[duped]

I'm as big of a skeptic on these AI companies and question deeply the long term value of data center buildout as a land use policy in the communities where they're being built. But:

> So let me ask the question directly: if AI data centers are such a tremendous benefit to communities, why are so many of them being built without meaningful community input?

Because of this (emphasis mine):

> They’re watching their utility bills climb, finding sick animals they can’t explain, and worrying about the long-term impacts on their health and property values

How are you supposed to have reasonable discussion about land use, economic impacts, zoning, etc when you're getting flooded with input from crockpots?

[dekhn]

Can you say with absolute certainty that sick animals and long term impacts on their health are not caused by data centers? Certainly we have long list of examples where industrial activity contaminated areas with little oversight and it did kill animals and cause long-term impacts on health. I think you're saying that data centers do not pollute in a way that would cause sick animals or long-term impacts on health, but I don't think that can be stated confidently.

[duped]

So this might be controversial and I'm unable to phrase it better, but you can't always engage in good faith to address claims when the claimant themselves are incapable of engaging in good faith to make them.

I could be convinced on negative environmental impact of data centers in a few ways. I could believe there's additional strain on water purification infrastructure if the open loop cooling systems are using additives and creating additional volume of water that existing treatment plants weren't designed to handle. I could believe that additional power demand and on-site generators using fossil fuels could create pollution where it didn't exist before. I could believe that in a rush to build quicker, construction crews take shortcuts.

Basically all industrial activity on this planet creates waste that can harm people. That's why we create zones for it away from residences, and why land closer to it is cheaper.

This is all stuff you can engage with good faith. The problem is these are not the claims that the crazy people are making, and not the ones it sounds like the author of TFA is bothering to investigate. There's a large group of people that will believe "thing bad, thing hurt" with zero evidence besides vibes, and you can't meet with psychosis on shared ground.

[dekhn]

As you wrote it, it really reads as "everybody who says datacenters have health impacts is a crackpot" but I think your intent was "some people who say datacenters have health impacts are crackpots".