Me: It's also plain by now that the political authorities deciding on DC approval are hiding negotiations from the public. If nothing else, that's piss-poor optics because it creates a sense of dirty tricks.
Whiterock: No, it's not. There's no serious federal negotiation on DC projects. There is a LOT of negotiation at state & local level, just as there always has been.....primarily on the inherent competition between states and between municipalities resulting in abatement offers. Only thing new here is public outrage that the process as it has always worked is now somehow magically nefarious.
Me: I said 'political authorities', not federal government. You seem to imagine the states, counties and cities never screw over citizens?
Me: The DC advocates keep promising how DCs are going to be worthwhile for the public.
Whiterock: DCs are a private sector activity. Their worth is determined by market forces.
Me: Wrong. Stakeholders are anyone affected by the actions of these DCs, and environmental impact is a completely valid factor to consider. The ability to make money for someone does not make it right to cause harm to others, including the general public.
Me: But up to now, there is no evidence at all to support that; nothing but promises with zero commitment, while we are already seeing damage done to the environment (water) and in higher costs for people living in the places DCs are built.
Whiterock: What planet are you living on? We have 4500 DCs in the country right now. The economy would literally seize up worse than Covid without them. No company could operate more than a few hours without them. They are necessary for almost every aspect of our economy, from bookkeeping to purchasing to warehouse management to A/P processing to payroll to bills of lading to sales and on and on and on.
Me: I notice you still have provided no evidence at all of value created by the DCs. You obsess on whether the DCs are lucrative to the people who build them, and the jury isn't just out on whether DCs are better than their predecessors for back office and clerical functions, no juries have been seated yet on even the first case. You seem determined to keep DC builders from facing any accountability for harm caused, on a vapor argument that we cannot do without them despite the last several centuries of history where the world had no DCs.
Me: There have been grass-roots protests, and frankly a lot of evasion by government officials. Again, it creates a clear sense that the politicians have colluded with DC companies, and the outrage by citizens has been ignored, which is incredibly stupid.
Whiterock: Man, I have heard hundreds of rants over the last several months. Stood in front of very angry, I mean spittle-spewing angry crowds and spoken very unpopular truth. Not a single time have I heard someone mention the federal government. The anger is much more focused on the local level. I haven't ignored what I've heard.
Me: And there you go again, throwing out an angry and empty rant (while falsely claiming valid concern is only from 'spittle-spewing crowds'), trying yet again to pretend this is only a federal issue, and that you have actually addressed even a single valid concern. You are not helping your image in this discussion, Whiterock.
Whiterock: The data centers ARE A SOLUTION to our water issues (which in nearly all cases are infrastructure problems not supply problems).
Me: Yet again you throw out a claim with no evidence, and ignore the fact that the water issues are directly caused by the construction of these data centers in the first place.
Whiterock: What is most amazing about it is, the critics are invariably wrong. And not just wrong as in "off target." They are 180 degrees wrong. They are literally defining as the enemy that which will solve the very problems they are worried about.
Me: You have provided no evidence whatsoever that the critics are wrong, let along 'invariably'. And because the DCs have been built in defiance of public concerns, the DCs are in fact making themselves the enemies of the public by refusing to include farmers, local residents and businesses in discussions about water, noise, power and waste metal effects from the DCs while still planning.
Me: If DCs are to have a place in the US going forward, there needs to be clear accountability...
Whiterock: There is accountability - bankers, insurers, investors, stockholders, corporate officers, etc....all of whom expect to see a return on investment by profitable business operations subject to compliance with all applicable laws. What other accountability should we expect from a private sector enterprise?
Me: Yet again you seem to think that only the DC investors have a seat at the table. Everyone affected by large construction like this has a right to be heard, especially with the harms already documented from past projects.
Any project which potentially creates dangers must be discussed in advance with public welfare in mind. That's why oil and gas processing plants must meet strict oversight, same with industrial construction which handles heavy metals, same as any project which affects air, water and soil toxicity.
Me: If DCs are truly going to provide benefits to the public, those benefits need to be clearly identified and committed to in writing.
Whiterock: What other private sector companies do we require such from?
Do you realize you have conceptually nationalized the data center industry?
Me: First, once again you seem to be trying to evade claims you made before. You claimed DCs were creating clear benefits, but when challenged to prove this claim you now suggest DCs do not have an obligation to the public. And let's be clear about who is building these DCs when you pretend I'm 'nationalizing' the industry; the end-user from DC data is generally large internet companies, which are not just national but international. In fact, your own argument that "DCs are the internet" proves that the DC builders have nationalized the industry, not local critics who just want to have access to water they need and power they can afford.
Me: Unless and until that happens, it is right and reasonable to block construction and expansion of those DCs.
Whiterock: You're angry that your electric bill went up so you're going to block construction of new electrical generation?
Me: You certainly know there are real concerns, and you misconvey the issue by claiming DCs are about 'construction of new electrical generation'. What's happening is that millions of ordinary Americans are seeing their water and power costs jump because DCs are not paying for the power they use but using deals to pass the cost to citizens, and taking water away from farmers, raising food costs yet again and in some places poisoning water supplies.
People have a right to be angry and demand the DC builders be forced to be accountable for the cost and harm of their profit ventures.
Whiterock: DCs are the internet.
DCs are "the cloud."
DCs are the critical infrastructure of modernity itself.
They are equally as important as water and power.
Luddism lives.
Me: Quite the emotional sum, and none of those claims is even close to true.
We had the Internet decades ago, and it worked fine. The cloud also predated DCs, and hell no, the ability for some company to lay off thousands of employees and replace them with bots is not 'the critical infrastructure' we need.
And you cannot drink your DC product, nor does any serious person think a DC is equal to affordable and dependable utilities.
Lying about the critics won't make you right or make the problem go away. The longer DC builders ignore the public, the more likely this will become a major political issue that affects elections at multiple levels.
