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In first, California city overwhelmingly votes to permanently ban datacenters
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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Technology
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Great, now do the whole state.
I could see a reasonable statewide zoning law but a statewide ban? You’ve got to be kidding. Tech is one of California’s biggest industries. We’re just going to NIMBY the problem onto someone else?
As is tradition.
Yup. Also traditional: the blind hypocrisy of using a tech product that routes through a data center to call for a total ban on data centers.
So the 280-300 in the state currently that do nice things like let the internet happen, let 911 calls go through, allow universities do research on diseases, hold cancer patient records, and show California residents Lemmy should....what? Go away?
An absolutist view of anything is typically a terrible idea. You don't even know which very specific class of large data center you are "against."
Pretty sure the user is talking specifically about AI data centers. We could even be more precise and say LLM datacenters.
I haven't read the article so I don't know if the legislation makes a distinction. If not, it should. But a state-wide ban on LLM datacenters is a good idea. A nationwide ban on them would be a good idea, if it were politically feasible at this time.
Not only is it a bubble economy based on pure speculation, and doomed to collapse catastrophically at some point, as well as putting a pinch on critical supply chains such as for compute hardware, but California has areas that are facing water shortages and they certainly don't need big tech building giant new data centers that will hog all this water for cooling while polluting what's left.
Not to mention global warming and society's outdated reliance on fossil fuels making these giant computers a terrible idea. Not only does it make electricity more expensive for residential consumers, while increasing the amount of fossil fuels being burned and the CO~2~ being put into the atmosphere, but the computer hardware alone creates so much heat that it has a measurable effect on the temperature of the area around it.
I could go on. There's lots of reasons to be opposed to new LLM datacenters. And it seems kinda disingenuous to deflect by categorizing them with every other kind of datacenter. Those other kinds of datacenters aren't the ones people are talking about.
Look, let's start at the source. The measure in a small, dense suburbia town was to ban "data centers." All of them. All kinds, all types.
https://ballotpedia.org/Monterey_Park,_California,_Measure_NDC,_Prohibit_Data_Centers_Measure_(June_2026)
I've been to Monterey Park several times. It's nice. But it's just LA suburbia. Very rational to expect problems from any building being turned into a data center to be right up on top of mostly residential areas.
So, now you're talking about not just making a leap as to what the commenter meant, but also that they were taking about something else because they were misinformed.
I get not wanting LLM only data centers. I agree. Put those fuckers in orbit as far as I'm concerned. I actually love that idea. But data centers have been necessary utilities for decades. They're not new. They're not innovative. They let you organize online. They let you call you granny. They show you cat videos. They save lives, and other than very recent LLM needs did more good than harm in the grand scheme of things.
I'm asking you to just understand that the thing you've only just heard about it used for lots of things, and has been around for years.
Well I then I guess tech bros should stop fucking around if they don't want to find out what an enraged Luddite's sabo taste like.
Keeping them out of residential areas and limiting their impact on municipal utilities seems prudent.
Trying to evade regulations by hiding it in a subdivision isnt cool.
Yeah, and Monterey Park was 100% right for what they did. Any developer thinking they can "hide" a data center worth building in a suburb is insane.
It's a classic knee jerk from commenters who don't know what they are talking about.
A tale as old as time.
Hate for hate's sake.
Certainly a lovely way to live life. /s
Everyone hates AI. Takes an AI company CEO to not notice.
Fun fact: data centers existed and were incredibly important pieces of digital infrastructure long before LLMs were publicly available. You don't even know what a data center does apparently.
Nor do you realize that my comment isn't about the virtues of data centers or what happens in them, but rather, having a massively under-informed opinion based largely on emotions. Hate for the sake of hate. That's what MAGA people do. You're really doing to double down and tell me that "oh, well, not me, I'm not like that" with a straight face?
Downvote all you like, it doesn't make your heart kind, or your mind work better.
We actually have very good reasons to be telling society destroying tech speculators to take their "but muh inovashions" "diruptions bro" and fuck off and die in a slit trench.
But you do realize that un-innovative, plain old data centers not for bots and AI are a thing, right?
You literally can't throw your opinion at me without them.
Very ironic you are saying that on a federated social media platform with no data centers.
I think you meant to say that to the absolute anti-data center person, not me. I'm trying to explain that not all data centers are for LLMs and therefore killing the planet at hyperspeed.
Yeah, but the scale of the current set of data centers has gotten to a point where they are becoming a problem for the communities they inhabit. If data centers stayed at the consumption levels they did decades ago, I don't think we'd be seeing organized political action against them.
I'm aware of that, but at some point it's also like when the Ming Dynasty destroyed their naval fleet for political reasons. They still needed a normal navy for even local maritime trade. They killed it all and caused (in a reductive sense) a 200 year depression.
We still need data centers for literally a million things that aren't LLMs. And personally, I'm 100% on board to shoot that LLM shit into orbit. Get your solar from the source and fuck off.
Yes, actually. It's quite nice 🙂
Don’t feel bad - you just dared to bruise their favorite “AI BAD” narrative with practical facts. Sometimes this place really is just an echo chamber to shout idiotic wishes into the dark instead of a forum for actual discussion.
Thanks for the message. I don't feel bad that other people have no idea how their own lives work. It's kind of sad to some degree, but how many people know how their car engine or phone work? Relatively few.
Personally, it's just crazy how MAGA-like it all is, the emotional groupthink.
Zip it, Hanloser.
lol, I see I struck a cord ;)
Tell me how many data centers existed in the world in 2016. Then tell me how many ran LLMs. Then if you give me a pie chart of what those 2016 data centers were used for, I might mail you a cherry pie. (warning, it will get smashed and gross and spoil before it gets to you)
"look how many plantations were actually cotton monoculture and get back to me before you have opinions about the Confederacy"
Yeah, that's not the same.
But so it sounds like you're full on anti-technology and anti-internet. I would genuinely love to know how you arrived at that decision. My Mom is sort of the same way, so it's intriguing to me how non-MAGA folks reach the same point.
I was a PM in Google's ad system for a decade.
I may be well be every bit as familiar as you (or more)with what datacenters were doing in 2016, and the business processes they supported. One of my most skilled coworkers had previously been at the NSA.
I quit for a reason.
Choke on your own pie.