>>11710My read on it was precisely the opposite, that the big, obvious physicality of data centers makes them a good target. Frustration with technology is felt by many but can be difficult to conceptualize or directly grapple with because of its un-physical nature. Google may be surveilling you but what can you do about that apart from going to their headquarters? It takes someone already knee-deep into technology to be able to bypass that through tools or alternate software choices. Data centers and the vociferous opposition to them are a culmination of decades of frustration with surveillance (private and public), data mining, and predatory capitalism. Here is a physical building that can be either opposed directly, by engaging with local policies, or else easily "dealt with" once the facility already exists.
But your comment also tracks with a rebuttal to those people that I have run out of breath repeating: that simply being against something isn't enough, that in order to oppose data centers you should also try to reduce your own digital footprint which relies on data centers as infrastructure. The replies back are much the same whenever one is charged about eating habits and other moral and environmental consumer choices: it's not that easy, I have no choice, I have to use GPS to get to work, I have to post on Instagram all day, I have to scan the QR code or use the McDonalds app to save $4, my usage is different, the data centers being built are for AI, and so on and so forth.
I also have soured on the anti-data center charge like
>>11701. I have been a digital privacy and freedom advocate - you could easily say zealot and I would not disagree - for more than half my life, so it's a strange position to be in to roll my eyes when someone starts going on about opposing data centers. Because I agree, stop building that shit, waste of resources, bad for the environment, yes I know, I have been repeating these things for ages already and these same people who scoffed at me because I wasn't on Snapchat in 2016 are now crying about ~Big Tech~, but they're just Repeating the Phrases, they don't seem to actually care or want to do anything about it.
I don't know if this is just liberal hypocrisy or whatever. I think opposition to data centers covers much wider bases, especially in the US since concerns over land ownership and usage are more... important? That's not the word. They certainly make a bigger fuss about it over there, not that private property doesn't matter in the rest of the world. And it's interesting that this runs in the same tracks as NIMBYism, the same town hall meetings, county procedures, boomers with tax code sheets. Millennials are finally having their NIMBY moment and no one's even around to point out the delicious contradiction.
I occasionally come across pro-data center opinions online; whether they come from a place of genuine stake in the craft (HN) or from ideological jiu-jitsu as the user in question intuits data center opposition to be a broadly liberal/leftist opinion and immediately finds a counter to it (reactionaries and other internet rightoids). One theme that gets passed around is that data center opposition is a hysteria drummed up by the Chinese (and others like Russia) to manipulate public opinion in the US. I initially dismissed this as typical fearmongering from Americans online about Le Spooky Foreigner coming to ruin their peaceful burger reich, and the international relations theory behind such a move being questionable anyway, but the more time goes on the more I am starting to give credence to that possibility. It doesn't explain everything but perhaps can explain why some certain people who are predisposed to one-dimensional political thinking really seem to have latched onto this topic in a way that suggests something is propelling them to do so. Very strange situation we have found ourselves in here.