Bring back the $50k house. Thousands of them. Have the data center builders build communities around the data center. Sold to first time home buyers only, with a X year lock-in period. Effectively free energy comes along with it. Prop up community infrastructure so small businesses can proliferate.
Make the AI companies fully subsidize it instead of government.
It would change the sentiment in the country in an instant as affordability wrt owning a home would be in reach.
By my job their is a large vacant lot where they wanted to build a distribution center with over 125 truck bays. Absolutely gargantuan. Guaranteed trucks coming and going non-stop, lots more traffic, lots more noise, diesel engines idling all day. There is a school and a neighborhood immediately adjacent on one side, and commercial space and a minor highway on the other sides.
Apparently the developer was approached about the possibility of building a DC there, and it set off a five alarm fire of hysteria in the town. Of course, no one even blinked about the warehouse.
So now we are probably gonna get the hundreds of trucks 24/7 instead of the large quietly humming box (that would also probably increase tax revenue by 30%).
Negative comments on data centers, or power plants, or day care, or apartment buildings, or coffee shops, or new fire hydrants are exactly what you'd expect from the (demented, sometimes literally) municipal public comment process, which sharply biased towards negative comments structurally --- people turn out because they're risk-averse and don't want to see change that could impact their own homes, and virtually nobody turns out for the abstract upside of new development --- and also demographically: public comment skews sharply older, wealthier, and towards homeowners.
The public comment process is an anti-democratic pox on our system (all the political systems that support it) and we should all be shifting to a mode where we more openly impeach it. Public comment is one of the first principal components of the American housing shortage.
What's the alternative? Without public comment, politicians will just do whatever they want without accountability or open opposition. With public comment, politicians will still just do whatever they want without accountability but at least there is a record of opposition.
I think tptacek means to emphasize the "public comment process" as opposed to "public comment" in general. Generic public comments/discussion are great (I think tptacek would agree because... they're commenting publicly).
It's the public comment _process_, where these Public Comments are given special status and power, that acts as a general drag on governments allowing anything. It's not _democratic_ because these Public Comments skew very unrepresentative. It's a sort of veto power granted mostly to people that don't have better things to do.
The clear alternative I see is to simply empower elected representatives/leaders to make these decisions.
That the process is sharply biased towards negativity is a cogent criticism.
Two alternatives:
- Trust our representative system and have our elected representatives make decisions (ha! Although perhaps people would pay attention to local elections more if they had more direct consequences…)
- Randomly select people to comment, like jury duty.
It’s not impossible to think of systems that take public opinion into account that are not the exact system we have now.
With public comment, politicians will still just do whatever they want without accountability
This is very obviously not true to me. Is there really nothing in your area that’s been cancelled or interminably held up by the public comment process?
I’m not sure there is a good alternative, but it is a problem. So many public infrastructure projects in the US are shot down or neutered because of short term issues outweighing long term upsides.
Ah ninja smoke bomb out w/o proposing any alternative. Handy.
Not to mention hilariously conflating public comment on data centers (massively unpopular) with local weirdo NIMBYism on things like "coffee shops" and "fire hydrants". We all know every city has people that just love to speak at the city council meetings. Can't take it in good faith that you seriously think it's the same thing that's going on with opposition to data centers.
So, that sounds like a great opportunity to engage the younger, poorer and the homeless then. That will certainly give a lot more perspective, but I doubt the outcome would be very different when it comes to datacenters. With respect to the housing shortage I suspect it would give a completely different outcome.
Also: you can't really blame those who do show up for a democratic process for having the wrong ideas relative to those that don't show up.
Public comment is a feature of the democratic process, I don't see how it could ever be seen as anti-democratic.
Some people have opinions that are perfectly human, but that you may certainly disagree strongly with. And yes, some people have straight up crazy opinions. And yes, some people have selfish opinions.
So... your answer is "fuck the people"? What are you even talking about? This is a necessary part of government. You are not the keeper of Correct Opinions. You're suggesting doing the thing that citizens historically get their weapons out to (rightfully) eject from civilization.
I live adjacent to an industrial area. I showed up in support of a proposed recycling center. I lowkey hope it's loud and stinky because I want the vicinity to be an unappealing place to live because then the people I find unappealing will self select to live elsewhere but I didn't say that. Instead I mocked shortsighted environmentalists and out of touch ivory tower types who want everyone to recycle but also want to impose supply side restrictions on that.
What a dogshit take. The public comment process is anti-democratic? So the public having less input in the process and letting local officials do whatever they want is somehow more democratic?
If there’s really trillions of dollars of market cap to be had, why not just build in the middle of nowhere northern Québec and Ontario and build your own damn dams and infrastructure?
You’ve got a ton of water. A ton of famously cheap hydro electricity potential. An entire service industry for remote mines (who will build your roads and power). And you’re not being an unwanted bastard.
My sense is that the answer is very simple: because they can just use someone else’s.
They are building them in the middle of nowhere. I've looked up sites for data center projects before and it'll literally be in some empty field far away from any homes, and people will still complain as if they're flattening a neighborhood. It's a little ridiculous.
That said, I agree they should put them in Canada and similar regions, it seems like a no brainer resources-wise for the reasons you mentioned. The reason they don't is probably that it's vastly more expensive to work on remote sites like that. Mines and dams do it by necessity, but it's a big undertaking to build stuff a full day's drive (or bush plane flight) from the nearest city.
> If there’s really trillions of dollars of market cap to be had, why not just build in the middle of nowhere northern Québec and Ontario and build your own damn dams and infrastructure?
If nothing works out domestically, this might very well be where the industry ends up.
The current attempt is to have domestic (in the continental US) AI - because owning the infrastructure is way more valuable than renting it.
> They should invest money into improving electric and community infrastructure
The problem with electric and community infrastructure is that very few electric infrastructure is owned by the community, but that's not the core issue because the other infrastructure that is indeed owned by community has people in the community split on what's useful and what not.
Imagine how difficult it is to decide where to go out to lunch in a group of people. Now up the stakes to getting people to agree on whose backyard and where holes and trenches and dug and electric poles and power stations are put up.
This is Andrew, Founder/CEO of Prophecy Gov (AI agents for city governments). We operate American Sentiment.
Our main focus is building AI tools that serve city staff. We also create data from public, online data sources; in this case city council videos.
Data center development has reached a fever pitch nationwide. We started American Sentiment to help AI leaders, researchers, and the public better understand and respond to local sentiment nationwide.
Data centers and power plants to power them are the new oil.
Also, just like oil is dirty, bad for the environment and kills people, so will the data centers. And the power plants to power them.
Our options are not to not have Data centers and their power plants but whether to have them built elsewhere (even outside the US) and pay rent or own them and get paid the rent.
Arguments about having more efficient or green Data centers and power plants miss the point. Engineering is a process of iterative improvement - you don't begin with the perfect product, you begin with one that crashes, burns and breaks some bones.
It's understandable though that no one one wants to be "it".
Bring back the $50k house. Thousands of them. Have the data center builders build communities around the data center. Sold to first time home buyers only, with a X year lock-in period. Effectively free energy comes along with it. Prop up community infrastructure so small businesses can proliferate.
Make the AI companies fully subsidize it instead of government.
It would change the sentiment in the country in an instant as affordability wrt owning a home would be in reach.
By my job their is a large vacant lot where they wanted to build a distribution center with over 125 truck bays. Absolutely gargantuan. Guaranteed trucks coming and going non-stop, lots more traffic, lots more noise, diesel engines idling all day. There is a school and a neighborhood immediately adjacent on one side, and commercial space and a minor highway on the other sides.
Apparently the developer was approached about the possibility of building a DC there, and it set off a five alarm fire of hysteria in the town. Of course, no one even blinked about the warehouse.
So now we are probably gonna get the hundreds of trucks 24/7 instead of the large quietly humming box (that would also probably increase tax revenue by 30%).
Negative comments on data centers, or power plants, or day care, or apartment buildings, or coffee shops, or new fire hydrants are exactly what you'd expect from the (demented, sometimes literally) municipal public comment process, which sharply biased towards negative comments structurally --- people turn out because they're risk-averse and don't want to see change that could impact their own homes, and virtually nobody turns out for the abstract upside of new development --- and also demographically: public comment skews sharply older, wealthier, and towards homeowners.
The public comment process is an anti-democratic pox on our system (all the political systems that support it) and we should all be shifting to a mode where we more openly impeach it. Public comment is one of the first principal components of the American housing shortage.
What's the alternative? Without public comment, politicians will just do whatever they want without accountability or open opposition. With public comment, politicians will still just do whatever they want without accountability but at least there is a record of opposition.
I think tptacek means to emphasize the "public comment process" as opposed to "public comment" in general. Generic public comments/discussion are great (I think tptacek would agree because... they're commenting publicly).
It's the public comment _process_, where these Public Comments are given special status and power, that acts as a general drag on governments allowing anything. It's not _democratic_ because these Public Comments skew very unrepresentative. It's a sort of veto power granted mostly to people that don't have better things to do.
The clear alternative I see is to simply empower elected representatives/leaders to make these decisions.
That the process is sharply biased towards negativity is a cogent criticism.
Two alternatives: - Trust our representative system and have our elected representatives make decisions (ha! Although perhaps people would pay attention to local elections more if they had more direct consequences…) - Randomly select people to comment, like jury duty.
It’s not impossible to think of systems that take public opinion into account that are not the exact system we have now.
With public comment, politicians will still just do whatever they want without accountability
This is very obviously not true to me. Is there really nothing in your area that’s been cancelled or interminably held up by the public comment process?
I’m not sure there is a good alternative, but it is a problem. So many public infrastructure projects in the US are shot down or neutered because of short term issues outweighing long term upsides.
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Ah ninja smoke bomb out w/o proposing any alternative. Handy.
Not to mention hilariously conflating public comment on data centers (massively unpopular) with local weirdo NIMBYism on things like "coffee shops" and "fire hydrants". We all know every city has people that just love to speak at the city council meetings. Can't take it in good faith that you seriously think it's the same thing that's going on with opposition to data centers.
So, that sounds like a great opportunity to engage the younger, poorer and the homeless then. That will certainly give a lot more perspective, but I doubt the outcome would be very different when it comes to datacenters. With respect to the housing shortage I suspect it would give a completely different outcome.
Also: you can't really blame those who do show up for a democratic process for having the wrong ideas relative to those that don't show up.
Public comment is a feature of the democratic process, I don't see how it could ever be seen as anti-democratic.
This is hard to follow.
Some people have opinions that are perfectly human, but that you may certainly disagree strongly with. And yes, some people have straight up crazy opinions. And yes, some people have selfish opinions.
So... your answer is "fuck the people"? What are you even talking about? This is a necessary part of government. You are not the keeper of Correct Opinions. You're suggesting doing the thing that citizens historically get their weapons out to (rightfully) eject from civilization.
I live adjacent to an industrial area. I showed up in support of a proposed recycling center. I lowkey hope it's loud and stinky because I want the vicinity to be an unappealing place to live because then the people I find unappealing will self select to live elsewhere but I didn't say that. Instead I mocked shortsighted environmentalists and out of touch ivory tower types who want everyone to recycle but also want to impose supply side restrictions on that.
> The public comment process is an anti-democratic pox on our system
This just sounds like your ideas are bad and you’re upset that no one supports them.
What a dogshit take. The public comment process is anti-democratic? So the public having less input in the process and letting local officials do whatever they want is somehow more democratic?
What a ridiculous comment so typical for HN nowadays.
So, what? We just ignore them?
If there’s really trillions of dollars of market cap to be had, why not just build in the middle of nowhere northern Québec and Ontario and build your own damn dams and infrastructure?
You’ve got a ton of water. A ton of famously cheap hydro electricity potential. An entire service industry for remote mines (who will build your roads and power). And you’re not being an unwanted bastard.
My sense is that the answer is very simple: because they can just use someone else’s.
They are building them in the middle of nowhere. I've looked up sites for data center projects before and it'll literally be in some empty field far away from any homes, and people will still complain as if they're flattening a neighborhood. It's a little ridiculous.
That said, I agree they should put them in Canada and similar regions, it seems like a no brainer resources-wise for the reasons you mentioned. The reason they don't is probably that it's vastly more expensive to work on remote sites like that. Mines and dams do it by necessity, but it's a big undertaking to build stuff a full day's drive (or bush plane flight) from the nearest city.
> If there’s really trillions of dollars of market cap to be had, why not just build in the middle of nowhere northern Québec and Ontario and build your own damn dams and infrastructure?
If nothing works out domestically, this might very well be where the industry ends up.
The current attempt is to have domestic (in the continental US) AI - because owning the infrastructure is way more valuable than renting it.
There's not infinite hydro... net new energy is coming from increased efficiency (insulation etc) and upgraded turbines
Is there a network backbone running through the middle of nowhere northern Québec and Ontario?
They are running loads of fiber. If it's worth the trillions then it's worth some easement beside a railroad.
Just pretend there’s an ocean and lay fibre. Bell does it to my lawn already.
Yes
Wouldn't that cost more?
I'm pro AI and data center but a lot of construction is short sighted.
They should invest money into improving electric and community infrastructure. There are so many win-wins to be had and they fumbled
> They should invest money into improving electric and community infrastructure
The problem with electric and community infrastructure is that very few electric infrastructure is owned by the community, but that's not the core issue because the other infrastructure that is indeed owned by community has people in the community split on what's useful and what not.
Imagine how difficult it is to decide where to go out to lunch in a group of people. Now up the stakes to getting people to agree on whose backyard and where holes and trenches and dug and electric poles and power stations are put up.
This is Andrew, Founder/CEO of Prophecy Gov (AI agents for city governments). We operate American Sentiment.
Our main focus is building AI tools that serve city staff. We also create data from public, online data sources; in this case city council videos.
Data center development has reached a fever pitch nationwide. We started American Sentiment to help AI leaders, researchers, and the public better understand and respond to local sentiment nationwide.
The American Sentiment on Flock Safety is next!
Analysis: https://x.com/andrewfang/status/2117048211051532555
Findings include:
-73% of meetings had 0 people speaking in favor of data centers.
-Water use was the #1 issue. And only 1 in 5 comments mention AI!
-Elon Musk was mentioned more than Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Kevin O'Leary combined.
-Data center opposition is heavily bipartisan.
Is there any information or evidence that the opposition and the people at these meetings clearly understood how they would stand to benefit?
https://xxcancel.com/andrewfang/status/2117048211051532555
Helpful charts, thank you!
Data centers and power plants to power them are the new oil.
Also, just like oil is dirty, bad for the environment and kills people, so will the data centers. And the power plants to power them.
Our options are not to not have Data centers and their power plants but whether to have them built elsewhere (even outside the US) and pay rent or own them and get paid the rent.
Arguments about having more efficient or green Data centers and power plants miss the point. Engineering is a process of iterative improvement - you don't begin with the perfect product, you begin with one that crashes, burns and breaks some bones.
It's understandable though that no one one wants to be "it".
Sounds like people figured out how unsustainable data centers are and that they create no jobs.
That should be enough to stop it. But not in America.
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