the nimby type i am ok with

The anti-data center fight shocked me in how they were able to squash a corporate demand with bipartisan-support. Granted, it was a very extreme demand (wasting extreme amounts of electricity and water with no real output beyond metrics, lies, and deepfake child porn). The focus doesn't matter as much as the methods and the changed outcome.

Whatever happens with USA democracy in the future; this nonpartisan grassroots internet-guided movement worked and I believe we ought to remember that. Even if the USA becomes a one-party dictatorship, there will always be local and state governments, and I believe the internet will survive enough to allow speakers to project similar demands.

Perhaps the next movements could be for a Medicare Public Option; or local-run at-cost Commissary grocers; or removing "forced arbitration".

Consequences are good. But what can be done to stop the data centers? Or the people fueling the demand by continuing to let Alexa shop for them on the Amazon app.

People don't understand that everything is shoved down our throats, we just sometimes like the taste of some of it. We don't have any say in anything, and they just give us a few things we like in between the stuff we hate so that we don't complain too much. A spoonful of sugar helps the fascism go down.

I hope they'll remember that at the mid-terms and vote accordingly

When companies try to build new ones, industry analysts say they frequently do so clandestinely without revealing which tech firm would use the facilities. Researchers found that among 31 Virginia localities with existing, approved or proposed datacenters, 80% had non-disclosure agreements with the companies behind the projects, the Virginia Mercury reports

There's an old adage from the 1980s:

California passes new laws regulating the pollutant output of motor vehicles in order to protect the Los Angeles valley. (The smog there routinely posed a dangerous health risk, and probably still does. Cars have since been required to pass smog checks.)

The automotive industry of Japan responded by hiring 30,000 scientists to develop less pollutant cars.

The automotive industry of the United States responded by hiring 30,000 lawyers to contest the new regulation.

(It's a simplification, but the gist of it is based on fact. Eventually the US automotive industry would switch over to Non-Passenger Work Vehicles, id est, SUVs which were not regulated by the California laws. In 2026, 90% of active personal vehicles in the US qualify as NPWVs.)

Lennox is a Republican-led rural municipality 40 miles (64km) north of Detroit.

What a surprise.

oh shit... did you get what you deserve, rural America? i wonder how that happened...