[303uru]

Let’s use a little logic. What are the “both sides” here? Megacorps with billions vs “local media”? Citizens?

Yes, that’s a balanced equation.

Now, do we have any evidence to back complaints?

Lack of water, unclean water due to data centers:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o

Data centers causing energy prices to increase:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec...

Data center natural gas generators flooding communities with pollution:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...

Yes, “both sides”.

[nzach]

What I'm trying to say is that everything we build has positive and negative effects in our society. And if we want to create a better society we need to have a good understanding of these effects.

I think your article about 'Lack of water, unclean water due to data centers' is a good example of bad faith arguments. It start the article talking about someone that lost access to their private well after a datacenter was constructed. This article don't do it, but I've se people go from arguments like this (a specific water-related disruption) to 'thousands of residencies will loose access to water'.

What strikes me as odd is the fact that datacenters aren't all that special when compared to other infrastructure projects(roads, warehouses, hospitals, power plants, garbage disposal, water dams, ...) but the way we are discussing it seems unique. For every other infrastructure project the discussion seems to be 'how do we make sure that X, Y and Z won't be a problem for the society?'. But when it comes to datacenters it becomes 'datacenters are bad and we should not build them', which seems bad way to approach this issue.