The moral panic over data centres is foolish

Vosporos

It means that it works.

goldenarm

https://archive.is/gPfih

jpgvm

NIMBYs are the enemy of all that is good in the world. No datacenters isn't about AI or even resources like water or power, it's mostly about real-estate and housing prices as usual. If we listened to NIMBYs we would have no new infrastructure, no high density housing, no public transport.... oh wait.

gjsman-1000

“Moral panic” is just an academic jargon term for “settle down peasants.” “A backlash fuelled by misinformation and misunderstanding” is also just an academic jargon term for “my vision is superior, anyone who disagrees is out of stupidity, if they understood me they would agree.”

WhrRTheBaboons

>the economist

measurablefunc

The banks will continue financing their construction so it doesn't matter how much people morally panic about it unless it becomes illegal to sell corporate bonds to banks they (Microsoft, Google, Oracle, etc) will continue building data centers.

r_lee

what about the videos of residents showing decibel meters going off and water pressure dropping? just an anecdote but what exactly do local residents gain here? a handful of permanent maintenance jobs?

jedberg

I have a lot of left leaning non-tech friends. They are all very much against AI data centers. I've built AI data centers, and I keep trying to educate them, but they just won't listen. The water is mostly part of a closed system. Sure, you need a lot to build one, but once it's running it's pretty water efficient. The lack of green power is a problem, but as the article points out, you now have a large customer subsidizing the base cost of delivery, since they are only one delivery point, and they are financing new sources of power, which if properly regulated would be green power. The noise is an issue, I will admit that. As is the fact that a lot of the power is coming from non-green sources. But the government could easily fix these problems with regulations that apply broadly, not just to datacenters.

rjurney

Local outrage over construction is the only protest people have against their wholesale replacement at work. They're totally fucked, and you know it. And you aren't. Have empathy.

vekntksijdhric

The title was cropped "The moral panic over data centres is foolish, filthy peasants!"

CPLX

Memo to anyone in the tech community who doesn’t agree with this: People fucking hate you and don’t trust you and are convinced, not without reason, that you have the specific goal and intention of destroying their way of life and ability to provide for their families. They also feel like they were never consulted in any of this and that nobody is representing their interests. You can agree or disagree with that point of view, but unless you thrive on ignorance you might as well get your head around the fact that it’s likely a majority view in this country by now. Consider for a moment trying to figure out why that is the case rather than pretending it’s not true or that it’s a mass delusion.

agentultra

> just about everything in modern life, from streaming Netflix to running a dishwasher, consumes water at levels that can be portrayed as wasteful by hair-shirt environmentalists. Ad-hominems in an Economist article. This reads more like an opinion piece than reporting. There are plenty of documented problems with water usage of data centres. Some can use it efficiently but it costs more to do so and many (most?) do not. We are also in a time when most people would prefer to use that water for drinking, washing, cleaning… basically anything except data centres. Don’t think many people are going to read this and think, “Gosh, I was a fool!”

judge2020

> Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker lol

q2wahj

"Moral panic"? Did they read Michael Tracey? First of all, there are reasons apart from pollution, rising electricity prices and global warming: These things make noise. Noise bad. Noise very bad for health. Maybe if post from Economist or Spectator villa no know noise! Thanks for your attention to this matter and please continue to eat cake.

j45

Great another economist post of non-technology people talking about tech. That's worked great for the datacenter misinformation so far. There's not even an author on this article. But you can listen to an ai narrated version of it.

timmg

I was actually pretty worried that the anti-datacenter backlash would stunt and important industry (for the US). But I think the effect will be that the companies building them will "sweeten" the deal for the local towns where they are building -- probably by way of taxes. And while that will be a drag on their development (by adding costs), the scale won't be bad enough to really hurt. And in that sense, everyone wins. The locales will be happy to have the extra resources. And the ones that don't take the "bribe" -- or whatever you want to call it -- won't get datacenters. (But I do agree that panic is overblown and counterproductive.)

nklp

Relevant video from Benn Jordan investigating data center noise that the article glosses over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bP80DEAbuo

loudoundata

As someone who’s lived in and near Loudoun county for well over two decades, it’s very difficult to take the anti-data center arguments at all seriously. It’s all coming from people who never heard the phrase “data center” before six months ago.

goldenarm

The article dismisses everything without sourcing anything. US electricity is 40% more expensive since 2022 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 Some AI datacenters can indeed be heard a mile away https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/28/datacenters-... Amazon's new Texas AI data center could become the biggest CO2 polluter in the US https://www.techradar.com/pro/amazons-new-texas-ai-data-cent...

sajithdilshan

I think the hatred towards the data centers stems from the anger and frustration that has been caused by the white collar job replacement done by AI. We have an entire generation of young people that went to college and got a degree hoping that they would be able to get a good job and live a comfortable life. However, that's not the case anymore and the fact that almost all entry level jobs are replaced by AI has created this sentiment among people that somehow AI is evil. The problem is not that AI is evil, but most of the people would have to learn new skills and adapt because the profession or job they trained at college doesn't exists anymore. Data Centers have existed way before mainstream AI. Everyone would binge watch the latest season of popular shows of Netflix and won't even bat an eye thinking how much water that has wasted.