alt Hacker NewsIn theory, let's say that a data center was proposed that:
1. got no tax breaks
2. self-generated electricity with greenest of green generation
3. did not pollute water supplies
4. made electricity prices go down somehow
5. (can't figure out a theoretical version where there are lots of jobs, sorry)
6. was extremely quiet
Would people still be mad about them?
I'm trying to figure out if the bad reasons are the _actual_ reason people are generally against data centers. Or if it's really more about "AI bad."
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A lot less people would be mad, yeah. In my own area, the mere rumor of a data center was enough to galvanize activity and get write-ups in the local news. The focus, generally, was on how it would raise electricity costs for the county and use up variable water resources right as we are facing water shortages here.
A lot of people here are in precarious financial situations, they do not want to see any costs go up. Inflation at the grocery store, high gas prices, high mortgages/rent, and a lousy job market have people on edge. I don't know if the average Joe is worried about AI leading to a dystopian hellscape, but he at least doesn't see AI providing any benefit to making ends meet.
Turned out not be a data center, but just the possibility caused a stir.
Yes, people were mad about them due to the tax breaks here in Sweden long before LLMs were a thing.
Really lost here lol. Yes the reasons people don’t like them are because of the negative effects they produce.
Personally if your 6 points were true, I would not be mad about them.
> I'm trying to figure out if the bad reasons are the _actual_ reason people are generally against data centers.
The list is long and includes things like people not being able to afford AC anymore; why are you trying to figure this out?
What you seem to be asking asking is if this is just NIMBYism or not. And it's not. At least, I'm not a NIMBY. As an example, just recently I commented on how NIMBYism added billions of points to the UK's HS2 project by building a completely unnecessary tunnel to protect the views of some of the UK's wealthiest landowners [1].
Tax breaks for business have always been ontroversial. I think it's always been a false economy and businesses have effectively played 50 states off of each other to get tax breaks they don't need and they don't pay tor themselves. Some of the examples of this are almost comical. A great example of the hundreds of millions spent to entice businesses back and forth between Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO, which are literally right next to each other [2].
Oh, and the tax breaks given to stadiums are particularly disgusting unless th emncipality owns the team in question in part or in whole and AFAIK in any top tier sports league, there's only one example of that (ie the Green Bay Packers) and the NFL has made that ownership structure illegal.
But anyway, data centers don't create employment so the usual arguments of "they'll go elsewhere" that were used at the time it was a factory or an auto plant don't apply. Yet they get pedlled out anyway. Residents don't want them and it still happens.
Two points I want to comment on from your list.
The first is you qualified self-generated electricity as green. this is a good and important qualifier. The alternative is what Elon did in Memphis [3], which should be illegal regardless.
The second is the water. That's going to be difficult no matter where you build these things. The big issue there is that data centers add pollutants to the water to keep their pipes clean. That too should be illegal. If you were just, for example, using cold sea or river or lake water for cooling then it wouldn't be a big deal. But data centers don't want that. It might corrode their precious pipes. They might need maintenance more often. Or you could use a heat exchange system where water is used for cooling and you can add what you want to it but it's in a closed loop and external water is used to cool it. This is what nucleaer reactors do. But that too is more expensive.
Now if someone was going to build one of these things out in New Mexico or Arizona that have large stretches of uninhabited land and plentiful sunshine (for solar) it would be a different conversation. Of course, water would be an issue there.
Data centers are a massive wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy. That's really the crux of the problem.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48350761
[2]: https://www.mackinac.org/the-left-and-right-agree-to-end-tax...
[3]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/22/epa-thwarts-musks-d...
I think at least it would be hard to get a nimby protest movement going with those conditions. Maybe add in building it somewhere people can't see it?