Yeah, it's a lib book talking point, but who thinks we don't need more:
1. Power
2. AI infrastructure
3. Housing
4.
How many candidates in 2028 will run on this? Broadly, I'd imagine two solutions will be proposed: (1) suspend or eliminate a lot of regulations or red tape and let the market decide, or (2) have govt actively subsidize and centrally plan some of this stuff.
I think there needs to be better education on this topic. Reminds me of the debate around nuclear. As noted in the study below, in 1998 only 47% of people supported building new nuclear power plants. That number rose to over 70% in 2024 before slightly dipping in 2025 (I suspect due to it's relationship to data centers).
People didn't think they wanted nuclear energy but when faced with the truth (it's cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than traditional power generation like coal or natural gas and way more efficient than renewables), people's attitudes changed. The same will happen with data centers b/c they are going to be a necessary part of the economy moving forward.
I think there needs to be better education on this topic. Reminds me of the debate around nuclear. As noted in the study below, in 1998 only 47% of people supported building new nuclear power plants. That number rose to over 70% in 2024 before slightly dipping in 2025 (I suspect due to it's relationship to data centers).
People didn't think they wanted nuclear energy but when faced with the truth (it's cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than traditional power generation like coal or natural gas and way more efficient than renewables), people's attitudes changed. The same will happen with data centers b/c they are going to be a necessary part of the economy moving forward.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan. POTFB
People don’t understand how much data we produce and store every hour of every day. It never stops. This forum has gobs of newly created data that is stored someplace. I can find briefs I wrote 20 years ago, ski data from a week of skiing in 2015, emails I sent or received forever, thousands of photos I’ve taken. Most of that data I will never use, but it still resides in some data center.
Streaming, automatic backups, and connected devices all produce data to be stored. How many of us would eliminate any of that?
And then consider all who work remotely and the data required to support them. The point is for personal and commercial use, the amount of data produced by us and businesses needs to be stored. Guess what? That takes data centers. And the data necessary to support funny bitcoin money? The amount of data is astounding.
A proposal: let’s tax data! We can eliminate all consumption taxes and income taxes. A data tax where we tax stored data and newly created data could run the country and pay down the debt. With available tech, that can be done. But it would require more data.
Yeah, it's a lib book talking point, but who thinks we don't need more:
1. Power
2. AI infrastructure
3. Housing
4.
How many candidates in 2028 will run on this? Broadly, I'd imagine two solutions will be proposed: (1) suspend or eliminate a lot of regulations or red tape and let the market decide, or (2) have govt actively subsidize and centrally plan some of this stuff.
However, read an impressive article recently which argued Big Tech with little competition will control AI.
As to government regulation, it said it could help but reminds us with the following...
government policy often winds up entrenching, rather than mitigating, the power of these companies as they leverage their access to money and their political clout.
It's kind of amazing how many accounts are based offshore when you start looking at college sports and entertainment posts. Can't imagine it's much different if you started poking around on some of those types of posts too.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan. POTFB
