7 ms·

Probably an oversimplified question but how do we actually stop this?

crawfordcomeaux 5d ago
Thousands of people marching on data centers and taking them over at the same time. Elections will never save you when the parties in power serve the billionaires.
- RankingMember 5d ago
  The people in power are making a lot of mistakes right now. You ignore popular will at your peril. The more the bought-and-paid for Supreme Court and politicians weaken the power of the individual voter through shit like Citizens United and gerrymandering, the further they push people towards "uncivilized" methods.
deleted 5d ago
[deleted]
JohnFen 5d ago
A good start is to vote in the midterms to reduce the amount of power that these antihuman criminals have. The US is currently in the midst of a serious political disaster and there will be no quick fix to any of this. But if we take every opportunity possible whenever we can to rid ourselves of these people and to stand in their way as much as possible, we can work our way back from the brink.
- pc86 5d ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 5d ago
    [deleted]
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 5d ago
    I am so Le tired of hearing people give a damn about the state of the world. Why can’t you all just be more passive non voters like myself? The world has not literally ended yet, so all concerns are overblown.
    - kelseyfrog 5d ago
      Exactly! We should only work to prevent the end of the world after it has ended.
  - deleted 5d ago
    [deleted]
  - mplanchard 5d ago
    Two decades puts us back to the post-9/11 war on terror era, from which it seems like a fairly straight line to, for example, ICE murdering people in the streets. So, yeah, political disasters take time to reach their conclusions, and the slide can be arrested at any point before it gets too bad. I think it’s probably correct that we’ve been in the midst of one for at least two decades, if not longer.
- dataflow 5d ago
  I'm not sure winning in the midterms will be a net positive for Democrats (barring an infeasible supermajority). Even if they stop everything Republicans want to do (which they won't even get close to), that's just going to become the excuse for the next Republican campaign to blame Democrats for a dysfunctional government, and there's a good chance Democrats would lose as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if it would actually turn out better for Democrats if they stay a minority so that they can't get the blame during the presidential election.
  - mikestew 5d ago
    Republicans have been a buttplug in the political process for going on twenty years, and yet who has the majority in congress?
    - simpaticoder 5d ago
      The left needs to stop giving the right a cudgel with which to beat them every election. It's a cudgel of culture-war memes and badvocate tik-toks that resonates with voters more than corruption, autocracy, debt, wars, and the dismantling of our democracy. Meanwhile the DNC gerontocracy hires an army of feckless corpo-humanoid consultants to issue press releases listing all the people Dems fight for - a list that happens to leave out men and white people. It's fine though. It's fine.
      - mullingitover 5d ago
        > listing all the people Dems fight for - a list that happens to leave out men and white people. Unions: famously devoid of men and white people. Maybe you mean they don't specifically put men and white people at the top of their hierarchy?
        wallst07 4d ago
        Here we see a small glimpse into why Democrats can't win.
Y-bar 5d ago
Unfortunately the answer is ”it requires effort”, or in other words: Vote (and hold them accountable after the ballots have been counted), Shout (literally), Protest (including civil disobedience), join any civil or environmental movement, help file legal challenges. Democracy is for good and for worse not a one-and-done thing, it is a continuous fight.
- scottyah 5d ago
  This doesn't seem like a very effective method. I would expect something more along the lines of developing laws around noise pollution or something. Literally shouting at a data center seems more cathartic than helpful.
  - RankingMember 5d ago
    It's about numbers. A small group isn't going to do anything directly to the data center, but it can raise awareness that other people do indeed care. This, in turn, can slowly (over multiple demonstrations) grow the size of the demonstrations to a critical mass that cannot be ignored.
  - noir_lord 5d ago
    > I would expect something more along the lines of developing laws around noise pollution or something. How do you think you as a voter who presumably aren't a billionaire (or CEO of a mega corporation) with politicians on speed dial who will take the call get the politicians to pass those laws? If the electorate is asleep at the wheel, the people pushing the politicians are all pushing them one way and the car isn't going in the direction that most of the electorate would necessarily want. If you value your democracy you sometimes have to be an active participant in it and sometimes that means turning up more than once ever X years and ticking a box.
    - wallst07 4d ago
      Here's a simple one, start at your state level. Talk to your state representative, should be easy enough to meet with them. What are they doing about DC water and energy level requirements in your own state.
idontwantthis 5d ago
Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.
- cogman10 5d ago
  Vote strategically. Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general. If you are in a D leaning district, then register as a D and vote in the D primary. Make sure the candidate you vote for is the most likely to win who isn't captured by big business. A good example of a datacenter friendly dem that just won by the skin of their teeth is Crowley for governor in Wisconson.
  - idontwantthis 5d ago
    > Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general. The only thing that matters is Democrats gaining control of Congress and state governments. The choice that isn't a democrat is the wrong one. The time to vote out an incumbent was the primary.
    - cogman10 5d ago
      > The time to vote out an incumbent was the primary. I agree, that's why I'm saying you should be involved in the primary and not just the general. Because, as I said, it's not the default position of the democrat party to be for regulating datacenters. I gave an explicit example of that where a dem is completely aligned with the republicans on DCs. Dems win power, but they are still beholden to OpenAI, then they'll be no better than the republicans on this issue. It's too late for 2026 and IMO you should vote for Ds wherever you are at. But if you want to affect change on DCs then voting in the primary for anti-dc dems is what you have to do. It's not enough to just vote in the general elections.
      - 5d ago
pfdietz 5d ago
If such reviews are required by legislation then you stop it in the courts; approvals without legally required steps are invalid. If they are not required by legislation then you just deal with the change. While you're thinking about this, realize even the Democrats are annoyed at how weaponized things like NEPA have become to slow down necessary changes.
schainks 5d ago
1. Vote 2. Vote 3. Vote 4. Find every publicly accessible local forum with _your_ representatives at every level, and get on the mic. Tell your reps they will lose your vote and the votes of your entire network for complicity in harm against society on behalf of the billionaire class. Follow through on that threat. Extreme option: Run for election yourself on the platform and get voted into office. The bar is lower than ever in some places.
unethical_ban 5d ago
Scrap the current forms of elected representation with one that encourages multiple parties instead of a forced dichotomy. Create some kind of constant recall mechanism for elected officials. And other things.
mlindner 5d ago
Why do you want to stop this? Data centers are not some enemy of the people.
- rglover 4d ago
  Because they're being put far too close to residential areas. The way they're being designed and built, they actually are an enemy [1]. Nobody wants to live next to that. [1] https://youtu.be/RAliBRyq_1c?is=iYxwnVjT8No9qm8- https://youtu.be/RAliBRyq_1c?is=iYxwnVjT8No9qm8-

Thousands of people marching on data centers and taking them over at the same time. Elections will never save you when the parties in power serve the billionaires.

RankingMember 5d ago
The people in power are making a lot of mistakes right now. You ignore popular will at your peril. The more the bought-and-paid for Supreme Court and politicians weaken the power of the individual voter through shit like Citizens United and gerrymandering, the further they push people towards "uncivilized" methods.

deleted 5d ago

[deleted]

JohnFen 5d ago

A good start is to vote in the midterms to reduce the amount of power that these antihuman criminals have. The US is currently in the midst of a serious political disaster and there will be no quick fix to any of this. But if we take every opportunity possible whenever we can to rid ourselves of these people and to stand in their way as much as possible, we can work our way back from the brink.

pc86 5d ago
[flagged]
- deleted 5d ago
  [deleted]
- 0cf8612b2e1e 5d ago
  I am so Le tired of hearing people give a damn about the state of the world. Why can’t you all just be more passive non voters like myself? The world has not literally ended yet, so all concerns are overblown.
  - kelseyfrog 5d ago
    Exactly! We should only work to prevent the end of the world after it has ended.
- deleted 5d ago
  [deleted]
- mplanchard 5d ago
  Two decades puts us back to the post-9/11 war on terror era, from which it seems like a fairly straight line to, for example, ICE murdering people in the streets. So, yeah, political disasters take time to reach their conclusions, and the slide can be arrested at any point before it gets too bad. I think it’s probably correct that we’ve been in the midst of one for at least two decades, if not longer.
dataflow 5d ago
I'm not sure winning in the midterms will be a net positive for Democrats (barring an infeasible supermajority). Even if they stop everything Republicans want to do (which they won't even get close to), that's just going to become the excuse for the next Republican campaign to blame Democrats for a dysfunctional government, and there's a good chance Democrats would lose as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if it would actually turn out better for Democrats if they stay a minority so that they can't get the blame during the presidential election.
- mikestew 5d ago
  Republicans have been a buttplug in the political process for going on twenty years, and yet who has the majority in congress?
  - simpaticoder 5d ago
    The left needs to stop giving the right a cudgel with which to beat them every election. It's a cudgel of culture-war memes and badvocate tik-toks that resonates with voters more than corruption, autocracy, debt, wars, and the dismantling of our democracy. Meanwhile the DNC gerontocracy hires an army of feckless corpo-humanoid consultants to issue press releases listing all the people Dems fight for - a list that happens to leave out men and white people. It's fine though. It's fine.
    - mullingitover 5d ago
      > listing all the people Dems fight for - a list that happens to leave out men and white people. Unions: famously devoid of men and white people. Maybe you mean they don't specifically put men and white people at the top of their hierarchy?
      - wallst07 4d ago
        Here we see a small glimpse into why Democrats can't win.

Y-bar 5d ago

Unfortunately the answer is ”it requires effort”, or in other words: Vote (and hold them accountable after the ballots have been counted), Shout (literally), Protest (including civil disobedience), join any civil or environmental movement, help file legal challenges. Democracy is for good and for worse not a one-and-done thing, it is a continuous fight.

scottyah 5d ago
This doesn't seem like a very effective method. I would expect something more along the lines of developing laws around noise pollution or something. Literally shouting at a data center seems more cathartic than helpful.
- RankingMember 5d ago
  It's about numbers. A small group isn't going to do anything directly to the data center, but it can raise awareness that other people do indeed care. This, in turn, can slowly (over multiple demonstrations) grow the size of the demonstrations to a critical mass that cannot be ignored.
- noir_lord 5d ago
  > I would expect something more along the lines of developing laws around noise pollution or something. How do you think you as a voter who presumably aren't a billionaire (or CEO of a mega corporation) with politicians on speed dial who will take the call get the politicians to pass those laws? If the electorate is asleep at the wheel, the people pushing the politicians are all pushing them one way and the car isn't going in the direction that most of the electorate would necessarily want. If you value your democracy you sometimes have to be an active participant in it and sometimes that means turning up more than once ever X years and ticking a box.
  - wallst07 4d ago
    Here's a simple one, start at your state level. Talk to your state representative, should be easy enough to meet with them. What are they doing about DC water and energy level requirements in your own state.

idontwantthis 5d ago

Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.

cogman10 5d ago
Vote strategically. Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general. If you are in a D leaning district, then register as a D and vote in the D primary. Make sure the candidate you vote for is the most likely to win who isn't captured by big business. A good example of a datacenter friendly dem that just won by the skin of their teeth is Crowley for governor in Wisconson.
- idontwantthis 5d ago
  > Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general. The only thing that matters is Democrats gaining control of Congress and state governments. The choice that isn't a democrat is the wrong one. The time to vote out an incumbent was the primary.
  - cogman10 5d ago
    > The time to vote out an incumbent was the primary. I agree, that's why I'm saying you should be involved in the primary and not just the general. Because, as I said, it's not the default position of the democrat party to be for regulating datacenters. I gave an explicit example of that where a dem is completely aligned with the republicans on DCs. Dems win power, but they are still beholden to OpenAI, then they'll be no better than the republicans on this issue. It's too late for 2026 and IMO you should vote for Ds wherever you are at. But if you want to affect change on DCs then voting in the primary for anti-dc dems is what you have to do. It's not enough to just vote in the general elections.
    - 5d ago

pfdietz 5d ago

If such reviews are required by legislation then you stop it in the courts; approvals without legally required steps are invalid. If they are not required by legislation then you just deal with the change. While you're thinking about this, realize even the Democrats are annoyed at how weaponized things like NEPA have become to slow down necessary changes.

schainks 5d ago

1. Vote 2. Vote 3. Vote 4. Find every publicly accessible local forum with _your_ representatives at every level, and get on the mic. Tell your reps they will lose your vote and the votes of your entire network for complicity in harm against society on behalf of the billionaire class. Follow through on that threat. Extreme option: Run for election yourself on the platform and get voted into office. The bar is lower than ever in some places.

unethical_ban 5d ago

Scrap the current forms of elected representation with one that encourages multiple parties instead of a forced dichotomy. Create some kind of constant recall mechanism for elected officials. And other things.

mlindner 5d ago

Why do you want to stop this? Data centers are not some enemy of the people.

rglover 4d ago
Because they're being put far too close to residential areas. The way they're being designed and built, they actually are an enemy [1]. Nobody wants to live next to that. [1] https://youtu.be/RAliBRyq_1c?is=iYxwnVjT8No9qm8- https://youtu.be/RAliBRyq_1c?is=iYxwnVjT8No9qm8-