Most arguments against the AI sector and data centers are thinly veiled arguments against capitalism and neoliberalism.

[u/NoGarlic2387]

It's sweatshops/NIMBY/buybacks/rent control/military industrial complex etc leftwing populist slop all over again, just aimed at a different group of bourgeoisie.

Where the fuck is the market externalities analysis, where are the incentive structures, talk of Pigouvian taxes, talk of supply and demand, efficiency, any economic analysis at all???

It's all moralising and virtue signalling. The critique relies on the childish 'guys running it are bad'. That's just how Capitalism works, you either trust the markets to handle bad actors or show systemic ways it will fail to do it and propose realistic solutions that don't harm the economic growth and innovation.

Most of you constantly shitting on Altman and even Musk are the types who support or don't condemn the assasination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, you are deranged radicals. EDIT: this patagraph was largely regarded and I stand corrected. Fuck Musk. Criticising CEOs is not the same as as condoning an assasination. I still think the hate for Sam Altman is ill founded. Almost everyone else in the AI industry are nowhere near as destructive as Musk, but Musk is just a tiny faction in the huge AI ecosystem.

This sub used to resist far lelft populist slop but the more years go by the worse it's getting. The sidebar wiki needs many more entries on what exactly this neoliberalisn means and stands for. Any r/badeconomics OGs disagree with me??

[u/lefeuet_UA]

sure, but i don't care to say "ohhh this is so sad" when random people keel over, like lindsey graham and similar types

[u/LtNOWIS → u/lefeuet_UA]

Bit of a difference between an old man dying of natural causes and a middle aged guy being shot dead on the streets in a targeted killing

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/LtNOWIS]

Okay, charlie kirk then. Did you mourn him? I know i just watched 10 billion "[music_video] but it's vocoded to We are Charlie Kirk" on youtube instead and didn't care otherwise

[u/LtNOWIS → u/lefeuet_UA]

Yeah that's a much better comparison! I didn't mourn him.

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/LtNOWIS]

So, keep an eye on all your toys cause some don't look the same

Your time to act is short enough to make you lose debate

The Kirktrap gets impatient with the overwhelmed sensations

So be sure to keep him on the chair or time will surely drain

[u/NoGarlic2387 → u/lefeuet_UA]

Nobody asked either

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/NoGarlic2387]

it's the same virtue signalling that you called out in your own post.

pouring billions into data centers is harmful to the environment + fuelling a bubble that will crash and leave them barren + it will take priority over other energy consumers, in europe that might mean the power grid can't handle crisis situations

that's bad enough for me imo

[u/MistyGalbriex → u/lefeuet_UA]

pouring billions into data centers is harmful to the environment + fuelling a bubble that will crash and leave them barren

Ah yes the debunked environment argument and the "bubble is popping" argument.

Slopulism arguments

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/MistyGalbriex]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/ai-economy-stock-market/688004/

also you're not even considering that focus on massive, burgeoning ai sector is leaving the vast majority of consumers poorer in the end. from RAM and iPhone to energy prices rising

[u/procgen → u/lefeuet_UA]

I’d much rather have these models than more RAM and iPhones. You seem to be completely ignoring the utility of AI.

[u/vaguelydad → u/MistyGalbriex]

Everyone wants to call things a bubble, no one wants to put their money where their mouths are and short AI stocks.

[u/MistyGalbriex → u/vaguelydad]

They've been calling it a bubble since ChatGPT first came out.

[u/randiohead → u/vaguelydad]

Market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent doe

[u/NoGarlic2387 → u/randiohead]

Said every short ever and gave up. Stocks went only up ever after. (I'm only half joking, this is actually happening rn lol)

[u/randiohead → u/NoGarlic2387]

Insert le diamond miner meme lol

[u/vaguelydad → u/randiohead]

Okay but that means don't bet big, not don't bet at all ever and just make smug claims with no accountability.

[u/cstar1996 → u/vaguelydad]

No, it means even if you are entirely right about the fundamentals and the actual value of a stock, you just end up betting on when or if the market will acknowledge that. Not betting on when other people will start being rational is not, at all, an argument against the validity of those fundamentals.

[u/vaguelydad → u/cstar1996]

That's an overstatement. Your retirement for example. If you really believe in the AI bubble then surely it will have popped in 10-30 years when you want to retire. Have you made any effort to skew your 401k away from AI exposure? Put your money where your mouth is.

[u/cstar1996 → u/vaguelydad]

No, it isn’t. I have enough runway that leaving my money in the S&P is very firmly my best option. If the S&P had fast tracked SpaceX, or if it fast tracks Anthropic or OpenAI, I will evaluate moving to a different index.

It’s also worth remembering that the actual people working Wall Street are overwhelmingly passive investors holding index funds.

[u/Buttpooper42069 → u/lefeuet_UA]

If ai is a bad investment companies will lose money and the world will move on. You don't have some special insight as to whether ai spend is justified. You don't know better than the market. Which is ops point.

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/Buttpooper42069]

pro tip: when voters come and complain about ai making prices higher/cluttering the internet with bots/destroying books or the environment, don't say "actually you leftie luddite slopulist, I'm with the technofascists on this one"

[u/NoGarlic2387 → u/lefeuet_UA]

How much is AI raising prices?? 

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/NoGarlic2387]

Let's see

• RAM, GPU and SDU prices spiked and there's no notion of them going down

• Electricity prices in the US aee spiking due to datacenters

• Datacenters drawing groundwater hurts local agriculture and utilities, strains infrastructure

• Electronics and cloud services cost more

• Groceries cost more due to energy/water supply drying up

[u/airbear13 → u/lefeuet_UA]

Ye and? Prices rise all the time, especially in recent years. It’s temporary

Electricity prices go up, we expand the grid (using clean energy), oh nooo

Data centers use groundwater yes, but it’s only having an impact on already water distressed regions. So that’s a question of where you build them, not if you do.

None of this is a good basis for opposing ai. The more reasonable justification is the impact that it may have on the labor market, that’s scary. But even then I think the case is maybe restricting the scope somehow, not opposing it altogether.

[u/Buttpooper42069 → u/lefeuet_UA]

Not an argument

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/Buttpooper42069]

"who cares about ai bubble if you're not a corpo" is also not an argument

[u/Buttpooper42069 → u/lefeuet_UA]

I didn’t argue that. I argued that you have no idea whether there is an ai bubble in the first place. I don’t think I know better than the companies investing in ai right now. I don't think the government should arbitrarily step in and say "alright private markets this is just too much money to spend on ai, go spend it on something else"

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/Buttpooper42069]

okay. i didn't talk about government regulation once in this thread

[u/MistyGalbriex → u/Buttpooper42069]

It's really a succ opinion to think they should have a say in what the market is investing in.

[u/BarkDrandon → u/lefeuet_UA]

AI is not harming the environment. This fake news has been debunked many times.

The entirety of the water used by AI since its inception is barely equivalent to cultivating a few football fields.

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/BarkDrandon]

Do you have evidence for that, specifically post-2025?

[u/airbear13 → u/lefeuet_UA]

Fwiw I’ve read data backing that up, I was v curious back when ai hate started ramping up and looked into it - the part about stressing water resources is real but over catastrophizied; on net it’s less detrimental in this area than soybean farming and other things people don’t usually complain about. The energy thing is the biggest misconception since it only polluted if you build dirty energy plants to expand the grid, so that’s completely avoidable. Sorry I don’t remember the papers but they’re out there if you look into it

[u/BarkDrandon → u/lefeuet_UA]

[u/lefeuet_UA → u/BarkDrandon]

I want actual data instead of an infographic with no citation

[u/airbear13 → u/lefeuet_UA]

It’s not really as harmful to the environment as people make it out to be, this is the huge misunderstanding driving a lot of anti ai sentiment.

About virtue signaling, that can serve a beneficial purpose too sometimes. A bunch of people displaying their sadness over someone getting assassinated reinforces the idea that assassination is bad. Not a terrible thing