Actual things to bring up during city meetings on data center zoning
I may try to be brave and actually attend these. But I need real reasons (not just "the expansion of mass surveillance tools like this erode democracy and push us into fascism. Destroy all billionaires")
The water usage thing is basically debunked. The people dont care what data they are actually storing. All I really would have is, land use, noise, and power consumption. Maybe about how theyre recording you at every turn with flock? Which any factory being built would do the same. I just feel like I can't actually make an argument in front of normie's who dont really realize what's at stake here and have zero clue about technology in general.
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Water: huge usage and/or pollution (reusing).
Electricity: huge usage and/or pollution (generators running on methane or other fossil fuels), ignore promises of nuclear reactors.
Both are "competitors" on usage; by market effects, this means higher prices for everyone else, which will remain permanently increasing unless the water reservoir and processing plants increase in capacity (same for electricity.)
Smaller distance: noise pollution, including noise that is difficult to detect, but still messes you up. As humans can't turn off their hearing, living like this is, basically, torture of various intensity.
Jobs: almost entirely short-term temporary, as with many construction projects. Think of data-centers as housing construction for software. (Yes, it is a software housing bubble.)
It's basically a gasoline powered power plant. They claim to use the gas generators as a "backup" but apparently backup means a good fraction of the time. It costs millions, generates only a couple jobs during construction, and that's it. There's no value to the community. It's a power plant that sucks energy off the grid, raises electricity prices. The end.
They also tend to get tax breaks for a decades or more to entice them to build in places, which makes no sense as that means they aren't providing any benefit at all since there are no jobs once it is completed. They are a net negative financially on top of the pollution and noise and everything else wrong with them.
I mean, they generate thousands of construction jobs, but they are short lived like you said.
Point out that data centers don't bring real benefit to the community. Unlike a factory, they don't create lasting jobs, only temporary construction positions. (And honestly? once the AI bubble pops I'm not convinced there will be any demand for large data centers.)
Is the water usage thing debunked? Data centers need cooling. There are a different ways to cool them, but water-cooled seems to be more common. (Likely it's cheaper to build.) Regardless of whether AI uses absurd amounts of water compared to other tech, a data center will reduce the amount of water available to the community, and depending on your area that could turn people against a data center.
Power consumption is a big one. Data centers need a lot of power, and that will drive up consumer rates as A) they increase demand while supply lags and/or B) electric companies build new power plants to meet the demand, then raise rates to recoup costs. Bring up the actual impact on people: higher electric and gas bills.
good points I could definitely bring up.
Like I said, I already got the power bill notice that pissed me the fuck off "Joe and jane like to conserve their energy in the daytime!" FUCK all the way off. While datacenters suck up megawatts an hour.
The aguments are local. Do you have the land, the water the electricity etc... The power consumption alone raises rates so that the economy becomes uncompetitive. Businesses will move out without sweetheart deals, and the population will wither and die as power becomes unaffordable.
They're doing data, art and work theft, leading many people to get totally unemployed, making the electronic components prices explode, making many programs and operative systems less secure and performant (thus destroying the economy), perpetuating inequalities, destroying the energy system across the world, creating an enviromental crisis (water, biodiversity, pollution, garbage...), and they steal our data to spy on us and sell it to the best price... All that while everything gets worse and worse for us. They're a fucking leech.
The water thing is NOT debunked at all, and if you believe so, you have fallen in their propaganda.
it's not proven either. I'm not saying it's untrue, but also, gaming pc's and heating/cooling one's house take up a shit ton of power as well. I just don't think the "you used an llm, you just burned up 10000 gallons of water" argument is going to hold. People I converse with already joke about that like it's a lie and they don't actually use up water because it "recycles".