The war on data centres is a bit fake

edward 20 points 15 comments August 22, 2026
www.economist.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (8 comments)

cyanydeez

just gonna put this out there: ignorance is a global phenomenon, and if you act like someone making others aware is "fake" then you're just not going to survive reality, especially when billionaires have much greater reach than anyone else.

MarkusQ

"A bit fake"? This is a massive understatement. It's a battle of glib, easily debunkable falsehoods between parties with huge budgets and no apparent shame — mostly the US tech sector (arguing for) vs. the CCP (against). If you look at the outlandish claims of either side in any detail, it's hard to imagine anyone would fall for them. But here we are.

dlcarrier

It's just NIMBYism, which itself is usually justified through fake science. There's honest to goodness people who think we shouldn't disturb space rocks, because they will no longer be in their pristine natural state.

datadrivenangel

https://archive.is/0tDCq

m4rtink

At this point anything that pours sand to the gears of "AI " industry is good, true or not. The other side is also not bothered by their talking points being real. Only like this we can stop this hype insanity, prevent more damae and maybe even find some useful aspects hidden behind the endless hype.

diffinity

This Substack post by a journalist touring through Wisconsin and Michigan has been pretty interesting, at least for getting a new perspective on why there's some local opposition to data centers: https://jasmi.news/p/no-data-centers-in-my-backyard

holbrad

I think it's pretty clear that most of the discussion around AI is just generally bullshit. I've seen some articles on some data centres that were very loud because of gas turbines, but realistically, what percentage is that? Surely, I would assume it must be a minority, and it just seems like the state failing to actually follow reasonable laws around noise levels. The US getting better power infrastructure and more energy seems like a long-term good thing. They've underinvested in it for a long time.

metalman

nice try. the war FOR data centers is very real.It is backed by single largest money spend of all time, and money at this scale is war. War for resources, war to be first, war to be best, etc. Now if the articles take was that the war for data centers got going hard and fast before people figured out that dont like it, and are massivly out gunned and out manouvered from the begining, then sure, thats obvious, but people are bringing guiloteens as symbols of there dislike, and the general attitude is hey!cool hardware!!, fire it up lets hear the ziiiiiing ,thwonk sound.

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