Actually yes. They did vote for this.
If a salesman misrepresents his product in any way of form, he gets called a swindler, faces potential legal consequences, and the people who bought his product are called “victims”.
If a politician does this, it’s just “business as usual”, and his voters were supposed to do enough research to make the correct choice.
deleted by creator
You know, I said a similar thing about Brexit. To a British person. In their face. While being way less intoxicated than I care to admit. And she replied a thing that still resonates with me to this day. She said that I have to remember that there were a significant number of people who didn’t vote Leave, and they’re now being fucked over as well. They didn’t want that, they didn’t vote for that, and yet they still have to live with the consequences. And leaving the country is not an option for most people.
Remember that when you talk about what “y’all Texans” voted for. Have some empathy and compassion for the people that did the right thing and still have to live through this shit now. Learn from my mistake.
It’s been, idk, six years or something since, and I still cringe at least once a week thinking about how ignorant I was. Never had/took the chance to apologize either.
If Britain had reentered the EU, began to stabilize, and voted to Leave a second time, the analogy would be fair. But as it is, Americans that voted for trump or didn’t vote on morality reasons, had ALL of the evidence, and consequently I think deserve to be reminded of that. In my experience people that voted Blue are pretty happy to share that and jump of the “Have the day you voted for” train.
I’m not sure how much, if any, this applies to Brexit, but Trump 2 was also the result of the inaction, complacency and outright complicity of plenty of people who “did the right thing.” This goes way beyond the fascists, so I’m still pretty comfortable saying Americans did this to themselves.
People love to have a reason to look down on other people.
It is practically an animal instinct, it is an effect of our hard wired tribalism.
Your comment is pretty telling that you are just as influenced by this.
No, I’ve just thought about the trajectory America is on for more than five seconds, so I put the “did the right thing” bar higher than voting blue. The self-defeating stupidity and willful ignorance of most of the “good” half of the American political spectrum leaves very little room for sympathy. For the exact same reason that MAGA thinking everything they don’t like is a liberal hoax isn’t an excuse for their stupidity, the liberal center thinking everything they don’t like is a Russian conspiracy isn’t an excuse for their stupidity. I mean hell, did you see how people here were talking about Uncommitted in 2024? That’s not “doing the right thing;” that’s being a useful idiot, and there’s not much reason to distinguish between blue useful idiots and red useful idiots. I do feel bad for the non-idiots, but the past year and a half have proven that that demographic is distressingly small.
If I remember correctly, a lot of people just didn’t vote, which means the people who did vote to stay just got screwed that much harder
I think it’s implied that this is targeted at people who voted Trump. Of course I feel bad for the people who voted Harris, but now have to deal with the same bs. Same thing for Brexit. At least that is how I understand it.
Not for people, whose political knowledge were much less. I’ve talked with people on Facebook, who legit thought Project 2025 was a hoax made to “trigger the libs”. They only realized there were literal instruction videos and a 700 page plan (not just a few pages), once Trump returned to office.
Ignorance isn’t innocence. Playing games to “trigger the libs” makes you just as guilty as every one else, and even more a piece of shit. We don’t have elections to “trigger” another party. We do it because the lives of millions are on the line.
yes, and yes.
The signs where there 2016 and it was even clearer 2020, those people should have done thier own research and used critical thinking… but the truth is they kind of where incapable of that
The fact so many people are not equipped with such skills is half meticulous conspiracy to consolidate power and half Reagan and likewise idots of both parties.
The education system, news media and so many factors that should be helping people be informed and help them to inform themselves have been purposefully dismantled and happenstancely mangled.
It is not an accident, it is not coincidental, it is not a mystery that so many people are not taught critical thinking and related skills. (Hell the gop is still hellbent on getting rid of the modern codification of critical thinking and education best practices (SEL))
It’s like we are complaining of all the people stumbling into things because they are blind and we’re mad because they ain’t really blind they just have thier eyes closed but the systems and people that where supposed to teach them how to open thier eyes was dismantled and they lived thier lives so long blind they cannot fathom anything else, it would mean they where lied to and betrayed all thier life, it is much easier for them to accept everyone is blind and sight is the lie.
deleted by creator
According to many suspicions and now also reported from an NSA agent that was involved in the investigations, Harris beat trump by a wide margin. The voting machines had been tampered with in order to fix the election, and that the machines used have more or less been vulnerable to this happening and likely has been happening for the last 15+ years, allegedly.
So we may not have voted for this. Not to mention the hard gerrymandering that has been happening for the past 20 years. (There’s pretty much always been gerrymandering, though).
It’s concerning that I see no real momentum picking up over this and voter roll purges, and all the bomb threats on election night that absolutely no one wants to talk about.
It feels like the conservatives have poisoned the water on election “stealing” rhetoric so well, so that now, when there is evidence and patterns that deserves to be picked up, no one wants to do it at the risk of, “being like them.”
And that is dangerous logic when dealing with bad faith actors with power, access and motive.
deleted by creator
There’s one critical difference between these two things: Your vote affects the whole country, not only yourself. Someone who decides to use that power based on vibes and willful ignorance while there’s no shortage of people telling them the truth can’t later claim innocence; we as people have a duty to at least try to be informed on the consequences our actions have on other people. MAGAs would deserve some sympathy if their stupidity only affected themselves, but there’s certainly no party affiliation filter to being thrown in Alligator Alcatraz.
This but just the Microsoft logo lol
“Since Microsoft dropped its DEI initiatives, it’s good actually!”
I’ve heard it said that the austrian school/anarcho capitalism is the anti Vax/flat earth of economics
During the 1986-1992 California drought, we were informed in the San Francisco Bay Area region that water service prices were going to go up unless we conserved strictly.
They said this to a bunch of California hippies, on account that we were in California.
So we way got on board. We stopped flushing. Any water that was rendered non-potable we’d repurpose for watering plants or filter it for second use. Japanese naval baths (weird tiny bowl seats and a sponge, used in the Imperial Navy, WWII) got popular so people were keeping clean via a tenth of normal water usage.
We conserved too much according to the water department and they raised prices anyway.
This sparked some investigations (by journalists, since investigative journalism was still a thing then) and found that agriculture got water for much cheaper, and was still using it once before flushing it (now laced with pesticides) out into the sea. Needless to say, we conservationist hippies were livid.
It’s still a problem, as the utility companies routinely lobby our congress and governor (and Newsom may know how to be a California liberal, but he’s still a Dianne-Feinstein-style ( / Nancy-Pelosi style) money-grubbing neoliberal. He just has game, especially when opposed to far right idiots. The setup in Monster’s Inc (power crisis in a city where scream is the principal power source) was inspired by the Enron fraud affair leading to rolling blackouts and Texas siphoning off California’s general fund. And our governments from Schwarzenegger (who I will never forgive) to Newsom are in the pocket of PG&E. (I’m on SMUD now and my bill is conspicuously less.)
Also, according to Climate Town, the Sauds own a lot of California farmland, where they grow alfalfa to import to the mid-east to feed their cows. Alfalfa crops are one of the most water hungry, and is one of the big ways beef is driving the climate crisis (and towards a massive food shortage and global famine!) and the water tables, to which they have access and first-tap rights, gets lower every year. 🕙
So I suspect that the Texas AI centers are getting water at a cheaper rate than private homes. Maybe it’s something to get active about.
So the people should build a giant warehouse that uses a bazillion gallons of water that feeds into the warehouse and in the same pipe back to the water system, get wholesale rates and charge consumers the cheaper rate!
Same pipe, just make sure it goes into the warehouse so you can charge people for what leaves.
You want to trust the water a data center with zero regulations is regurgitating?
No, I want the people to buy a warehouse, have the utility run pipe into the building and back out to the water supply, have the warehouse pay wholesale rates and resell it to the people at wholesale after its half second journey through the detour pipe in the warehouse.
Don’t hold your breath on that.
I hate how datacenters get blamed for issues that are clearly caused more by shitty outdoor farms than cooling towers
deleted by creator
What The actual fuck?
People should be angry and upset about this. Similar to the story some weeks ago where residents of a small Texan town (seemingly rightfully at first) complained about the noise pollution of a Bitcoin mining farm. Turns out they all voted Republican. It’s always “we’ll deregulate and bring business” just that the modern businesses they bring are a net negative for the area except for the politicians and the companies. Is almost like these regulations were there for a reason.
Both Bitcoin and AI are stupid VC money that only matters in a very small bubble, and they’re not business in a traditional sense. They just leech resources at their compute centers to make the people who own them and live far away rich. I pity all this who didn’t vote for this kind of bullshit. The rest, enjoy your shorter showers and everything else! But remember, it’s the Dems who want to dictate stuff like water usage. Not in my free country! Oh, the water is gone because a greedy Corp stole it? That’s fine, one day it’s my turn to be rich.
You could consider it an extractive industry like mineral mining. In this case the electricity and water are turned into profit. It creates some short term local jobs like construction, but the system administrators are likely hired from elsewhere. The R&D is likely being done elsewhere as well. Most of the money these businesses spend goes straight to Nvidia and the profit goes straight to a small group of executives and investors.
At least mining did create some local jobs, though I do think that the area itself loses out because it’s a finite resource and the environmental impact is always there. And as you said, these modern examples don’t really require a big local workforce. It doesn’t stimulate the local economy a bit.
Presumably they also pay some taxes, although it sounds like may of these places set up in unincorporated areas to avoid such things.
Often the municipalities will offer tax breaks in order for the mega corps to set up shop in their town, so they often don’t pay taxes.
If you care about the environment and are upset about corporations and their datacenters your best voting option is neither the red or blue party.
It doesn’t matter if you voted Republican. These problems are a direct consequence of Republican policies that they announced before the elections. Fearmongering about “any party left of us will take away your freedoms to limit your resource consumption” is a trait of far-right parties. My point was not about Democrats. It was about people who vote Republican.
The US has a political problem with its voting system that benefits two parties, and they won’t get rid of it. As long as this is the case, no other party matters. Also, Dems usually enact more regulations for the environment; see also California.
I voted neither Reps or Dems because I live in the EU, and my vote always went to Greens or other environmental parties.
It’s always a good idea to put computer centers in areas with water scarcity. /s
In hot areas with water scarcity.
And an electrical grid held together by duct tape and chewing gum
Ok, if MacGyver did it then it’ll hold for ages.
Well, yeah. If you put it somewhere cold like the Arctic it’ll melt the ice caps and make global warming worse. Better to let the cold places stay cold and put the hot data centres somewhere that’s already hot! Sorted - no more global warming (just some localised warming I guess)
I mean from Microsoft’s perspective it is working out…
Until someone goes all eco terrorism.
I often wondered about how much chaos one or two individuals were to just pump 3 or 6 high powered rounds into that place from 1k-3k yards out. Then do it again another day from a different spot, and then another day at different facility, and so one.
Yeah damage and casualties would be insignificant at those ranges but the fear and panic as random bullets crack over head in the parking lot, punching holes in the roof. The place would have to shut down for days while they search for damage.
It would take two or three of these in a row before the police realized they weren’t just loose bullets from drunks shooting into the air. Then it would get WAY worse because of the panic and bad press but also because the FBI and AFT will shut them down even longer while agents scour the entire plant to recover every single bullet fragment as evidence.
It would lead to a total loss of productivity. Like they would have to treat every facility with same security levels as fucking Groom Lake after something like started happening lol. More likely they’d just have fuck off with these data center monstrosities if they started to become bullet magnets.
And there’s a good chance that the culprits will never be caught. Lots of unsolved crimes out in those deserts.
Well, it could work. If the local government gave a shit. Which they don’t, because Texas. But the water going into a datacenter does come out… The main downside being that it’s hotter (which is a limiting factor, you can’t run it in a loop without some big cooling system, and rivers/lakes are by far the most effective way way to do that).
The article I saw doesn’t say what the problem is exactly. Is the datacenter pumping from an aquifer rather than a lake/river? Are they raising the temperature in ways that affect the environment negatively? Are they abusing the municipal water supply instead of pumping their own water, forcing the taxpayer to essentially subsidize their infrastructure? Lots that could go wrong, but it’s all shit that should be fully figured out during the permitting process.
There’s lots of factors to consider beyond just water. Cost of power, cost of construction and staff, access to internet, proximity to demand for low-latency access, and so forth.
Yeah. It’s just water. Who cares, if at least the internet is good and such. /s
Texan here: we barely get to vote on shit at all. And they’re gerrymandering to make it even harder.
I’d call Texas a clown car but it’s too big to qualify.
The estimate of the majority Democrats would need to retake the Senate is something like 70/30, based on the degree of gerrymandering.
And the math just gets worse every time maps are redrawn.
How strong is Fair Maps Texas? Assuming it’s sincere in its effort to redistrict Texas fairly, Maybe they need more
brickthrowerssaboteurssign wavers and clerical volunteers.
After Civil War 2, Texas and parts of Mexico would end it with a treaty as a single independent country with their own shit stains to live with.
Yes, Texas did vote for that. Haha, Red states suffering is funny.
They owned the
libsthemselves…They owned the themselves
Yes, Texas did vote for that.
I know not everyone’s guilty, but let’s be real. Anyone still living in Texas after having a near decade to see the writing on the wall to get their shit together and leave (and I don’t mean something as arduous as immigrating, I mean literally just moving across the state border) kind of only has themselves to blame.
It’s ground zero for Trump Administration neo-conservatism [fascism]. Genuinely, what do they expect?
Texas is a big state with a large number of interior groups and cultures. Also, go where, exactly?
Is everyone in Montrose supposed to pick up and move to LA, the city Trump is currently telling to bite the curb?
deleted by creator
Whether or not they did we all exist under the same atmosphere.
Well, I mean…Not for nothing, but Texas being one of the reddest states there is, and even being willing to double it down by heavily gerrymandering themselves for Trump worship, means that they did vote to serve their deep state and oligarch overlords. Which is quite ironic for the small government party. And that’s coming from me, who believes in the potential of AI for humanity in the long-term, but only if used responsibly and not at the cost of people’s quality of life to satisfy the corrupt elite.
But then again, irony is in their DNA, starting with all their preaching about “keeping kids safe”. Speaking of which, Trump files where? I need to check if Epstein’s name comes up in those.
its funny how these AI centers are mostly if not all in red states only, simply because they know the legislation wont do anything, and encourage them anyways, plus the resident that leans right are less likely to make a big fuss over it.
If AI centres need so much cooling, why are they building them in Texas in the first place?
Lack of regulations of all kinds
On a suspicion, I had a quick look, and of course there’s also tax incentives, apparently.
Love this quote “Texas had long been a preferred location for large data centers given its central location, economic climate, reliable electric grid, historically low occurrences of natural disasters, educated workforce and pro-business environment.” :|
…reliable electric grid, historically low occurrences of natural disasters, educated workforce…
Lol. More like, "…pro-business environment with developing-nation levels of regulation while still having a minimally sufficient power grid, the kind of natural disasters that don’t affect data centers enough to offset cost savings and a desperately exploitable and cheap workforce.
I’m aware Texas has some top tier educational institutions, but for whatever reason, they’re not accessible to their workforce. Texas is about #30 for education in the US.
pro-business environment.
Found the reason
Yeah, the Texas electric grid is as reliable as a cardboard shed in a hurricane.
Speaking of hurricanes, “historically low occurrence of natural disasters” is also the exact opposite of reality and rapidly getting WORSE.
The real reason is of course corrupt politicians in charge of a kakistocratic government that’ll let them get away with anything up to and including mass murder while throwing money at them.
The republican capacity for lying never ceases to amaze me.
Solar power?
Apparently only partially, but mostly a natural gas plant to even further wreck the planet.
There’s hundreds of billions of dollars available to pour into this, and for what benefit to the nation? Meanwhile, the rest of the country’s infrastructure is crumbling.
Interestingly, solar panels work more efficiently in cooler temperatures.
Texans are some of the dumbest Americans, so they are proud to allow businesses to exploit them.
Texans are some of the dumbest Americans, so they are proud to allow businesses to exploit them.
Texans are some of the dumbest Americans, so they are proud to allow businesses to exploit them.
elon is currrently using the aquifer drinking water under memphis to cool grok. he’s also powering it with generators and smogging out the city.
please do not use grok.
I don’t care, nothing will come inbetween me and my boi, mecha hitler!
/j if that wasn’t obvious
mecha hitler!
So someone fed it Cards Against Humanity, huh?
Ol’ Muskie can’t the King of Edgelords unless Cars Against Humanity is feed into his LLM.
Why the fuck do they alway pick the driest places to use the most water. Fucking morons
I always rant about tech moving to Austin.
They need low heat, reliable power, cheap / fast internet, and an abundance of water.
Texas is literally none of those things.
We have low regulations though. Which is why they do it.
Industrial cooling is all about evaporating some liquid into gas. For evaporative coolers, that liquid is water and works best if the air is dry and water is plentiful (the absurd part). If you don’t have water or the air is so humid that evaporation is difficult, the liquid is expensive refrigerant which must recycle back into liquid in a closed loop with a gas compressor that pumps the waste heat into the air through forced convection heat exchangers (big fans blowing air past hot refrigerant-filled pipes), all of which consumes a lot of energy.
Ideally, we’d live in a post scarcity society in which huge arrays of solar panels would provide electricity to run closed-loop refrigerant plants that would consume zero water to cool our data centers.
Vapor chamber with the river.
There’s only one obvious answer to that question in a capitalism world. Because it’s cheaper than other places. Why is it cheaper for the corporations in the driest places where common people need to stop using showers is also obvious.
Less regulations also
Because that usually means it’s hot and sunny so things grow well if you can get water to it.
It’s easier to get water places than make it warmer or sunnier in the optimal water place.
Edit: sorry this was me thinking about the alfalfa sprout comment above. Makes zero fucking sense for IT.
I don’t understand why AI data centers would CONSUME water. Once they fill up their chiller loops, then… that’s it, right?
It’s hard for me to imagine them relying on the temperature of the incoming water, and dumping all the warm water as discharge.
They’re probably using cooling towers, which cool through evaporation. They should be using reclaimed though.
As long as it is cheaper to buy water, then evaporate it, big firms will continue to do so.
With a COP of around 15 and up it is difficult to argue with the economy of this.
Local regulation would be required, but that would need politicians who don’t suck.
This is the right answer. They use evaporative cooling. Which does save a lot of power so they can claim to be “green”.
Hmm, I wonder if that plays into the wild and frequent thunderstorms in Texas now.
Its got to be the data centers or global warming overall (and its shifting of the Jetstream’s).
I worked 10 years at a data center, all that water is recycled - it is very carefully chemically balanced so as to not corrode the pipes and pumps, no they do not use it once and dump it out.
But it does spoil and evaporate doesn’t it? So it’s still a continuous demand that’s not sustainable in that part of the world.
From what I’ve seen it’s “not worth the effort or expense” to reuse the water. Some of them literally just send tap water through the cooling loops and then into the sewer drains
Because the massive stacks of high-powered chips that they use, tend to get very hot. They don’t use the kind of computers that work through passive cooling.
I say, as my Laptop burns into my lap.
Stoopid Texans. You’ve got the guns, start using the things. If they need cooling, maybe aerate a few blocks of servers for them.
Now you got me wondering if we can shoot the heat away from AI datacenters. /s
The priorities are completly screwd up. If they found a way to power the AI datacenters with humans, Matrix style, would they ask Texans to sacrifice their first borns to do so?
Narrator voice: in fact that is what they did
Prerequisite to that would be banning abortions so that tracks
Google “Roko’s Basilisk”!
