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6 years ago when the work to build the data center started, nobody cared about data centers. Should 6 years of planning be thrown away because data centers hav

6 years ago when the work to build the data center started, nobody cared about data centers. Should 6 years of planning be thrown away because data centers have recently become fashionable to hate?

voakbasda 1mo ago
One hundred years ago when humans started pumping oil out of the ground and burning it, nobody cared about it. Should a century of infrastructure investment be thrown away because cooking the planet has recently become fashionable to hate? Yes. It should. Will it? No.
Matl 1mo ago
So noise and pollution that makes it impossible to live in or sell your house is now simply 'fashionable' to hate?
- ajross 1mo ago
  This is going to sound like I'm flipping sides in this thread: but yeah, absolutely. Otherwise people in Gilroy would have hated datacenters when the planning started and Amazon would have built in Fresno or wherever. Really both sides are insane in this battle. People are angry about social change, injustice, perceived loss of status and are taking out those frustrations on totems like "Buildings Owned by Big Tech". Which is wrong. But it's equally wrong to ignore those concerns and try to align with their political enemies, which only makes this worse. (We saw exactly this thing happen with the vaccine madness just half a decade ago!) To wit: we're all going to hell in a handbasket and this community is 100% as much at fault as the big data opposition front.
- ACCount37 1mo ago
  Yep. The "noise and pollution" of a datacenter are bordering on nonexistent. The same goes for water use concerns and more. The environmental concerns are extremely overblown - but NIMBYs really don't need much to get going.
  - throwaway173738 1mo ago
    So which data center do you call neighbor?
- halJordan 1mo ago
  I guess i don't understand why reneging on a binding agreement is the cool thing here. They went through all the requirements. If the requirements should now change that's fine. But hold yourself to the agreement you made. Or appropriately terminate it
  - Matl 1mo ago
    Amazon is not exactly known for playing fair or treating their workers well, so trying to play it like this is somehow the little guy being oppressed here or something is pathetic. Did it ever occur to you that politicians signing a 'binding agreement' may not be the same as public interest? That they are often paid to hide the full implications from the public? Do you understand that some people actually want to live and raise family in a livable environment? I understand that Ayn Rand fans who do not have to suffer the consequences of that philosophy or 'futurists' who think purely in 'make AI go brrr is cool' do not understand this, but some people place value on other things in life besides this and yes, they do deserve a place at the table. As generally a tech optimist, but also someone deeply aware of the awful trajectory modern tech is on, such as their waste, war on general purpose computing, ownership, privacy and repairability, I think a lot of this needs rethinking and perhaps of brute forcing your way to stripping people of their livehoods by polluting, straining the grid and depriving people of places they'd want to live in, slow down and consider if there's not a smarter, more efficient, more humane way to move forward. Failing to do so may produce a backslash that will harm even the things we love about our space. The 'contract' is not sacred above everything. Especially when that contract affects a lot more people than those who signed it as 'binding'.
ofjcihen 1mo ago
6 years of planning can be thrown away if the community is just now becoming aware of the potential impact. It’s not on the community to adhere to the companies looking to make a profit while ignoring how their presence affects those around them. Quite the opposite really.

6 years ago when the work to build the data center started, nobody cared about data centers. Should 6 years of planning be thrown away because data centers have recently become fashionable to hate?

voakbasda 1mo ago

One hundred years ago when humans started pumping oil out of the ground and burning it, nobody cared about it. Should a century of infrastructure investment be thrown away because cooking the planet has recently become fashionable to hate? Yes. It should. Will it? No.

Matl 1mo ago

So noise and pollution that makes it impossible to live in or sell your house is now simply 'fashionable' to hate?

ajross 1mo ago
This is going to sound like I'm flipping sides in this thread: but yeah, absolutely. Otherwise people in Gilroy would have hated datacenters when the planning started and Amazon would have built in Fresno or wherever. Really both sides are insane in this battle. People are angry about social change, injustice, perceived loss of status and are taking out those frustrations on totems like "Buildings Owned by Big Tech". Which is wrong. But it's equally wrong to ignore those concerns and try to align with their political enemies, which only makes this worse. (We saw exactly this thing happen with the vaccine madness just half a decade ago!) To wit: we're all going to hell in a handbasket and this community is 100% as much at fault as the big data opposition front.
ACCount37 1mo ago
Yep. The "noise and pollution" of a datacenter are bordering on nonexistent. The same goes for water use concerns and more. The environmental concerns are extremely overblown - but NIMBYs really don't need much to get going.
- throwaway173738 1mo ago
  So which data center do you call neighbor?
halJordan 1mo ago
I guess i don't understand why reneging on a binding agreement is the cool thing here. They went through all the requirements. If the requirements should now change that's fine. But hold yourself to the agreement you made. Or appropriately terminate it
- Matl 1mo ago
  Amazon is not exactly known for playing fair or treating their workers well, so trying to play it like this is somehow the little guy being oppressed here or something is pathetic. Did it ever occur to you that politicians signing a 'binding agreement' may not be the same as public interest? That they are often paid to hide the full implications from the public? Do you understand that some people actually want to live and raise family in a livable environment? I understand that Ayn Rand fans who do not have to suffer the consequences of that philosophy or 'futurists' who think purely in 'make AI go brrr is cool' do not understand this, but some people place value on other things in life besides this and yes, they do deserve a place at the table. As generally a tech optimist, but also someone deeply aware of the awful trajectory modern tech is on, such as their waste, war on general purpose computing, ownership, privacy and repairability, I think a lot of this needs rethinking and perhaps of brute forcing your way to stripping people of their livehoods by polluting, straining the grid and depriving people of places they'd want to live in, slow down and consider if there's not a smarter, more efficient, more humane way to move forward. Failing to do so may produce a backslash that will harm even the things we love about our space. The 'contract' is not sacred above everything. Especially when that contract affects a lot more people than those who signed it as 'binding'.

ofjcihen 1mo ago

6 years of planning can be thrown away if the community is just now becoming aware of the potential impact. It’s not on the community to adhere to the companies looking to make a profit while ignoring how their presence affects those around them. Quite the opposite really.