Yeah it's basically nothing despite the fact that xAI seemed to intentionally crank up the carbon intensity for no reason.
Also, hilarious to select 2 major models from 2025 and they're both Grok, almost certainly the least useful, least used, and least interesting of that year.
This is such a Boomer way of looking at this. First of all, hardly anyone pays that much. Secondly, the more correct way of viewing such a situation is that you make a shitload of money.
2. Do you think an ageist ad hominem improves your argument?
3. What even is your argument? That in this contrived hypothetical the person in question is making a “shitload” and that somehow invalidates that 20% of EVERY tax dollar collected is used to just pay interest on debt (not even principal, just interest)
Exactly. The tax platform that we need the most is that dentists are not paying their share. Penny-ante local landlords are not paying their fair share. There is too much focus on the ultra rich, you can and should take all their stuff but it doesn't amount to a whole lot.
Unfortunately the slopulist wing of the Democratic party now mostly favors magical tax-cut-and-programs electoral platforms. For example, all but two of the candidates for governor of California from the Democratic party have tax platforms similar or identical to those of the two Republicans in the race.
Yeah, getting flashbacks to Clinton era Democratic politics. Adopt the core of the Republican position so you can get into power and then do some stuff around the edges.
Wait, didn't Clinton actually balance the budget? That gets props from me; no government since then has actually given Americans an honest picture of what it actually takes to run a balanced budget, which will require some combination of higher taxes and/or decreased spending.
“If we just do a slightly lighter version of exactly what our opponent does everyone will vote for us. Sure, it didn’t work in the past. Sure, most people don’t realize that the ACA was basically Republican policy. Sure, we will never get any credit if we are tough on the border. But this time it will definitely work.”
The other categorical error is that the American people paid the railroads a monumental subsidy to get the job done. We gave them almost 10% of the territory.
Given the size of some of these data centers, the incentives packages that local governments often give their developers, and the impact on the electric grid that can, in some cases, raise costs for other ratepayers, I'd say the comparison could be similar.
The one Google's putting in KC North is 500 acres [0] and there were $10 billion in taxable revenue bonds put up by the Port Authority to help with the cost.
This for a company that could pay for that in cash right now.
This is great. The presentation of #1 is a little awkward because it reflects the scope of their project, but gives the impression of geographic concentration.
Indeed, their argument makes no sense. They would probably complain about any industry building large factories. It seems they don't like progress, and not even the status quo, they would prefer regression.
Paper provides an actual utility that people want and serves a real human need. Hyper scale data centers only exist to make Garfield porn and help scammers.
You are using HN which may or may not be hosted in datacenter.
To reach HN you are probably hopping via some communication hubs that may be located in datacenter.
You are going to store to buy some stuff which probably hosts their infra in a datacenter or use datacenter services.
You do use mobile phone? Well they also need to host services somewhere and make connectivity.
The school where your kids go either uses school management software and/or websites which provide educational material or doing exams.
Then you have online video conferencing...
I mean this list could get pretty long - I think listing them here on HN is kind of useless. It is just the datacenter infra is at the very bottom, providing foundational but invisible service to end users. Just like we don't see how things are manufactured or how raw materials are sourced for making real stuff, same goes with datacenter.
Can anyone name any other industry that is as open and transparent about power and water usage as the IT industry? How much energy does your local oil refinery, metal smelter, borax plant use?
Large data center operators are already far more transparent with their annual reports than any other industry.
Also, hilarious to select 2 major models from 2025 and they're both Grok, almost certainly the least useful, least used, and least interesting of that year.
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