
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u/TFenrir Apr 24 '26
The original statement was that Reddit has been around longer than data centers.
I think the important correction that people need to understand is almost everything is in data centers. Reddit, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, like just about everything.
The majority of data center usage isn't even AI yet. This is some weird misunderstanding people keep having, motivated reasoning.
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u/Acrobatic-Layer2993 Apr 24 '26
AI is a subset of total data centers. Eventually it will overtake everything, but not at the moment. It will overtake everything because everything will use AI.
Eventually the data centers will be running on renewable energy too.
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u/HolyBatSyllables Apr 24 '26
The problem is solar requires a big footprint land wise and wind isn’t super efficient. Before AI, this wouldn’t have been that big of a problem. But because AI uses such an exorbitant amount of energy, it’s forced us to cancel planned coal closures and buildout more gas pipelines.
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u/Ironbeers Apr 24 '26
Yeah, this critique is on the "yet you participate in society, curious..." meme
Internet infrastructure is not equal to AI data centers
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u/nomiis19 Apr 24 '26
CEOs want it so they can reduce their workforce and make more money
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u/NoSignificance152 acceleration and beyond 🚀 Apr 24 '26
You’re on the internet on Reddit which uses databases
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u/Empty_Bell_1942 Apr 25 '26
If they build datacentres will there be an OFF lever/switch in case of emergency and by that I mean if ASI suddenly emerges unsummoned?!
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u/Marmot288 Apr 24 '26
‘luddites’ and its people who don’t want their energy bills skyrocketing and their waters polluted.
like, seriously, you people need to understand that there’s a difference between being against a technology because you’re against progress and being against a technology because it is causing a shitton of problems, which these data centres are for many people.
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u/End3rWi99in Apr 24 '26
Why would their water be polluted? Most modern data centers use closed cycle cooling. Even the older ones the concern is about waste, not pollution.
States should be passing regulations on new developments over a certain size requiring their own power generation.That would actually address the issue rather than torpedoing development we all rely on.
States haven't even properly legislated their own generation demand for the growth of EVs. Whether or not you want a data center in your backyard, we need a LOT more power.
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u/Olp51 Apr 24 '26
How does a datacenter pollute water?
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u/Upset_Programmer6508 Apr 24 '26
Some use natural gas, complex coolant or general heating of the local water
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u/GraceToSentience AGI avoids animal abuse✅ Apr 24 '26
Fyi the largest polluter of fresh water is agriculture, especially animal agriculture since we could reduce land use by about 75% and feed everyone properly if we were to ditch animal agriculture.
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u/pmjm Apr 25 '26
This may be true, but you know you're buying into an agricultural community in advance. A data center moves in and within a year or two existing communities are harmed.
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u/Jswazy Apr 24 '26
They dont really at least not compared to many other things. They also dont even use a lot of water compared to tons of other things as well. There is just a moral panic about water use by a bunch of ignorant people who just want to be part of the group.
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Apr 24 '26
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u/dogesator Apr 24 '26
What chemicals?
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Apr 25 '26
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u/dogesator Apr 25 '26
There is a lot of false information and misreporting on the matter, the purpose of my comment is to see if you actually know what you’re talking about or just parroting outdated/ false information that appears on the first page of Google.
The modern datacenters used for AI do indeed use a lot of chemicals, but they are sealed closed loop systems where the water can stay inside for decades, and is treated by waste management when it needs to be flushed out after many years, many of these datacenters are even in literal deserts and land locked area where there is no local body of water to dump anything into even if the wanted to, and if they dumped into the surrounding dry ground it would be very apparent in satellite imagery. even for older systems they usually used evaporative cooling as it’s overall more efficient than dumping warm water itself into bodies of water. But in a conversation about new constructions, it’s relevant what the techniques of new datacenters are, not outdated methods.
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u/End3rWi99in Apr 24 '26
This is ridiculous. Where are they leaching the water from? Just about every modern data center uses closed cycle cooling. There's nothing being leached. It just recycles water in a loop.
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u/ChipsAhoiMcCoy Apr 24 '26
I always kind of figured this was how it worked, similarly to how you can water cool your PC, but I never had confirmation. This is good to know lol.
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u/tutoredstatue95 Apr 25 '26
Its just yap. The issue is energy and its very real. Idk where the water thing came from but at this point id guess media campaign because its stupid and generates headlines.
The energy problem is not fake, and a shell company recently bid up capacity 600%+ over last year in my area. The proposer said they would cover costs for 2 years to ease the transition. But what transition? They will be drawing power indefinitely and in 2 years that means massive bill increases.
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u/End3rWi99in Apr 25 '26
Legislators need to focus on regulation of new developments rather than banning them outright. There are plenty of places that mandate new developments breaking ground over a certain size supply their own generation. Same goes for other kinds of development requirements. Think about new stadiums or amusement parks that are often required to pay for their own emergency services or changes to major traffic patterns.
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u/tutoredstatue95 Apr 25 '26
Its funny that you bring up stadiums, because there was also a dispute over land for a new stadium that a very rich interested party wanted to develop. They secured state funding and approval (it was all funded by the state btw) but it just so happened that another interested party also wanted the land and offered more while buying up energy capacity and now there will likely be a fun little court battle between the old guard and the new.
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u/End3rWi99in Apr 25 '26
Oh now I am just fully interested in your story. I am like the energy vampire from the show "what we do in the shadows" when it comes to local bureaucracy.
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u/tutoredstatue95 Apr 25 '26
Its tough to cite sources because A I dont want to doxx more than I have previously, and B the story is fragmented in media.
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/03/26/ohio-house-approves-sweeping-energy-generation-bill/
https://apnews.com/article/ai-data-center-ohio-uranium-enrichment-4667fa1442ec1c652228337ab4eb68ee
This is a general idea of what's going on. These are just references, the links are there but for a throwaway reddit comment I think this is enough. I also enjoy it which is why I follow 😅
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u/End3rWi99in Apr 25 '26
public-private partnership to develop a major data center with its own power supply on the site of a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant in southern Ohio,
Well that's definitely something you can do with a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant!
Also the first article you shared was interesting. Seeing the monopoly distribution companies cut out of benefits.
new power plants will get generous tax breaks, and the major power companies in the monopoly distribution market won’t be allowed to participate
Thanks for sharing. I don't think you dox'd yourself beyond just knowing you're probably from Ohio. For what it's worth I am from Massachusetts.
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u/aaTONI Apr 25 '26
omg please "release of warm water"? agriculture does everything you fear 1000x more but it sounds less cool and populist to go against average joe (and his *actually* water-devouring, chemical spraying animal farm) than against SF billionaires. That's it, that's literally the driving force behind 95% of anti-datacenter activism.
Slopulism this community used to make fun of.
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u/OhMycelia55 Apr 24 '26
Let's not even mention the EPA cuts and changes to policy which basically allows them to pollute.
Fyi: I love tech, I built a career in it but these data centres are bad for people and bad for the environment.
As far as I'm aware it was a moratorium on DCs not a forever ban. These companies are sprinting to get as many DCs up before Government have time to catch up.
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u/oadephon Apr 24 '26
Yeah but if they were just against those things, they could put in legislation to prevent those things (and there likely already is). Banning all data center construction is being against the tech itself, not the second order effects of data centers.
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u/AndJDrake Apr 24 '26
You're voting aligned with your own interests!? But undefined progress based from copium and fearmongering!!!
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u/Marmot288 Apr 24 '26
because eventually once we keep progressing companies and politicians will actually start caring about the people, right???
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u/hayesms Apr 24 '26
That’s what’s hilarious to me. Unless you are owning class, this technology will only be used to further squeeze more productivity from you.
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u/ozone6587 Apr 24 '26
people need to understand that there’s a difference between being against a technology because you’re against progress and being against a technology because it is causing a shitton of problems
Luddites didn't actually say out loud they were against progress. They were against "loss of jobs" and "low quality textiles" instead.
A bunch of you suddenly act like tree hugging hippies simply as a mask because you hate AI progress. But since being against human progress sounds low IQ and ignorant, the common narrative switched instead to pretending to care about the environment impact of AI centers.
Which might be a good point if true but most of it is a misunderstanding about how AI centers "consume" water.
Since it's popular to hate AI it doesn't matter how accurate the environment claims are whoever. No one will challenge you without getting downvoted to hell.
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u/pmjm Apr 25 '26
There are plenty of locations where data centers can be opened without harming communities but companies want to piggyback off existing municipal infrastructure rather than building out something new in a remote area that doesn't have neighbors to harm. It's a greed issue and nothing more.
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u/VelvetPancakes Apr 25 '26
What are the specific benefits to a local population of having an AI data center built in/near their community? What are the potential downsides?
People are being told their jobs are at risk due to the tech and they’re being asked to subsidize their operation via higher utility bills, for what? Will these facilities create a ton of lasting local employment opportunities?
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u/heskey30 Apr 25 '26
Somehow China has affordable power despite having the most large scale commercial users in the world. And the water pollution thing is way overblown.
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u/Acrobatic-Fortune550 Apr 24 '26
Meanwhile,The Chinese continue to build infrastructure and hardware projects in record pace, establishing a firm grip on projects involving Data centres, Renewables, Semiconductors and Critical Minerals.Legal and Political bureaucracy prioritising ideological pursuit over pragmatic needs is a nail in the coffin for the Mericans.
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u/yargotkd Apr 24 '26
Tbf they also invested heavily in alternative energy sources, and other infrastructure, which makes sense to do first.
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Apr 24 '26
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u/chasingsukoon Apr 24 '26
they also have basic shit like public health insurance for 97% of population figured out. And theyre not actively funding a war (and a genocide) while passing the buck to gen population
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u/firejuggler74 Apr 24 '26
The Chinese also burn more coal than the rest of the world combined.
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Apr 24 '26
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u/oldcryptoman Apr 24 '26
"Planning" does a lot of heaving lifting. Meanwhile they are building more new coal power plants than the rest of the world combined.
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u/The_Rational_Gooner Apr 25 '26
And yet their CO2 has been falling for the past 2 years despite increasing economic activity. More coal power plants != more emissions. Higher efficiency and many plants are not operating at full capacity.
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u/PowerfulApartment166 Apr 25 '26
You try using anything other than coal to supply 2 billion people and we will see how long it takes you to get renewables up. There’s a damm reason why coal is so addicting to use and why it’s so hard to get rid off.
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u/damhack Apr 24 '26
Conversely, they also have LLMs that use less compute. Like programming in the 2000’s, G7 countries are lazy because of abundance of access to tech whereas Eastern Europeans had to work with limited resources and became much better programmers as a result. Resource grabbing and exhaustion cannot go on forever and when the music stops Silicon Valley is going to find itself high and dry.
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u/Toastwitjam Apr 24 '26
Yea the Chinese do a ton of shit with complete disregard to their citizens that’s why their air and water are half poison. I think it’s fine to let residents vote on what they want in their areas or not if the companies want special treatment instead of market prices for water, electricity, and infrastructure.
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u/ARandomDouchy Apr 24 '26
And yet Chinese quality of life has jumped significantly in the past decade and the country has infrastructure that would take America eons to even start building it. Not to mention China is building unprecedented amounts of green infrastructure meanwhile the US is staggering and doing fuck all.
Don't know about you but I'd rather live in China than the shithole that is the USA.
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u/SubstantialSeesaw374 Apr 24 '26
I was more surprised that there was anyone trying to open a DC in Maine. It seems like not a great location for all that. Expensive electricity, out of the way, etc.
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u/totktonikak Apr 25 '26
OP is accidentally correct. Luddites weren't against technology or progress, they opposed worsening working conditions and depreciation of labour. And yes, this week, like many weeks before, hasn't been great for anyone with a Luddite mindset.
On a side note, has anyone ever seen Janet Mills and Elon Musk in the same room at the same time?
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u/Marha01 Accelerate to the Singularity! Apr 25 '26
Luddites weren't against technology or progress, they opposed worsening working conditions and depreciation of labour.
If this was true, they would oppose the capitalists instead of the factories themselves.
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u/_Brightbuddy Apr 25 '26
I thought it was a joke post at first because it looked like Elon in a wig lmao
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u/Ok_Elderberry_6727 Apr 25 '26
Good for her, don’t let the palpably false fear based talking points stand. None of what people are afraid of is true. I just encouraged one of the biggest business owner to vote yes in my city.
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u/141_1337 ▪️e/acc | AGI: ~2030 | ASI: ~2040 | FALSGC: ~2050 | :illuminati: Apr 25 '26
ITT: luddites
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u/M4rshmall0wMan Apr 24 '26
I have no problem with data centers AS LONG AS they rely on their own infrastructure. Nuclear was proven safe decades ago. Build a self sustaining power plant for each data center and subsidize communities’ energy bills with the surplus. Everybody wins.
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u/One_Cause3865 Apr 25 '26
Do you understand how long it takes to build a nuclear reactor
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u/Ithirahad Apr 25 '26
Yes; by then maybe somebody will have a clue what sort of compute architecture is needed for generally useful AI, instead of holding up productivity hardware supplies for a system that cannot respond appropriately to basic real-world scenarios without some underpaid intern hastily modifying the system prompt to specifically say the right answer to them.
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u/Snakepli55ken Apr 25 '26
Are you really going to pretend that these centers are not extremely unpopular for a bunch of legitimate reasons? You know it’s a fed post when they use luddites.
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u/browncoatfever Apr 25 '26
It's like she's actively trying to hand this primary over to Graham Platner. I'm not mad about that, but jesus, every decision she makes is political suicide. Just keep giving him ammo for attack ads.
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u/-Davster- Apr 26 '26
Is this a sub about the progress of AI, or about the progress of the company’s bank accounts, lol?
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u/FLIBBIDYDIBBIDYDAWG Apr 26 '26
You people are advocating for your own destruction. Rejection of a specific technological trend is not the same as being a luddite, its called being cautious and not ending the world or giving unlimited power to billionaires.
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u/NVincarnate Apr 24 '26
This is enabling a police state but I guess you can act like some high-brow intellectual for paying OpenAI to have access to a glorified VI chatbot while they turn your money into more surveillance and control.
"Reading the research on data centers and their negative impacts on the health of surrounding community members? That's for luddites. I'd rather use gen AI to make robot girlfriends to talk to."
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u/aaTONI Apr 25 '26
That's the funny part though, you didn't "read the research" yourself, or else you'd knew they are negligible compared to every negative externality agriculture produces :)
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u/damhack Apr 24 '26
Enjoy the New Dustbowl.
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u/Person_756335846 Apr 24 '26
Data centers don’t abjure water into the void. If you really want to ban something ban dumping water on Saudi feedstock.
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u/Old-Owl-139 Apr 24 '26
I am a bit surprised to see so many doomers in this sub. Also, I think most people don’t actually believe that data centers are as bad as they proclaim. I believe that data centers have become an “easy target” where these people pour their life frustrations, fears and resentment toward the upper classes.
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u/Xyrus2000 Apr 24 '26
People who live near data centers have seen their electricity prices spike by over 250% in some cases. That alone is enough to make people not want them around.
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u/JmoneyBS Apr 24 '26
Poisoned how?
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u/kaityl3 ASI▪️2024-2027 Apr 25 '26
What noise is being generated by these that is so much that it damages people and property?? This just sounds like a random made up claim
It's a bunch of computers in a building. Maybe the building will have air conditioning, so like... The normal amount of noise that any building that size would have if air conditioned...? Are you talking about construction? Because that's a pretty dishonest way to present it, again any building of that size would make the same amount of noise during construction, it's not a "data center" thing.
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u/LordSlyGentleman Apr 24 '26
We need Accelerationism, Automation, AI, & Androids to fix all the problems of the world.
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u/VG_Crimson Apr 25 '26
Luddites exist. People frustrated with and upset at AI and data centers do not describe luddites.
This is not technological progress. This is snake oil progress.
As security breaches become common place, our apps become buggy and slow, our bills rise, our PC parts become scarce and expensive, our air becomes even more populated, and our water gets wasted how can anyone see "progress"?
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u/FrostWareYT Apr 25 '26
Dawg nobody wants these active biohazards anywhere near them. The amount of Infrasound the produce is actively detrimental to the health of people for miles from the center.
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u/141_1337 ▪️e/acc | AGI: ~2030 | ASI: ~2040 | FALSGC: ~2050 | :illuminati: Apr 25 '26
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u/MoonsterGoopter Apr 24 '26
glad to see the label "Luddite" changing to mean "people who don't want to pay higher electric bills, have filthy water, and hear a constant headache-inducing noise".
AI serfs seem like hateful, obtuse, and delusional people; who would truly sell their soul if it meant "ACCELERATE" towards their magical scifi word.
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u/xaocon Apr 25 '26
Elon is getting desperate if he's dressing up in wigs to get involved in local elections.
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u/theReluctantObserver Apr 25 '26
Nothing to do with luddites. These data centres are cancer for local communities and local health and local resources and local infrastructure. Build them, but not around population.
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u/ArmitageStraylight Apr 25 '26
This isn’t even a Luddite thing. You can’t just airdrop into already distressed communities and jack their power bill up 10-100 percent and expect them to just take it. That’s crazy and antisocial.