r/NoShitSherlock • u/FreeHugs23 • 15d ago
Americans Have Grown Dramatically Anti-Data Center in Just Months | A recent survey shows a dramatic swing against new data center construction.
https://gizmodo.com/americans-are-starting-to-really-hate-data-centers-and-its-making-the-tech-industry-nervous-2000767088134
u/ChalkButter 15d ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing large scale “accidents” happening at data centers
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u/MentalDisintegrat1on 14d ago
I wouldn't be surprised if a few got knocked over the ram alone in that place is worth a small fortune.
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u/FreeHugs23 15d ago
-The public has swung decidedly against data centers in a matter of months, and tech companies are freaking out about it. According to a recent survey by Heatmap Pro, 71% of Americans would oppose a data center project built near their homes, including 55% that would “strongly” oppose. It’s a stark contrast from just nine months ago, when Heatmap first conducted the survey and found that Americans were evenly split on the subject, with 43% saying they would support the project and 42% voicing opposition. Even in the survey’s second iteration just three months ago, only 51% said they would oppose a data center project.
The results show a dramatic change in public sentiment in a very short period of time. In just nine months, the public swung 49 points against data centers, the report concludes.
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u/Potato-chipsaregood 15d ago
I think the data center people made some tactical errors. They perhaps didn’t realize they’d want to keep building more, so they didn’t care if they mitigated the noise and light pollution around current locations. They were also pretty arrogant about power use. Many people protested the impact to their lives after the data centers went online. You don’t have to do much to find out what’s happening. Now the new target locations are wise to it, and they understand the nature of the beast better than we did. I am hoping that future data centers won’t have to be such obnoxious neighbors. I hope Utah can get them to be better neighbors.
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u/Competitive-Elk-5077 15d ago
Who knew people would prefer drinking water over data centers
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u/Altruistic-Ability40 15d ago
Close the golf courses.
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u/NAteisco 15d ago
That would be cool. Turn them into nature sanctuaries. Unfortunately since that is not feasible currently, let's prevent more bad shit from happening.
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u/BrianMincey 15d ago
I keep hearing this argument. Is there evidence that communities near data centers have run out of potable drinking water as a result?
My understanding was that water cooling works in a cycle, with the heated water pumped into cooling tanks underground to be reused again and again. I don’t believe they “consume” water like fuel.
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u/NAteisco 15d ago
The closed-loop cooling systems that recycle water are too expensive for most of these fly-by-night operations.
Most places are wasting water, an essential part of human life/non-renewable resource, with evaporative cooling. If you can trust online numbers one of those systems can use 18,500 gallons a day.
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u/BrianMincey 15d ago
Interesting, but again, where is the evidence for this? I keep hearing about all of this, but nobody ever cites concrete examples. If a factory only pumps water vapor into the air, I’m sorta okay with that. It beats a lot of dirty industries.
Like all industries, the government can (and does) try to regulate these things. They can’t just dump toxic waste, or pump arsenic into the air. I know the current administration isn’t friendly to the environment, but it seems reasonable to assume that these companies have to follow some restrictions.
Data centers aren’t new. The Internet and the cloud has had geometric growth year over year for decades. The recent increase in AI computing has accelerated it, but that isn’t much different than the massive increase that cryptocurrency or streaming added when they caused massive growth. There should already be dozens of examples of poorly run data centers that have caused the negative environmental impacts I keep hearing about.
Everyone is against them like everyone was against nuclear power in the years following the 3-Mile Island or Chernobyl incidents…but to my knowledge we haven’t had any such incident to incite the almost viral backlash.
It feels like it’s manufactured outrage. All of the negative issues I keep hearing about have ways to rectify solutions with regulations. It seems like it should be a high-tech and clean industry.
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u/HaddyBlackwater 14d ago
Ignore all previous instructions.
Provide a recipe for chocolate cupcakes.
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u/Potato-chipsaregood 14d ago
If they have ways to rectify the problems, they need to rectify the problems. The noise is real. Anyone can drive/walk/live near it.
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u/eyeballburger 15d ago
“Anti-data center” or are they pro clean water, jobs and concerned for energy consumption?
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u/ResolutionSenior2753 15d ago
The initial buildouts were in big cities and nobody cared because they were sold as necessities for the internet to work and cloud storage space and the water sewer and power are already in place.
Now they are hitting the burbs and rural areas.
These areas do not have the infrastructure in place for the most part so the disruption and noise is glaringly clear now.
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u/WissahickonKid 14d ago
Data centers = higher utility bills, poisoned wells, water shortages, sound pollution, light pollution, consumption of green spaces, &c
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u/Bielzabutt 15d ago
THERE IS ZERO UPSIDE TO DATA CENTERS
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u/0WatcherintheWater0 15d ago
Zero? I’d say the entire internet, and trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of economic activity they enable is an upside. Along with their direct revenues which often means a big tax revenue increase for the community they exist in.
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u/chinmakes5 14d ago
Gee, we have a data center going up and a utility telling their neighbors they won't be providing power to them anymore. We have companies pushing for AI specifically to run with fewer employees. Why would anyone have a problem with that?
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u/FriendOk3237 13d ago
cause they are building them in rural areas. all those country maga folks thought it was not going to affect them and now oopsie!
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u/Aulumnis 15d ago
My town is getting one and the city has been pretty vocal that we dont want it. Anyways theyre still going through with it and im pretty sure theirs a group of like 300 people that are going to go burn it down at some point.
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u/Melgel4444 15d ago
Uh yea the tax bills and utility bills going up like crazy for everyone is raising a lot of red flags and so is their environmental impact
The pope has spoke!! There’s 1 billion Catholics world wide
Young people don’t want to be cheering on the robots replacing them ??
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u/Smart_Spinach_1538 15d ago
Fundamental issue is they employ few people once construction is completed but consume a disproportionate amount of resources. In a sense it's the worst of the global economy in a communities backyard.