Iowafarmkid said:
As a conservative rural voter who detests data centers I can tell you it's a build up of things over the years. We had wind mills shoved down our throats, then it was solar panel farms changing our landscape and covering up tens of thousands of acres of farmland. And now we see the continued paving over of more farmland by outside sources and people. The crazy money that is spent on buying that ground then inflates the rest of the ground in the area as it's being 1031'd to avoid capital gains taxes which makes things even harder in a crappy ag economy. The local business's that supported the farm acres that are now under concrete now have less business in those areas. The tire store, fertilizer businesses, feed stores, seed salespeople.The construction jobs are temporary and mostly not local. The people who then run the data center are not local and lead to a continuing changing demographic that we didn't ask for. (How's that working for Texas). And then when we voice concerns and frustrations we are told we are dumb for feeling this way and we've bought in to Chinese propaganda and a bunch of nimbys. So yea, we are getting tired of seeing our rural landscape changed by a bunch of outside forces. I didn't vote for a Democrat because of it but I'm sure there are people who did.
The windmills offered no real benefit, to anyone. They were more costly and less efficient the existing technologies, and were it not for government subsidies and incentives there never would have been the huge buildout.
Data centers, and agentic AI in particular, are exactly the opposite. Yes, there are downsides, but these are driven by the private market and are impacting all of our lives substantially, whether you know it or not. I don't mean that as any type of insult; I am just saying that it's literally unknowable to describe how agentic AI is already changing nearly every market -- manufacturing, automotive, agriculture, logistics, medical, whatever, you name it.
I have customers putting AI into coffee makers to make sure the brew time, temp, grind, etc are perfect.
I have customers putting AI in home appliances to detect and prevent motor failures, etc.
You may be familiar but JD is putting AI in their equipment in a big way - auto steer, weed detection & elimination, yield optimization, etc, etc, etc.
I could go on and on and on... name an industry and it is already being impacted.
My point isn't that there are not detriments, there are. My point is that data centers are, imho, necessary and have to go somewhere. I think space is the obvious choice but this is of course going to take time. In the meantime, China is popping them out like tic tacs. Yes, some of the FUD was no doubt China psyops. I think we have to be a leader here or there are very real and severe consequences otherwise -- namely the death of US OEMs, brands, etc that simply cannot compete with China or whoever else fills the gap.
