[snek_case]

I think people are also literally fighting datacenters. As others have said the increase in energy costs is a problem for the average person. Not only is AI potentially competing for your job, it's also competing for your access to energy to power your home or your vehicle. Energy costs also affect the price you pay for basically every good and service.

Then there's the fact that many of those datacenter are being built over what would otherwise be usable farmland. I'm sure many will say "it's not that much land", but then tech billionaires would like to build datacenters the size of Manhattan. What for? To train a bigger LLM? Yay?

[morley]

Is there actually a shortage of usable farmland? (If anything, I think the world would be better off if farmers used their land more efficiently and sustainably.)

If the cost of energy is a problem, I feel like we should fix that problem instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's no reason residential customers should pay the same amount as data centers.

[mjr00]

> Then there's the fact that many of those datacenter are being built over what would otherwise be usable farmland. I'm sure many will say "it's not that much land", but then tech billionaires would like to build datacenters the size of Manhattan. What for? To train a bigger LLM? Yay?

Sure but you can say this about everything. Where are the protests about the wine industry in California? 500,000 acres of land for vineyards, far more water used for growing grapes than cooling data centers, all so a handful of people can make fortunes selling empty calories to the rich?

If you want to focus purely on utilitarian "optimal land use for essentials only" arguments there's way worse offenders than datacenters, the anti-DC sentiment is purely part of the anti-AI wave.

[runtime_terror]

Please, tell how much energy an equal sized vineyard uses compared to a data center?

[mjr00]

It takes 870 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of wine -- if people were genuinely protesting water waste it would be a good idea to start there. Almonds too.

[cratermoon]

I like wine and almonds. They are valuable commodities with a variety of uses and anyone can enjoy them for a modest price. They can be used and made into many additional valuable things, from sangria to baklava. What can LLMs do for me?

[mjr00]

I am glad you like some things. Some people like other things, such as LLMs, or hosted server infrastructure.

Now explain to me why you are allowed to have the things you like which use a lot of water, while other people are not allowed to have the things they like which use a lot of water.

[ssl-3]

> 870 gallons

Is this based on an assumption of irrigation being used?

[starkparker]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/napa-mountain-...

> Napa Valley’s most contentious political battleground — winery and vineyard development — has potentially reached a significant turning point following a series of key victories for proponents of limited expansion, leaving continued growth of Napa’s prized wine region uncertain.

> While final votes were being cast in the midterm election on Nov. 8, (2022,) Napa County’s Board of Supervisors voted to revoke a permit for one of the largest winery development proposals in the region's history, the Mountain Peak winery, following nearly nine years of opposition. ... locals fiercely objected to the project’s scale, voicing concerns over water supply and quality, increased fire risks and potential environmental and biological harm.

https://www.newtimesslo.com/sucking-air-how-one-vineyard-cau...

> The first phase of Coakley Vineyards is what was the most distressing to neighbors: the construction of an irrigation reservoir—also known as an ag pond—to hold 3.3 million gallons of water when full. The pond would be filled (and replenished after depletion and evaporation) with groundwater from three wells on the property.

> To the locals surrounding the property, the plan posed a very real threat to their water supply.

> Steve and two other concerned landowners met with one of the Coakley project leaders, Randy Heinzen, the chief operating officer of local vineyard management and consulting firm Vineyard Professional Services, to discuss their qualms about the project.

> Neither Coakley nor Heinzen responded to requests for comment from New Times for this story.

> According to Steve, the meeting only exacerbated their fears about the pond’s potential stress on surrounding groundwater levels.

https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article306005076.html

This isn't new. 2005: https://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2005/2005_05_04.clos04.sh...

It also isn't limited to the US. Mexico: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/protesters-occupy-coahuila-...

> Protesters in Coahuila have occupied the winery of Mexico’s oldest winemaker since Friday night, accusing its owners of using too much water from a shared source, leaving them with too little to irrigate their crops.

> Communal landowners took over the Casa Madero winery in the town of San Lorenzo, 140 kilometers west of Saltillo, to demand that the owners reduce their water use. They first arrived at the winery on Wednesday but left when state police arrived, only to return to enter the property two days later.

> The company accused the protesters of violently installing themselves on the property and blamed municipal police for failing to take action, despite being present. The newspaper El País reported that the protesters were armed with machetes, picks and shovels.

There are also protests of entities, including Harvard's endowment, that purchase vineyards specifically to economically exploit their groundwater rights: https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/28626-harvard-quietly-amas...

On the other end, local governments can raise excess water usage rates on farms, golf courses, and wineries, instead of giving them offsetting tax or rate breaks and subsidies to attract them: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article...

Or incentivize water conservation: https://nypost.com/2026/05/25/us-news/napa-valley-wineries-f...

Which some wineries have proactively done for more than a decade, via wastewater irrigation and recycling post-irrigation water for cleaning casks and other surfaces: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/07/446096090/ca...

But that's also been protested, for polluting groundwater reserves: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article306005076.html

Dry-irrigated wineries that only use rainwater or mountain runoff also exist, but unlike a data centre, they can't close up shop and move when drought hits: https://www.eenews.net/articles/water-shortages-force-a-reck..., https://triplepundit.com/2022/washington-wine-climate-change...

[runtime_terror]

Bro energy is not water

[ElevenLathe]

You could say this about anything, but it's being said about AI datacenters. People like wine! They don't like AI and the NSA. It's really not a mystery.

[mjr00]

That's exactly my point! Everything has negative externalities, and focusing on them is the way to seem "rational" even though you don't actually care about them. It's the same as how people will protest high density residences "ruining the character of the neighborhood" when they really just don't want poor people living near them. You can't just outright say you don't want poor people in your neighborhood, so you talk about how these residences ruin neighborhood character, disrupt view cones, cause traffic problems, etc.

Here it's the same thing--the people protesting don't give a damn about water waste, electricity usage, or wasted land. If they did, there are tons of other offenders who are way worse. But they don't want to outright say they're protesting against AI because it makes them seem like luddites.

[ElevenLathe]

They don't want to spend resources on something that they don't like (AI), but don't care about resources spent on something they do (wine). This is rational if you assume feelings don't need to be rational, which typically is an uncontroversial statement.