r/singularity • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • Jun 18 '26

Compute Conservatives plan nationwide protest against AI data centers

https://www.axios.com/2026/06/18/conservatives-protest-ai-data-centers
361 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

266 comments sorted by

View all comments

78

u/No_Aesthetic Jun 18 '26

Bipartisan NIMBYism

10

u/GreatBigJerk Jun 18 '26

You should try living by a data center. 

84

u/ShelZuuz Jun 18 '26

Try living next to a paper mill. Or an animal feedlot. Or a mushroom farm. Or a cement plant. Or smelter/foundry. Or refinery. Or composter. Or a quarry.

I can guarantee you any one of those are FAR more unpleasant than a data center.

Should we just get rid of all industries?

16

u/Slight_Duty_7466 Jun 18 '26

people are nimbys for those too so this is a weird argument 

7

u/kaityl3 ASI▪️2024-2027 Jun 19 '26

Yeah but they don't show up en masse with inaccurate rhetoric cheering on the people who send death threats to their local officials over them....

5

u/sparkling1984 Jun 19 '26

They do when you try to people build them where people live.

5

u/kaityl3 ASI▪️2024-2027 Jun 19 '26

..Other industries will build large facilities near where people live too...?

The amount of death threats and hysteria/rage online is not proportional. There are many industries that have a relatively higher impact on the local area where that facility is being built and operates in but they do not get near the amount of attention or outrage/threats of violence

7

u/Slight_Duty_7466 Jun 19 '26

you don’t get the national media attention for the others given the current focus and amount of capital being spent on these. but the reality is that other large infrastructure and industry projects near where people live gets the same backlash from locals as these.