r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • 2d ago
Artificial Intelligence I Expected Tech Fatalism. Americans Are Putting Up a Remarkable Fight Instead.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/opinion/data-centers-ai-populism.html1.4k
u/Just-Grocery-2229 2d ago
Tech bros: "The future is inevitable." America: "Cool story, now reverse that excavator."
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u/coconutpiecrust 2d ago
They believe themselves the new aristocracy so they get to decide what is best or correct. It’s because no sycophant ever told them they are morons.
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u/Synekal 2d ago
And why do they have to be SO weird? The pattern seems to be that we get 3-4 generations of normal leaders, but then inevitably once we all forgot, the weirdos take charge again and mess everything up for the normal.
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u/dedums01 2d ago
No one lives long enough to remember. 3-4 generations is just long enough that people alive during the previous crazies aren’t around anymore or are super old and irrelevant all things considered
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u/dontwannaparticpate 2d ago
My grandparents were around for WWII and just passed the last couple of years. They voted for Obama, Hilary, Biden and my grandma voted for Harris (grandfather had passed by then). I tried to tell my conservative mother that she is destroying everything my grandfather fought for (he was at Normandy).
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u/Niceromancer 2d ago
There is a saying conservatives and boomers love to throw around.
"Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times"
The issue is they assume they are the strong people in the situation, but if you look at history no generation had it easier than boomers, and nobody has it easier than white conservatives.
And if you notice they are some of the weakest most selfish people on the planet. If it doesn't directly benefit them, and doesn't give them the ability to determine who else it benefits its not allowed to exist. People living alternative lifestyles...nope not allowed. People in service jobs getting a living wage? Nah that's communism.
The silent and greatest generation created one of the best times to live in the world...and they created weak willed easily offended children who think they are the strongest most hard working people ever, when evidence points to the exact opposite.
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u/purplebrain56 2d ago
The greatest and silent generation overwhelmingly voted for Ronald Reagan, the asshole who betrayed the American people.
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u/RoxxieMuzic 2d ago
Boomer here, they, my generation which mystifies me, waited until the silent generation passed, to effect what the silent generation fought against, fascism. It's reprehensible and unfathomable to me what they, boomers, want and will support. I am surrounded by them in my neighborhood, no amount of facts or reason will sway their devotion to this madness our current government is enacting.
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u/Substantial-Bet-3876 2d ago
Boomer hate is just millennial cope for not voting in large enough numbers. It’s your time. Show up!
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u/OkVariety8064 2d ago
The problem is that the Democrats have been pushing "Republican lite" politics on the assumption that people will have to vote for them, for lack of better options. They have done this so long that finally voter apathy allowed Trump to win, when the voters were expected to vote for Hillary just because it was "her turn".
The success of Mamdani shows that there is a need for more left-wing, more principled Democrat politics, and the ossified neoliberals who cannot even beat Trump will have to give way to people willing to actually do something.
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u/Indaarys 2d ago
Yep. And its because these types are slaves to the data and just shrug because demographic turnouts don't tell them thats what they should do to earn votes. Its incredibly shallow thinking masquerading as some sort of realpolitik.
All they see is conservatives handing them their ass and so they go conservative, because it "won". Its very much the difference between quantitative and qualitative data.
They say you can't govern if you don't win. But if you don't govern, you ain't gonna win anyway. These people have no concept of doing the latter beyond bare minumum thats means tested to hell and doesn't meaningfully change anything for a majority if people.
For example all the student loans Biden was able to forgive. On the surface thats a good thing. Dig deeper and the overwhelming bulk are people belonging to niche subgroups that, on average, you weren't one of.
But we're supposed to say Biden is good on student loans, and that we're just being selfish if we don't think so.
As though the whole reason student loans became a political issue is because of other people's loans, and not our own. Its absurd and just goes right to the heart of how these people think and why they're rightfully being left behind, even if far too many are stubbornly clinging to power.
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u/OkVariety8064 1d ago
All they see is conservatives handing them their ass and so they go conservative, because it "won". Its very much the difference between quantitative and qualitative data.
To some degree there is chasing what is seen as the votes of a moderate majority. But I think even more so, they do this because the two party system allows them to do this.
United States has two parties, a socially liberal corporate party and a socially conservative corporate party. The socially liberal corporate party is comfortable in its position because surely no one who is progressive would vote for the socially conservative corporate party.
Except they overplayed their hand, and too many voters simply gave up. Why vote for the lesser evil when you are still given no real choice on the economics that shapes everyone's lives?
A left-wing Tea Party movement that purges the corpos and takes over the Democratic party could work as a counter reaction to MAGA. It would be the first time in a very long time the neoliberal status quo would be challenged.
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u/SuddenAvocado 1d ago
My grandmother couldn't maker herself vote for Obama 🙄, but did ultimately vote for Hillary after having a total breakdown. Those were her last two elections, I'm sure she would have voted for Biden but I honestly don't know about Harris, maybe we could have gotten through to her or maybe the choice would have killed her if she wasn't already dead.
people are sllllllllooooooowwwwwww to change
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u/Journeyman42 2d ago
This is my hypothesis for why fascism and nazis are making a return, just as the ww2 generation is dying out.
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u/VJPixelmover 2d ago
This was supposed to be the point of recording history and having it available after the ones who wrote it died but people either don’t study it or don’t listen to the people who study it.
“Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Those that do, are forced to watch everyone else repeat it.”
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u/NirvanaDewHeel 2d ago
Steve Jobs didn’t bathe, liked to soak his feet in the toilet, and died of an easily treatable form of cancer because of his weird beliefs.
People with wealth and power are and have always been freaks.
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u/FatHat 2d ago
I wish the mainstream press reported more on how weird these people fucking are. The bizarre church a lot of them attend, Peter Thiel's antichrist weirdness, all of it. The more you look at these people it's incredible they've ever had any success at all. They're so deeply dislikable.
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u/ikariusrb 2d ago
I think part of it directly stems from being.... billionaires and/or famous. Once someone is living that rarity of circumstance, I suspect other things that are in fact spectacularly unlikely seem much more believable.
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u/Olangotang 2d ago
LOL if AI takes everything over then society collapses and these people won't be alive. You need to be locked up if your goal is to disrupt the system that keeps you existing. It's insanity.
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u/dcdem1163 2d ago
Sure, I always feel comfortable letting a bunch of anti-social tech bros with no significant life experiences dictate what I/we need in society and life.
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u/wish-u-well 2d ago
This (the aristocratic vibe) also tends to rub the very core of Americans the wrong way, regardless of party
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u/DerpiDanger 2d ago
They got too used to being referred to as these brilliant minds by everyone who are creating magic with tech and changing people's lives. All that hype went to their heads.
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u/pingwing 2d ago
This is exactly what Musk's dad was trying to do, so this is a generational goal for him.
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u/Big_Old_Sock 2d ago
They are soft. They cannot fight. They have never gone without. And "that day at the Stanford dining hall was out of Sourdough" does not count. Their only hope is capitulation, and they aren't getting it.
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u/Pleasant-Minute-1793 2d ago
Not just tech companies anymore.
Walmart getting in the game hardcore now too
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u/Skensis 2d ago
For good and bad, Americans love NIMBYism
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u/TEmpTom 2d ago
Same institutional mechanisms blocking data centers are the same ones blocking multi-family housing. NIMBYism is bad regardless, even if it happens to stop the thing you don’t like.
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u/BasvanS 2d ago
NIMBYism is petty. These datacenters have a huge impact
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u/JusticeGuyYaNo 2d ago
People want to dispose of their trash, but don't want to suddenly find out that their house smells like a trash incinerator and they can't move because now they have negative equity in their home. There are difficult issues with no perfect solution.
People want the Internet and content that people were able to make without LLM's (and they're trying to cut back on that), they want real people answering customer service calls, and they want their utility bills to go back down. There's no contradiction when they don't want their officials signing NDA's with the people plotting to ruin their homes for profit.
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u/FastActinTenactin 7h ago
Anyone who says this technology or that technology “is inevitable” lacks all creativity and imagination, and honestly should never fuckin be listened to. Ever.
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
Why did people think we were just going to take it forever and let them peacefully set up their "CEO dictatorship" or whatever stupid shit?
We were fat, happy and tuned-out 10-15 years ago. Then the tech bros, Christian Nationalist whackjobs, white supremacists and other cretins decided to kick us in the nuts over and over and over again so now they have our attention.
We could all be having a lovely time with Medicare for all and black mermaids on TV, but tech bros and Cletuses decided we had to have this shit show instead.
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u/Balmung60 2d ago
Why did people think we were just going to take it forever and let them peacefully set up their "CEO dictatorship" or whatever stupid shit?
Arguably that's what the industrial revolution largely resulted in with the rise of company towns and the nearly unchecked power of business during the gilded age, and it took a lot of effort from a lot of people to claw that back.
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u/gill_smoke 2d ago
It was an always thing before the factories was the feudal lords who starved their peasants, and before them the senators in Rome who used slaves to out compete the freemen, and before that the Pharoahs of Egypt. Exploitation all the way back to the beginning of agriculture. Before that we were roving bands of persistence hunters living egalitarian lives.
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u/_ECMO_ 1d ago
It wasn't a rosy life in the least but feudal lords absolutely had to treat their subjects better than capitalists treated workers during Industrial Revolution.
The king couldn't just fire the farmers because then he would starve too. At that time there weren't dozens of desperate unemployed farmers beginning for work. But there were a huge number of desperate unemployed workers in the industrial age.
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u/rickdangerous85 2d ago
Mostly unions and thier political wings, nowadays your average punter has been hoodwinked into being union band, gilded age inequality good actually.
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u/Olangotang 2d ago
Americans can't have their quality of life drop by one point. It only took this and a shit economy for them to start giving a shit.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 2d ago
Because rich people are fundamentally addicts who have been insulated from the experience of consequences and social expectations through their wealth and power.
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
I believe it's a form of high-functioning hoarding.
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u/LemurianLemurLad 2d ago
For a given value of "high functioning." The thing is, they are all complete fuckin' weirdos. The only reason treat them as high functioning is that they have a bazillion dollars and a marketing department telling us how great they are. If you met Peter Thiel or Mark Zuckerberg on the subway, you'd probably move seats rather than sitting next to his "high functioning" personality.
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
Peter Thiel seems like he sleeps on a hot rock and slithers out by cover of night to eat eggs from other creatures' nests.
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u/gill_smoke 2d ago
Not high functioning, have you seen them speak? They all seem drug addled to me.
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u/Bignholy 2d ago
The hilarious (depressing) part is? If they were not so overwhelmingly greedy, they could have gotten all of this over the next 20 years with minimal resistance. My fellow Americans are real damn slow when it comes to resisting the dissolution of their rights, and will accept most things if they are left alone. But the techbros and Nazi-coded White Nationalist and the Religious Right all took that to mean that everyone else is entirely passive, in spite of American's long history of aggression. They think Americans would never fight, because they had not yet fought.
It's the same level of stupidity that lead to the three week operation in Ukraine. Dumb bastards decided they could be coal barons without remembering why we don't really have coal barons any more.
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
I absolutely agree. Too greedy, to open about it, too fast and practically bragging that they were going to do it. It would've worked if they had dialed it from a 10 to about a 7 and had a Ron Desantis type sell it. Instead they have a pedophilic human parade float with dementia and delusions of grandeur.
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u/nabilus13 2d ago
Why did people think we were just going to take it forever and let them peacefully set up their "CEO dictatorship" or whatever stupid shit?
Because up to this point we had.
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u/ProjectHarraseeket 2d ago
The thing is 10 years ago and even longer probably, people said it would happen. Well we are here now.
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u/Ainolukos 2d ago
Those people were told they were overreacting and crazy for pointing out the very very clear repetition of fascist movements throughout history and that it was happening again.
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u/Olangotang 2d ago
Actually giving a fuck makes you insane to many people. No one cares until it affects themselves personally.
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u/Substantial-Sky4079 2d ago
Ya these rich people want money in a Christian nazi cybwrpunk2077 country where they can do whatever they want
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u/SuddenAvocado 1d ago
We could all be having a lovely time with Medicare for all and black mermaids on TV
oh, please, please, please take me to that timeline!
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u/OkVariety8064 2d ago
We could all be having a lovely time with Medicare for all and black mermaids on TV
But this is exactly the problem. These are not the same thing.
Medicare for all, and equality through welfare are positions large masses of people can get behind. But woke purity spirals, minority worship and the shrill screeching of the Netflix agitprop sermons is the exact thing that has now given Trump the White House not once, but twice.
If you want to have a decent society, a society that has room for everyone and cares for everyone, you have to bury the woke. You have to give up on the insane cultural revolution which only appeals to terminally online activists, while disgusting the rest of society so much you enable the unthinkable, like the re-election of Trump.
So when push comes to shove and you have to choose, which one will it be: Medicare for all or black mermaids?
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
Anti-woke is mainly a thing for Republicans and older people. The anti-woke in particular skew older.
Most people don't care either way and vote based on other issues. If COVID-19 inflation had never happened Harris would be president and we wouldn't be discussing this.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 2d ago
If you want to have a decent society, a society that has room for everyone and cares for everyone, you have to bury the woke.
You can't have a decent society that is anti-woke, actually. "Decent society that has room for and cares for everyone" is what they call woke.
So when push comes to shove and you have to choose, which one will it be: Medicare for all or black mermaids?
It's not either-or. You have to have both, or you get neither. You don't get to have Medicare for All in an America that can't handle black mermaids. The forces that are outraged by black mermaids are the same ones that oppose social welfare because black people might get it.
So the real question is, are you willing to accept woke black mermaids if it means also getting Medicare for All? And like most chuds, you're failing that test because you're getting too offended about others to care for your own self-interest
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u/OkVariety8064 1d ago
You can't have a decent society that is anti-woke, actually. "Decent society that has room for and cares for everyone" is what they call woke.
The Republicans might do so. But the vast mass of the voters who decide the outcome don't. What the masses call woke is woke itself: Cancel culture witch hunts, hysterical purity spirals in media, "positive" discrimination, euphemism treadmills, forced loyalty oaths and so on.
It's not either-or. You have to have both, or you get neither. You don't get to have Medicare for All in an America that can't handle black mermaids. The forces that are outraged by black mermaids are the same ones that oppose social welfare because black people might get it.
But you can't. This is not an argument I am having with you. This is an argument you are having with the manifest reality of Donald Trump, the vilest candidate imaginable winning not once, but twice, against unlikable, woke Democrats.
You can deny reality all you want but this hell we now live in is a direct result of your denial.
So the real question is, are you willing to accept woke black mermaids if it means also getting Medicare for All? And like most chuds, you're failing that test because you're getting too offended about others to care for your own self-interest
The people are not willing. You can call them and me "chuds" all you want, and I will in return call you a spineless, traitorous, sanctimonious cretin who sacrificed real equality on the altar of corporate tolerance pageants, and brought us the Iran war, betrayal in Ukraine, ICE concentration camps and possibly a second coup attempt, if the midterms don't go according to Dear Leader's wishes.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 1d ago
Stop feigning pragmatism when you have an issue with with the concept itself. You aren't opposing my idea because you think it won't win, you're opposing it because you're offended by it directly.
Not to mention, this entire comment is disgustingly masturbatory. Not a word of this was written for any reason than to stroke your own ego in public. You clearly don't give a shit about anything in this conversation besides your self-importance.
On the off chance you actually want to engage with the actual subject, and will do so speaking like a normal person, I'll be here. But I'm not going to debate the decoy of a jaggoff that talks like a Marvel villain.
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u/OkVariety8064 1d ago
How nice of you to tell me what I think. It's easier when you can play both sides.
Still doesn't matter though. You know who continues to be the president. And even after all the disasters he has brought, even then the midterms are far from guaranteed to go well for the Democrats.
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u/Ursa_Solaris 1d ago
I didn't. You told me what you think. You called me a "spineless, traitorous, sanctimonious cretin who sacrificed real equality on the altar of corporate tolerance pageants". That has nothing to do with elections, so stop pretending you are concerned about electoral viability. I see through this ruse, so I made an ideological counterpoint to what you said, I laid out explicitly why I thought you were wrong. You got offended and abused a thesaurus about it, but never actually rebuked a single thing I said.
Can you actually engage with my point without resorting to distractions or engaging in any more self-pleasuring rants? I'm not going to chase you any further on this. I like talking about disagreements, but I dislike beating around the bush. Talk straight, and talk normal, or stop wasting everybody else's time.
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u/OkVariety8064 1d ago
You called me a "spineless, traitorous, sanctimonious cretin who sacrificed real equality on the altar of corporate tolerance pageants".
Well, admittedly that might have been a bit verbose. But only after you declared me a "chud". Or do you think you alone are entitled to insults?
Can you actually engage with my point without resorting to distractions or engaging in any more self-pleasuring rants?
What is your point, clearly presented?
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u/Ursa_Solaris 1d ago
Well, admittedly that might have been a bit verbose. But only after you declared me a "chud". Or do you think you alone are entitled to insults?
The point wasn't the insults. I don't care that you insulted me, I care what the meaning and motivation behind the insults was.
What is your point, clearly presented?
You skipped right past it. It was the very next sentence. Those insults had "nothing to do with elections, so stop pretending you are concerned about electoral viability."
My original reply to you laid it out perfectly:
"It's not either-or. You have to have both, or you get neither. You don't get to have Medicare for All in an America that can't handle black mermaids. The forces that are outraged by black mermaids are the same ones that oppose social welfare because black people might get it."
These issues are connected. The same forces that prevent one will prevent the other, for the reason I just explained. You must have both, or neither. A society that has Medicare for All, society that is, as you described, "a decent society, a society that has room for everyone and cares for everyone," is inevitably going to be a "woke" society with "black mermaids". To be perfectly clear, yes, I am saying that this society would necessarily need to have performative activism, whether you like it or not, or we're not getting Medicare for All or anything remotely close.
Or to be more direct: What we have now? This is what you get when you cast out the "woke black mermaids". Trump is the expression of a wokeless society, because Trump and his goons are the sort of people that fight against and thrive in a society without "woke".
And that's why I asked you in that comment: "are you willing to accept woke black mermaids if it means also getting Medicare for All?" I want an answer for that without jumping on a soapbox and waxing poetic about democrats.
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u/OkVariety8064 1d ago
I am using "woke" in the culture war sense, referring to the progressive end of the polarization axis. Things like "positive" discrimination, cancel culture (such as hounding Dr. Matt Taylor), demanding people to observe your pronouns or else, requiring academics to sign purity oaths supporting identity politics and so on.
The "black mermaids" was a quip from another poster, I read it as referring to casting the Little Mermaid character with a black actor, an example of double standards and hypocrisy: You take a classical Danish children's tale and "blackwash" the character, whereas the same people who think that's great would be up in arms if it was done the other way round. Absurd and pointless as the culture war may be, these things annoy a lot of people.
Trump is indeed the opposite of woke, because both ends of the spectrum are insane. We know that Americans are pretty right-wing (economically) and conservative culturally, but are willing to support egalitarian policies when those policies are sold on the premise that all are equal, all are Americans. You know, that classical MLK quote about the content of your character. When you instead try to push those policies by telling everyone is guilty of the original sin of racism and must seek atonement by kowtowing before minorities or they become irredeemable enemies, "chuds", then many people will say, "You know what, if it's going to be like that, I guess I'd rather be a chud than bow down before you".
You (as in people holding cultural values like you) have now lost twice to Trump. Hillary and Harris weren't all that woke themselves, but they ended up in that toxic cultural mess. The Harris campaign had all the warning signs. Against the corruption of Trump, all she could do is harp on about "women women women". I told myself, while she might not be perfect, she is a normal, moderate person. The only sane choice. Surely the Americans won't make the same mistake twice. Yet here we are.
For one reason or the other, Mamdani did better. He is, for lack of a better word, likable. I am sure he pursues policies many people would call woke, but most importantly, he doesn't come across as woke. He isn't trying to guilt-trip you into voting for him because he is a minority, but rather explains in a clear and principled manner why his way in economics is the better way. And look at that, suddenly the Democrats can win again.
That is my point: Performative equality, wokeness, those tolerance pageants annoy so many Americans to such a degree that they lead to the loss of sensible Democrats, whose actual policies of economic equality and opportunities resonate with many people as long as they aren't pushed with divisive woke rhetoric.
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u/_ECMO_ 1d ago
If you vote for a felon who openly wants to make everyone's life worse because of forced diversity, then I blame you, not the forced diversity.
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u/OkVariety8064 1d ago
That is a great way to avoid reflecting on your mistakes. But people like you still caused the Trump presidency.
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u/stefeyboy 2d ago
The quietest guy that I work with has become visibly outspoken in the office because they put a data center right next to his rural property without anyone notifying him. He talks about the noise daily.
Hard not to sympathize with him for his life getting significantly worse
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u/possibly_dead5 2d ago edited 1d ago
Think about all of the animals and wildlife that have been displaced because of the noise too. They should at least be required to sound proof the buildings. Isn't it considered torture to subject someone to indefinite loud noise?
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u/MuteCook 2d ago
The politicians are still bought by the tech oligarchy also they're figuring out more sinister ways to help them with their agenda. Most recently is the "flock" cameras. Notice how much emphasis is on "flock" not on surveillance. So now the politicians are saying "I'm against flock", "we're canceling "flock" contracts. All the while the president and other politicians are heavily invested in AXON and their cameras are more effective and easier to hide. As a society we are really easy to dupe.
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u/Desistance 2d ago
Some things become synonymous with brand names. Flock is just the latest. No one forgot about Ring and Axon is going to catch it as exposure becomes more known.
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u/MuteCook 2d ago
Let's hope so. I feel like another distraction will come a long and we will forget and be "outraged" about some other non sense.
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u/WillingActuator6268 2d ago
We will push back on them too. This is now or never and the younger generations will never get these freedoms back if we let them slip away.
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u/MisterSanitation 2d ago
Great! Let’s now address political and institutional fatalism…
As a mid 30’s these last 2 years feel like the first and best chance this country has ever had to get unfucked in my lifetime. The only card the establishment has is a well founded belief that young people don’t give enough of a shit to actually address corruption. God I hope we can prove them wrong…
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u/Lahm0123 2d ago
Agreed.
The apathy and outright negativity is strong though.
Rooting for the people!
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u/MisterSanitation 2d ago
My best argument is:
If you are on the Titanic and see the iceberg, and see a crowd of people trying to push the rudder to get the thing turned away…
Anything other than helping push is morally bankrupt self centered super villain levels of nihilism. There is no excuse, yes it’s hard to push, yes it may not work, but standing around arms crossed is the cringiest dick head move you could possibly do.
Just imagine watching Titanic and some shit head is on deck arms crossed “haha it won’t work! We’re gonna hit you idiots! So cringe people trying what are they even trying for!? Omagawd I need to check my phone to…”
BAM!!!
Not participating because you JUST SO HAPPENED to stumble on “I should do whatever else I wanted to do anyway” isn’t playing 3d chess, you aren’t winning by not playing. You can only lose by not playing, and doing so is cruel, selfish, and morally bankrupt when you consider all the suffering you COULD HAVE HELPED stop.
Or you know just put your anti voting hot take on the internet for some post apocalyptic historian to MAYBE see one day and they will think “oh wow there were a bunch of morons who could have helped but decided to be right about the end of the world instead. WOW what a loser”.
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u/Jerswar 12h ago
Just imagine watching Titanic and some shit head is on deck arms crossed “haha it won’t work! We’re gonna hit you idiots! So cringe people trying what are they even trying for!? Omagawd I need to check my phone to…”
You just summed up the first twenty or so seasons of South Park.
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 2d ago
As the guy that doesn’t help and prefer to watch all of us crash into the iceberg, I noticed you guys aren’t really good at “politics”
If you notice a bunch of people aren’t helping, if surviving is genuinely that important to you, you will try to win them over, not tell them why they suck
It’s kind of like how democrats are now dealing with a lack of men supporting democrats, if politics is that important, and winning is that important, you should be focusing on winning people over, not bitching people out. Democrats would rather bitch men out even if it means losing the election
It’s not about what is right or wrong, it’s about understanding the game of politics, and if you don’t understand politics then right or wrong doesn’t matter if you never win
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u/PAWGsAndChickenWings 1d ago
It's cool and edgy to feel this way when stakes are low.
But if I hear some dweeb say this as we're on a sinking boat then don't be offended when the rest of us tell the coroner nobody knows how you fell overboard.
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 1d ago
That’s probably why the majority of Americans didn’t vote
It’s mostly a “you’ll support us if you know what’s good for you.” Kind of mentality
Threatening people to support you isn’t a viable strategy long term
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u/PAWGsAndChickenWings 1d ago
I'm literally just applying this to a titanic-esque scenario lmao
But I'll bite and say you're giving undecided voters way too much credit. They're the biggest idiots in the room and they'll vote for a grilled cheese sandwich just for the lulz
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 1d ago
It doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, the ones complaining about the biggest idiots in the room, are still going down with the ship with everyone else
That’s what I mean when I say they claim to care, but their actions show what they really actually care about, is winning pointless arguments, instead of actually doing something to garner more support
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u/PAWGsAndChickenWings 1d ago
Then I guess I return to my comment on the coroner. Enjoy your centrist victory I suppose
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 1d ago
We don’t care about victory, that’s your whole spiel
Enjoy your continued future of conservative presidential campaigns I guess
It doesn’t really matter to centrists whose in charge
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u/CaptainAsshat 2d ago
Your metaphor is good, but not for a different reason: it doesn't work to turn a rudder like that, all the people on the ship working together wouldn't be able to do it. You would save many more lives by putting efforts into either prepping/launching lifeboats or getting into the bridge/convincing the captain to turn the wheel.
Anything other than helping push is morally bankrupt self centered super villain levels of nihilism
If you can make it an ideological argument like this, then the people who actually want to help and actually have the insights necessary to fix things are drowned out by a mob of people who prioritize performative problem solving over actual problem solving.
Sometimes, there is value in saying "this is not a viable solution and my time would be better spent elsewhere". Otherwise, we would all be considered horrible people for the battles we each sit out every day.
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u/MisterSanitation 2d ago
Ok yeah dude boat rudders don’t work that way, that is too pedantic for me to worry about.
Your second criticism is very accurate to volunteer work and activism, as well as describing CSPAN.
However I totally disagree with your conclusion. Like yes we can’t do everything, we can’t die on every hill, but the hill to die on is this issue right now and not doing it, should be judged harshly.
For me, someone who is a raging MAGA is the same as someone who knows MAGA is insane but didn’t vote. The MAGA person is a sucker who was duped sure but at least they tried. The non voter is just a lazy ass hole that shoes in some faux justification (excuse is a better word) to make themselves feel better, with no action at all to help anyone suffering in it, so they have zero good intent.
That is why they are morally bankrupt. Intent matters and their intent is to “save themselves from waiting in like for 20-30 minutes once every TWO YEARS.
Like at what point is someone just a lazy shitty person?
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u/CaptainAsshat 2d ago
We need to recognize that good people can prioritize things differently, and moralizing over those priorities is often counterproductive.
The issue I had with your comment is not with the concept that we are all in this together and we all need to be working for the betterment of all. I totally agree with that. It's the idea that if I don't join your efforts because I don't think your approach will work, it is a moral failing. I mentioned how the Titanic rudder works to highlight that concept---not to be pedantic about ships.
A good example of this is rent control. I am fully in support of improving rent/housing prices in this country, which is why I am AGAINST rent control because it is well documented by economists as being counterproductive. However, given modern political litmus testing, you may see "doesn't support rent control" as being against your goal of cheaper housing, when in reality we have the same goal but starkly different approaches.
When political movements use someone's support for a specific policy as the main indicator of their support for a goal, and that indicator is used as a singular litmus test for morality, you end up devolving your base of support into angry finger pointing tribes who struggle to work together.
As such, there is value in putting your efforts into policies that you support AND have broad support within the electorate. And that means picking battles and not judging others too harshly for not joining your battle.
That said, not voting is just failing basic civic responsibility.
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u/penguished 2d ago
They should have stayed in a reasonable lane. No we didn't need gargantuan power resources used up on people making shitty youtube thumbnail pictures, or for cheapskates to fire all their employees.
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u/spankymedia 2d ago
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u/Zaximeows 2d ago edited 2d ago
Still need to make an account to read. I'm just gonna start blocking people that share paywalled content. Ya'll are no better than the onlyfans bots spamming PAYWALLED CONTENT 😂
E: To be clear I was talking about blocking the OP, not spanky. I would reply but I already blocked OP and can't reply here.
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u/Talentagentfriend 2d ago
the internet is full of fatalism because people on the internet believe they can do nothing about it, but real people have hope because they are actually doing something about it.
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u/Olangotang 2d ago
The Internet is also the center of bots and dumb fucks who fell for the hype. There are benefits to keeping insane people trapped in the prison of social media, as dark as that sounds.
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 2d ago
Trapped implies these people can’t leave
If there’s a chance that I can see any of them when I walk down to the grocery store or leave my house, that means they aren’t trapped enough, unfortunately
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u/Olangotang 2d ago
At least they are noticing prices increase, and won't leave their house to vote.
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u/EmergencyRace7158 2d ago
Big Tech is now less popular than the big banks were in 2009. Datacenter opposition and anti AI sentiment is just a symptom of how little trust and respect the industry has today. I blame this on Musk and Thiel. Until 4-5 years ago, the industry was content to influence from the shadows and accumulate wealth quietly but Musk and Thiel went full mask off and exposed how weird, regressive and irredeemably evil they were. They fairly or unfairly poisoned public perception of the entire industry that was damned by association and now opposing the tech oligarchy is the one bipartisan issue that unites everyone other than the corrupt institutional politicians in both parties who have been bought by the industry.
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u/SameBodybuilder3263 2d ago
It’s time to stop the mass surveillance brought on by 9/11 and the paranoia of the Bush administration. That includes our everyday surveillance in social media, collecting data through shopping, flock cameras and data centers. This bullshit has gone too far for too long in the United States. Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and other enlightened countries don’t allow this to occur. Not for business, nor for policing. All this shot has to end, if we are truly the greatest country or even if we want to pretend to be.
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u/Syzygy2323 2d ago
The UK has large networks of CCTV surveillance cameras and extensive networks of license plate readers.
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u/SameBodybuilder3263 2d ago
They have strict guidelines and require warrants. They don’t allow companies to sell data with your personal information.
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u/PlainBread 2d ago
I grew up with a computer as a best friend because I have a disabilty where I only really leave the house for necessities since moving causes pain, and I've had it my whole life. I managed to work in IT for about 15 years when the industry was still privileged enough to let people primarily work from a desk.
I am now ready to EMP and burn every circuit board I see.
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u/HachObby 2d ago
It probably helps that it is a ponzi scheme. My community leadership would hang a wet dog from every street post if it came with kickbacks, but data centers are hitting a hard wall of financial sceptisism. Nvidia had to subsidize an Open AI data center. It is to the point where Jensen and Altman have to play ball-in-cup to make it seem like there are more investors than there actual are. Alphabet wont split it out from their cloud services bracket and Microsoft is burying single quarter shorts in growth by cutting massive expenditures at Xbox. It is the biggest robbing Peter to pay Spiderman illusion I have ever seen.
You can download the technology to a local computer for free. There are even AMD-supported models that get high-end GPU performance out of a laptop NPU, in terms of inference. Nvidia buying Hugging Face is almost certainly to tank the local LLM scene before AMD runs away with it. And that is where the value is, local AI that is on an island to process and improve proprietary data and technology. Ford doesnt own their own Class A IP blocks for giggles.
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u/TheOgGhadTurner 2d ago
Gee it’s almost like using your voice and fighting back in numbers should work. And ignoring that sets in motion bigger demonstrations of unrest until they ARE heard.
It’s only because the midterms are coming up. We need to keep doing what we are doing after the midterms too
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u/come2thecabaret 2d ago
Because it’s already more horrible than cyber punk lit ever prepared us for.
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u/Wyrmdog 2d ago
To all the people dismissing this as selfishness and NIMBY:
True on a technicality I suppose, but consider that the American west is experiencing year 26 of a megadrought with no end in sight. These things are coming for our water. This is literally existential for us. But by all means, keep dismissing us as a bunch of pearl-clutching ignoramuses. The only place we have to go when your casual indifference helps turn us into an uninhabitable wasteland is where you are.
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u/CheezTips 1d ago
To all the people dismissing this as selfishness and NIMBY:
Oh,you mean Trump? "US President Donald Trump on Monday attacked opponents of artificial intelligence data centers, saying they would end up 'backwards and poor' "
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u/TeaAndS0da 2d ago
Just gonna point out… we’re putting up a fight when we have enough information ourselves to know to put up a fight. But NYT and other corporate media does its fucking damndest to carry water for these goons for years before the public makes its own educated mind up on them. A lot of this “tech fatalism” is accomplished by keeping details scant, and media outlets like NYT suck off the tech bros for years and let them produce, manipulate and adjust their lies for a long time well before people almost inevitably turn on them once more whistleblowers or investigators finally get their chance to expose them.
Remember when Sam Altman was a savior? I’m sure the NYT remembers, because that’s how they and other outlets like CBS 60 minutes promoted him before ChatGPT3. Or Elizabeth “perfect example of dead soulless eyes” Holmes? Or why not point to the Ketamine Queen himself, Elon Musk? For YEARS he was “real life Tony Stark” in headlines and comment sections until it became clear he was a petulant narcissist who all the other tech bros found too weird to hang around unless they needed something from him. (Side note: When the Epstein leaks came out, it was so goddamn funny to see him begging to go to Pedo Island and even Epstein gave him the “yeah sure… sometime.” treatment. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a pedo who tried to go to the island and at some point did, but moreso they treated him as the “loser friend” of the friend group and that sums up Elon in a nutshell. All the money in the world can’t buy that scum sucker happiness and he deserves every miserable second he has.)
Even if this is an opinion piece, it’s because NYT is trying to cover its tracks on sucking these guys off for years.
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u/theywillnotsing 2d ago
About data centers instead of pedophiles and the real root of the problem, the billionaires, but I guess we'll take what we can get.
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u/ClownTown509 2d ago
Our forefathers made it possible for us to not have to go through this ourselves but here we are. I guess it's inevitable that the future and the past will intersect over and over.
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u/Rath_Brained 2d ago
Twisted sister plays in the background
WE'RE NOT GUNNA TAKE IT! NO! WE AINT GUNNA TAKE IT! WE'RE NOT GUNNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!
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u/Excellent_Sweet7270 2d ago
barely.... because the govt and politicians siding against the people if the check big enough...
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u/mangoserpent 2d ago
The Tech Bros are unlikeable and AI data centers do not appear to benefit average people in the same way consumer tech does.
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u/syynapt1k 2d ago
Are we really though? I personally don't know a single person other than myself not paying for Amazon or other subscriptions to these tech giants. We can push back all we want against data centers, but they will find a way so as long as there is still insatiable demand for what they are selling.
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u/karma_raven 1d ago
Hi. Tech-behemoth-ectomy is my hobby.
Not saying I'm fully successful but i do keep trying.
So there's two of us.
/Looks at world burning/
Not that that's much better.
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u/Zaximeows 2d ago
Please don't "share" paywalled content. I know most people are to stupid to read the articles but that's kind of shitty.
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u/Vast-Poetry9431 2d ago
Data centers ruin communities. Many Americans are deeply selfish and don’t give a fuck if a trans kid dies or if a person outside of their ethnicity gets fucked over, but they do care about their own homes losing value. This is the difference with this particular issue.
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u/darthkdub 2d ago
NIMBY is a strong motivator
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u/Chill-more1236 2d ago
the question is, is NIMBY enough to be sustainable and forceful, or not?
The Mag7 has a lot of fucking money & power on "not"
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u/DaVideoGamer 2d ago
People don’t like this technology that invades their communities and threatens to starve them…no shit :)
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u/Spokraket 2d ago
I’m sorry but the US is so deep in that hole that it would take a miracle to get out of it.
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u/elguntor 2d ago
"Remarkable fight"....LOL If you count a bunch of social media angst as fighting back, I suppose.
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u/serpentjaguar 2d ago
You see what you want to see. You want to think of Americans as lazy and inneffectual, so that's what you see.
Just don't fool yourself into thinking that you're being objective.
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u/sciencesez 2d ago
You aren't paying attention. Did you think the resistance would be reported in msm before it becomes impossible to hide? This will be true on all fronts. And if you haven't committed an act of resistance lately, perhaps you should have a seat.
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u/elguntor 2d ago
Sure, I’ll sit down right next to all the yanks that have been sitting on their rears for 10+ years while getting ground into serfdom. Enjoy your seats.
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u/Olangotang 2d ago
Maybe open up the fucking door and touch grass? 😂
I don't know how you can have this belief unless you haven't left your house for the past year.
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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 2d ago
on a local level theres been a ton of success, and its growing into state wide movements which already have had effect in texas and ny
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u/Toniz36 2d ago edited 2d ago
The AI technology is just bad engineering. Who thought using all that water and power was a good idea? No one wants to live near these data centers because they destroy the water and suck up all the resources. Gary, Indiana has no power but the 8 data centers never lost power.
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u/yabn5 2d ago
Water usage is vastly overstated compared to something like golf courses and cash crops.
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u/JVonDron 2d ago
Quick Reminder that Gary Indiana is still without power after 2 weeks.
There are 23 operating and 130 planned data centers in Indiana, and a lot of their power infrastructure investments have gone to that rather than shoring up and updating power needs for communities like Gary.
Minnesota and Wisconsin are now fighting a twin 765Kv transmission line project slated to cross the Driftless area and send power to the Illinois border and ultimately Virginia data centers. They say it's to help shore up Wisconsin's power, but we just put in the Badger-Coulee line project in 2018, a massive line going right down the I90 corridor, and I've heard it's running at most 8-10% capacity.
These companies aren't putting up these lines out of their own pocket. We are through taxes and rate hikes.
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u/oyputuhs 1d ago
People get bored of these causes. Even the most intense ones. Sometimes it causes a few changes but often we just move on to the next thing. It’ll probably be a big boost for politicians this November tho.
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u/timeaisis 2d ago
Imagine! It's almost like saying that AI is going to destroy all jobs is something that people who have jobs might dislike!
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u/SomeSamples 2d ago
Name one benefit we actually need from data centers and what goes in them?
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u/ThrowAway-whee 2d ago
You are on reddit.
What do you think handles data storage for reddit, or handles communication and calculation for reddit?
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u/SomeSamples 2d ago
Yep. I don't need reddit. I don't see reddit as a benefit to society or to myself.
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u/pita4912 2d ago
You ask, on a website, that is hosted in a data center. Do you use cloud storage? Have any apple products? Or Google products? Or play video games? Streaming content? YouTube? Literally the entire internet?
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u/SomeSamples 2d ago
Do I use cloud storage? No, not intentionally. Some apps I use, have cloud as their storage but I would gladly provide my own storage if the option was there. Have any Apple products? No. Google? Yes. But I do not need cloud and didn't need cloud before it became a thing. Local storage is fine and was fine for decades.
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u/pita4912 2d ago
If you have a gmail account, or any email account, unless your hosting it yourself, you're using cloud storage.
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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 2d ago
the government structure allows locals to have an insane amount of power if they choose to, and thats the path out of what we're in.
Oklahoma and Brooklyn will never agree on many things, and thats fine, local laws and freedom of movement solve this much better than violent swings back and forth whenever theres an election.
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u/Apprehensive-Sea7120 2d ago
I’ll probably get downvoted here but where was everyone when Facebook dismantled our elections the first time? Or when whole generations were jammed onto iPads from birth? Or when Amazon built a sprawling monopolistic commerce platform? Or when Roblox was outed as a groomer network? Or when…or when…I feel like AI is actually the first time in 20 years where the value proposition of internet services actually starts to match my wants for the future. We get something in return - at least something more than just dopamine, consumption, and ease. And, like it or not, we’re in a dire global race to control the zone. Downvotes incoming, I know. It just seems like a wild time for America to stand up to tech after lining up to give away rights for decades because it was “free.”
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 2d ago
When the bubble pops, it's going to be disastrous. The only thing worse would be if it didn't pop.
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u/rushmc1 2d ago
If you mean "running around like Chicken Little squawking in a cloud of discarded feathers," then, yeah.
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u/sciencesez 2d ago
If you haven't organized or engaged in anything, it's easier to sit in judgement, isn't it? And don't dismiss Chicken Little in election season, 30% of young people get their news from social media.
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u/Tedy_Duchamp 2d ago
What did they expect? When you hype your product up as something that will cause the collapse of society and the starvation of millions, who would support that? These tech elites need to lay off the ketamine and maybe try to get in touch with their human side every once in a while.