Maybe it's better to just say that they're shouldering more of the burden?
> Very little daily benefit? I think they have to agree that the magic of applications like Waze or Google Docs or OpenAI don't magically happen without some data center somewhere. It's like people complaining about the smell of hog farms but insisting on eating pork.
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Pay attention to the context.
It seems like since the AI boom, people have been building more datacenters, that are bigger, and using more power. I mean FFS, memory prices are through the roof and NVIDIA is pulling back from the consumer market. This isn't about building data-centers for "Waze or Google Docs," or any of those applications people actually benefit from.
These datacenters will likely be hastily abandoned once the AI-flavored expansion pops and will be a blight on the land that would have otherwise been growing beans and corn.
At best, they will be a poorly guarded structure that local high school students will break into and do what high school students do.
Nearly half of all corn fields in the US go to feed our cars.
AI Data Centers are different than other plants. They provide very little in employment in the region. The few high-paying jobs that may exist can be located in other countries. All that is needed is building maintenance, and that can be contracted out, so no permanent work for the area.
All the Data Center does is use resources, electricity/water, without giving anything back to the community except discounted property tax. The residences, they only see higher utility costs for themselves.
So no wonder people are fighting back.
It is not surprising in the least that suits from Washington and execs from Silicon Valley descending upon the land like vultures aren't exactly given a warm welcome from regular folk. Even if electricity prices stayed the same there would be damage done that goes beyond NIMBYism that would need to be fixed.
csto12•1h ago
When are we going to stop talking about Republicans like they are still neocons? Republicans haven’t been the pro big-business party in 10 years (did we forget about the tariffs, trade wars, etc that have happened in the last year alone?)
palmotea•1h ago
Because they're still schizophrenic about that. It's not an either/or thing. Trump likes tariffs, and a protectionist strain has appeared in the Republican party, but the pro big-business/small government stuff is there, just not so monolithically dominant.
Der_Einzige•1h ago
Rich people love trumps protectionism and MAGA. Neocons and paternal autocrats, but I repeat myself.
riddlemethat•1h ago
Der_Einzige•1h ago
post_break•1h ago
Spooky23•1h ago
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the country. GOP policy blew up farming in the 80s, but doubling down on stupid culture war shit in the 90s flipped the farmers. The democratic parties concluded the juice of a contested small voter base wasnt worth the squeeze.
The same rug pull is in play here. Lots of Catholics are on the MAGA train because of their supposed deep convictions. The anti-immigrant Cuban and Mexicans will be the first to hit the “find out” phase.
Der_Einzige•1h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement
analognoise•47m ago
This is generational damage for anyone (R), and we’re only a year in. They’re losing elections in Trump +17 districts.
Never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake.
Der_Einzige•23m ago
They LOVE the cruelty. The people who hate immigrants most are other immigrants. Brazil didn't end slavery until 1888 and it continued de-facto far longer than it did in the USA. Spain/Portugal were far more cruel/racist than the English and especially french were. Their history is one of extreme, virulent racism.
Even today, they make huge distinctions between the "European" white mexicans who are "untainted" by indigenous blood.
Latinos also are extremely anti-LGBT, and used to be catholic but are having their own evangelization sweeping through their communities (I am personally witnessing it right now). That evangelization is primary in reaction to the precieved liberalism of the current and previous pope.
js8•1h ago
It's not really surprising as conservativism and liberalism are both main pillars of capitalism, because the idea of property is based both on authority (like authority, you get the property ostensibly based on your past performance and you keep it indefinitely) and liberty (you can do what you want with it).