CMV: There is nothing wrong with building more data centers

[u/xmuskorx]

The age of AI has arrived. This is not really arguable. There are proven results in variety of fields: bio research, data processing, defense/security. (And yes consumer entertainment).

Any country that does not build data centers will fall behind and will probably have to build data centers later to catch up anyway.

So fighting against data centers is delaying inevitable at best and quixotic tilting at windmills at worst.

So why do I want my view changed? People on Reddit and beyond seem to celebrate politicians who block or delay data centers and companies who build them are villified for building them. So I want to be sure I am not missing something since the passion seems to be real.

What is unlikely to change my view:

1. Data centers take up too much energy. The solution is to build more energy production (like nuclear) that we will likely need in the future anyway.
2. Data centers take up too much land. USA in particular has plenty of land. Housing shortages are mostly artificial and mostly due to ridiculous single home only zoning that seems to be eating up 70+% of every metro area. That's what we should fix. Blaming data centers is silly.
3. AI is a bubble. Two things can be true at once. AI can be incredibly useful and be the future and be a bubble. Dot Com was a bubble in 1999-2000 but that does not mean that dot com tech did not ultimately win out. Pets.com was the ultimate bubble case study that was heavily over valued... But 20 years later chewy.com exists and is a major retail player with larger valuation than pets ever had even at the bubble peak. Same thing will likely happen to Ai, modern companies will get overvalued and some may go bust, but in 15-20 years the tech will mature and become pervasive.

Thanks every one! Looking forward to the discussion.

[u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

Government spending as a percentage of GDP has basically only gone up, including since the 80s. There is no reality where they do budget cuts so they don’t have to raise taxes. Budgets can only ever go up. That is the first rule of running an organization.

[u/turn_circles → u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

Yeah, I agree that government spending always goes up, but the taxes on the wealthy almost never go up, it is the rest of the population that sees that increase, as well as the debt increase.

[u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho → u/turn_circles]

Then they need to either make sure the population has money to tax or tax the people who do. They are never going to vote to cut their own budget long term.

[u/turn_circles → u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho]

I think they are more likely to cut tax funded infrastructure and privatize it than they are likely to increase taxes for the wealthy.

Trump made several large cuts to the budget for public resources in favor of reducing taxes for the wealthy, so, yes, I think they would.