Date: November 5th, 2026 1:15 PM Author: The Penis
It's absurd. Everything "uses water". And it is just recycled back into the hydrological cycle anyway. Oh noes, a tiny percent the water will end up in precipitation 100s of miles away! What a travesty!
Date: November 5th, 2026 1:27 PM Author: The Penis
yeah but they are also voluntarily sending a lot of it over to meta and google without actually doing anything to minimize that. the physical data centers have nothing to do with it. it's a software governance problem on the corporate side and a digital hygiene problem on the personal side
yeah but it shouldn't fall on us to do extra shit in response to the govt's immoral and arguably unconstitutional acts. and lots of people voluntarily giving up their DATA doesn't cancel out the fact that everyone is being harvested.
Date: November 5th, 2026 9:47 PM Author: The Penis
but imo you should be assuming that anything you type in logged into google or chrome or anything you post publicly on insta is being tracked, fed into models, and can be called upon if traced to a potential crime. to me part of true "freedom" is that some people have the knowledge and abilities to get around or exploit this. obviously to an extent it is unfair because of the concentration of knowledge, intelligence, education, and money in modern institutions. but at the same time it also isn't THAT difficult to use vpns, turn telemetry off, and limit social media use. the specific part I find unfair is the sacrifice you make. if you opt out suddenly you don't get the points benefit of being a non hostile user on llms, if you are a vpn user registering on a private email on claude you get banned easier, or if you don't use social media you don't get the benefit of an enormous social network and views. The system isn't perfect, but I still think I prefer it to a heavily regulated system.
Date: November 5th, 2026 1:24 PM Author: The Penis
yeah it's all from social media content and mostly driven by more recent ai anxieties. there have always been people who were environmentally conscious about data centers to an extent, especially in europe. infomaniak in switzerland's entire business model is on providing cloud compute at minimal energy use and being transparent about pollution and privacy. I can respect that. minimizing pollution is a noble pursuit. its when people specifically target data centers because of "ai" and start citing all of these insane reasons out of proportion to what computers actually do. most factories are way worse. people need to come correct and be honest about the effects. you can't just say we need to ban them all because they "use water". your punching from a lower weight class at that point. thats the difference.
Date: November 5th, 2026 7:37 PM Author: The Penis
like 25k gallons per day. its not really that much, its literally circulating water through computer cooling equipment not "consuming" it. people bring this up because they have nothing else because computers barely pollute other than the pollution created from electricity production. only other thing they have is the "generators" and "noise pollution".
Date: November 5th, 2026 9:38 PM Author: the walter white of this generation (walt jr.)
Lol you seem like a good dude but you're showing you're aspieness here. The argument is a bad faith attack on an enemy. Be happy it's not just outright violence (spoiler: it will be soon).
Date: November 5th, 2026 9:46 PM Author: Wow tough day for libs
Dat heat has to go somewhere. So ur saying it warms the water then just discharges that water back to where ever it came from, then brings in new water to cool more, etc? And the USED UP warm water just naturally cools out in the wild, no harm no foul?
Date: November 5th, 2026 9:50 PM Author: The Penis
Modern data centers typically use recirculating cooling systems. Heat is transferred to the atmosphere through air cooling or evaporative cooling towers. The water doesn't just get heated and dumped into a river.
what do you mean that's the only other thing? first of all, the noise pollution is a valid complaint affecting lots of people in communities with data centers: there's the perceptible sound, which is just annoying at worst, and then the infrasound poisoning, which is making people ill.
but as you acknowledged in the other thread, a lot of anti-data-center sentiment is driven by resentment toward AI and tech in general. people are mad bc of all the jobs AI is eliminating. they're mad bc over-reliance on AI is making people stupider - not people like us who use AI like a PROSTHETIC COCK SLEEVE enhancing our intellectual curiosity, but the typical AI user who uses it to offload cognitive tasks. they're mad bc so much of AI is the Palantir surveillance ecosystem that makes people feel unsafe. they're mad because AI child porn is legal. they're mad because social media has so clearly broken kids' brains.
you're too smart to pretend the BS water thing and the noise thing are the only reasons people hate data centers.
Date: November 5th, 2026 9:57 PM Author: The Penis
Regarding NOISE pollution, I agree on low frequency noise emissions and that it can annoy people, but the idea that Infrasound from data centers is poisoning nearby residents and making them physically ill is bullshit and not supported by evidence.
Agree that AI resentment is part of the reason for data center opposition, but to me that is an argument against people who are anti-datacenter. it is saying the motivations are not against the infrastructure itself but against their anxieties about the software that runs on it.
One thing I'll admit that I am leaving out that actually has strength wrt anti data center is electrical grid occupation and land use.
oh it's supported by evidence. this guy recorded and measured the infrasound and talked to a lot of people who were experiencing illness from it: https://youtu.be/_bP80DEAbuo
and this channel is frequently covering communities affected by data centers and data center accidents, as well as other industrial accidents, although i don't have a specific video where they covered this issue: https://youtube.com/@statuscoup
cr it's straining the grid like crazy and driving electricity costs up