No planned data centre development should be passed unless, at the very least, the plans include independent power generation, independent water resources, a bond to cover clean up should the data centre be closed.
My inner feelings... these data centers will not live up to their expectations. . It should not be about money...The quality of life is more important. Also, the environment is not being taken into consideration...limited fresh water and energy.. The focus of the government...promoting money-making industries over the wellbeing of the people. The government is primarily responsible for the poor mental and physical health of Americans with its catering to industries.
I could have started a fire storm with my originally crafted comment to all of you who have commented so verbosely in favor of Data Centers, but I deleted my original comment simply out of politeness... I'll simply sit here quietly and shake my head at your lack of understanding and foresight... and your overwhelming ignorance of what the underlying purpose of AI Data Centers portends for all of humanity.
From our side, we know exactly where this lands... and we know you do to.
Our responses were specific to the comments we were addressing for obvious reasons. But if you care to illucidate at the macro level -- beyond what you've written in the comment below -- we would welcome that.
All I should say, in order to maintain civility in this comment string, is that those who maintain such adamant support for Data Centers... especially some of the comments that I read where that support is manifested around the desire to maintain equity in competition with China... to those people I would suggest that they consider the following questions:
1. What major world power leads the world in every aspect of surveillance of its own citizenry?
2. What major world power leads the world in the tyranny imposed upon its own citizenry?
3. What major world power leads the world in crimes perpetrated against its own citizenry?
The answer to all of the above questions is, of course, China.
Then I would ask one additional followup question:
4. What technology do you believe is being used to successfully achieve China's goals wrt the above efforts of surveillance, tyranny and crimes being perpetrated on its own citizenry?
The answer to that question is, of course, AI.
One can draw whatever conclusion one wants to draw from the proliferation of AI Data Center in this country, as well as the ever increasing installation of Flock Cameras (Simply the watchful eye of AI)... I for one see it for what it is... the ever increasing surveillance that is the precursor and necessary component for the creation of a Global Slave State.
And the above isn't even close to my original comment that I deleted.
We applaud this... and can only imagine what the original looked like. But this lightened-up post is a great summation of the tough questions, easy answers and the inevitable destination in the digital gulag.
Data Centers are a scourge on Society... they are the infrastructure of the invisible electronic prison fence that is being built around the entire global population for 24/7/365 surveillance and control... Remember! You've been warned!
Perhaps those who oppose the Data Centers have been continually indoctrinated against them via the Chinese social media campaign, the negative Botts that permeate any conversation about anything Trump or his administration champions. I see it daily, the doom and gloom associated with AI. The dirty little secret is that we are in a fight with China for supremacy in the AI market place. Most American's still don't pay attention to Global affairs that truly affect their future, instead they worry over the Climate warming half a degree.
Clearly, those who cry over 4400 Building Trades used to build the AI centers, not having fulltime employment are just ignorant! Think about who builds vs who lives in a home or apartment complex? Do you expect the electrician or framer to stay in your housing development or your grocery market after the building is completed? Of course you don't! If you have half a brain, you have a basic understanding of the separation of those who construct the building for a business and those who will later populate that building! This type of "false equivalent" scare tactic is right out of a Socialist/Communist playbook! The CCP knows only one thing about workers, which is that they are to be used like cattle going to market. They are rounded up, loaded on packed trains and transported to another crowded facility to do the work of the CCP. They thing the ignorant Americans' in the smaller towns and inner cities want jobs that pack them in like sardines. The Socialist /Democrat politicians get elected love to spout the "we care" virtue, yet continually hold their voter blocks down with fear and talk of disparity, rather than creating solutions like Trade schools and personal responsibility.
Jobs were plentiful for those in the Traditional trades, Carpenters, welders, electricians! If your community does not encourage your young people to enter these lucrative jobs, then your community or you as a parent are at fault, not an AI Data Center!
Lisa — appreciate your comment and great to have you reading and commenting.
At the outset, no one is arguing that the electricians, welders, and carpenters who build a data center should remain there permanently after construction ends. Construction jobs are real jobs, and many of them are well paid. We are desperate for trades in this country and anything that encourages more young people to go into the trades is a win in our books.
But the relevant question isn't about employment, it's about how these projects are sold to the public. When state and local governments provide major tax breaks, infrastructure support, and access to local water and electricity, officials routinely cite thousands of construction jobs as evidence of lasting economic development. So it would be irresponsible not to distinguish between temporary construction employment and the much smaller number of permanent jobs that remain once the facility is operating.
That is not a false equivalence. It is a basic cost-benefit analysis.
Communities are also entitled to ask whether the permanent benefits justify the continuing costs: pressure on utility rates, water and electricity use, industrial noise, infrastructure demands, 24/7 light pollution, and forgone tax revenue. Dismissing those questions as socialist propaganda or Chinese indoctrination does not answer them and, if anything, puts them into the realm of binary thinking. This is a complex topic that needs nuanced thinking.
The United States can compete with China in AI without treating every local resident who asks for accountability as ignorant or disloyal. Sadly, the US is well behind the Chinese in the AI race because we were caught on our heels — we're not celebrating that, we're simply saying, rather than wasting brainpower and resources on kinetic warfare as we are witnessing right now in many parts of the world, it would have been much smarter to put those resources into leapfrogging into what the future of AI might be. If you're familiar with Moore's Law — and we encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with it — technological advancement doubles every 18 months. Here at Collapse Life, we think that 18 months has actually compressed into a much tighter timeline... but let's accept 18 months; that means potentially, within two years, many of these massive data centers are to be relegated to the fate of American shopping malls. The tech will shrink, data centers might move into low earth orbit... any number of interesting potentials could render these massive data centers a blight on the landscape. Which makes the moment we're in right now a Keynesian wet dream, but a wasteful way to spend our children's future prosperity.
The short-term question becomes — who's responsible for the dismantling of these centers if the tech changes so rapidly that they're rendered surplus... or worse, the company running them goes bankrupt?
You.
You will be responsible for cleaning up your community. Which means you paid twice — once to build it, and then again to clean it up. Meanwhile, the absentee billionaire landlords who've extracted what they wanted walk away scot-free. This is called privatizing profits and socializing losses.
This is a critical component of "The Great Taking."
We'll leave it there, except to remind everyone: it's NOT disloyal to ask hard questions. That's why we do Collapse Life.
The Chinese want to beat us in AI. This misinformation and whining about data centers is Chinese propaganda. Look at it for what it is. The United States cannot be left out of this.
Mary — appreciate your comment and value your readership.
Look, communities have every right to ask whether a particular data center provides enough lasting local benefit to justify the costs, subsidies, and other concessions it receives.
That legitimate scrutiny should not be replaced with a simplistic loyalty test: “Do you want America or China to win?” Treating every objection as foreign propaganda is an “either you’re with us or against us” argument that shuts down the local democratic process rather than engaging with the evidence.
We're not talking baseball or football teams here. But there is something to be learned, if you're going to use sports teams as an analogy. Winning teams have lots of things that come together to give them an X factor — talented players; smart coaching; discipline; team spirit... the list goes on. Is it possible that Team USA does not have many of these things at the moment? And don't misunderstand us, we are not celebrating that, we are saddened by that. The only way to correct this is to ask difficult questions and answer them HONESTLY in order to get to a place where we can correct course and concentrate on what really matters.
We responded to Lisa Ricketts above on some of our other thinking regarding data centers and we encourage you to have a read of that, as well.
Thanks for taking the time to reach out. But, I have to disagree with you. This is exactly like a sporting event in that there are winners and losers. I refer you to the President’s speech today on the subject of data centers and community concerns. Not only Will electric not be increased that the builders the right to build own electric power generators and infrastructure take care of their own require requirement and any Ex will be given back to the general grid this will not this will actually them. I would also suggest a review of statements by Chris Weight and Lee Zeldin. There can only be one leader in this field like there is one leader on getting to the moon The geopolitical times the. Required us to beat the Russians. The geopolitical times now require us to beat China. National security demand this. Sorry if you think my previous post was harsh but there can’t be two winners here. As for the jobs issue that is always the case is built. The jobs created for the building part are always a higher number than the jobs once the center is built. But 500 or so permanent jobs for a struggling community is nothing to sneeze at either. I’ll look over your other suggested comments. Thx.
I just learned that the data mining center closest to me (roughly 30 miles northeast) in a rural farming community was okay'ed by the sole commissioner of that small town. He also happens to be the landowner who sold his property to the data mining center company whom I believe is Mark Zuckerberg, though he ALSO signed an NDA so he can't talk about it to his constituents. What part of this is legal??? The county auditor is raising EVERYONE's property taxes the same amount, irrespective of what kind of home or land they own. The same dollar amount for someone raising 15 kids in a run-down trailer on an acre of land as the multi-millionaire in her McMansion with 50 acres of prime real estate. And they have been offered no- or discounted tax which of course is shifted to the general public, which is why lower income people are screaming. This is at the same time as the anti-property tax movement has taken off, as it has across the country, and this year we will be voting on a NO property tax amendment to the state's constitution because people are so mad. Next year we will vote on a moratorium on data mining centers over a certain size. We have water here, which is partly why we've been targeted. But mostly we're also a poorly educated electorate (IMHO--didn't grow up here, thankfully) with little political power, controlled by a very corrupt Republican party (though not for long, you betcha). Now the piped water companies are competing for putting lines in on my road--ridiculous since we have so much water and some of my neighbors think it will be "cleaner" since Dupont polluted the area with C8; a recent plastics storage fire indicates what I've always said--piped water spreads contamination over a much bigger area. Anyway, I think the piped water is an attempt to socialize risk and cost so we will have to subsidize Mark Zuckerberg's data mining center. The electric company is having consumers pay for infrastructure upgrades (profits go to the shareholders, of course while electricity has tripled in cost since before COVID) and they are putting in a new fiber optics internet company which also offers a "security" system which, wouldn't you know, provides surveillance of your whole place. For your "protection", of course. I have multiple big dogs, thank you very much, which the cops say are more effective. It takes 45 minutes for law enforcement to get out here. And the local school system has great stats--after pushing through a bond levy in a secret election only 1500 people knew to vote on (after it failed in 8 or 9 well-publicized elections run on our dime)--with 42% of kids at grade level in math and 67% at grade level in reading--they BUILT A NEW SCHOOL The levy was used to pay interest payments on the old levies which apparently will NEVER be paid off.. Superintendent salary keeps rising and boys' sports are well-funded. The schools no longer have libraries. Why should they? They have AI. The superintendent can "retire" for one day then be rehired and get 175% of his pay (normal pay PLUS retirement). And everyone is getting offers to buy our land by males named Bub and Joe. If the billionaire bros think they have all the power, they are seriously deluded. Of course they are. They are psychopaths. And on the autistic spectrum. CIA shills, no less. This country truly is run by organized crime. Normal people need to WAKE UP.
That sounds like a textbook case of why communities are pushing back. If an official approved the project while profiting from the land sale and then signed an NDA, the conflict-of-interest and transparency questions alone deserve investigation. And when tax breaks and infrastructure costs are shifted onto residents, lower-income households inevitably feel it first.
We are just watching a battle between the oligarchs. I am not really going to choose either side. Neither one has our best interests at heart. It is not a fight over whether the data centers are good are bad. That is moot. The technology exists and is not going to go away. It is a fight over who controls them in the future.
It is much like the battle over the railroads. That wasn't about whether the railroads were good or bad. It was about where the railroads would run and which people could make money off of them.
AI is a disruptive technology. There is going to be a new order brought about from it. Older technologies will lose their supremacy. The companies that depended on them will fade into obscurity. Just like the towns that the railroads went around, they will die off. The new winners will create industrial wastelands as well. Just like the ports and rail hubs became. The old factories that were everywhere became outdated and left the communities destitute when they went under.
It's not all bad. I personally don't want to go back to cutting peat from bogs or digging coal. I wouldn't want to go back in time and work in the factories of the industrial revolution. They were awful. We are not going to go back to subsistence farming. We are not going to go back to people being the main force behind production. Just like Pandora's box, for better or worse, it is not going to go back to the way things were before it was opened. All we can do is to adapt to the new world it creates.
And since when did you cut peat or dig coal? Some people are creating homesteads because they can see the future pretty clearly. The adaptation they will require of you is death. Pull your head out of the sand.
Nothing wrong with creating a homestead. The problem is that it doesn't scale to society as a whole. There just isn't enough arable land that isn't owned already. Most places don't have the necessary water available to support it either.
Then you get to the problem that not only do you have to produce enough for yourself, you also have to produce enough excess to pay whatever tax burden they decide to assess or lose everything. You also need to produce enough to buy whatever modern conveniences that you don't wish to do without and what you can't produce yourself.
Then you get to the skills that you need for true self sufficiency. Food preservation and processing. Spinning, weaving, and sewing. Tanning hides and leather working. Forging and other metal work. To make that really work, you need a community with specialization. That is just for the basic stuff. Even larger dedicated communities such as the Amish still require trade with the outside world to fulfill specialized needs.
It takes half an acre to produce enough food for your household and to sell at the Farmers' Market. The Amish operate with barter to a large degree, charge half as much as the English do when selling something they're produced, and work as a community. Half an acre. Where I live a building site must be 5 acres or more for a home. A modest home is not taxed very high. And once you hit 65, if your $ income is under $35K or so, you are not taxed on your home. You can actually collect water many ways, including spreading a tarp at night and having the dew collected dribble into a bucket. Or the Amish have a series of rods you can pound into the ground to create a simple well. The US has so much extraneous stuff you can pretty much live out of a thrift store or even picking up crap by the side of the road. Most cultures do this. They recycle everything. Not Americans. Stuff "means" very different things in this culture. There is plenty of land in this country. Lying fallow. There are 3,531,839 sq. miles in the contiguous U.S. That is one square mile for each man, woman, or child citizen. That's PLENTY of land. Way more than anyone needs. A mile is over 5,000 feet. The problems begin when one person gathers "rent" and multiple others have to pay that one person multiple "rents". My grandparents had all those specialized skills, as did their kids. That's how they survived the Great Depression. I personally do not like the internal combustion engine or electricity. I think they have both done tremendous amounts of damage to our culture. They are approximately 100 years old. That is not a long time, even though Americans think it is. One century. Nothing. A human lifetime. A flash in the pan.
In that 3.5 million square miles, there is a whole lot of it that doesn't support any type of farming. Then take away from that all the land that is government owned. Then take away the property that is already owned.
For ease of calculation, one square mile (a section) is 640 acres.
Sure, if you are old enough to have amassed enough money over the years to buy a property outright without a mortgage. To a young person starting out it is unrealistic. The only way that they can get a start is with a mortgage which they will also have to produce enough excess to pay.
A far better option is to take advantage of the resources that the modern world provides. I can go to the grocery store and buy a pound of dried beans for $1.50. Compared to the work of buying seed, planting and caring for the plants, picking them, shelling them, drying them and packaging them, that is nothing. Other food crops have a similar breakdown. There are crops that are much more profitable. But even that, is very limited.
There is good reason we moved to specialization. It was a huge leap in quality of life over subsistence farming.
You assume changing our economic system is not possible. You don't need 40 acres and a mule. You need one acre and a decent shovel.
Throw a handful of beans in your compost pile, water it, and see what happens in a month's time. I can't keep butternut squash from taking over my compost pile. Three years ago I threw a squash a friend gave me onto the compost because I knew I wasn't going to eat it. I cannot eat all the squash that have come up since. It cost me nothing. No labor. Nothing. Things grow. That's what generations of humans have developed them to do.
One acre, five acres. It's not that expensive. Build your own house. Cob or adobe, underground, whatever. Traditional Persian architecture is really cheap and incredibly beautiful, easy to cool and easy to heat. Run a propane fire in it and turn it into rock. It's brilliant. Check out Nader Khalili. calearth.org.
Good luck getting building permits in almost every locale. Most places in the country, they have made it impossible to build any "non-conforming" structures. Yes, there are a lot of great alternatives. It doesn't matter than they will outlast the standard stick built stuff by decades and often centuries and not be subject to many of the standard risks.
Again, yes you can do some of it small scale on an individual basis. It just isn't feasible for the majority of people in the country. At current population, the population density averages out to about 100 people per square mile. That's great if you are one of the ones that get a nice fertile plot of land. It sucks for people who get theirs in the arctic, Death Valley, the Great Salt Lake, or on top of a pile of rocks. It would also suck for the rest of the world that depends on our agricultural output. The illegal immigration we have now would be nothing compared to what would happen when mass famine and starvation set in.
Well,"old man who likes to yell", if you have a retirement account you'd better worry. They're going after your 401K just as they did in 2008. And your retirement account managers are selling some of your assets to private equity funds who will rob you blind and leave your retirement fund responsible for onerous debt for an entity whose real assets the private equity fund has already sold and pocketed. Thanks to Trump, you cannot pull out of those investments until you have paid off that debt. Legally, they do not have to pay you on your investment for 3-4 years, at which point they'll be history. I suggest you put up your fists and do more than yell.
Like this? Page 8, #3 https://nea.org/sites/default/files/2026-07/20260705-ratoday-issue-4.pdf ?
No planned data centre development should be passed unless, at the very least, the plans include independent power generation, independent water resources, a bond to cover clean up should the data centre be closed.
This issue clearly and demonstrably is able to make it across the political divide quite easily which is not a small feat these days.
Even more importantly: even entrenched "normies" with plenty of "boosters" behind them are opposed to this which is very encouraging.
My inner feelings... these data centers will not live up to their expectations. . It should not be about money...The quality of life is more important. Also, the environment is not being taken into consideration...limited fresh water and energy.. The focus of the government...promoting money-making industries over the wellbeing of the people. The government is primarily responsible for the poor mental and physical health of Americans with its catering to industries.
I could have started a fire storm with my originally crafted comment to all of you who have commented so verbosely in favor of Data Centers, but I deleted my original comment simply out of politeness... I'll simply sit here quietly and shake my head at your lack of understanding and foresight... and your overwhelming ignorance of what the underlying purpose of AI Data Centers portends for all of humanity.
Please write up the comment again, Anthony.
From our side, we know exactly where this lands... and we know you do to.
Our responses were specific to the comments we were addressing for obvious reasons. But if you care to illucidate at the macro level -- beyond what you've written in the comment below -- we would welcome that.
All I should say, in order to maintain civility in this comment string, is that those who maintain such adamant support for Data Centers... especially some of the comments that I read where that support is manifested around the desire to maintain equity in competition with China... to those people I would suggest that they consider the following questions:
1. What major world power leads the world in every aspect of surveillance of its own citizenry?
2. What major world power leads the world in the tyranny imposed upon its own citizenry?
3. What major world power leads the world in crimes perpetrated against its own citizenry?
The answer to all of the above questions is, of course, China.
Then I would ask one additional followup question:
4. What technology do you believe is being used to successfully achieve China's goals wrt the above efforts of surveillance, tyranny and crimes being perpetrated on its own citizenry?
The answer to that question is, of course, AI.
One can draw whatever conclusion one wants to draw from the proliferation of AI Data Center in this country, as well as the ever increasing installation of Flock Cameras (Simply the watchful eye of AI)... I for one see it for what it is... the ever increasing surveillance that is the precursor and necessary component for the creation of a Global Slave State.
And the above isn't even close to my original comment that I deleted.
Awesomely socratic.
We applaud this... and can only imagine what the original looked like. But this lightened-up post is a great summation of the tough questions, easy answers and the inevitable destination in the digital gulag.
Hey, see you there!
How tremendously delighted I am that you noticed my appreciation and predilection for Socratic discourse... ;)
I'll meet you at the barricades!
Data Centers are a scourge on Society... they are the infrastructure of the invisible electronic prison fence that is being built around the entire global population for 24/7/365 surveillance and control... Remember! You've been warned!
YEP!
Perhaps those who oppose the Data Centers have been continually indoctrinated against them via the Chinese social media campaign, the negative Botts that permeate any conversation about anything Trump or his administration champions. I see it daily, the doom and gloom associated with AI. The dirty little secret is that we are in a fight with China for supremacy in the AI market place. Most American's still don't pay attention to Global affairs that truly affect their future, instead they worry over the Climate warming half a degree.
Clearly, those who cry over 4400 Building Trades used to build the AI centers, not having fulltime employment are just ignorant! Think about who builds vs who lives in a home or apartment complex? Do you expect the electrician or framer to stay in your housing development or your grocery market after the building is completed? Of course you don't! If you have half a brain, you have a basic understanding of the separation of those who construct the building for a business and those who will later populate that building! This type of "false equivalent" scare tactic is right out of a Socialist/Communist playbook! The CCP knows only one thing about workers, which is that they are to be used like cattle going to market. They are rounded up, loaded on packed trains and transported to another crowded facility to do the work of the CCP. They thing the ignorant Americans' in the smaller towns and inner cities want jobs that pack them in like sardines. The Socialist /Democrat politicians get elected love to spout the "we care" virtue, yet continually hold their voter blocks down with fear and talk of disparity, rather than creating solutions like Trade schools and personal responsibility.
Jobs were plentiful for those in the Traditional trades, Carpenters, welders, electricians! If your community does not encourage your young people to enter these lucrative jobs, then your community or you as a parent are at fault, not an AI Data Center!
Lisa — appreciate your comment and great to have you reading and commenting.
At the outset, no one is arguing that the electricians, welders, and carpenters who build a data center should remain there permanently after construction ends. Construction jobs are real jobs, and many of them are well paid. We are desperate for trades in this country and anything that encourages more young people to go into the trades is a win in our books.
But the relevant question isn't about employment, it's about how these projects are sold to the public. When state and local governments provide major tax breaks, infrastructure support, and access to local water and electricity, officials routinely cite thousands of construction jobs as evidence of lasting economic development. So it would be irresponsible not to distinguish between temporary construction employment and the much smaller number of permanent jobs that remain once the facility is operating.
That is not a false equivalence. It is a basic cost-benefit analysis.
Communities are also entitled to ask whether the permanent benefits justify the continuing costs: pressure on utility rates, water and electricity use, industrial noise, infrastructure demands, 24/7 light pollution, and forgone tax revenue. Dismissing those questions as socialist propaganda or Chinese indoctrination does not answer them and, if anything, puts them into the realm of binary thinking. This is a complex topic that needs nuanced thinking.
The United States can compete with China in AI without treating every local resident who asks for accountability as ignorant or disloyal. Sadly, the US is well behind the Chinese in the AI race because we were caught on our heels — we're not celebrating that, we're simply saying, rather than wasting brainpower and resources on kinetic warfare as we are witnessing right now in many parts of the world, it would have been much smarter to put those resources into leapfrogging into what the future of AI might be. If you're familiar with Moore's Law — and we encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with it — technological advancement doubles every 18 months. Here at Collapse Life, we think that 18 months has actually compressed into a much tighter timeline... but let's accept 18 months; that means potentially, within two years, many of these massive data centers are to be relegated to the fate of American shopping malls. The tech will shrink, data centers might move into low earth orbit... any number of interesting potentials could render these massive data centers a blight on the landscape. Which makes the moment we're in right now a Keynesian wet dream, but a wasteful way to spend our children's future prosperity.
The short-term question becomes — who's responsible for the dismantling of these centers if the tech changes so rapidly that they're rendered surplus... or worse, the company running them goes bankrupt?
You.
You will be responsible for cleaning up your community. Which means you paid twice — once to build it, and then again to clean it up. Meanwhile, the absentee billionaire landlords who've extracted what they wanted walk away scot-free. This is called privatizing profits and socializing losses.
This is a critical component of "The Great Taking."
We'll leave it there, except to remind everyone: it's NOT disloyal to ask hard questions. That's why we do Collapse Life.
The Chinese want to beat us in AI. This misinformation and whining about data centers is Chinese propaganda. Look at it for what it is. The United States cannot be left out of this.
Mary — appreciate your comment and value your readership.
Look, communities have every right to ask whether a particular data center provides enough lasting local benefit to justify the costs, subsidies, and other concessions it receives.
That legitimate scrutiny should not be replaced with a simplistic loyalty test: “Do you want America or China to win?” Treating every objection as foreign propaganda is an “either you’re with us or against us” argument that shuts down the local democratic process rather than engaging with the evidence.
We're not talking baseball or football teams here. But there is something to be learned, if you're going to use sports teams as an analogy. Winning teams have lots of things that come together to give them an X factor — talented players; smart coaching; discipline; team spirit... the list goes on. Is it possible that Team USA does not have many of these things at the moment? And don't misunderstand us, we are not celebrating that, we are saddened by that. The only way to correct this is to ask difficult questions and answer them HONESTLY in order to get to a place where we can correct course and concentrate on what really matters.
We responded to Lisa Ricketts above on some of our other thinking regarding data centers and we encourage you to have a read of that, as well.
Thanks for taking the time to reach out. But, I have to disagree with you. This is exactly like a sporting event in that there are winners and losers. I refer you to the President’s speech today on the subject of data centers and community concerns. Not only Will electric not be increased that the builders the right to build own electric power generators and infrastructure take care of their own require requirement and any Ex will be given back to the general grid this will not this will actually them. I would also suggest a review of statements by Chris Weight and Lee Zeldin. There can only be one leader in this field like there is one leader on getting to the moon The geopolitical times the. Required us to beat the Russians. The geopolitical times now require us to beat China. National security demand this. Sorry if you think my previous post was harsh but there can’t be two winners here. As for the jobs issue that is always the case is built. The jobs created for the building part are always a higher number than the jobs once the center is built. But 500 or so permanent jobs for a struggling community is nothing to sneeze at either. I’ll look over your other suggested comments. Thx.
I just learned that the data mining center closest to me (roughly 30 miles northeast) in a rural farming community was okay'ed by the sole commissioner of that small town. He also happens to be the landowner who sold his property to the data mining center company whom I believe is Mark Zuckerberg, though he ALSO signed an NDA so he can't talk about it to his constituents. What part of this is legal??? The county auditor is raising EVERYONE's property taxes the same amount, irrespective of what kind of home or land they own. The same dollar amount for someone raising 15 kids in a run-down trailer on an acre of land as the multi-millionaire in her McMansion with 50 acres of prime real estate. And they have been offered no- or discounted tax which of course is shifted to the general public, which is why lower income people are screaming. This is at the same time as the anti-property tax movement has taken off, as it has across the country, and this year we will be voting on a NO property tax amendment to the state's constitution because people are so mad. Next year we will vote on a moratorium on data mining centers over a certain size. We have water here, which is partly why we've been targeted. But mostly we're also a poorly educated electorate (IMHO--didn't grow up here, thankfully) with little political power, controlled by a very corrupt Republican party (though not for long, you betcha). Now the piped water companies are competing for putting lines in on my road--ridiculous since we have so much water and some of my neighbors think it will be "cleaner" since Dupont polluted the area with C8; a recent plastics storage fire indicates what I've always said--piped water spreads contamination over a much bigger area. Anyway, I think the piped water is an attempt to socialize risk and cost so we will have to subsidize Mark Zuckerberg's data mining center. The electric company is having consumers pay for infrastructure upgrades (profits go to the shareholders, of course while electricity has tripled in cost since before COVID) and they are putting in a new fiber optics internet company which also offers a "security" system which, wouldn't you know, provides surveillance of your whole place. For your "protection", of course. I have multiple big dogs, thank you very much, which the cops say are more effective. It takes 45 minutes for law enforcement to get out here. And the local school system has great stats--after pushing through a bond levy in a secret election only 1500 people knew to vote on (after it failed in 8 or 9 well-publicized elections run on our dime)--with 42% of kids at grade level in math and 67% at grade level in reading--they BUILT A NEW SCHOOL The levy was used to pay interest payments on the old levies which apparently will NEVER be paid off.. Superintendent salary keeps rising and boys' sports are well-funded. The schools no longer have libraries. Why should they? They have AI. The superintendent can "retire" for one day then be rehired and get 175% of his pay (normal pay PLUS retirement). And everyone is getting offers to buy our land by males named Bub and Joe. If the billionaire bros think they have all the power, they are seriously deluded. Of course they are. They are psychopaths. And on the autistic spectrum. CIA shills, no less. This country truly is run by organized crime. Normal people need to WAKE UP.
That sounds like a textbook case of why communities are pushing back. If an official approved the project while profiting from the land sale and then signed an NDA, the conflict-of-interest and transparency questions alone deserve investigation. And when tax breaks and infrastructure costs are shifted onto residents, lower-income households inevitably feel it first.
We are just watching a battle between the oligarchs. I am not really going to choose either side. Neither one has our best interests at heart. It is not a fight over whether the data centers are good are bad. That is moot. The technology exists and is not going to go away. It is a fight over who controls them in the future.
It is much like the battle over the railroads. That wasn't about whether the railroads were good or bad. It was about where the railroads would run and which people could make money off of them.
AI is a disruptive technology. There is going to be a new order brought about from it. Older technologies will lose their supremacy. The companies that depended on them will fade into obscurity. Just like the towns that the railroads went around, they will die off. The new winners will create industrial wastelands as well. Just like the ports and rail hubs became. The old factories that were everywhere became outdated and left the communities destitute when they went under.
It's not all bad. I personally don't want to go back to cutting peat from bogs or digging coal. I wouldn't want to go back in time and work in the factories of the industrial revolution. They were awful. We are not going to go back to subsistence farming. We are not going to go back to people being the main force behind production. Just like Pandora's box, for better or worse, it is not going to go back to the way things were before it was opened. All we can do is to adapt to the new world it creates.
And since when did you cut peat or dig coal? Some people are creating homesteads because they can see the future pretty clearly. The adaptation they will require of you is death. Pull your head out of the sand.
Nothing wrong with creating a homestead. The problem is that it doesn't scale to society as a whole. There just isn't enough arable land that isn't owned already. Most places don't have the necessary water available to support it either.
Then you get to the problem that not only do you have to produce enough for yourself, you also have to produce enough excess to pay whatever tax burden they decide to assess or lose everything. You also need to produce enough to buy whatever modern conveniences that you don't wish to do without and what you can't produce yourself.
Then you get to the skills that you need for true self sufficiency. Food preservation and processing. Spinning, weaving, and sewing. Tanning hides and leather working. Forging and other metal work. To make that really work, you need a community with specialization. That is just for the basic stuff. Even larger dedicated communities such as the Amish still require trade with the outside world to fulfill specialized needs.
It takes half an acre to produce enough food for your household and to sell at the Farmers' Market. The Amish operate with barter to a large degree, charge half as much as the English do when selling something they're produced, and work as a community. Half an acre. Where I live a building site must be 5 acres or more for a home. A modest home is not taxed very high. And once you hit 65, if your $ income is under $35K or so, you are not taxed on your home. You can actually collect water many ways, including spreading a tarp at night and having the dew collected dribble into a bucket. Or the Amish have a series of rods you can pound into the ground to create a simple well. The US has so much extraneous stuff you can pretty much live out of a thrift store or even picking up crap by the side of the road. Most cultures do this. They recycle everything. Not Americans. Stuff "means" very different things in this culture. There is plenty of land in this country. Lying fallow. There are 3,531,839 sq. miles in the contiguous U.S. That is one square mile for each man, woman, or child citizen. That's PLENTY of land. Way more than anyone needs. A mile is over 5,000 feet. The problems begin when one person gathers "rent" and multiple others have to pay that one person multiple "rents". My grandparents had all those specialized skills, as did their kids. That's how they survived the Great Depression. I personally do not like the internal combustion engine or electricity. I think they have both done tremendous amounts of damage to our culture. They are approximately 100 years old. That is not a long time, even though Americans think it is. One century. Nothing. A human lifetime. A flash in the pan.
In that 3.5 million square miles, there is a whole lot of it that doesn't support any type of farming. Then take away from that all the land that is government owned. Then take away the property that is already owned.
For ease of calculation, one square mile (a section) is 640 acres.
Sure, if you are old enough to have amassed enough money over the years to buy a property outright without a mortgage. To a young person starting out it is unrealistic. The only way that they can get a start is with a mortgage which they will also have to produce enough excess to pay.
A far better option is to take advantage of the resources that the modern world provides. I can go to the grocery store and buy a pound of dried beans for $1.50. Compared to the work of buying seed, planting and caring for the plants, picking them, shelling them, drying them and packaging them, that is nothing. Other food crops have a similar breakdown. There are crops that are much more profitable. But even that, is very limited.
There is good reason we moved to specialization. It was a huge leap in quality of life over subsistence farming.
You assume changing our economic system is not possible. You don't need 40 acres and a mule. You need one acre and a decent shovel.
Throw a handful of beans in your compost pile, water it, and see what happens in a month's time. I can't keep butternut squash from taking over my compost pile. Three years ago I threw a squash a friend gave me onto the compost because I knew I wasn't going to eat it. I cannot eat all the squash that have come up since. It cost me nothing. No labor. Nothing. Things grow. That's what generations of humans have developed them to do.
One acre, five acres. It's not that expensive. Build your own house. Cob or adobe, underground, whatever. Traditional Persian architecture is really cheap and incredibly beautiful, easy to cool and easy to heat. Run a propane fire in it and turn it into rock. It's brilliant. Check out Nader Khalili. calearth.org.
Good luck getting building permits in almost every locale. Most places in the country, they have made it impossible to build any "non-conforming" structures. Yes, there are a lot of great alternatives. It doesn't matter than they will outlast the standard stick built stuff by decades and often centuries and not be subject to many of the standard risks.
Again, yes you can do some of it small scale on an individual basis. It just isn't feasible for the majority of people in the country. At current population, the population density averages out to about 100 people per square mile. That's great if you are one of the ones that get a nice fertile plot of land. It sucks for people who get theirs in the arctic, Death Valley, the Great Salt Lake, or on top of a pile of rocks. It would also suck for the rest of the world that depends on our agricultural output. The illegal immigration we have now would be nothing compared to what would happen when mass famine and starvation set in.
Well,"old man who likes to yell", if you have a retirement account you'd better worry. They're going after your 401K just as they did in 2008. And your retirement account managers are selling some of your assets to private equity funds who will rob you blind and leave your retirement fund responsible for onerous debt for an entity whose real assets the private equity fund has already sold and pocketed. Thanks to Trump, you cannot pull out of those investments until you have paid off that debt. Legally, they do not have to pay you on your investment for 3-4 years, at which point they'll be history. I suggest you put up your fists and do more than yell.