[recursivecaveat]

I think it's as simple as people generally believe that electricity is good for the world, and AI is bad for it. In the former case you're kindof taking-one-for-the-team. Even places that have nasty nasty stuff like tailings ponds generally have a kind of civic pride that coal mining or whatever was a necessity and the sacrifice of their local environment made a lot of other people's comfy lives possible. Data-centers are just not going to inspire that sentiment lol.

[razakel]

For some strange reason people aren't all that keen on building something that'll increase their utility bills, pollute everything, and threatens to take their job.

[yostrovs]

Here in Michigan, people are all for auto factories, but the polluting, energy intensive, and job taking data centers are a big no no. They use electricity, they look ugly, and they use water. Can't have that.

[razakel]

The auto factories propose to actually create jobs, though.

[bigbadfeline]

> Here in Michigan, people are all for auto factories, but... data centers are a big no no. They use electricity, they look ugly, and they use water. Can't have that.

Because they know economics better than their politicians and academia.

Data centers saddle the public with their power and water capital expenses, for new generation and transmission which are used solely for the benefit of data centers. And get this, in many cases the data bros get sweet tax-free deals for many years.

All of a sudden, the entire economics establishment loves communism for the rich, where the rich get exclusive use of public utilities built and paid for by the public.

The media, academia and politicians silence is deafening, which is why people have to raise their voices if they want to be heard.