the accusation that people pushing back on data center buildouts are actually foreign adversarial agents is some McCarthy era shit and despicable
same accusations were made about people resisting interstate buildouts - that these were national priorities, important for business growth and geopolitical power
nevermind that you've essentially shifted the logistical burden from businesses having more expensives logistics onto residents who now have to deal with air pollution, noise, and exposure to high-fatality pedestrian accidents on the regular, and other facets of car-centered urban dev, you've gotta be a Commie to be saying mean things about Mr. Moses (ie Bezos)
The problem was and still is politicians. Your elected representatives are in place precisely to guard your best interests. Maybe it's in your best interest to have a data center in the neighborhood, or maybe not.
Regardless, if there is a political movement to stop building data centers, but they're still getting built, either not enough people care, or the people permitting these builds are not appropriately accountable, or they will be held accountable at an appointed day and time (most likely elections).
The core problem as I see it is a combination of:
- not enough people who should care do, but probably will when it's too late
- there is insufficient regulation and regulation is too slow to keep up with the pace of development, and doesn't show signs of improving
- there's no good recourse after the fact. It's not like you can easily say "oops actually this megastructure is inconvenient begone" when there are hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, or more.
And lastly, I think Amazon is being treated unfairly due to the actions of other. All things considered I'd rather have an Amazon data center than practically anyone else. If I were Amazon I'd be pushing for more regulation. They can certainly afford to raise the floor of what passes as "environmentally friendly" or whatever. Historically they don't even want anyone to really know where they are. They'd rather be invisible.
The average DC corp you've never heard of? I'm much more skeptical.
the accusation that people pushing back on data center buildouts are actually foreign adversarial agents is some McCarthy era shit and despicable
same accusations were made about people resisting interstate buildouts - that these were national priorities, important for business growth and geopolitical power
nevermind that you've essentially shifted the logistical burden from businesses having more expensives logistics onto residents who now have to deal with air pollution, noise, and exposure to high-fatality pedestrian accidents on the regular, and other facets of car-centered urban dev, you've gotta be a Commie to be saying mean things about Mr. Moses (ie Bezos)
The problem was and still is politicians. Your elected representatives are in place precisely to guard your best interests. Maybe it's in your best interest to have a data center in the neighborhood, or maybe not.
Regardless, if there is a political movement to stop building data centers, but they're still getting built, either not enough people care, or the people permitting these builds are not appropriately accountable, or they will be held accountable at an appointed day and time (most likely elections).
The core problem as I see it is a combination of:
- not enough people who should care do, but probably will when it's too late
- there is insufficient regulation and regulation is too slow to keep up with the pace of development, and doesn't show signs of improving
- there's no good recourse after the fact. It's not like you can easily say "oops actually this megastructure is inconvenient begone" when there are hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, or more.
And lastly, I think Amazon is being treated unfairly due to the actions of other. All things considered I'd rather have an Amazon data center than practically anyone else. If I were Amazon I'd be pushing for more regulation. They can certainly afford to raise the floor of what passes as "environmentally friendly" or whatever. Historically they don't even want anyone to really know where they are. They'd rather be invisible.
The average DC corp you've never heard of? I'm much more skeptical.
The Netherlands banned hyperscalers.
But that's because the Netherlands is a highly developed rich country that doesn't need to whore itself out to America/China for a few shekels...
Source: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-data-ce... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49932763)