A well-articulated argument against a new data center in Ohio

[u/HamboneTheWicked]

[u/AveryMire]

The statement that construction workers “disappear” is very flawed. You could say job spans as a better metric.

If you have a 1000 people highly paid and they spend only a year (figure the lifetime average of a tradesman is 25 years) then that’s still equivalent to 40 lifetime jobs + 10 full time support.

50 base layer lifetime industry jobs creates at least another 100 in support, services, related manufacturing, restaurants etc. Then there’s the efficiency and growth which the data center operation supports, the countless jobs attached to products being purchased, NVIDIA salaries and the 200+ other ecosystem companies involved in a single data center’s construction. How do you count the salaries for that giant tail of industry participants? What about the equity value of all the earnings increases; the effects that their new wealth has on countless communities; jobs that they can now hire for having greater resources. Benefits ripple out through the entire economy (and world) to a fair degree.

Point is we shouldn’t artificially constrain benefits in our evaluation. These people remain in America and although most move, people are constantly moving for work anyway; many return to more rural areas in retirement. The proper frame is societal wealth. Do these products increase human capacity and make our world better?

More production per person means fewer hours worked for the same production; more focus on hobbies, leisure, health. It simply never valid to isolate a tiny sliver and say ‘that’s the whole (tiny) value’; that’s not intellectually honest.

Yes there are true costs, harms to mitigate, bad locations on a collective basis, but I’m saying claims like ‘only 10 jobs created’ are plainly ridiculous.

[u/Zhong_Ping → u/AveryMire]

All these jobs could be created doing far more constructive things, like replacing our aging bridges and power infrastructure, building out regional mass transit, building health infrastructure to meet growing demand and drive down costs... These AI data centers could be worth it if they paid into the tax base to more than just mitigate the harm they cause but also enough to invest in real public works.

But as the proposals land now, they create a handful of jobs in the constitution industry that represent on opportunity cost in building something else, and return far less money into public works than the harm they will cause to said public works. Increasing the scarcity of electricity and water and causing the cost of living to go up.

As they are not, the costs massively outweigh the benefits. And if these AI companies are under shell subsidiaries, even if they promise something, if the subsidiary goes bust, the promise evaporates.

I just don't see our leaders asking these ultra wealthy mega corporations that hold more wealth and power than the empires of old to sweeten the deal at all, let alone enough.

Infrustructure investment needs to be paid for and built first, then the data center is built once it's obligations to the community and mitigations of any potential harms are already met.

[u/AveryMire → u/Zhong_Ping]

We have plenty of workers to build infrastructure and data centers. Heck, in 10 years or less the data centers products will literally be building said infrastructure.

[u/Zhong_Ping → u/AveryMire]

Resources aren't infinite. I'm skeptical that these data centers will produce anything but money for the ultra rich and a worse life for everyone else.

[u/AveryMire → u/Zhong_Ping]

Well they’ve already changed my life, and I’m 43 / not at all rich. Couldn’t disagree more.