> Second, why is the article trying so hard to make datacenters out as racist?

AI Datacenters are classist.

Because of their negative externalities they will always be constructed near the poor who have the least political power.

Humans are racist.

So there is a strong systemic correlation between that group of disenfranchised people and people of color.

The most directly harmful impacts of datacenters are racist, transitively.

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precision1k 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I live in Loudoun County, the wealthiest county in the United States. The amount of lamborghinis and Ferraris on the road around here is obscene. You know what else we have a lot of? Data centers. Loudoun County is also the data center capital of the US. Your idea that datacenters are racists transitively is woke slop.

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RankingMember 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not all of your neighbors seem to agree

https://wjla.com/news/local/data-center-noise-fumes-create-f...

Material wealth is only part of the picture. I'd rather have a Honda Civic and a quiet, clean place to live than own a Ferrari and have to pick and choose when I can go outside so I avoid the noise and particulate pollution from a nearby data center.

	▲	precision1k 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You missed my point. I work in the tech industry. I hate the data centers. Everyone I know who lives around here also (mostly) hates the data centers. Everyone here also makes 6 figures or more. The point I'm making is that data centers are not "transitively racist". They build them in wealthy areas as well as poor areas.

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6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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georgemcbay 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The pre-AI datacenters where you live are very different than the Colossus-style methane turbine and inadequately soundproofed AI datacenters that are being built today.

	▲	precision1k 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No, they're not. The data center buildout in Loudoun County has not stopped. They're continuing to build them out. They're getting bigger and more pervasive everywhere. It is my intention to eventually move out of the county because they're an eyesore and they've swallowed up just about every bit of available land here. The point I was making to the original poster is that datacenters are not "transitively racist". They are built in both wealthy and poor areas.

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datsci_est_2015 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Your idea that datacenters are racists transitively is woke slop.

Your knee jerk reaction to refer to something as “woke slop” belies your privileged distance from anything remotely resembling hardship (I LiVe iN LoUdOuN) and an underdeveloped sense of empathy.

Anyway, we should be extremely skeptical of how infrastructure is built out in the US because of historical baggage. Poverty and industrial development create a vicious cycle that leads people to walk around with their thumb in their ass and claim that the poors just aren’t pulling themselves up by their bootstraps hard enough.

	▲	pc86 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You're not responding to their point, though. If data centers were built only in poor areas because of classism, they're correct that there probably wouldn't be a lot of data centers in one of the richest areas in the country. And there are. So if you want to make a convincing argument that data centers are classist you should probably have a response to that beyond "well you just don't have any empathy."