People across the US political spectrum are increasingly united in opposing data centers in their communities. Here's how the movement is building power – and how to get involved.
There should be a moratorium on NDA's discussing data center build outs as well. I've noticed elected officials throughout the nation not being able even discuss data centers with their constituents after being approached by tech companies. We need open and honest dialog to make informed decisions from our elected officials. Not silence and threats of arrest because they don't have a way to communicate the process with us without being sued themselves.
My husband is an engineer for autonomous vehicles and has passionate opinions about how maligned data centers are
If we can utilize them for accessible transportation? I don't always agree with him, but I get to see a segment of the AI economy that is rarely in mainstream conversations. I see the care and ethics that rely on local data centers AND I'm just learning how to drive at the tender age of 48
What would it take to imagine an Agrarian Justice angle in the age of AI?
I always think of R Crumb and his cartoon panel about cars ..
Data Centers are destroying our planet. There are no "ethics" involved in technofascists building a surveillance state powered by data centers. "The rapid growth of data centers presents a significant and unprecedented threat to the Mississippi River watershed, one of the most important water resources in the U.S."
I know, I understand. I respect your passion and don't disagree, I'm not saying data centers are good, just that I take a harm reduction approach (same as I do with drugs, homelessness, narcissistic culture, the whole patriarchal capitalist paradigm)
I went from burn it all down 15 years ago to building capacity to holding complexity without complicity. We're on the same team, just functioning in different roles
"Complexity without complicity" is word salad. What's happening is not complex. We have a few billionaires who have bought the government and are enacting their fascist takeover by destroying democracy, culture, personal freedom and the planet. We are not on the same team.
At this point, data center construction is a hedge by the tech companies against their own collapse, as a rationale for taxpayer bailouts of corporate socialism oligarchy. Technology will leap by quantum means ahead of data centers within a couple years, and the data centers will go the way of 1970s shopping mall ruins. Technology companies will use this economic crisis to extract trillions of public funds to buy back their collapsing stock. Data centers are not extracting data, they’re intended to extract taxpayer funding when their tech stocks collapse.
“properly regulated,” and as per DOA Sanders/ AOC bill citizens reaping econ benefits IS NOT OPPOSITION TO DATA CENTERS. THAT IS CONTROLLED OPPO OF ADDING SUGAR ONTO THE BULLET THAT KILLS YOUR COMMUNITY. The effects of AI and data centers have FAR MORE SWEEPING CONSEQUENCES, the people know this, but lord, this reporting, sneaking in the “properly regulated,” and “ordinary folks will get .02 cents 12 years from now so yay!!” BULLSHIT IS NOT OPPOSITION. We literally ban ppl like you from our anti data center organizing. We call it “the in house drive-by.” We done the velvet glove over the iron fist slow death by dem and reasonableness game. And it’s GAME. OVER.
What we are witnessing out here in the dripping, moss-choked valleys of Oregon is a profound and terrifying paradox of the modern corporate psyche. You can drive right past a local, community-positive sawmill that has the raw, common-sense decency to burn its own wood scraps, wire up a biomass cogeneration plant, and pump clean, reliable baseline juice right back onto the local grid to power thousands of homes. It’s a beautifully simple, closed-loop reality.
So why in the name of God can’t these digital behemoths, bloated on nearly a trillion dollars in AI investment capital, use their unimaginable wealth to become actual, bleeding-edge leaders in sustainable tech? Instead, they choose to build massive, power-mad AI data centers that threaten to cannibalize our entire electrical infrastructure to feed their unquenchable thirst for processing power.
They scream from the rooftops about "smart tech," but let’s call a spade a spade: "smart tech" is nothing but a slick, high-gloss marketing euphemism invented by tech-baron charlatans to disguise a brutal, resource-hogging matrix of high-performance silicon chips, complex cooling systems, and massive energy grids designed to spit out automated answers while draining the earth dry. There is absolutely nothing "smart" about a technology that consumes more electricity than a small nation just to avoid human thought, while a local logger with a pile of sawdust is out there showing them what actual, sustainable intelligence looks like.
This article exposes a massive, compounding crisis, but it completely misses the macroeconomic trap.
If the U.S. successfully forces out or bans hyperscale data centers, those trillions in AI infrastructure spend won't dissolve—they will just leave the country. Forcing capital flight to foreign theatres instantly collapses the future U.S. tax base and triggers a massive geopolitical leapfrog. The communities are right to protect their local grids and water, but a flat ban is terminal economic suicide.
This is exactly why NUPA uses a parallel 'policy as code' system to license underutilized federal land. By pulling these massive data centers out of residential backyards and anchoring them into isolated, self-funding industrial hubs, we protect local municipal resources while keeping the technical infrastructure domestic.
Plus, by offering tech anchors the 70% overhead discount inside those hubs, we gain the structural leverage to enforce the 95% human labor mandate. It solves the environmental friction without causing a total tax base collapse.
Here in Scotland the power requirements of all the proposed data centres amount to 150% of current peak electricity demands. F*<{ing madness, especially when the result is massively more concentration of wealth and power
Have you done any research whatsoever about the impact of these data centers on the communities they’re built in? For example, did you actually read the article you’re commenting on??? There’s a lot of information out there that outlines why people hate them. Sounds like you’re also uneducated.
There should be a moratorium on NDA's discussing data center build outs as well. I've noticed elected officials throughout the nation not being able even discuss data centers with their constituents after being approached by tech companies. We need open and honest dialog to make informed decisions from our elected officials. Not silence and threats of arrest because they don't have a way to communicate the process with us without being sued themselves.
Especially when I'd reckon 99% of the data is slop now 🙃
Famtastic post— thank you especially for the links at the end.
Data centers, flock cameras, and corrupt governments.
Let's start unifying right here.
(they all point back to corrupted government systems).
We must exit and build new ones.
My husband is an engineer for autonomous vehicles and has passionate opinions about how maligned data centers are
If we can utilize them for accessible transportation? I don't always agree with him, but I get to see a segment of the AI economy that is rarely in mainstream conversations. I see the care and ethics that rely on local data centers AND I'm just learning how to drive at the tender age of 48
What would it take to imagine an Agrarian Justice angle in the age of AI?
I always think of R Crumb and his cartoon panel about cars ..
Data Centers are destroying our planet. There are no "ethics" involved in technofascists building a surveillance state powered by data centers. "The rapid growth of data centers presents a significant and unprecedented threat to the Mississippi River watershed, one of the most important water resources in the U.S."
https://tulanewater.org/blog-post/the-thirstiest-of-us-all-data-centers-and-the-impact-of-their-unsustainable-water-use/
I know, I understand. I respect your passion and don't disagree, I'm not saying data centers are good, just that I take a harm reduction approach (same as I do with drugs, homelessness, narcissistic culture, the whole patriarchal capitalist paradigm)
I went from burn it all down 15 years ago to building capacity to holding complexity without complicity. We're on the same team, just functioning in different roles
Keep fighting the good fight 💪🏻
"Complexity without complicity" is word salad. What's happening is not complex. We have a few billionaires who have bought the government and are enacting their fascist takeover by destroying democracy, culture, personal freedom and the planet. We are not on the same team.
No compromise with these reptiles is possible. With apologies to real reptiles.
Can't upload an image in comments but
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/s/hbVPvhC3ZD
At this point, data center construction is a hedge by the tech companies against their own collapse, as a rationale for taxpayer bailouts of corporate socialism oligarchy. Technology will leap by quantum means ahead of data centers within a couple years, and the data centers will go the way of 1970s shopping mall ruins. Technology companies will use this economic crisis to extract trillions of public funds to buy back their collapsing stock. Data centers are not extracting data, they’re intended to extract taxpayer funding when their tech stocks collapse.
“properly regulated,” and as per DOA Sanders/ AOC bill citizens reaping econ benefits IS NOT OPPOSITION TO DATA CENTERS. THAT IS CONTROLLED OPPO OF ADDING SUGAR ONTO THE BULLET THAT KILLS YOUR COMMUNITY. The effects of AI and data centers have FAR MORE SWEEPING CONSEQUENCES, the people know this, but lord, this reporting, sneaking in the “properly regulated,” and “ordinary folks will get .02 cents 12 years from now so yay!!” BULLSHIT IS NOT OPPOSITION. We literally ban ppl like you from our anti data center organizing. We call it “the in house drive-by.” We done the velvet glove over the iron fist slow death by dem and reasonableness game. And it’s GAME. OVER.
What we are witnessing out here in the dripping, moss-choked valleys of Oregon is a profound and terrifying paradox of the modern corporate psyche. You can drive right past a local, community-positive sawmill that has the raw, common-sense decency to burn its own wood scraps, wire up a biomass cogeneration plant, and pump clean, reliable baseline juice right back onto the local grid to power thousands of homes. It’s a beautifully simple, closed-loop reality.
So why in the name of God can’t these digital behemoths, bloated on nearly a trillion dollars in AI investment capital, use their unimaginable wealth to become actual, bleeding-edge leaders in sustainable tech? Instead, they choose to build massive, power-mad AI data centers that threaten to cannibalize our entire electrical infrastructure to feed their unquenchable thirst for processing power.
They scream from the rooftops about "smart tech," but let’s call a spade a spade: "smart tech" is nothing but a slick, high-gloss marketing euphemism invented by tech-baron charlatans to disguise a brutal, resource-hogging matrix of high-performance silicon chips, complex cooling systems, and massive energy grids designed to spit out automated answers while draining the earth dry. There is absolutely nothing "smart" about a technology that consumes more electricity than a small nation just to avoid human thought, while a local logger with a pile of sawdust is out there showing them what actual, sustainable intelligence looks like.
This article exposes a massive, compounding crisis, but it completely misses the macroeconomic trap.
If the U.S. successfully forces out or bans hyperscale data centers, those trillions in AI infrastructure spend won't dissolve—they will just leave the country. Forcing capital flight to foreign theatres instantly collapses the future U.S. tax base and triggers a massive geopolitical leapfrog. The communities are right to protect their local grids and water, but a flat ban is terminal economic suicide.
This is exactly why NUPA uses a parallel 'policy as code' system to license underutilized federal land. By pulling these massive data centers out of residential backyards and anchoring them into isolated, self-funding industrial hubs, we protect local municipal resources while keeping the technical infrastructure domestic.
Plus, by offering tech anchors the 70% overhead discount inside those hubs, we gain the structural leverage to enforce the 95% human labor mandate. It solves the environmental friction without causing a total tax base collapse.
https://github.com/bedardbrandon928/National-Unity-and-Prosperity-Act-NUPA
Here in Scotland the power requirements of all the proposed data centres amount to 150% of current peak electricity demands. F*<{ing madness, especially when the result is massively more concentration of wealth and power
That’s insane! This whole thing is insane and I’m so glad the people are finally starting to rise up to stop it.
So the next question is : what does a world without ai data centers - and the bubble that goes with them - actually look like ?
Nothing changes except debt, since most are not operating yet.
Have you done any research whatsoever about the impact of these data centers on the communities they’re built in? For example, did you actually read the article you’re commenting on??? There’s a lot of information out there that outlines why people hate them. Sounds like you’re also uneducated.
It mostly isn’t that big of a deal. I urge you to read anything posted by the following person:
https://andymasley.substack.com/p/why-i-think-panic-about-local-impacts?r=3lutue&utm_medium=ios