You left out or greatly discounted several negative externalities of data centers
1. Diminished property values— If an existing residence is within eyesight or earshot of a data center its value will go down
2. Peace and quiet wrecked--People who live out in the country often regard the serenity and silence of the environment a great part of the value of living there. An ugly noisy data center means you're no longer living in the environment you chose. You'd better hope that you can Leave your quiet home behind with a minimum of financial loss. Perhaps, rhe data center owner would be willing to buy houses that people no longer wish to inhabit
3. Esthetics are important to many people— But you consider them a mere irrationality.
4, Noise: Of course, the amount of noise generated by a data center depends on many factors, but it can be but it often considerable. Constant noise degrades human health. Google AI summarized the issue in this manner:
"A data center's continuous low-frequency hum is typically audible from half a mile to 1 mile away under normal conditions. Under specific atmospheric conditions or with very large facilities, the low-frequency noise can travel 2 to 3 miles, and rare reports note faint sounds up to 5 to 10 miles away."
"Opposition to building is driven by a mixture of disdain for unsightly builds, demands to preserve community and environmental character, pure resent, and so on. These are generally not rationally motivated concerns, which helps to explain why fact-based messaging doesn’t work that well:"
I've come to understand that you had no intention of addressing all the negative externalities of data centers.
Your focus seems to be limited determining whether people can be induced to see the broader economic good or bribed into accepting the negative externalities.
I simply did not realize your goal was that limited.
Agreed - seems like best understood as a project like a lot of other projects with a small number of concentrated losers and a lot of diffuse benefits. Locals who are net losers will obviously use whatever anti-AI hype cycle the media is on to their benefit. Concentrated transfers (bribes?) to residents or local gov seem like a fair solution to me.
Crem starts his post by shilling for a company which aims to automate away everyone's job, then spends the rest of his post trying to understand why people might possibly oppose data centers.
AI and data center services are highly tradable. Unlike physical infrastructure that must be consumed locally, the output can be generated anywhere and accessed globally. A high-regulation jurisdiction can reject hosting data centers, and its citizens will still benefit from AI capabilities—unless they're serving the EU market, where Brussels' regulatory framework forces a physical footprint. For everyone else, workloads simply relocate to Texas, Ireland, or Singapore, and domestic consumers barely notice.
A decade from now, expect a wave of populist-left governments to decry how we "outsourced" the AI revolution to China or Australia—conveniently ignoring that they were the ones who made local hosting politically untenable through zoning restrictions and environmental hearings.
That said, the larger concern is autonomous vehicles. We're expending regulatory capital on static compute when dynamic, physical automation has a far stronger claim to near-term economic productivity. AVs could reshape logistics, labor markets, and urban economics within five years in ways LLMs cannot yet match. If we regulate robo-taxis into oblivion before they scale, we forgo a tangible economic multiplier—and unlike AI, you can't offshore a truck route.
The data you gave to support your claim of people "not believing the truth" is extremely misleading. The survey you gave as evidence only asks whether or not the arguments given are "convincing" or not. People could very well believe your arguments don't provide a convincing reason to offset the negatives of a data center.
Also, the article clearly mentions providing facts specifically about *the most common counter-arguments*. So, people would think that "water" matters, they'd face the truth, and then not be convinced.
I did not see a single counterargument against "generate constant disruptive noise" and the arguments against the strain on the power grid were also very limited as well as lowering property values. If the only thing you can counter is the water argument then someone may not be convinced entirely as their points were not addressed.
You're implicitly arguing that people fall back to other arguments, and they do so in a way that's 'just so' to not fit with their reported levels of credence in other issues with data centers, given the observed levels of overall support/disdain. I don't like arguing to unlikely coincidence; it's unserious.
Electricity is only rarely an issue, usually the grid can handle it, though I'm honestly pretty ok with forcing datacenters to add grid capacity, and so is Cremieux if you read the full article.
Both of these issues were addressed in the article and the study.
Given public opinion, I was surprised the noise thing wasn't mentioned, but it's not really a serious critique: it's loud within, like 100m max. I think only one data center actually inconvenienced people this way, which was very stupid, but could probably be managed with lawsuits under existing ordinances, followed by like 2 sound-absorbing baffles. Didn't stop every news crew across the country from posing dramatically in front of it, though
Not believing the truth is something extremely common. All you need is have "experts" that tell you alternative reality in line with your prejudices. For example, almost all modern historians would agree that Germany didn't lose WW1 because somehow German and Austrian Jews stabbed the government and army in the back. Yet it was a majority conviction of the German electorate because there were "experts" who told them so.
It's the same problem with rare-earths. USA would have the technology available and there are enough resources in the Americas and Africa. The problem is simply democratically-empowered enviromentalism. At some point, democracies become very fragile. This was the European experience in 1920s/1930s and then the Latin American experience in 1960s/1970s.
By the way, C, Norton NO LONGER has a problem with your .xyz site :)
I’m a NIMBY and in range of a data center project being challenged 30 miles from my farm. I have input from friends that have suffered through closer completed installations in other rural areas. I see the need and appreciate the tech advancement. Just would prefer it in the yard of the author who wants to push it through “ roughshod” in my community. Ever driven through wind farms and felt claustrophobic and then glad that’s not your patch of ground spoiled by that eyesore? Like the statistical research presented and the background.
1. I want more data centers in my community. I would gladly take them.
2. Yes, I've driven hours through West Texas and seen mile after mile marked by wind farms. They look much better than the old oil wells, and I quite like seeing them at night when they're blinking. They're generally far outside communities. I'd like some near mine.
All of the polled projects have something in common - they are ugly. Cell towers are also widely opposed even though they obviously have community benefits and have no downside in terms of resource usage, traffic, etc. They are merely ugly and people don't like ugly things. I wonder if the data center opposition would be attenuated if people were shown a rendering of a legitimately beautiful building with ornamentation, greenery, etc.
Could it stem from the history of factory towns and their later abandonment e.g. suspicion toward company incentives? Also country people tend to be low in trait Openness, so they really prefer something be long-standing and well-established before trusting in its goodness and stability (stability is of special importance to them). A belief in water/electrical grid strain might just be a stand-in for this general anxiety - making it stronger than the object-level belief itself.
I think very distantly. Hacks like More Perfect Union basically dug up their old anti- factory and anti- mine agitprop, changed nothing, and then laundered it to the public. That's why, talking to normies, they'll bring up pollution (?!), which is literally just not an issue for datacenters
Government of the people, by the people, for the people. But the people are retarded.
You see why China can build so fast? Because they're not constrained by retarded people who want rent control or "don't like AI".
I think we will see the federal government support the states that use eminent domain to build more data centers. The people are simply too retarded to understand what is at stake.
It's astonishing that Amazon distribution centers poll so well. I would think they poll terribly given the road traffic they must generate.
I'd wager it's because people connect it to something they love, the convenience of speedy deliveries.
Yep, it's easy to connect it to a direct benefit in their lives.
Facts don't work, bribery (implicit and explicit) hopefully will, as you noted.
You left out or greatly discounted several negative externalities of data centers
1. Diminished property values— If an existing residence is within eyesight or earshot of a data center its value will go down
2. Peace and quiet wrecked--People who live out in the country often regard the serenity and silence of the environment a great part of the value of living there. An ugly noisy data center means you're no longer living in the environment you chose. You'd better hope that you can Leave your quiet home behind with a minimum of financial loss. Perhaps, rhe data center owner would be willing to buy houses that people no longer wish to inhabit
3. Esthetics are important to many people— But you consider them a mere irrationality.
4, Noise: Of course, the amount of noise generated by a data center depends on many factors, but it can be but it often considerable. Constant noise degrades human health. Google AI summarized the issue in this manner:
"A data center's continuous low-frequency hum is typically audible from half a mile to 1 mile away under normal conditions. Under specific atmospheric conditions or with very large facilities, the low-frequency noise can travel 2 to 3 miles, and rare reports note faint sounds up to 5 to 10 miles away."
Noise and property values are both mentioned in the second chart.
I also linked to my prior post that was partially about the importance of aesthetic concerns for getting things built!
So three issues are not addressed at all, and one is supposedly addressed elsewhere.
There are many links in the article—which one are you referring to? I skimmed the article and I could not find it
All four of your concerns were addressed. Did you actually just not read the article or the other person who replied to you?
"Opposition to building is driven by a mixture of disdain for unsightly builds, demands to preserve community and environmental character, pure resent, and so on. These are generally not rationally motivated concerns, which helps to explain why fact-based messaging doesn’t work that well:"
I've come to understand that you had no intention of addressing all the negative externalities of data centers.
Your focus seems to be limited determining whether people can be induced to see the broader economic good or bribed into accepting the negative externalities.
I simply did not realize your goal was that limited.
Thank you for confirming you did not read the article, or at the very least, did not read it properly.
What about the other three issues?
If you had made an explicit note about that link to esthetic issues in the text, it would have been helpful.
I would never expect my readers to spontaneously research my views outside the essay at hand, nor expect them to intuit the utility of a link.
Cremieux did not address those issues in his analysis. It is his analysis that interests me
Agreed - seems like best understood as a project like a lot of other projects with a small number of concentrated losers and a lot of diffuse benefits. Locals who are net losers will obviously use whatever anti-AI hype cycle the media is on to their benefit. Concentrated transfers (bribes?) to residents or local gov seem like a fair solution to me.
Also interesting to note that most people don't seem to realize data centers have existed for decade at this point.
The reasons people are giving aren't the real reasons.
My brother in Christ, you have a comma splice in the Vuichard, Stauch and Dällenbach paragraph.
Thanks. Fixed!
Crem starts his post by shilling for a company which aims to automate away everyone's job, then spends the rest of his post trying to understand why people might possibly oppose data centers.
https://xcancel.com/wfithian/status/2090078872205414488#m
AI and data center services are highly tradable. Unlike physical infrastructure that must be consumed locally, the output can be generated anywhere and accessed globally. A high-regulation jurisdiction can reject hosting data centers, and its citizens will still benefit from AI capabilities—unless they're serving the EU market, where Brussels' regulatory framework forces a physical footprint. For everyone else, workloads simply relocate to Texas, Ireland, or Singapore, and domestic consumers barely notice.
A decade from now, expect a wave of populist-left governments to decry how we "outsourced" the AI revolution to China or Australia—conveniently ignoring that they were the ones who made local hosting politically untenable through zoning restrictions and environmental hearings.
That said, the larger concern is autonomous vehicles. We're expending regulatory capital on static compute when dynamic, physical automation has a far stronger claim to near-term economic productivity. AVs could reshape logistics, labor markets, and urban economics within five years in ways LLMs cannot yet match. If we regulate robo-taxis into oblivion before they scale, we forgo a tangible economic multiplier—and unlike AI, you can't offshore a truck route.
The data you gave to support your claim of people "not believing the truth" is extremely misleading. The survey you gave as evidence only asks whether or not the arguments given are "convincing" or not. People could very well believe your arguments don't provide a convincing reason to offset the negatives of a data center.
What negatives??
Also, the article clearly mentions providing facts specifically about *the most common counter-arguments*. So, people would think that "water" matters, they'd face the truth, and then not be convinced.
I did not see a single counterargument against "generate constant disruptive noise" and the arguments against the strain on the power grid were also very limited as well as lowering property values. If the only thing you can counter is the water argument then someone may not be convinced entirely as their points were not addressed.
You're implicitly arguing that people fall back to other arguments, and they do so in a way that's 'just so' to not fit with their reported levels of credence in other issues with data centers, given the observed levels of overall support/disdain. I don't like arguing to unlikely coincidence; it's unserious.
"Property values" go up.
Electricity is only rarely an issue, usually the grid can handle it, though I'm honestly pretty ok with forcing datacenters to add grid capacity, and so is Cremieux if you read the full article.
Both of these issues were addressed in the article and the study.
I wrote a longer comment about "noise".
Given public opinion, I was surprised the noise thing wasn't mentioned, but it's not really a serious critique: it's loud within, like 100m max. I think only one data center actually inconvenienced people this way, which was very stupid, but could probably be managed with lawsuits under existing ordinances, followed by like 2 sound-absorbing baffles. Didn't stop every news crew across the country from posing dramatically in front of it, though
Not believing the truth is something extremely common. All you need is have "experts" that tell you alternative reality in line with your prejudices. For example, almost all modern historians would agree that Germany didn't lose WW1 because somehow German and Austrian Jews stabbed the government and army in the back. Yet it was a majority conviction of the German electorate because there were "experts" who told them so.
It's the same problem with rare-earths. USA would have the technology available and there are enough resources in the Americas and Africa. The problem is simply democratically-empowered enviromentalism. At some point, democracies become very fragile. This was the European experience in 1920s/1930s and then the Latin American experience in 1960s/1970s.
By the way, C, Norton NO LONGER has a problem with your .xyz site :)
I’m a NIMBY and in range of a data center project being challenged 30 miles from my farm. I have input from friends that have suffered through closer completed installations in other rural areas. I see the need and appreciate the tech advancement. Just would prefer it in the yard of the author who wants to push it through “ roughshod” in my community. Ever driven through wind farms and felt claustrophobic and then glad that’s not your patch of ground spoiled by that eyesore? Like the statistical research presented and the background.
1. I want more data centers in my community. I would gladly take them.
2. Yes, I've driven hours through West Texas and seen mile after mile marked by wind farms. They look much better than the old oil wells, and I quite like seeing them at night when they're blinking. They're generally far outside communities. I'd like some near mine.
I have educational video which may help
All of the polled projects have something in common - they are ugly. Cell towers are also widely opposed even though they obviously have community benefits and have no downside in terms of resource usage, traffic, etc. They are merely ugly and people don't like ugly things. I wonder if the data center opposition would be attenuated if people were shown a rendering of a legitimately beautiful building with ornamentation, greenery, etc.
Could it stem from the history of factory towns and their later abandonment e.g. suspicion toward company incentives? Also country people tend to be low in trait Openness, so they really prefer something be long-standing and well-established before trusting in its goodness and stability (stability is of special importance to them). A belief in water/electrical grid strain might just be a stand-in for this general anxiety - making it stronger than the object-level belief itself.
Look at the support for other things in the first chart for an answer to your history question.
I think very distantly. Hacks like More Perfect Union basically dug up their old anti- factory and anti- mine agitprop, changed nothing, and then laundered it to the public. That's why, talking to normies, they'll bring up pollution (?!), which is literally just not an issue for datacenters
I thought you would work this into your article:
https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/2075275971549114731
Government of the people, by the people, for the people. But the people are retarded.
You see why China can build so fast? Because they're not constrained by retarded people who want rent control or "don't like AI".
I think we will see the federal government support the states that use eminent domain to build more data centers. The people are simply too retarded to understand what is at stake.
People could still vote out the federal government. Which is something they couldn't do in China.
Sixty years of coerced multiculturalism is the root cause problem none of you ever talk about.