Bryan Barton

It’s really interesting that there’s basically a bipartisan consensus based on complete and trivially debunkable falsities, namely that - datacenters consume meaningful amounts of water (they don’t) - datacenters are responsible for power prices increases over the last decade (they aren’t - inflation and decarbonisation in blue states is) - datacenters impose costs on local communities (they generally enrich them and make life better) - datacenters are being built “for flock mass surveillance” (flock accounts for, generously, 0.01% of the DC buildout) - datacenters create noise and other pollution (they don’t) - datacenters are being built in residential areas (they aren’t) - datacenters get tax abatements that entirely eliminate their tax burden (never the case- abatements typically only cover a small fraction of taxes, and DC pay a half dozen different type of taxes that go to the state and city, they are always net and meaningful taxpayers) Virtually everything your conspiracy minded friend believes about datacenters is false. It’s also completely trivial to debunk using a simple google search or AI query but these people just blindly trust a random tiktoker sitting in their car instead. Are there real objections? Sure. But the opponents of datacenters aren’t making them. They rely on outright falsehoods like DCs are poisoning the water, or creating droughts, or tripling power prices locally, or paying zero taxes. Rare to see a popular consensus on both sides of the aisle that is basically a complete inversion the actual fact pattern.