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Family in Georgia says they're forced to sell home to help power data centers (www.msn.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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[–] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

No information on what they were paid vs what it was worth. Not that you can put a price on family history, but it certainly feels like an omission.

I don't support data centers, and I don't love eminent domain, but at a certain point the needs of the many outweigh the wants of the few. It sucks to see this happening due to stress from data centers and not something that's actually helping the community.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Data centers are private for-profit entities, not public infrastructure. Calling them the "needs of the many" is bullshit.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It seems like this is for a power station. I believe it's still a private company, but I do think people need to power their homes. I think this kind of thing should be state owned and not for profit, and the data centers shouldn't be there in the first place, but since they are there now and the government isn't reigning their power usage in, I don't think I like the alternative any better.

    Essentially in the heat or cold electricity may get so expensive people are unable to pay for it and will be unable to keep their homes at a livable temperature. I hate that the power is going to a data center, but since it is going there I don't know what the alternative would be.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago (1 child)

    The power plant would be large enough if it wasn't running a data center.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 weeks ago

    Yea, I already mentioned that the data center shouldn't be there and that the government should be stepping in. Since that is not happening more electricity is needed. I am not on the side of the data center here. I'm also not on the side of the power company which I think should be nationalized. I'm just saying that at this time more power is needed.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 child)

    I think the big beef here is that this isn't the needs of the many, as data centres are just enriching the few and provide little benefit to the many — especially people local to the data centres

    The absurd rate of data centres being built (often in places with insufficient power infrastructure) is a product of the absurd AI hype machine, and so I think it sucks that this family were forced to leave their family home for this. I am glad that the article doesn't mention how much they were paid — not least of all because I don't have any context for what would be a reasonable price in that part of Georgia, but because it would distract from the point of the article — the question of whether this is actually a case where them having to move was morally justified and whether this is actually benefitting the many.

    Edit: I realised that the tone of my comment sounds like I'm disagreeing with you more than I actually am. I do disagree about the omission of what they were paid — I think that's actually a good thing. Besides that though, it sounds like we're fairly aligned in our views

    Edit 2: saw your replies to other people, and I want to emphasise that I understand that this is because more power is needed, because the data centres already exist and given that the state isn't reining in the data centre power usage, we do need more power. My stance is that I am unhappy that families like this are being forced to move because I think that before it came to this, local data centres should have had limits placed upon them to reduce the likelihood of this needing to happen.

    I mean, I think this data centre probably shouldn't have been built in the first place, but given that it has been, at minimum the state should be taking steps to reduce impact on local residents

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  • [–] 1 point 4 weeks ago

    Yea, I think I fundamentally agree with everyone responding to me. This whole situation sucks. I just hope that people keep the hate on data centers and not on eminent domain (which wasn't even used here). If this was needed because of unexpected energy consumption from a new low income housing development or a new free community college, would people still be upset? I hope not.

    I know this is the fuck ai community, so we all know what's up, but I hate seeing eminent domain be viewed as the bad guy. Ideally community improvements affect no one negatively, but sometimes they do. If they were not compensated fairly that is a problem, but at the end of the day the article is "community needed more power and these people suffered for it." I really hope it's stoking anti data center sentiment and not anti government sentiment, though obviously fuck the government for not doing anything to stop the data center.

    I do understand why they didn't include what they were paid, but if they were paid fairly then I don't know what else they wanted from the power company. If they want an apology from someone it should be from their reps who are letting these tech companies ruin our country. Though I'm sure the power company is also garbage.

    Appreciate your response regardless. Again, totally agree that the AI data centers should not exist, especially not where power is limited and it'll affect the community.

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