Data centers and water (WHAT WATER??) Two stories from yesterday,

[niyad]

both of them important to me.

The first is from a townhall meeting in my community about a proposed data center to be built near the Garden of the Gods (a beautiful geologic entity). The company that wants to build that damned thing lied last night, saying they were ONLY going to use TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND GALLONS OF WATER to open, and never use again. We live in a desert, we are in severe drought, our reservoirs and snowpack are dangerously low, and we already have watering restrictions (pathetically minimal as they are). The Colorado River is dangerously low. The SCDS . . So, at whose expense will they get their mere one-time-only gallons? From what friends who attended the meeting tell me, the reaction of the citizens was wonderful.

The second story comes from my beloved Lake Tahoe. The 57,000+ residents were told that they have to find a new power source by next May, because the company is going to be giving all the power to a new data center. Isn't that lovely?

Sooo. .fuck the people. fuck the environment. Apparently data centers are the new gods we must all worship without question or cavil, regardless of the cost. Which is going to be higher than most can imagine.

[hunter]

1. This industry needs to crash hard, the sooner the better.

Unfortunately authoritarian governments, including ours, are likely to prop the industry up and weaponize it.

[niyad]

2. I fear me you are correct.

[Attilatheblond]

3. cautionary tell from sci-fi writers seem to be manifesti

Scj-Fi writers' worst warnings manifesting? The most socially inept tech bros finally found a way to rid the world of the pesky humans who annoy them?
No water = no life. Tech billionaires got it theirs and want the rest of us off their planet?

[niyad]

8. It does appear that way.

[dweller]

4. Remember the good old days

When the plan was to buy up all the water rights of the world ?

They’ve found a way to do it , it seems …

good times yeh


😐




✌🏻

[niyad]

9. Yes, I remember. That bastard t boone pickens comes immediately

to mind.

[angrychair]

5. They got mad

When people started burning down warehouses.

How mad you think they are going to get when they start burning down data centers?

[niyad]

10. The force response will be incredibly ugly.

[FakeNoose]

6. Never allow a data center in your state, and certainly not in your own community

They will lie and grease the palms of any politician to get the proper building permits etc..

Once they're in, everyone .... EVERYONE ... else is screwed.

Once they are in, you might as well pack up and leave immediately. They will take everything.

[niyad]

11. They are certainly greasing enough palms here. This city has always

been in thrall to the developers, etc. despite citizen efforts. And, even if I knew nothing else about this particular company and its intentions, the fact that they have that scum john suthers as their mouthpiece would tell me everything I needed to know about them.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Here's the hitch as I see it

Right now, the technology for these data centers is evolving rapidly. The big issue is that new types of data centers will be coming on line in the next 10 years that are much more energy efficient and require less resources. Sounds great, and the tech companies will be switching to them when they are available. Sounds great, right? Well, it will be a good thing, but in the meantime, they do not have another way to meet their immediate need and are entering into deals with communities that they will abandon in 10 years or so. So all of this infrastructure being built to bring power and water to these data centers will still have to be maintained by the towns they are in who will lose the tax base when the data centers close.

[niyad]

12. A truly depressing prospect.

[jmowreader]

13. Here's the problem with your hitch

If someone invents a data center technology that requires half the power and half the water per rack to operate, the data center operators will simply install twice as many racks as they would have with the old tech.

[FakeNoose]

15. They usually try to work it so they don't pay ANY taxes, so the community PAYS ALL COSTS for them!

Then you're stuck. The only answer is to never let them in.

[patphil]

14. According to the site below, there are 4,288 operational data centers in the US.

https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/

I think we need an immediate moratorium on new data centers, and a total re-evaluation of how these centers affect us and our environment.
Ten years ago there were only 1/2 the number we have now. AI is the reason the new, mega-size data centers are being built. These resource hogs aren't needed to support traditional data processing.
The intention is to transform how computers interact with people and shape our economic, social, political, and military structures.
The race to build thousands of these centers is such a short time is truly disturbing.
The potential for harm is nearly limitless, unless we act quickly to impose limits.
Unfortunately, republicans think with their wallets and see mega profits coming from AI. They're willfully blind to any dangers AI represent.
And the dangers are real. By the next Presidential election, there could be a couple thousand more of these centers, and the trend toward their being used to control the population will have accelerated to the point of us losing control of our country by virtue of electronic subjugation.

[niyad]

16. Thank you for the information and the link.

[dweller]

17. Opportune time to repost this ...

✌🏻

[Ksout]

18. Socialism vs. fascism

Interesting how the Republicans are so afraid of socialism and so readily accept fascism

[niyad]

21. Tis a puzzlement. Actually, it is not surprising in the least, as long

as they are the ones in power.

[supernova]

19. Is this a pattern?

Wanting to put data centers in areas with already stretched water supplies?

I know they want to put them in economically distressed areas where POC live, because they don't expect enough resistance. Equally horrible. But the areas of already scarce water? That makes no logical sense.

[niyad]

22. Google "ai centers in the American west" for any number of articles.

One is from The Guardian, "The ai boom is fueling a new gold rush in the American west.". I was shocked when I read what is going on in the desert that is Nevada, amoung other places.

[jeffreyi]

24. Yep. It's unreal what's going on. And fast.

[Prairie_Seagull]

20. This needs to have national attention

not just local where grease and lying run the show.

Less so with national scrutiny. One would think/hope.

[niyad]

23. I would hope so as well, but we have too many bought politicians

and functionaries.

[LoisB]

25. These data centers contribute nothing to the lives of regular people. Who

benefits from them? Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, the NSA, "Homeland" Security? This stuff is evil. How does taking away water and electricity from humans to benefit machines help us?

[themaguffin]

26. It's insanity

[Faux pas]

27. DISGUSTIPATING

And all things BAD. GREED is the deadliest sin