“I have given up on American journalism. The decline of the American press has long been obvious, and my time is too valuable to waste in an effort to supply the ‘man in the street’ with his daily quota of clichés, gossip, and erotic tripe. There is another concept of journalism, which you may or may not be familiar with. It’s engraved on a bronze plaque on the southeast corner of the Times Tower in New York City.”
—Hunter Thompson, letter to William Kennedy, 1959
“An institution that should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”
—Joseph Pulitzer, New York World mission statement, May 10, 1883, quote appears on The New York Times bronze plaque
"When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a
conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But
when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks
are in business to give people exactly what they want."
--Steve Jobs
I think the same goes for newspapers. They are businesses that make money from giving people what they want, and like all businesses they eventually care primarily about making money. Whatever else they were founded to care about is secondary at best.
In case you didn't know, The Register has been deliberately using this kind of language about ALL topics for nearly 30 years. It's part of their appeal and brand, like The Onion. People choose to read The Register because they have this adversarial stance and humorous tone about tech.
The vast majority of the pro-datacenter 'externalities don't matter as long as I make money' is also pretty obviously astroturfed.
The difference is that much of the communication on that end happens in backchannels, directly with the regulators, in secret meetings, without any possibility of public scrutiny.
(When that isn't enough, the firehose of paid advertisements gets fired up to convince the public, instead.)
The vast majority of the anti-datacenter movement is funded by the CCP. That's why it is so lacking in facts. Most datacenters use closed loop cooling. That means it doesn't consume water for anything more than the toilets and water fountains. Yet this talking point pops up in almost every article on the topic. Part of the reason you are seeing closed door meetings now is because leaders know that the public is profoundly misinformed on this topic. It doesn't help when AOC is waving a jar of dirty water as if it is proof of something.
exactly. All of the arguments I see against data centers are simply arguments against industrialization.
The dirty water bit is the most ridiculous thing. It's meant to paint the picture that the data centers themselves are using the water and dirtying it, when in reality the cause is the development of the actual buildings and infrastructure, which would happen with any industrial development!
They all have a closed cooling loop, but almost all of them cool the exterior condensers with an open cooling loop.
Which draws from the watermain, sprays water on the hot condensers, the water evaporates, cooling the condensers. This is done to reduce their electric bills, because condensers operate more efficiently when they are cold.
The fully closed-loop data center, with air-cooled condensers is the exception, not the rule. Because it sucks even more electricity than a regular one, due to its less-efficient cooling.
You are spreading falsehoods, while also accusing people who are factually accurate of being foreign propaganda mouthpieces. This is at best, ironic and jingoistic, and at worst...
Do you honestly think that the very detailed understanding of cooling systems that you have has anything in common with the popular opinion that datacenters use lots of water?
Also, you are arguing jargon...and data centers use completely closed loop designs where it makes sense (very cheap power) and use what you describe where it makes sense (with more expensive power and cheaper water). Finally, nothing you said disproves that there is a significant propaganda effort to demonize datacenters by a foreign power.
No, not really. My comments are organic - they come from a place of frustration, seeing such trivially wrong arguments against data centers.
All the arguments I see against data centers are arguments against industrialization. There are also arguments against capitalism and wealth inequality, that I sympathise with.
That opinion should be informed by facts and data. This opinion isn't really informed by anything except scientifically illiterate propaganda. That's the problem. Journalists larping as experts in something that they have absolutely no expertise or even the basic scientific background to understand. The amount of misinformation on topics surrounding energy generation is absolutely criminal and journalists are far and away the biggest spreaders of misinformation on this topic. If I could, I would make a journalist without scientific or engineering credentials talking about this topic a felony on par with murder. After all, they are causing significant amounts of misery in the 3rd world with their lies.
Not really, no. It is one of the most important attributes of good journalism that you have to be as impartial.
That's why papers have separate sections for Opinions
How do you figure? Surely it becomes propaganda for the opinion?
Journalists are not supposed to let opinions show in their reporting, that’s why editorials exist.