Mastodawn

AnonInfo Mar 15

Just so we’re 1000% clear: no state or local government should be giving financial incentives to build a data center. If anything, it should come with increased taxation—because wherever they go, they gobble up water and energy. They should be paying locals for the privilege of being tolerated.

Epic Null Mar 15

@erosalie These companies are selling their product as a major inevitable and crucial transformation. If theses things are true, then they can afford to be taxed.

However - I do wish we used some term other than "Data Center", as it would be "Building a data center" for me to renovate a building to run local company websites out of.

Lisa Gets Politik Mar 15

@erosalie I followed you on the basis of this brilliant post.

grrl_aex Mar 15

How do you "pay the locals" for vanishing their local aquifer?

Practically speaking, both energy and water are limited resources--resources which, *prior* to this "AI" boom, were both already under massive pressure.

Does the cost/benefit to society as a whole pencil out for the massive additional load Generative/LLM mega-data centers add to resource demand/comsumption?

A: No. It does not.

Chris Johnson Mar 16

@kitkat_blue @erosalie Good point. Many (most?) aquifers don't recharge on a human time scale, but on a geologic timescale of centuries, millennia, epochs.

disorderlyf Mar 15

@erosalie Not to mention the health issues associated with living near one, especially if that data centre is using gas turbines, like a depressing amount are.

Nicole Parsons Mar 15

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260102-grok-under-fire-after-complaints-it-undressed-minors-in-photos

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/01/elon-musks-pornography-machine/685482/

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/newsom-x-porn-investigation-21294744.php

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/xai-silent-after-grok-sexualized-images-of-kids-dril-mocks-groks-apology/

Imagine this scenario...

As fossil fuel supply becomes increasingly squeezed by the Trump's WW3 against Iran...

... the last of the available diesel & gas is fed to generators running Elon Musk's xAI data centers, so some MAGA creep can make AI porn of children.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk-xai-datacenter-memphis

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memphis-gas-turbines-air-pollution-permits-00317582

https://tennesseelookout.com/2025/07/07/a-billionaire-an-ai-supercomputer-toxic-emissions-and-a-memphis-community-that-did-nothing-wrong/

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/elon-musks-new-worlds-fastest-ai-data-center-is-powered-by-massive-portable-power-generators-to-sidestep-electricity-supply-constraints

Jake in the desert Mar 15

@erosalie yeah. And the locals everywhere should keep (sometimes successfully) fighting them, as I've seen, even near here, in Tucson.

@erosalie well, they started on giving incentives for things that took way more water, and outputs way more pollution with animal farming, and with that, no locals seemed to care.
https://bryantresearch.co.uk/insight-items/comparing-water-footprint-ai/

So it's just one more thing to destroy the environment.

A Drop in the Bucket: Comparing the Water Footprint of AI and The Cattle Industry - Bryant Research

How much water does AI actually use? And how does it stack up against water-hungry beef and dairy?

Bryant Research - Helping you build a better future of food

Pusher of Pixels Mar 15

@erosalie In our fight here in the datacenter capital of NoVA, I spoke out at a meeting about the noise issues.

"A hospital makes noise at all hours, but if you live next to one...you live next door to a hospital.

A grocery store makes noise...but you can walk to get food.

The VRE (commuter rail) makes a LOT of noise, but you have good access to mass transit.

A bar/restaurant makes noise...but you live next to walkable culture.

A data center makes noise.....and gives us NOTHING literally any other business would provide.

Trade offs are made for better society. Data centers offer nothing unique in that transaction."

And certainly nothing worth the tradeoff.

Elshara Silverheart Mar 16

@Jesticulated @pixelpusher220 That is definitely an interesting way of looking at it.

Elshara Silverheart Mar 16

@Jesticulated @pixelpusher220 I'm genuinely curious. Would home servers be a better trade off if this kind of data say excluding AI or gaming were mission critical somehow? I know that if you did that in a way where computers ran quietly where you barely heard them in a room, it would be a lot less pollutant both electrically and noisily.

Agree!

Theses seem to be pushed on the basis of "job creation" but Data Centers don't have many employees

WallOffTrump Mar 16

@erosalie AI -
Being put under surveillance and control by the robots of our billionaire overlords - and all it costs is our air and our water and the survival of our planet.

Joe Alexander Mar 16

@davidarnell @erosalie control?

@erosalie theyre worse than garbage dumps

physicap Mar 16

@erosalie The locals actually pay for both the clean water and the electricity in their taxes. The government ends up paying for the data center using your money. The data center should be using its profits to clean the water and fund electrical infrastructure but nobody gives a shit and instead the narrative is to burn more fossil fuels and pay for cleaner water using your taxes.

Chris Johnson Mar 16

@erosalie Yes! Exactly!